One Piece Theory of Gigantification: Ancient Giants Are Kaido’s Ancestors

With the Elbaph Arc exploring the lore of the Giant race of One Piece, we finally cracked the clue on a gap in our knowledge of our series.

What exactly is Kaido’s race?

Could this answer the question of how One Piece humans have so many varied sizes?

Gigantification Theory

Louis Arnot’s notes at the end of Chapter 1132: “Adventure in Elbaph”, being similar to Little Garden, give us the impression that there is something unique about the environment of Elbaph.

Little Garden also seems to be an environment compatible with the Giants, with two of them staying on the island for a hundred years without suffering detrimental effects.

Just as the dense jungle and inhospitable climate kept the massive dinosaurs alive, Elbaph also has unusual atmospheric pressures and multiple climates, with the Sun World being closer to the sun and warmer, while the Underworld, cut off from the sun, is in a constant winter, even when it is the surface of the Warland.

In real-life science, there are different environmental factors why some animals become smaller or bigger than their regular counterparts, all of which tie to adaptations within these environments.

For humans, there are pygmy peoples in Oceania and Africa due to their isolation in rainforest environments, where there is less nutrition or low ultraviolet ray levels.

Perhaps in One Piece, the dwarf tribes, like the Tontatta, might be an example of this phenomenon.

However, growth is more strategic in nature, as megafauna can exist in significantly colder climates, forcing species to grow big to emit higher heat or in warm climates, like elephants, to escape predation and find more sources of vegetation in crowded ecosystems full of predators or competing herbivores.

Megafauna are usually considered K-selected species, which, as opposed to the high growth rate of r-selected species, means that they prioritize longevity and large body sizes to ensure most of their offspring live to adulthood.

Although there is no clear evidence of giant humans in real life, it is possible that these explanations could also fit since there are pygmy humans that adapt to low nutrition in their isolated environments.

With the rising sea level and varied climates of One Piece’s islands, we have a simpler explanation of why everything is so big in Elbaph and Little Garden: isolated and chaotic environments.

Could this also explain other genetic factors in places like Wano, which has people or the existence of Onigashima?

Ancient Giants

The Ancient Giants were introduced in the Thriller Bark Arc with the zombified Oars and we later meet the only living Ancient Giant, Oars Jr. in the Marineford Arc.

They were notorious for their immense strength and being five or more times bigger than a regular Giant, who are already more than twice as big as giant humans like Big Mom and Whitebeard.

Caesar Clown was commissioned by Kaido and Big Mom at different points to conduct Gigantification experiments, with Caesar even recreating the Ancient Giants through the Numbers unit, although at the cost of making them dull and hard to communicate with.

The Numbers also looked more animalistic, likely using animal DNA to even bring the Ancient Giant DNA out of his subjects.

There are also other tribes such as the Yeti Cool Brothers, who are a lanky version of Ancient Giants and they do indicate the presence of other Giant Tribes outside Elbaph.

How Giants Are the Reason for One Piece Sizes

In Chapter 1137: “Shamrock Appears”, we learn from Road that there are other Giant nations, which is how King Harald met with Hajrudin’s mother, a Giantess from another country, before marrying Loki’s mother, who is of Elbaph.

The Yeti Cool Brothers are a unique, ape-like type of Giant Tribe, for instance.

The royal family of Elbaph followed a policy of purity and possibly even extending that to Giant relations, wanting their strength maintained or their royal family line intact like any human nobility would.

This might mean that the royal family, who are connected to the Ancient Giants like Oars, wanted to preserve their Ancient Giant lineage as much as possible.

That is why both Harald and Loki still bear Ancient Giant horns and power even though they are not of the same pedigree.

And since we learned that there are other Giant Tribes outside Elbaph and the Ancient Giants, we now have a more flexible explanation for how the Buccaneers and Wotans came to be.

But what if we extend this to the case of Kaido and Moria, as well as other characters with horns and massive sizes? Are they hybrids of a particular tribe, like how Kaido calls himself and Yamato Oni?

To a lesser extent, can this also explain how Whitebeard and Big Mom are so massive compared to other humans? Big Mom’s case is particular as she is not only bigger than Whitebeard and Blackbeard but was sent to Elbaph by her parents because they could not handle her unique biology.

Proof 1: The Buccaneer Race

In the Egghead Island Arc, we learned that Kuma is not an ordinary human but a human “with giant’s blood” called a Buccaneer.

Funnily enough, there is a lesser known giant hybrid, a fusion of Giant and Fishman, called a wotan, which is actually another way of calling Odin’s name.

Wotans are bigger than the largest humans and regular fishmen (Neptune and the much larger Wadatsumi are close to Giant size) but like buccaneers, are much smaller than normal Giants.

Big Pan of the Foxy Pirates is the only canon example of a Wotan.

This also corroborates with another point from Chapter 1137, that the Giants were more widespread before the World Government came to being.

Kuma is treated as a full buccaneer even if his mother is a human, indicating the strength of their genes.

Buccaneers are durable, tank-like beings who can sustain damage and do more work than a regular human could.

It is likely that Blackbeard might be a buccaneer, given the notions of “uniqueness” tied to Kuma’s ability to overcome his self-destruct switch.

The same arc also has Catarina Devon mention Blackbeard’s unique bloodline, which could mean that there is a specific Buccaneer royal family that maintains ancient ties, just as Loki and Harald are descended from Ancient Giants.

Proof 2: Horned Humans Like Kaido

There is no clear consensus on whether or not “Oni” actually exist in the One Piece world.

There is no One Piece Wiki entry for the species and the species for Kaido and Yamato has not been specified, other than Kaido using the term to make himself distinct from the humans who persecuted him.

But with Chapter 1137, we might have a clue about the origin of the varied sizes of One Piece humans, including how humans like Kaido, Who’s Who, Black Maria and Yamato gained their signature horns.

King Harald’s desire to connect Elbaph with the rest of the world is similar to Oden’s wish to open Wano back to the world.

We learn at the end of the Wano Country Arc that Wano used to be connected to the rest of the world but had to be contained to prevent the Ancient Weapon Pluton from reemerging.

If we follow the shared pattern between Wano and Elbaph, we see how it is possible that Elbaph and the other Giant Tribes were recognized beyond their warlike behavior, maybe even having positive relations with humans, fishmen and other races, that they interbred to not only form the Buccaneer and Wotan sub-species but also the Oni Tribe, which includes people like Black Maria, Ulti, Page-One and Who’s Who, four of the six Tobi Roppo (Drake is fully human and Sasaki is a bluespine unicornfish Fishman).

It is no wonder Kaido was able to attract people who happen to have horns just like his own, some of which were more flesh-like as with the case of Black Maria.

This could also explain Onigashima since Kaido’s castle is built on the head of what appears to be an Ancient Giant, an Ancient Giant that is significantly larger than Oars or Oars Jr.

Potential Hybrids

So potentially, we can see the Giant Tribes as an explanation for why some humans come in varied sizes.

Or perhaps Oda’s concept of humans lies in how diverse they are in design, such as how some humans like Raizo and are massive or have odd features that are not related to any genetic experimentation.

Important characters like Whitebeard and Big Mom might have a genetic link to Giants. After all, Big Mom herself was raised by them.

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