Monday 12 October 2009

Foxy the Silver Fox


Appearance

Foxy is a stout man with skinny arms and legs. He has almost a cleft lip-like mouth and an unique hairstyle. His nose is also colored red, it is long just like the nose of Kaku and Usopp. With these characteristics, they make him look like a fox. Foxy typically wears yellow orange suspenders and a coat. His coat is colored purple in the anime, while it is colored silver in the manga and other manga related media.[2]


Personality


Foxy is a cheater and trickster, who participates in the Davy Back Fight, a contest between pirate crews where the winning team can steal crew members from the losing team. Most members of Foxy's crew joined him because he won them in this contest. However, they seem to be genuinely enthusiastic about being in the Foxy pirates, and wholeheartedly cheer on their crewmates and captain in the Davy Back Fight. Foxy also seems to honor a team's choice if they were to decide to win on their own.

Though he acts supremely confident most of the time and seems quite fond of himself, Foxy is extremely sensitive to insults or criticism. Any offensive words from others cause him to instantly become depressed, and he usually ends up losing his footing and falling to the ground, barely supporting himself with his arms, while a black cloud suddenly appears over his head. Luckily for Foxy, all it takes is a few kind words from anybody to perk him up again. In the anime, Nami and Usopp used this weakness to their advantage by alternately hurling insults and compliments at Foxy non-stop, leaving him emotionally (as well as physically) paralyzed and unable to help his team during the roller race.

Abilities and Powers

Foxy is a cunning character who uses his Devil Fruit powers as well as various other tricks to aid in him cheating. He also seems to have an extraordinary sense of time, even when he had slowed down multiple cannonballs he still knew exactly when each and everyone of them was going to regain fullspeed.

Relationships

He is called "Oyabin" by his crew members.


Devil Fruit

Foxy ate the Devil Fruit Noro Noro no Mi which allows him to fire microscopic particles as beams of light that can slow down his enemies or other objects for 30 seconds (he demonstrates this by slowing down a cannon ball fired at him... only to get hit by the cannonball anyway when he was gloating over its power for too long). When he cheats, he frequently uses these powers to increase the impact of his attacks or stop his opponents in their tracks. Luffy manages to beat this power by using a shard from a mirror he found on Foxy's ship, reflecting the Noroma photons back at him, then delivering a final blow with a 30 second delay.

When Foxy uses his Noro Noro no Mi powers, he always holds his hands in the same position: his thumb, ring and middle fingers are pressed together while his other two fingers are pointing upwards. This gesture resembles the typical Japanese way of representing a fox with one's hands.

Other


Aside from his Devil Fruit powers, Foxy uses various other tricks that aren't dependent on his powers. These range from disguises to using equipment that would otherwise be considered cheating in normal standards.

The following are named techniques of Foxy that don't use his Devil Fruit powers:

  • Foxy Upgrade (グローブ強化, Gurōbu Kyōka): Realizing that Luffy cannot be seriously injured by normal punches, Foxy places blue spiked glove covers on his boxing gloves. The sharp points allow him to do more damage.
  • Foxy Shichihenge (フォクシー七変化) Foxy Seven-Change Disguise: Foxy disguises himself in costumes to trick his opponent so that he can set up a sneak attack. Though he believes them to be brilliant, the disguises are so poor that only a complete moron (i.e. Luffy) would be fooled by them.
  • Fox Counter Blow (カウンターフォックスブロー, Kauntā Fokkusu Burō): Foxy slips a bear trap shaped like a fox's head on the end of his boxing glove and punches his opponent with it.
  • Overhead Throw of Revenge (くやしまぎれ一本背負い, Kuyashimagire Ipponzeoi): a technique used by Foxy on Luffy when he lost the captain fight. Basically he offers his opponent a congratulatory handshake, but when they reach out to accept it, he just grabs their arm and flips them over his shoulder and smashes him into the ground... only to wind up smashing himself into the ground as Luffy's limbs are rubber

Apart from his regular tricks, Foxy possesses a giant mechanical punching machine called the Gorilla Puncher #13 (ゴリラパンチャー13号, Gorira Panchā Jūsan-gō) which he can pilot to use against his opponent in the Combat portion of the Davy Back Fight. The machine's punches are capable of being set on fire and are supposedly even capable of burning sea monsters.

