Nico Robin (ニコ・ロビン, Niko Robin), otherwise known as "Devil Child", is a fictional character in the One Piece franchise created by Eiichiro Oda. The character made her first appearance in the 114th chapter of the series, which was first published in Japan in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on November 22, 1999.
In the series, Robin is introduced as an antagonist, but eventually becomes the seventh member of the Straw Hat Pirates crew and the sixth to join. Acting as the group's archaeologist and historian, Robin is a Devil Fruit user who possess the power of the Flower-Flower Fruit, allowing her to sprout replicas of her limbs, and later her entire body, from any surface. As the only survivor of the island of Ohara, Robin is the only known living person in the world of One Piece with the ability to read the ancient stones called Poneglyphs, something considered threatening by the World Government, which forbids the practice.
Robin has become extremely popular and a breakout character in anime and manga fandom. She has also appeared in several adaptations based on the manga, including the anime television series in which she is voiced by Yuriko Yamaguchi and Anzu Nagai as a child in the original Japanese language, as well as by Veronica Taylor and Stephanie Young and Jad Saxton as a child in the English versions. She has also become a popular subject of cosplay, causing a trend in Japan where women attempted to replicate her iconic costumes.
Nico Robin is portrayed by Russian actress Lera Abova in the live action adaptation of One Piece.
Contents
Concept and creation
The character of Nico Robin was created by manga artist Eiichiro Oda, the author of the manga series One Piece, and she made her first appearance in its 114th chapter, titled "The Course", which was first published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on November 22, 1999. As a fan of film director Quentin Tarantino, Oda stated that he used as a source of inspiration for Robin's design the character of Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (1994), one of Tarantino's most famous films.
Robin was a later addition to the story and Robin and Franky are the only crew members who did not appear in the original concept art for the Straw Hats. However, there was a male member who was a botanist, which may allude to Robin's Devil Fruit power.
Abilities
Robin ate the Flower-Flower Fruit, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that allows her to sprout duplicates of any of her body parts from any surface within range. The number of duplicates she can create appears to be unlimited, so long as they are within range. Usually, when she uses her powers, she crosses her arms and makes an "X" shape across her chest, though it's shown that she does not necessarily need to do so to use her abilities.
She can sprout her duplicate body parts from her own body, inanimate surfaces, and even from other people's bodies. She can even sprout duplicate body parts on top of other duplicate body parts. She maintains full control of her duplicated limbs and can perceive sights and sounds remotely through duplicate eyes and ears.
Robin can create entire clones of herself and even sprout gigantic-sized limbs.
Description
When she joined the Straw Hats, Robin was 28 years old and had a bounty of 79,000,000, which made her the oldest crew member (at the time) and the second-highest bounty bearer, junior to her captain Monkey D. Luffy (100,000,000 at the time) but senior to Roronoa Zoro (60,000,000). Her bounty has since been raised to 80,000,000 after the Enies Lobby incident, to 130,000,000 for her involvement in the defeat of Donquixote Doflamingo, and lastly to the current 930,000,000 for her involvement in the raid on Onigashima and the defeat of Kaido, as well as for her having defeated pirate Black Maria and for her knowledge of Poneglyphs. Her current bounty ranks fifth in her crew — after Luffy (3,000,000,000), Zoro (1,111,000,000), Jinbe (1,100,000,000) and Sanji (1,032,000,000) — and is their highest bounty under 1,000,000,000.
Originating from West Blue, Nico Robin is a tall, slender woman with a long, thin and defined nose, shoulder-length raven black hair which she used to style in a traditional hime cut, and large brown eyes (in the manga and in One Piece Film: Strong World and in One Piece Film: Z, azure in the anime) with wide pupils. In the anime she was initially depicted with a tanned skin complexion, as opposed to the lighter one in the manga. Robin has long limbs — especially her legs — and, before timeskip, she seemed to favor dark-toned or purple outfits and a somewhat outback fashion in general, having worn cowboy hats at Arabasta, Jaya, Skypiea and Sabaody; alternatively she wore leather clothes in Long Ring Long Land and Water 7. As Ms. All-Sunday, she wore a two-pieces cowgirl purple corset and miniskirt, paired with white cowboy hat, fur-lined coat, and high-heeled boots. After timeskip, she abandoned her hime cut in favor of curtain bangs that expose her forehead, has grown her hair to lower back-length, and has lighter skin complexion in the anime too.
