 As a baby he was discarded in a bamboo thicket and thus raised by pandas. I have seen Princess Kaguya is what he often tells people but no one believes him and they rough him up in return but this only fuels his desire to become a stronger super demonic hero. Hello and welcome to One Piece 101 the series that breaks down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. Today we are delving deep and I mean very deep into the series in order to examine the ever mysterious figure that is the panda man. The panda man is an easter egg character who appears incredibly frequently in the background of manga chapters and anime episodes. His generally accepted appearance is that of a very muscular man with a panda forehead and with the word panda despite prominently across his forehead just in case you know there was any confusion or if it must be noted the panda man is a being who can take on a wide array of differing physiques but so long as the character in question meets the criteria of a panda head on a humanoid male then it is considered a confirmed panda man sighting. Now generally with easter egg characters that's kind of all there is to it. A cool thing in the background for the sake of being cool. However panda man has a surprising amount of story behind him both within and outside of the One Piece world. Starting with the latter his character was actually created by Oda as part of the new Chojin contest which roughly translates into the new superhuman contest and challenged artists to create a wrestling based character to be featured in the series Kinikuman. However Oda also decided to carry the character over to his own series and in the SPS of volume seven Oda even gave him somewhat of a backstory telling readers that panda man was a being of unknown age who originated from Tibet. Now quite notably Tibet does not exist in the One Piece world meaning that panda man may very well have transcended the restrictions of the real world in order to inhabit the realm of One Piece. As a baby panda man was abandoned in a bamboo grove left to be raised by giant pandas. During this time he came into contact with Princess Kaguya a mystical moon princess from a Japanese folktale who was found inside a bamboo stalk thus connecting her origin to that of panda man. However nobody believed panda man when he told them of this encounter and instead they proceeded to beat him up and following this panda man resolved to become a strong demonic superhero. Bit of an odd turn there but despite being able to perform techniques such as giant panda deathfok the panda man we've seen in and out of the series appears to have a much more comical presence. It is rumored that at one stage panda man was quite a wealthy individual actually being considered quite the big shot and when I say rumored I mean that when posed the question of where in the world panda man lives Oda quite literally responded that he had only heard rumors. However panda man's status as a big shot would soon come to a head as he appears to have gotten into quite a bit of trouble with a man by the name of tomato gang. Allegedly panda man owes tomato gang quite a large sum of money which is the reason why he is being chased all around the world. As such tomato gang will frequently appear in the same panel as panda man for example take this one from chapter 179 here on the right we see our typical on the run panda man but if we scroll to the left and squint real hard then bam there's tomato gang in hot pursuit. So just keep that in mind the next time you go panda man hunting in the manga. He very much has his own story going on with a whole host of characters involved. Another example is the figure known as unforgivable mask who acts as panda man's greatest rival although unlike panda man his head actually appears to be clad in a mask rather than having an actual panda head. Unforgivable mask was hired by tomato gang to track down and apprehend panda man as well as retrieve the money owed. However to date unforgivable mask has been unsuccessful in this task. Also part of the panda man chronicles is a love interest creatively named panda woman although this character was actually created out of practical necessity during the amazon lily arc. As the island is inhabited by the all female kucha tribe it would have been unrealistic to have panda man appear during the arc and so he was replaced with panda woman which really puts a whole new spin on the brief stay of the heart pirates on amazon lily where beppo was often left pondering over whether the island had any female bears little did he know they actually did. I mean sort of in any case panda woman has since gone on to become a part of the panda man canon and he is said to be in love with her although it is unknown if the feeling is mutual and there you have the beginner's guide to hunting panda man and friends but if you're not keen on going through some of the old manga volumes and I do have a bit of a quick fix for you which comes in the form of the volume covers themselves the japanese releases of the volumes come with an old school dust cover however beneath these dust jackets often lies some incredible little secrets in panda form let's take volume 21 for example classic one piece right here we have baroque works lined up being all badass but then we lift the dust jacket and what's this all of a sudden sir crocodile has been replaced with a panda imposter hmm very suspicious and this still happens in modern day as well because if we look at volume 77 we have a very similar situation here the donkey hereto pirates are displayed proudly ready for action but all it takes is the removal of a teeny tiny dust jacket and yep just as expected another warlord of the sea has all of a sudden been inflicted with a case of panda although these panda references aren't always quite that obvious like in volume 74 here which is one of my personal favorite panda man sightings just pay special attention to the grapes on sugar's fingers as we lift the dust cover and unveil mother of god panda grapes how insidious now i'm not going to go through all of these because i want to leave the fun of discovering the panda man to all of you although sadly the english volume releases don't come with these jackets and as a result we miss a lot of the pandery goodness some more fun facts about the panda man panda man's debut appearance in the series occurred in chapter 44 where he can be seen in a crowd reaction shot just before guine shoots a marine on the floating restaurant of baratier in his original contest submission odor also mentions jokingly that panda man has a strength of exactly 3,333,333 units of power but only after eating bamboo and this number has even carried over into the series well i mean the movies at least one of which actually showed panda man's bounty poster which is worth exactly 3,333,333 berries during the impel down arc the panda man's name can be seen on a list of prisoners being held by bon clay who was disguised as honeyable at the time and finally a truly useless fact the panda man's legacy is so great that his name is even etched into the ponderglyph located on alabaster it is of course in japanese though but it is still quite clearly there and that pretty much does it for the panda man if you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general then please do consider donating to the grand line view patreon because the support of all of you amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible also i've recently launched a teespring store if you're interested in shirts hoodies and other miscellaneous items with proceeds going directly to support the channel as well and if you'd like to join the fun then please do head over to my discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis and finally please do comment with who what or where you'd like to see featured in the next one piece 101