Akainu

"When I hold an execution, I make damn sure to finish the job."

- Akainu

"Gold Roger the King of the Pirates and Dragon the Revolutionary. To think that the two of you were adopted brothers all these years. What a victory it would be to end both bloodlines. Everyone can escape, the two of you are the only targets I'm after. Say goodbye!"

- Akainu swearing to kill Luffy and Ace.

Akainu (real name: Sakazuki) is one of the central antagonists of the anime and manga, One Piece (alongside Marshall D. Teach) and is one of the main antagonists of the series' Marineford Arc (alongside Teach and Sengoku). He used to be one of the three Marine Admirals and but now the current Fleet Admiral as Sengoku's successor. He ate the Magu Magu no Mi (Magma-Magma Fruit) making him become living magma. He is one of Monkey D. Luffy's archenemies after killing his brother Portgas D. Ace.

He is voiced by Fumihiko Tachiki (who also voiced Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion) in the Japanese version, and by Andrew Love in the English dubbed version.

Personality
"We have to be thorough! If even one of those scholars made it onto that ship, all of the sacrifices we've made would be for nothing! We must eliminate the very possibility of this "evil" existing!!"

- Sakazuki's view on destroying the ship of survivors during the Buster Call at Ohara. Although he supposedly believes in justice and righteousness, Akainu is cruel, intransigent, heartless, and fanatical to the motto of "Absolute Justice", which is to punish criminals at any cost, no matter how much they beg for mercy or not, and regardless of the circumstances relating to how the crimes themselves were committed. However Akainu's extremism is far beyond the average extremist Marine very much like Hody Jones being a more extreme version of Arlong, and has caused even those that agree with his personal beliefs to question them, and his lack of tolerance for such has led the marines beneath him to fear and hate him and returns this by not hesitating to kill any who stand in his way, and his black-hearted behavior is reviled all across the New World and the mere sight of him caused veteran New World Pirate Squard to experience a noticeable cold sweat.

Akainu's personal take on the Marine's philosophy is "Thorough Justice" which is to eradicate anything and everything related to the "evil" with extreme prejudice; rationalizing the possibility of even a minuscule target of eradication escaping resulting in a failure which has led him to destroy a refugee ship full of innocent civilians and attempted to take the young Coby's life when the cadet pleaded to stop the war, extremely angry at the outburst which had wasted his time. His title/alias literal meaning of "Red Dog" seems to reflect on Akainu's tendency to hunt down his target liking a hunting dog does its prey once it has a scent and similarly Akainu let nothing spot him from actively hunting down a mentally damaged Luffy, knocking aside many who got in his way without actually doing damage beyond this because he was so focused on Luffy however allowed Marco and Vista to continually interfere with his attempts on Luffy's life. Even then, Akainu was more focused on Luffy for his bloodline as opposed to veteran pirates who were more skilled than Luffy was at the time, and at best told them to get out of his way.

This showcases a remarkable amount of shortsightedness for Akainu, as his philosophy of being thorough stopped him from seeing anything beyond his immediate scope as a massive threat, barely taking notice of Blackbeard's attempt at sinking Marineford (although both Sengoku and Garp were fending off the Blackbeard Pirates at the time) and in the end makes him barely anything but a dangerous single-minded murderer, much like the stereotypical view of the criminals of the world. In deed being so distracted by Luffy allowed Whitebeard to launch a sneak attack behind him and be temporarily defeated because of this.

Akainu's extremist beliefs have led him to also label someone a threat because of their own bloodlines, specifically targeting Monkey D. Luffy and Portgas D. Ace simply because of their respective fathers being criminals as opposed to their own actual actions, and went so far as to declare that even if every other pirate escaped from Marineford alive, he would personally not allow the brothers that chance at all, and actively hunted them down. He even attempted to point out to the Whitebeard Pirates that the person that they were protecting was the son of the Revolutionary Dragon, as if somewhat slightly confused that individuals would dare protect such a man because of his lineage.

