LandonAnalyzesALot: Buggy the Clown (One Piece)
“Don’t blame a clown for acting like a clown. Ask yourself why you keep going to the circus.”
Background
“Your pirating is legitimate under the name of the Warlord, Buggy the Genius Jester!”
Yes, believe it or not, this bumbling clown makeup-wearing buffoon was an apprentice of Roger alongside his best friend, Shanks. Unfortunately, the two never quite got to experience Laugh Tale for themselves, as Buggy had gotten sick a few days before arriving. Shanks would accompany his friend in getting better at a nearby village, and some time later after Roger’s execution, the two would part ways after a disagreement. With the Great Age of Pirates beginning, in order to escape the eyes of the World Government, Buggy concealed the fact that he was part of the Roger Pirates and formed his own crew in the form of the Buggy Pirates, plundering and pillaging the weakest points of the East Blue.
It was here that Buggy met an up-and-coming pirate rookie, Monkey D. Luffy, who wore a straw hat eerily similar to the one Shanks wore. After getting thoroughly beaten by the rubber-man, Buggy would wander the seas, eventually getting imprisoned in Impel Down after accidentally walking into a Marine garrison thinking it had treasure. But as fate would have it, Buggy would meet up with Luffy once more, now as allies to escape Impel Down and rescue his brother Ace. During the prison escape and eventual arrival at Marineford, Buggy had unknowingly begun his massive following made up of the Impel Down prisoners, who saw him as an incredible figure upon learning of his affiliation with both Shanks and Roger. This caused his confidence to skyrocket, though it often fluctuated with his cowardly nature.
After narrowly escaping certain doom at the war on Marineford, Buggy’s reputation would only continue to grow, even managing to gain the title of Warlord from the World Government before its eventual abolition. Eventually, through making a deal with Crocodile and Dracule Mihawk, the Cross Guild would be formed with Buggy as its figurehead. With news reaching Marine Headquarters, they viewed the organization as a major threat as well as viewing Buggy as having authority over Mihawk and Crocodile, leading them to make Buggy joining the ranks of the Four Emperors after the downfall of Big Mom and Kaido, increasing his bounty to over 3 billion.
Although Buggy is still as cowardly and weak as he was back in Orange Town, he’s since rediscovered his dream of following in Roger’s footsteps after hearing of Shanks’ desire to claim the One Piece. Through snot and tears, Buggy proclaimed that he would be the one to find Roger’s legendary treasure, much to his crew’s joy and Crocodile and Mihawk’s chagrin. Buggy has quite the challenges ahead of him, but with his devoted army and two powerful pirates under his command, maybe, just maybe, Buggy the Clown will be the man to become the next King of the Pirates.
Experience and Skill
Buggy also has an impressive track record when it comes to dumb luck, being able to come out of a seemingly-impossible situation alive and even often gaining more than he lost. Notable examples include him surviving the Marineford war, as well as becoming a Warlord and even an Emperor of the Sea due to a series of misunderstandings. To describe Buggy as one who fails upwards would be accurate.
Equipment
Knives
Buggy's most frequently used weapons are his knives, which he uses both as regular close-range weapons, as well as in conjunction with his abilities. With this, Buggy can launch his detached blade-holding limbs at fast speeds, overwhelming those who don’t see them coming.
Buggy Balls
One of the most dangerous weapons in his arsenal as he terrorized the East Blue, the Buggy Balls are extremely powerful explosive cannonballs that, when fired, are strong enough to destroy an entire row of houses. Unfortunately, while these were quite effective in his earlier adventures, in order to survive the dangers of the Grand Line, Buggy needed to improve on his Balls in some way, which led to…
Muggy Balls
Muggy Balls are, in essence, smaller and more compact Buggy Balls. But as a wise man once said, size matters not. The Muggy Balls still retain the full destructive capabilities of the previous iteration, but are now small enough to where Buggy can throw them like hand grenades, first seen severely injuring a Jailer Beast that had previously knocked over Luffy. It’s unknown how many Buggy holds at one time, but considering their size, he can likely carry quite a bit on his person.
