Buggy the Clown

Buggy the Clown is a character from the One Piece anime and manga.

Buggy is the captain of the Buggy Pirates as well as the co-leader of the Buggy and Alvida Alliance, and a former apprentice of the Roger Pirates. Shortly after the Battle of Marineford, he became a member of the Shichibukai and the leader of the pirate dispatch organization "Buggy's Delivery".

In the AWA fics, Buggy is a student at the AWA Academy and is a part of Class 2.

Appearance
Buggy is a slim, yet muscular blue-haired man with an appearance resembling that of a clown, as to mirror his epithet. The big, red nose on his face is, in fact, his real nose.

Buggy's face is always covered with make up, just like a clown, and the motifs change from time to time: in his first appearance he had crossbones going down his face forming an X; he also had two blue lines near both of his eyes, red lipstick and his jolly roger on his hat. However, in later episodes after the Loguetown arc his look changes. First, a green star appears in the middle of the forehead, two half circles appear beneath the eyes, and there is a straight line on the middle of his chin.[10][11] After that (when his crew meets Ace), he has two green dots on both sides of his head and four big green dots on the rim of his hat, which still has the jolly roger on it. He also has green eyeliner and green lipstick, with a curvy line going down both sides of his face. In the Impel Down saga, he has crossbones again going down his forehead to below his eyes, two pink lines pointing up, and red lipstick.

In his pirate captain attire, he dons a striped white and red shirt with short sleeves, white gloves reminiscent of the ones worn by clowns, a sash around his waist like many other pirates, and a pair of loose pants reaching to his calves, just above a pair of striped socks and pointy shoes. He also has a scarf around his neck. Hanging from his shoulders there is an orange, fur-lined captain's coat. On his head he has an orange hat with his jolly roger on it, over a neckerchief with the same pattern of his shirt. While in the manga his scarf and sash are orange just like many other components of his attire, his pants are light-brown and the epaulets of his coat are simply gold, in the anime he was given a much more bright color scheme, with a purple scarf, green sash, light-green pants, and green epaulets.

During the Whitebeard War Saga, after escaping from Impel Down, Buggy modified his striped prisoner's outfit with salvaged Marine uniform pieces to recreate the effects of a pirate captain: a coat and a tricorn that had the symbols crossed out.

As a young man serving aboard Gol D. Roger's ship, he looked mostly the same; the only notable differences were his shorter hair and smaller stature. He wore a different outfit in each flashback but dressed similarly to how he does now, usually seen in striped T-shirts (or collared shirts), white gloves, baggy pants, pointed shoes, and donning a sash. He wore beanies rather than a captain's hat and he lacked the captain's coat.

It was revealed in an SBS question that the blue tassels coming from the sides of Buggy's hat are his actual hair in the shape of two ponytails. While in the confines of Impel Down, Buggy's long hair is tied into just one ponytail.

After the timeskip, Buggy's appearance has changed greatly. His hair is not tied anymore and now looks spikier. He wears a big red and white, stripped tricorn with a rim ornated with several golden little balls and his crew's Jolly Roger on the front. He wears a big, red cloak, using his Devil Fruit powers to make himself appear larger.

Personality
Buggy will often feign intelligence, only to have his true incompetence revealed. Although he is not "stupid" in the traditional sense, he is prone to gross misjudgements that cost him; usually this is due to his overconfidence. In the original Japanese version of One Piece, he inserts "hade ni", into almost every sentence he speaks ("Flashily die! You flashy bastard!").

His big red nose is something he is very touchy about, going so far as to destroy an entire town when a couple of kids made fun of his nose. Occasionally, he will mishear what others say as an insult about him or his nose, possibly due to paranoia.

He has a number of running gags in the series, including a delayed reaction towards things, he will at first act casually then when it sinks in he will act completely the opposite (for example, when Ace appeared on his ship, Buggy first greets him politely. Then, when he realizes he is on his ship, he blurts out "Who the hell are you?"). Sometimes, he will even do the opposite of this and overact the part then become calm having thought the situation through more deeply after the initial reaction. He also has what some might consider "dumb luck"; no matter what happens to him he is lucky enough to survive somehow (including being struck by lightning at Loguetown, being chased by Smoker, being frozen alive by Admiral Aokiji, or inadvertently slashed by Dracule Mihawk).

Furthermore, through his crazy streaks of good fortune, coupled with weaselly actions and lying, he has managed to gain power and favor with people by doing next to nothing. Oftentimes, happenstance makes him look more impressive and intimidating than he really is; Buggy won't even intend to look good and have impressed people unintentionally or by total accident, or pass himself off as a substantial figure by being dishonest or stealing the credit for a masterful feat from someone else. Though he once tried to keep it a secret so he wouldn't become a target for rival pirates and the Marines, he also started playing up the fact he was originally one of the legendary Roger Pirates (despite being just an apprentice) once the truth was out.