The following are named techniques that Foxy uses with this giant robot:

  • Noro Marble Coach Devil (ノロマボール鬼コーチ, Noroma Bōru Oni Kōchi): Foxy traps his opponent in a chamber with the Gorilla Puncher coming towards them. At the same time, he reflects his beams all over the chamber using its mirrored back wall and Mirror Racket. Even if his opponent manages to dodge all of the beams and punches, unless they think quickly they'll be eventually crushed against the back wall by the Gorilla Puncher. Luffy was able to counter this technique by smashing the mirror wall with his fists and escaped
  • Gorilla Puncher Golden Hit (ゴリラパンチゴールデンヒッツ, Gorira Panchi Gōruden Hittsu): Foxy punches his opponent with all of the Gorilla Puncher's flaming fists at once. This technique was powerful enough that it almost knocked Luffy out.

Davy Back Fight with the Straw Hats


Challenging the Straw Hats and Donut Race

After acquiring some crewmembers from the Fanged Toad Pirates on Longring Longland, Foxy decided to set his sights on some new prey, the Straw Hat pirates. Finding their captain and others interacting with Tonjit, a native of the island, Foxy decided to catch their attention by shooting the old man's horse. Having caught their attention, Foxy and his two associates, Hamburg and Porche, introduced themselves to the Straw Hats and revealed their true intentions. Explaining that he wanted to challenge the Straw Hats to a Davy Back Fight, Foxy goaded Luffy into accepting. Though Luffy hurt his pride several times in the discussion, Foxy succeeded in getting Luffy to accept his challenge.[3][4]

After the opening ceremony of the Davy Back Fight wherein Foxy paid his respects to Davy Jones, the captain slyly eyed on which Straw Hat he would like to take for his own. As the first game of the Davy Back Fight, the Donut Race, started, Foxy and the rest of his crew prepared to exploit the loop holes of the game. While his crew did what they can, Foxy accompanied with Hamburg decided to try to slow down the Straw Hats' racers with some tricks of theirs. Though the most of Foxy's tricks were rather useless against the Straw Hats, Foxy was able to slow them down with his Noro Noro powers at the last minute thus allowing his racers to win.

Groggy Ring and almost becoming a Straw Hat

With the first game won, Foxy explained his powers to the astonished Straw Hats and later took Tony Tony Chopper for his crew, the purpose of the latter was to give the Straw Hats a handicap in the next Davy Back Fight game as the reindeer doctor was a participant. Seeing the disability he gave Straw Hats in the next game by taking away one of their members, Foxy decided to not use his powers during the second game, the Groggy Ring with two of the Straw Hats with three of the biggest members of his crew, the Groggy Monsters. Though he decided on this, Foxy and the rest of his crew were surprised to find out that despite their handicap, the Straw Hats' players were able to hold their own against the Groggy Monsters. As the game went on with the Straw Hats' players coming back despite the abuse they were taking, Foxy decided to settle things once and for all by ordering a Monster Burger from the Groggy Monster. The odd request of which was an order for the Groggy Monsters to use their deadliest technique against the Straw Hats' players. Despite this however, the Straw Hats' players defeated the Groggy Monsters much to Foxy's surprise.

With the second game lost to the Straw Hats, Foxy and his crew faced the consequences of either the Straw Hats regaining Chopper or having one of their taken from them. As Luffy was deciding, they learned a sly suggestion from the navigator of the Straw Hats, Nami, to choose Foxy. Since Foxy was the participant of the next and final game, not only would the Straw Hats would gain an instant win but they won't have to participate anymore in the Davy Back Fight. Hearing such an underhanded strategy, Foxy and his crew taunted the Straw Hats at thinking up such a trick even though they themselves also did such a thing in the previous game. Though their taunting convinced the Straw Hats a bit to not go through with such a strategy, they ultimately decided not to as they didn't want a weirdo like Foxy in their crew. So with Foxy's feelings hurt instead, Luffy instead choose to get Chopper back. Though the Straw Hats choose to take Chopper back, Foxy decided to pay back for the humiliation in the final game of the Davy Back, Combat.