Robin has a somewhat more morbid side compared to her crew mates, often pointing at grisly details or occasionally showing fondness for horror fashion, much to Usopp's, Chopper's, and Nami's disgust. For example, when Usopp "interviewed" her when she joined the crew, she mentioned "assassination" as her specialty, and later, her proposed name for the Straw Hats Pirates' new ship was "Little Darkness".
One Piece author Eiichiro Oda has provided background details about Nico Robin occasionally, answering fan questions. Robin was born on 6 February and is 188 cm (6 ft 2 in) tall, with blood type "S" (or "0" in AB0 system) and body measurements of 99–59–89 cm (39–23.23–35.04 in), wearing a Japanese I-cup bra size. After the timeskip, her height remained unchanged, but her body measurements have been updated to 100–60–90 (39.37–23.62–35.43 in), equivalent to Japanese J-cup bra size. If she were real, she would "smell like flowers" and she would have been of Russian nationality, while her favourite type of food is sandwiches and anything to complement coffee, including cakes as long as they are "not too sweet", and the least favourite would be chewing gum since she "can't swallow it". She sleeps 7 hours a day, from 11 pm to 6 am.
Dream
As with the case of all her crew mates, Nico Robin has a lifelong dream that boosts her and that she made the scope of her life itself: to read the Rio Poneglyph, a legendary stele containing the True History of the One Piece world, including the erased-from-records Void Century, and thus completing the lifelong research of her own mother, Nico Olvia, and her late mentor, Professor Clover. To accomplish so, she must first locate all of the thirty Poneglyphs scattered around the world and read them; of them, the four known as "Road Poneglyphs" would give pieces of informations that, put together, would lead to the last island on the Grand Line, Laugh Tale — where Gol D. Roger is rumoured to have buried his legendary treasure, the "One Piece" itself. So far, she has located and read at least the following Poneglyphs:
a Poneglyph in an unknown location and of unknown purpose, found in a wooden area in a West Blue island in her pre-teens.
a Poneglyph located in the Tomb of the Kings in Alubarna, which bore informations about the ancient superweapon Pluton, and which was also chased after by the Baroque Works.
a Poneglyph located in the Great Belfry of Shandora in Skypiea, the Island in the Sky, bearing informations about another ancient superweapon, Poseidon, and also a message by the late Pirate King Gol D. Roger.
a Poneglyph located in the Sea Forest of Fish-Men Island, bearing an apology letter by a man of the surface known as "Joy Boy".
a Poneglyph located in the Whale Tree in the island of Zou, one of the four Road Poneglyphs.
a Poneglyph located in the Treasure Room in Whole Cake Island, one of the four Road Poneglyphs, of which she possesses a copy.
another Poneglyph located in the Treasure Room in Whole Cake Island, of unknown purposes and content.
a third Poneglyph located in the Treasure Room in Whole Cake Island, of unknown purposes and content.
Appearances
In One Piece
Originating from the island of Ohara in the West Blue, home of the world's oldest and largest library, Nico Robin was born on 6 February, twenty-eight years prior to the main events, from archaeologist Nico Olvia and an unnamed father. She was born on her mother's birthday and followed her steps, becoming an archaeologist herself at the age of eight.
While Robin's father has remained unrevealed to present, Olvia mentioned that it was her personal goal to fulfil his dream of locating and deciphering Poneglyphs — large and apparently indestructible steles inscribed in an ancient language unknown to most of modern men, which are scattered around the world and known for delivering informations about world's history not to be found in any other source. Olvia left Ohara when Robin was two years old, joining a research expedition, and only returned six years later, alone.