Despite (or perhaps because of) Akainu's extremist beliefs Akainu is himself very deceitful and manipulative; traits that showcase Akainu can be crafty and exploitative when needed. Though he believed Ace a threat because he was the son of the Pirate King he knew that Ace did not like this association and used it to his advantage, showing that while he acknowledged that Ace felt shame for his father this was only a weakness to be exploited for Marine victory. He was even willing to feign sympathy towards Squard in an attempt to turn Whitebeard's allies against him.

Another factor that may be contrary or because of his extremist beliefs in heritage Akainu seems to place a degree of stock in the families of the Marines beneath him. Telling his men not to dishonor their families in cowardice by running away from their posts. Akainu believes that families are defined by blood, and is disgusted by the Whitebeard Pirates's familiar bond between themselves, and openly mocks and belittles this, while calling the Whitebeard Pirates following of their late captain's last order to escape as being hypocritical.

Contradicting his own beliefs on heritage and justice, however, Akainu takes a stance of apathy and non-intervention when it comes to the hedonism with the Celestial Dragons and their criminal actions and atrocities, instead he turns a blind eye to these actions not seeing it as his business despite the arguable worse crimes that they repeatedly commit and get away with being worse than anything that most pirates are able to do. Furthermore Akainu gives no regard for something if it does not reflect well upon the Marine's name. As far as he is concerned the Marines need look credible and if the truth inconveniences it then Sakazuki will, much like the World Government, resort to abridging, altering or ignoring the truth of things such as the Dressrosa Incident to keep such a credible image.

In spite of Akainu's tendency to hunt down his enemies however, he knows when the situation calls for less violent measures. He can even show impressive acts of restraint specifically when Shanks arrived to end the war. Despite fighting his way through many men, and with someone whom he had just seconds before tried to kill right in front of him, Sakazuki instead stood down opting not to fight a Yonko, and did little more than curse Shanks for his arrival and interference when Luffy was able to get away. However, he still did not escalate things to an altercation with the Red-Hair Pirates.

Though Akainu is known to mow down weaker Marines for getting in his way or being a dissenting voice in his views Akainu reserves a certain level of respect and even leniency towards the stronger Marines, if only reserved to the Admirals thus far shown. Issho for example was able to call Sakazuki "Saka-san" without it bothering him even gave him an alternate punishment of capturing the wanted pirates he was supposed to be after as opposed to his usual standard of death sentence (although he was not their in person to deliver such a sentence) and even sparred Kuzan despite their duel being to the death. Akainu is noticeably very cross that Kuzan did not serve under him and his whim of mercy went to waste on him, openly telling the Gorosei that Kuzan had nothing to do with the Navy now that he has resigned despite him now being affiliated with the highly dangerous Blackbeard Pirates.

Akainu is also fearless, obstinate, headstrong, merciless and reckless in battle challenging the mighty Whitebeard, and boldly insulting him to get Ace to face him before instead aiming to a than distracted Luffy to kill Ace. Even when hopelessly outmatched and overpowered by the Yonko and being practically helpless for a time, Akainu took advantage of a brief moment to initiate an attack that briefly devastated the pirate, and when he was defeated cursed him in anger. Still Akainu is not above showing surprise at unexpected turns of events such as when Shanks blocked his attack and expectantly arrived, or when he heard that Doflamingo had been defeated.

Akainu is in many ways the incarnation of the World Government's totalitarian system of extremism towards dissenting viewpoints while ignoring the World Government's depravity this caused many high ranking government officials to elect Akainu to be the successing fleet admiral over Sengoku's nomination of Kuzan and the government was willing to bestow unprecedented power towards the Marines with Akainu's leadership; however while Akainu is an adamant follower of much of the World Government's viewpoint he is not as tolerant to some of their actions as he is to the Celestial Dragons. Noticeably Akainu took the matter of Doflamingo's false resignation towards the Gorosei themselves and boldly insulted them for having to adhere to the demands of a single pirate, behavior which eventually descended into a heated argument with the five elders. While perfectly willing to deceive civilians about the nature of Doflamingo's defeat, he was completely intolerant when the World Government kept information that stopped the Marines from understanding the situation at large. This shows that to Akainu criminals being able to utilize the government above the marines as an asset is far beyond what he will tolerate from his superiors.

