Key things
- Being physically stronger than humans, giants are valuable additions to pirate crews.
- Various pirate crews such as the Giant Warrior Pirates and Blackbeard Pirates have giants among their members.
- Giants like Oars in Thriller Bark Pirates and Sanjuan Wolf in Blackbeard Pirates have unique abilities.
Giants are a remarkable race One piece, to be the basis of the most powerful powers in the series. Although the World Government has undertaken the recruitment of their species, they are also a constant presence in pirate crews, forming their own, or otherwise finding their way to others.
Since giants are physically much more powerful than humans, it's understandable why humans would want to have them on board, even though they may need a bigger ship to do so. Here's a look at famous crews that include giants among their members.
Giant pirates with an unknown crew or giant criminals who are not strictly “pirates” will not be listed.
7 Giant war pirates
Captains: Dorry & Broggy, formerly Jarul & Jorul
This crew hails from the Isle of Elbaf and adheres to its dueling customs of proud warriors. It seems to have a tradition of having two captains at once. Its two current captains, Dorry and Broggy, have been called “an ancient legend” by some. They met the Straw Hats on Little Garden Island, where they attempted a duel to the death to settle a dispute over who was bigger. The Straw Hats eventually helped the pair after members of the Baroque Works tried to poach them. Dorry and Broggy were later seen in Elbaf helping Shanks defeat the Kid Pirates by destroying their ship, the Victoria Punk. Despite returning to Elbaf to find sharper weapons, it seems they plan to resume this duel at some point in the future.
One of the crew's former captains, Jorul, was inadvertently killed by young Charlotte Linlin, who was raised in an orphanage on the island. This incident caused her to be despised by all the giants, leaving them as one of the few races not represented in her territory. Other notable crew members include Oimo and Kashii, who were once tricked by the World Government into serving them before Usopp discovered their ruse.
6 New giant war pirates
Captain: Hajrudin
This pirate crew is made up of relatively young giants who were mostly children at the time of Jorul's death. The most famous member of their crew is Captain Hajrudin, who competed in the Corrida Colosseum for Mera Mera no Mi. Despite his arrogant mood, he was grateful to the Straw Pirates for saving them, holding the “God” Usopp so that the rescued could view their savior.
Hajrudin and his crewmates are former Buggy's Delivery mercenaries and were considered the most valuable members of the organization during her tenure. However, Hajrudin converted the team into a pirate crew in order to join the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, an organization of pirates who were grateful to Luffy and wished to serve as his subordinates. Although Luffy treats them more like an alliance, the fleet takes their subordinate status quite seriously.
The New Giant Warrior Pirates served as a spiritual revival to the recently reactivated New Giant Warrior Pirates, whom Hajrudin grew up praying to. Hajrudin was not the only pirate of this crew to cross paths with the Straw Hats before. Stansen, a boatman of the crew, was rescued from a slave auction house by Silvers Rayleigh when the store was attacked by straw pirates.
5 Foxy Pirates (formerly)
Captain: Foxy
The Foxy Pirates were a massive crew with a number of experienced pirates with special skills from different crews. A pirate of unclear origin among their crew is Big Pan, a wotan who is half fisherman and half giant. His giant physiology gives him a more humanoid appearance than his full-blooded fish-men brethren. Pan is the only known wotan in the canon series.
Big Pan was a participant in the Foxy Pirates' Davy Back Fights, a tradition they used to poach crew members from other crews who crossed their path. Pan teamed up with Hamburg and Pickles for the Groggy Ring portion of one such Davy Back Fight where the trio competed against Zoro and Sanji. Despite the three having a much better relationship than the Straw Hat fighters, they eventually lost once the pair decided to get serious.
Big Pan, along with most of the Foxy Pirates, has since parted ways with the crew, possibly poached himself in the Davy Back Fight. His former teammate Hamburg is one of the three remaining crew members as shown in the Final Saga.
4 Thriller Bark Pirates (previously)
Captain: Gecko Moria
Gecko Moria was a pirate of some renown until he lost to Kaido, who killed every member of his crew except him. As a result, Moria instead decided to build a crew of zombies that he would feel less sentimental about after their deaths. This was successful for a time, as Moria was noticed enough to become a warrior, though not a particularly successful one. One of his strongest zombies was Oars, an ancient giant brought to life by the shadow of Monkey D. Luffy.
As an ancient giant, Oar is much larger than most giants. As a zombie, he is also immune to pain. However, this served to his detriment to some extent as he was less aware of which parts of his body were damaged. After being beaten constantly by most of the Straw Pirates, Oars lost Luffy's shadow, which Moria used to take over Shadow's Asgard.
3 Blackbeard Pirates
Captain: Marshall D. Teach
Blackbeard was once a member of the Whitebeard Pirates before betraying one of his superiors and stealing the devil fruit he obtained. This was part of a long deception on Blackbeard's part to build his ideal crew while drawing minimal attention to himself. At first he had only four crew members, but after becoming warlord, he used his privileges to visit Impel Down, a prison for the most notorious pirates. There he had the lowest level prisoners fight each other to the death for the privilege of joining his crew.
One of the survivors was Sanjuan Wolf, a giant from West Blue. Personality wise, Wolf seems rather innocuous compared to his fellow crew members. He has something of an aversion to combat and has yet to be seen actively participating in any battle. He was the only one who did not participate in the assassination of Bělovous. This means that he has no qualms about the crimes of his crew members and continues to stick with them as they gain power. He is currently the only giant among the ten captains of the Titanic, the highest officers of the Blackbeard Pirates.
What scares Wolf is his Devil Fruit, Deka Deka no Mi, which turns him into the biggest giant. Even his own crew members are content to let him rest most of the time because of the danger of waking him up. Wolf is capable of unintentionally leaving destruction in his wake, leading viewers to question just how dangerous he is when he's serious about fighting.
2 Little pirates
Captain: Little Oars Jr.
This crew is one of many that served as subordinate crews to the Whitebeard Pirates. Their captain is Little Oars Jr., an ancient giant from Oars. He was a friend of Ace and, like most of Whitebeard's forces, traveled to save him during the Summit War.
The rest of the crew are not giants, but rather normal-sized humans who mimic the appearance of their captain. They achieve this with fake jaws and wigs that mimic his flowing red hair. As with most of the crews and pirates associated with Whitebeard, their status after the war at the Summit is not immediately known.
1 Beast Pirates
Captain: Kaido
The Pirate Beasts were once considered one of the greatest threats to the world government. Their captain Kaido was always looking for new talent and added them to his own crew. In addition to recruiting a number of former captains and their crews, Kaido purchased a group of artificial ancient giants originating from Punk Hazard, who he believed to be the Numbers.
Although they succeeded in mimicking the size and longevity of their counterparts, they were considered failures. In terms of appearance, they resemble ancient giants, although they often have more animal features. Numbers are not the smartest and tend to drink, which reduces their physical strength. This means they are still strong compared to the grunts of the crew, though much less so than more experienced pirates.