These kinds of misunderstandings caused a large number of Impel Downescapees to join his crew (though Buggy did not intend to impress them during his jailbreak and only continued out of fear the prisoners, who were much more vicious and infamous than he was, would turn on him if he appeared weak) and Buggy to be selected to become a Shichibukai by the World Government just because he looked reputable from their point of view, though Galdino is well aware of Buggy's true nature of cowardice and ineptitude. After the timeskip, he has even stooped to making himself look bigger and more intimidating as a Shichibukai by splitting up his body underneath a cloak and growing out his hair.

Buggy is one of the few villains to become reformed after facing Luffy, though only slightly. He also begins to accept people's kindness, though he can still be cruel to anyone who is not a member of his crew or is aiding him in his goals. He is also fun loving and displays a huge fondness for parties, admiring those who are equally fun loving (strangely, he shares this trait with Shanks).

He also has a strong love of treasure. Unfortunately for him, his obsession with treasure led to him leaving himself open in his first encounter with Luffy to attack Nami (who was attempting to take off with said treasure) and was just the small window the superior Luffy needed to defeat him. Buggy fails to understand how anything but gold, silver or jewels can be considered "treasure"; an opinion which apparently has not changed in over 22 years even though so far it has led to constant failure.

His primary goal is to get revenge against Luffy, for defeating him, and Shanks, for ruining his dreams during his youth. His dream is to become Pirate King and own all the treasures in the world. After the escape from Impel Down, with the encouragement of his followers, he put his sights on defeating Whitebeard and conquering the "top". Many of those he has known previously such as Luffy and Whitebeard see him as little threat.

Another strange trait of Buggy's is his complete lack of fear toward swordsmen, no matter how powerful they may be, in contrast to his cowardice against any other people stronger than him. This can be seen in such instances as his fight against Roronoa Zoro and Mihawk. This is most likely a trait that he habitually developed because of his Devil Fruit-based immunity to cutting and slicing attacks. This is somewhat justified as no swordsman no matter how strong can ever kill him (although, if they fight seriously and can utilize haki they can bypass his Devil-Fruit immunities).

Abilities
While not as powerful as other former Roger pirates, Buggy is a fairly capable fighter who was strong enough to survive all the battles with the Whitebeard Pirates and the extreme dangers of the Grand Line. His arrogance and greed usually gets the best of him, preventing him from fighting at his fullest. His great craftiness makes him a dangerous opponent as he will always use trickery in a fight.

While he was a considerable opponent at the beginning of the series, he became a lesser threat as more powerful enemies showed up. Finally, in the Impel Down arc, the Baroque Works members commented how weak or how much of a coward Buggy actually is. However, he is still able to survive the ordeals people far more powerful than him (albeit with their help).

One of the factors that assist Buggy in his exploits at least during the escape and the Battle of Marineford, would be his extraordinary luck. His uncanny ability to read the mood, as well as his love of theatrics and saying lines at a precise moment to strengthen the morale of his "crew" helped him secure their loyalty in furthering his plans. In addition, due to their misconceptions of his selfish actions, i.e.: running away out of fear as something to do with the death of Whitebeard and their short term partnership, as well as catching Jinbe by accident but they believed that was his plan all along, many pirates become extremely loyal to him. Most of the times they were in tears from his "heroics". He is always keen on grafting himself to the most powerful people around and bending them to his will and is smart enough to come up with battle plans on the spot this combined with his leadership skills make him an at least moderately capable captain.

Thus proven, perhaps Buggy's biggest weapon is his cunning when it comes to speeches, the ability to easily lie and convince those around him to follow his bidding, this way gathering a crew with great strength.

Despite (or perhaps because of) his achievements coming from sheer luck and misunderstandings, he was at least acknowledged by the World Government to be strong enough, either in strength or influence, to be a Shichibukai. When Buggy's past was revealed, the Impel Down prisoners were all impressed with his past history on Roger's crew, as well as his brotherly connections with Shanks. Due to these two reasons, all the prisoners that escaped with him all joined his crew and are all completely loyal to him, increasing his strength somewhat when compared to other Shichibukai.

In spite of his normally cowardly and weak-willed behavior, Buggy possesses a strong will, having remained conscious from Luffy's burst of Haoshoku Haki at Marineford, whereas Galdino passed out from the burst.