Combat and Afterwards

After the location of the last event of Davy Back Fight, Combat, was "conveniently" chosen to be his ship, the Sexy Foxy, Foxy prepared himself to fight against Luffy. After some pre-battle formalities between the two, the match between Foxy and Luffy began. With the battle taking placing on his ship, Foxy exploited all the tools and tricks he had on board against Luffy. The battle raged on and took both Foxy and Luffy all over the Sexy Foxy, from on top to below deck. Eventually, the battle wore both fighters as it continued. At the climax of the battle with both fighters pushed to the limit, Foxy tried to use one last Noro Noro Beam on Luffy. Unfortunately, just as he fired, Luffy reflected Foxy's own beam back at him using a mirror shard he picked up during the battle. Completely unable to move fast enough due to the effects of his own Devil Fruit powers, Foxy was unable to avoid a devastating punch from Luffy. After the effects of the Noro Noro Beam wore off, Foxy took the brunt of the attack, multiplied by a huge amount, and was catapulted off his ship. Having fallen into the water and out of the bounds of the match, Foxy lost his first battle after 920 straight victories. Though having fallen into the water and unable to swim, Foxy was fortunately saved by his crew.[9][10]
Foxy and his crew depressed due to the crudity of Luffy's new Jolly Roger created for them

After both his and Luffy's wounds from the match were healed a bit, Foxy decided to honorably congratulate Luffy for the match. In secret however, Foxy wanted to lay one last sneak attack on Luffy as an act of vengeance. Unfortunately, Luffy's rubbery body made Foxy's attack useless and Foxy instead fell on his face. With the final game of the Davy Back Fight won by the Straw Hats, Foxy and his crew waited anxiously for Luffy's decision. Knowing that the Straw Hats were then looking for a shipwright, they figured that he would choose one of their shipwrights. To their surprise, Luffy choose instead their flag. Though this outraged Foxy and his crew, Luffy explained that he'd just take the Foxy Pirate's Jolly Roger symbol and not the entire sail itself so that Foxy and his crew could still travel. So that they could still sail as pirates also, Luffy also explained that he'll paint them a new one to use instead of the one taken. While this pleased Foxy and his crew, Luffy's drawing skills for their new Jolly Roger unfortunately depressed deeply the whole lot of them. With the Davy Back Fight with the Straw Hats finally over, Foxy and his crew sailed off vowing to get back at Luffy someday for such a disgraceful Jolly Roger.

Davy Back Fight Arc changes

In the anime, the entire Davy Back Fight arc was changed, among these were some of Foxy's actions. First off, when Foxy wanted to get Luffy's attention, he shot Tonjit's horse, Shelly. In the manga originally, Foxy literally shot Shelly with a gun. In the anime however, this scene was drastically toned down with the bullet being replaced instead with a net.[12][13]

After the Groggy Ring battle was won by the Straw Hats, Foxy and his crew taunted at how disgraceful Nami was for thinking of taking Foxy from the Foxy Pirates. In the manga originally, they taunted Nami because by doing this, the Straw Hats would have an automatic win since Foxy was a participant in the next game, Combat. In anime however, with the arc being extended to two sets of Davy Back Fight games and the next game after the Groggy Ring being an anime exclusive game, the reason they taunted Nami was because this meant the Straw Hats would take away from the Foxy Pirates their beloved leader who planned out everything for them.[14][15]
Foxy coaching his team in Run Roll Round

For the third round of Davy Back Fight which was changed to an anime exclusive game, Foxy participated in it as the coach of his team for the game called Run Roll Round. Aside from coaching them, he also helped them out by using his Devil Fruit powers mostly in conjunction with an anime exclusive crewmember of his, Girarin. Though he helped his team to the best he could, Foxy however was thwarted by Nami and Usopp who preyed on his feelings, and by Robin who interfered with his Devil Fruit powers with hers. After losing the game and Chopper back to the Straw Hats, Foxy tricks Luffy into another round of games which included the original third game from the manga, Combat.[16]
Foxy using a special mecha in Hit and Dead Ball