Red Robe
A large robe Buggy uses for ‘intimidation’ tactics, using his Devil Fruit abilities to make himself look bigger than he actually is. Still… it’s just a big robe that can easily be torn up, though it does conceal where his central torso is, so theoretically it’s not entirely useless.
Abilities
Chop-Chop Fruit
The Bara Bara no Mi, or the Chop-Chop Fruit in English, is a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, one of many mystical fruits that give those who eat them powerful supernatural abilities. Upon eating this fruit, Buggy gained the ability to split his body into pieces and control said pieces however he wishes. From his arms, legs, torso and head, he can move them all around willingly given a limited range, and reattach them at will. This is important, as a major strength of this power is that Buggy becomes practically immune to being cut or pierced by sharp weapons like swords or knives, seen in how Zoro did no damage to Buggy after cutting him up.
Additionally, due to the levitation effect the limbs have, Buggy can even take pseudo-flight by detaching his feet from the rest of his body and flying above it. The height he can reach can even increase if someone holds his feet up higher for him. With this ability, Buggy has developed a few of his own techniques.
Chop-Chop Cannon: Holding a weapon, Buggy shoots the weaponed hand at the enemy.
Ground Hugging Chop-Chop Cannon: A variation, Buggy shoots his hand across the ground to grab his opponent’s leg.
Chop-Chop Cannon-Separate: After launching his hand, Buggy adds 1/3 of his forearm to his fist so that if the opponent attempts to stop the attack by grabbing the forearm, Buggy can simply detach his fist and continue the attack.
Chop-Chop Buzzsaw: Attaching knives to his shoes, Buggy throws his lower half towards an opponent as a buzzsaw.
Chop-Chop Car: Buggy uses a set of wheels and a bomb for a motor and uses his powers to reconfigure himself into become a small car for quick getaways. Truly a technological masterpiece.
Aerial Tailspin Big Top: Buggy detaches his hands and grabs onto an opponent with them before lifting them high into the air. He then turns them so that they are facing the ground before sending his hands flying in a corkscrew pattern back down to Earth, throwing them on the ground with high impact.
Chop-Chop Festival: Buggy's ultimate attack, he separates his body parts into tiny chunks and spins them around. Then he can either surround his enemy to block their escape or pummel his enemy with his body parts at intense speeds, and makes it difficult to hit Buggy while using it.
Oh and before you ask, yes, One Piece author Eiichiro Oda has confirmed that Buggy can detach his penis from his body and even make it fly, so… do with that information what you will.
Feats
Overall
(dude Jeffery Ward was so good as Buggy asdalfgalksjfg)
Terrorized the East Blue for years
Survived the toughest levels of Impel Down, as well as the war at Marineford
Gained a massive following due to his affiliation with Roger
Formed the Cross Guild with Mihawk and Crocodile
Became one of the Four Emperors alongside Luffy, Shanks and Blackbeard
Unironically gave one of the best speeches in the entire series
Strength
Buggy Bombs are this powerful: (3.44 kilotons of TNT)
The Muggy Balls are described as having the same destructive capabilities, so they should be just as powerful.
Blew up a Jailer Beast with his Muggy Ball, which had previously knocked Luffy onto his back. (See Scaling for more info on the scaling chain)
Speed
While flying and carrying Jinbei, dodges a giant flaming fist from Akainu
Moves out of the way of a light beam from Kizaru (though he didn’t see it coming, so take this feat with a grain of salt)
Durability
Survived being struck by lightning (which we know later to have been done by Monkey D. Dragon)
Was sliced to strips by Mihawk and was more annoyed than anything (though it’s extremely likely Mihawk did this very casually, as he does most of the time)
Had his own Muggy Ball blow up in his face and is later fine
Scaling
The Straw Hat Pirates (Pre-Impel Down)
In Impel Down, Buggy was shown able to heavily damage a Jailer Beast with his Muggy Ball, the same monster that was able to contend with Luffy before he went into his Gear 2 state. Along with this, Buggy was shown surprisingly capable of keeping up with Luffy during their prison escape; while Buggy would obviously not be able to keep up with the Straw Hats nowadays, he should be able to scale to feats performed prior to the Impel Down escape.