Biography
In his childhood, he wore tattered up clothes and held a dagger in his possession. When he was a young adult, he joined the marines alongside Kizaru.

His debut in the series features him immediately crossing the Moral Event Horizon by destroying a ship filled with innocent refugees of Ohara on the minuscule possibility that a criminal might have been on board, an action that horrified even his comrades. Since then, he rose through the ranks of the Marines and eventually became one of the Admirals, alongside Aokiji (who detested him for his cruelty and fanaticism), and Kizaru.

He is the one who killed Monkey D. Luffy's brother, Portgas D. Ace. His magma overpowered Ace's fire power, and punched him straight through the chest as Ace was trying to protect Luffy. He even tried to kill Coby when he said further fighting would be pointless, but luckily, Shanks saved him just in time. Through this horrible action, Akainu accomplished what no other villain ever could: completely breaking Luffy's spirit.

Within the two year time-skip, Akainu officially became the new Fleet Admiral officially placing him as the commander of all the World Government's forces, which was later revealed to the Straw Hats by Jinbe at Fishman Island. According to Jinbe, since Akainu's commandeering of the Marines, the marines have become noticeably cruel under his ideologies of Absolute Justice.

Fleet Admiral Sakazuki became furious at Admiral Fujitora for revealing the true news of Dressrosa incident without even telling him. He asked why he did not report to him before taking action. Fujitora replied if he report to him, he would have cover-up the incident. He suggests that cover-ups were needed to save the face of the World Government. Fujitora doesn't want to become a hero for something that he did not do. He argued to the Fleet Admiral about the credibility and dignity of the Marine Headquarter. Sakazuki banned Fujitora from every single Marine bases unless if he can capture both Luffy and Law.

After reading the news of Totto Land and Princess Koname was kidnapped by pirates, Sakazuki shows his fury of allowing this to happen.

After the Marines intercept the conversion between Kaido and Big Mom, Kizaru asked Sakazuki permission to handle the situation. However, the Fleet Admiral himself told Kizaru to wait since they don't know about the strength of the samurais of Wano.

Quotes
"So that's him. Not only is he the grandson of Garp the Hero, he's also the son of the Revolutionary Dragon. We'll have to eliminate him as well."

- Akainu about Luffy.

"He got himself stabbed because one of those foolish sons of his believed every word I said, and now he'll die to protect that same fool. Truly an empty existence."

- Akainu to Ace about Whitebeard forgiving Squard.

"If man does not live righteously, he does not deserve to live at all!"

- Akainu to Ace.

"I'm not gonna let Law and Straw Hat do whatever they want!"

- Akainu

"You've wasted several seconds of my time. The Navy has no use for soldiers who aren't righteous!"

- Akainu to Coby.

"Our powers are in a relationship of superiority!"

- Akainu states the reason of how he defeated Ace.

Trivia

 * According to Caesar Clown, Akainu would probably purchase weapons of mass destruction to enforce justice.
 * Akainu is the first villain to kill an important character outside of a flashback. Due to this and becoming the new leader of the marines, he is one of the primary antagonists alongside Blackbeard and like him he is one of Luffy's archenemies.
 * Despite being a marine, Akainu is one of the few villains in One Piece that is considered Pure Evil, alongside Hody Jones, Donquixote Doflamingo, Caesar Clown, and Captain Kuro.
 * He is also notably a rare example of a Pure Evil villain being a necessary evil.
 * According to an interview with Eiichiro Oda, he stated that if Sakazuki were to become the protagonist, he is so strong that he could end the One Piece series within a year.
 * Akainu despises Luffy's father, Monkey D. Dragon and sees him as a major threat to the World Government. For this reason, Akainu spent a significant amount of time trying to chase after and murder Luffy in the Marineford War despite the bigger threat that Blackbeard posed.

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