For the second round of Davy Back Fight games, due to the rules being changed, Foxy participated in two of the three games. For the first game, Hit and Deadball, Foxy as participated one of the major players for his crew. Despite the strict rules applied to the game, Foxy was still able to exploit a few loopholes to his advantage. The most prominent of these was the use of his dodgeball shooting mecha. Using the loopholes and the rules to his advantage, Foxy and his crew won the first game of the second round of Davy Back Fight. Having experienced several significant disadvantages caused by Nico Robin with her Hana Hana powers in Run Roll Round and Hit and Dead ball, Foxy decides to take her instead of taking back Chopper as requested by Porche. Knowing (or believing) that with her on his crew, his victory over the Straw Hats in the next games would be assured.[17][18]

After winning the second anime exclusive game, Foxy took Chopper back to his crew. Having taken Chopper, Foxy presented a dire situation for the Straw Hats in the anime. Even if they won the next game, Combat, they could only take one crewmember back. Also since his crew was getting tired from all the Davy Back Fight games, Foxy told the Straw Hats that this game will be the last as he won't accept to play another round of games. Faced with this, Nami in desperation makes a deal with Foxy that who ever wins would take 500 people from the other captain's team. While the Straw Hats do not have nearly enough people, the deal allows Foxy to claim the Straw Hats' children and all their descendants as his crew until he has enough people.[19]
Foxy after being blasted by Luffy in the Sexy Foxy as depicted in the manga (left) and in the anime (right)

During the Combat portion of the Davy Back Fight, a particular scene was changed in the anime. During the match, Foxy entered a spiked room in hopes of tricking Luffy into impaling himself. Unfortunately, Luffy used a cannon instead to blast the room that Foxy entered. In the manga originally, after being blasted by the cannonfire, Foxy unfortunately landed on the spikes he intended to impale Luffy with (though he somehow managed to survive). In the anime, this scene was changed to Foxy quickly getting on top of the cannonball that was fired on him before he landed on the spikes.[20][21]

After the Combat game was won by Luffy, due to the deal made by Nami with Foxy, the winnings that Luffy took from Foxy changed in the anime. After getting Chopper and Robin from Foxy, Luffy preceded to take Foxy's Jolly Roger as per the manga. However, as this was just three things taken from Foxy's crew out of the 500 men promised, Luffy still had 497 people to choose from. In an act of idiocy, Luffy randomly chose 497 men from Foxy's crew in a very simple manner, leaving only Foxy, Porche, and Hamburg left behind. Being no longer apart of the majority of his original crew, Foxy and his two remaining crewmembers were forced to take a dinghy as the 497 crewmembers chosen by Luffy required the Sexy Foxy to sail on. However as Foxy sailed on, Luffy dismissed all the men taken from Foxy as he didn't need them all. Faced with this, Foxy's captainless crew went after him, wanting him back despite the situation they put him.

Return Arcs

While the Straw Hats have yet to re-encounter Foxy again in the manga, he is re-encountered again twice in the anime.

Due to the change of the outcome of the Combat portion in the anime, Foxy and his crew meet the Straw Hats again in a small arc exclusive to the anime. After he and his two remaining crewmembers are saved from a storm by the Straw Hats, Foxy reunites with his old crew on the Sexy Foxy. The reunion is however cut short as a new problem is discovered. It turns out that while Foxy was away, the former captain of the Fanged Toad Pirates and his men decided to take command of the crew. Seeing this, Foxy tried to reclaim his crew back but was thwarted. Fortunately however, the Straw Hats helped Foxy settle the internal dispute in Foxy's crew. Though he regains his crew back thanks to the Straw Hats, instead of thanking them Foxy uses the moment to get revenge on them. Despite this however, he is defeated by them but allowed to continue sailing with his crew.[23]

After the Thriller Bark arc of the anime, Foxy and only his two closest crew members, Hamburg and Porche, are again encountered by the Straw Hats in an anime exclusive place called Spa Island. There, while Foxy is bitter about the Jolly Roger design given by Luffy, his main goal this time however is working alongside the corrupt owner, Doran, to steal a notebook from two sisters whose father discovered how to make jewels. While Foxy and his companions are able to initially best Luffy and most of his crew with a new mecha, their actions are thwarted by Luffy's two newest crewmembers, Franky and Brook. After the Straw Hats defeat Doran and his goons, his brief alliance with the owner is broken.

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