Buggy has very high endurance and resilience, having survived a destructive explosion from a redirected Muggy Ball, which is powerful enough to severely injured Minotaurus, one of the Jailer Beasts in Impel Down, without sustaining much injury. He was also able to withstand the blazing inferno of Level 4 in Impel Down. He possesses quite a great deal of physical strength, as he was able to lift and choke one of his subordinates with just one hand, lifting a Blugori easily and slamming it into the floor (although it got up again with minimal injuries) and managed to sustain the weight of both Luffy and Jinbe while floating with the upper part of his body. According to Shanks, he was also a great swimmer and was proud of the fact, but this was said before he ate a Devil Fruit and lost his ability to swim.

Buggy accidentally consumed the Bara Bara no Mi, a Paramecia-class Devil Fruit which allows him to separate his body parts and control them independently of each other, but robbed him of the ability to swim, which, according to Shanks (back when the two were still apprentices on Roger's ship), he was excellent at. The abilities gained from this fruit also make Buggy immune to slashing, cutting and cleaving attacks; any such attack just separates him into his component parts, allowing him to reform as needed.

In addition, most of his body is capable of flying through the air, with enough force to send a man flying through a wall - with the crucial exception of his feet having to stay grounded. Even though the parts are separate, Buggy can still feel what the part feels; e.g. when Luffy attacked Buggy, he separated his torso from his waist, only to find that Luffy was aiming for the crotch (needless to say, this left him with a rather painful result).

Also, when Buggy used Bara Bara Festival in an attempt to take down Nami, Luffy took one of the feet and tickled it, causing Buggy to break down in laughter. No matter how much of his body he separates, something also seems to act normal; e.g., his feet walking as normal while Buggy sends the rest of his body flying. Though Buggy is a decent fighter and his Devil Fruit power makes him difficult to hit, he was constantly leaving himself open in the latter half of his match for Luffy due to distractions, resulting in many careless mistakes.

A weakness of his fruit is that if a component part is restrained, he cannot use the component part, shown by Nami when she restrained a part of his body in their first fight with him. Because he is invulnerable to cutting attacks, he could be considered the natural enemy to even the most powerful swordsmen, as seen when he easily survived Mihawk's extremely powerful slashing ability.

There are two major weaknesses of his Devil Fruit. The first is that his feet act as an anchor and must remain on the ground even when the rest of his body is airborne. Secondly, despite feeling them at all times, Buggy may lose pieces of his body if they leave his visual range, though once he can see them again he can easily guide them back.

Buggy seems to prefer bladed weapons, though he most favors the use of knives. He tends to hold one single knife at a time or three between the fingers of his hands, and can apparently perform small feats of sleight-of-hand to both store and draw them whenever necessary. Buggy seems to carry an impressive amount of these types of weapons on his person at all times; some of which he prefers to keep hidden under his gloves, or in his shoes (he throws both his legs spinning in an attempt to cut his opponent).

He was also seen using a sword in a failed attempt to cut Luffy's head off at Loguetown. Within Impel Down he initially wielded a battle-axe taken from one of the Blugori but after losing it armed himself with four katana-like weapons and a gun used by one of the prison staff.

Outside of blades, he also can be seen using (or threatening to use) his Buggy Balls, which are highly explosive cannonballs carrying his Jolly Roger on them and which are fired from a cannon. The Buggy Balls are able to clear entire streets consisting of buildings. In fact, he is one of the few pirates who actively uses cannons.

In addition, he had hidden "Muggy Balls", hand grenade-like weapons derived from his Buggy Balls on himself, with decreased size, but retaining the mighty explosive powers. Until now, he has only used four of them: first against the Minotaurus prison guard, a second one on Hannyabal's subordinates (in the manga, the usage was unseen, but it was shown in the anime), a third one on Dracule Mihawk, who redirected it towards Buggy, and a fourth one in 3D2Y. Due to these weapons' small size, Buggy was able to keep them to himself while being in Impel Down without the guards discovering and confiscating them.

Trivia

 * In the AWA fics, Purple Heart, much to the him and everyone's shock, has interest towards him. This was later subverted as the stories goes on.
 * In the AWA fics, Buggy owns a blue & pink truck van.
 * Buggy is the first villain to appear in the series who is a Devil Fruit user. He is the also first Devil Fruit opponent whom Luffy has fought.


 * When Buggy detaches his head and floats around, he resembles a Nukekubi - a flesh-eating humanoid monster of Japanese mythology said to detach its head during the night to float around and hunt for mortals to victimize.
 * Like many other characters, Buggy has a distinct laugh, "gyahahahahaha!"
 * Buggy has the lowest known former bounty among the Shichibukai.