Luffy
Destroys a large portion of Enel’s ship with Gold Rifle (17.1 - 20.88 megatons of TNT)
Disperses Enel’s Raigo (195.51 petatons of TNT)
Dodge’s Foxy’s photon beams (0.33c)
Zoro
Dodges a laser from Kuma, which are stated to be made up of Kizaru’s Light-based Devil Fruit (0.46c)
Nami
Weaknesses
All jokes aside, Buggy just straight-up sucks. He’s both cowardly and selfish, willing to submit to Mihawk and Crocodile due to the gargantuan power gap between them, and is often unable to back up any trash talk with actual strength. And any time he isn’t scared out of his mind, he’s insanely cocky and far too bold for his own good.
While Buggy is immune to slashing and piercing attacks, he’s still susceptible to blunt attacks like punches and kicks, almost like the opposite of the Gum-Gum Fruit in how it’s immune to blunt attacks but susceptible to slashing attacks. Also, even when a body part is separated, Buggy can still feel sensations of whatever happens to that part, which can put Buggy at a disadvantage if not properly maintained.
In addition to these, Buggy also has standard Devil Fruit weaknesses in that he cannot swim and has a weakness to all types of water, not just seawater.
Summary
Multi Continental-level scaling with Muggy Balls (also translates to durability as he was able to tank one)
Should be relative to characters with lighting-timing-to-lightspeed capabilities
Muggy Balls could make for good Area-of-Effect attacks
Cannot be dismembered, making him quite effective against sword wielders
Despite appearances, can be cunning and unpredictable
Will probably be the Pirate King… for like, 5 minutes.
Potential Opponents
Sky-Byte (Transformers)
I’ve seen this one thrown around before and it’s… fine? Could make for a cool sea battle I suppose, and I don’t even mind the size difference, it just doesn’t give me exactly what I want in a Buggy fight.
Arataki Itto (Genshin Impact)
I sorta get what this one is going for too, and the interactions do sound fun in general, but it’s overall just an “okay” option for Buggy. The fight sounds fine, but not one that I think could bring out the creativity of Buggy’s abilities as much as I want. Again, I get why some people might gravitate towards it, but for me, it sits somewhere in the middle for Buggy matchups overall.
Ms. Fortune (Skullgirls)
I don’t know a whole lot about Skullgirls so maybe more hardcore fans will think this sounds terrible, but it sounds pretty fun to me at a glance. “Criminals who can split their limbs apart after eating something” is a pretty specific theme, and the animation could be pretty hectic and flashy with the two using their limbs in creative ways. Overall, probably my preferred alternative for Buggy. But who’s my favorite? Well…
Master Kohga (The Legend of Zelda)
Now THIS is what I’m talking about.
Connections-wise, these two are comic-relief antagonists who are the leaders of minor criminal organizations comprised of an army of men who genuinely believe their leader to be great, as well as much more competent right hand men. Both would develop a one-sided rivalry with the legacy-carrying protagonist who had previously hilariously humiliated them in the past, trying their hardest to get revenge but failing to the point where said protagonist doesn’t even recognize them when they meet again.
This matchup just sounds so damn fun to me, and can even incorporate the two’s respective armies into the fight. Even on their own, you could have a pretty fun fight with Buggy using his bombs and knives against Kohga’s magnetism and Zonai constructs, having to figure out strategies on the fly to take him down. The banter would also be insanely funny, with the two boasting at one another constantly but also showing their cowardly sides, sort of like Hercule vs Dan but with more actual fighting. It’s a cool matchup with a good theme and fun animation potential, featuring two side-villains that are oh-so entertaining.
Anyways uh… yeah, hope you enjoyed this. I don’t know what other individual character blog I would wanna make, but I’ll probably think of something. Mr. Clean vs Terry Crews will hopefully be done soon so we can move on to more of the matchups I have planned to do, so look forward to it. Other than that, have a good Sunday.
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