Robin was thus raised by Olvia's brother Oran and his wife Roji, and at some point in her childhood she found and ate the Paramecia-type Flower-Flower Devil Fruit, which allowed her to have temporary copies of parts of her body, including her eyes and ears, which spring up on surfaces near her. Behind her teachers' backs, she acquired from them the outlawed knowledge of how to translate the ancient stones called Poneglyphs, which are scattered around the world. She came to share their goal of finding the elusive Real Poneglyph, which is said to tell the world's lost history and especially that of the Void Century — a piece of history dating 800 years before the main events, after which the World Government came into form, and which has been erased from all Government-approved sources.
When Robin was eight years old, she met a castaway giant on Ohara's coast, Jaguar D. Saul, who informed her that he was a Vice Admiral and that the World Government had found out about Ohara's researches, and had sent a battlefleet to suppress all archaeological research, the researchers, and the library itself. On the same day, Nico Olvia returned to Ohara to carry the same information. Just later the battlefleet arrived and opened fire on Ohara, including on the evacuation ship carrying civilians by order of then-Vice Admiral Sakazuki, while Saul was frozen to apparent death by Vice Admiral Kuzan.
Robin could flee the attack as its sole survivor thanks to Kuzan's help following Saul's last wish and lived on the run for twenty years. She was given the epithets "Demon of Ohara" and "Devil Child" by the World Government, with a bounty of 79,000,000; the true reasons for the bounty remained classified and she was officially wanted for an attempt to overthrow the World Government.
In other media
In the anime television series adaptation of the manga, Robin's voice actress is Yuriko Yamaguchi. In the 4Kids Entertainment English adaptation, her Baroque Works codename was changed to Miss Sunday and she is voiced by Veronica Taylor who portrays her with a country accent. In the Funimation English adaptation, her voice is supplied by Stephanie Young. In addition to the anime, Robin is featured in many of the adaptations based on the One Piece media franchise, including films, video games, and others as well. Emiya Ichikawa II performed as Robin in a kabuki play inspired by One Piece that ran at Tokyo's Shinbashi Enbujō throughout October and November 2015. Robin has also appeared as a playable character in the crossover fighting games Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars.
Robin is portrayed by Lera Abova in the live action adaptation, in this series having more role before her first encounter with the Straw Hats, in a subplot where she visits Shellstown and Loguetown, and later having appearances during the events at Drum Island.
Reception
Popularity
Nico Robin is one of the most popular characters in the One Piece series. Nico Robin has earned her place among anime audiences for many reasons. Ever since her debut, she has become a popular subject of cosplay, causing a trend in which female fan readers of the series attempt to replicate the various iconic looks of the character that have been shown over the years. In 2013, website Tokyo Otaku Mode held a poll asking anime and manga fans via Facebook which characters they would most want to date; Robin was ranked in 2nd place. In 2014, Goo Ranking conducted a poll amongst NTT customers by asking for their favorite female and male black-haired anime characters, with Robin ranking in 6th place out of the top 15 females.
Critical response
Reviewing One Piece, Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network (ANN) said that Robin "watches everything with quiet, amused detachment", while also noting how Robin's store of knowledge is "steadily growing and she is starting to really put things together". Reviewing the 278th episode of the anime, Sam Leach of ANN commented that Robin's "big 'I want to live!' scene is one of the most cathartic moments you'll ever find in fiction".
Sean Cubillas of Screen Rant wrote, "Based on aesthetics alone, Nico Robin is an easy fan favorite for her dark, mysterious design and attitude. Her backstory more than skyrocketed her to legendary status, as it brought tears to everyone's eyes and expanded the series' scope and sense of politics. It didn't take long after that for the series to truly immortalize her." In another article, Cubillas stated, "Nico Robin, at first sight, is clearly one of the edgier characters of the group. She has a sharp stare to most and often carries herself with a mysterious demeanor. Her introduction into the series as an elite assassin and vice president to an underground organization likely hasn't helped. Fortunately for her, she's taken to the Straw Hats to lighten her demeanor and, in recent stories, has become more of a mother figure to the crew. However, just because she's nicer, doesn't mean that she doesn't have the same, dark imagination. Whenever something dangerous or mysterious happens to the crew, Nico Robin always comes up with a darker scenario that dials up everyone's tensions further."