A year after One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda put the final nail in the coffin to the discourse over Yamato’s gender with confirmation that the Oni Princess did, in fact, identify as a woman, the English localization of One Piece Treasure Cruise has been found to still be referring to the heroine with male pronouns.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a subsect of Western Twitter activists still believe that because Yamato is a tomboy, uses male pronouns, and at the end of the Wano bathes in the men’s bath, she must be a transgender man.
However, this take on her character ignores the fact that her use of male pronouns is based in both her being forcefully raised as a boy by her abusive father, Emperor Kaido of the Beasts, to fulfill his desire for a son, as well as her wish to follow in the footsteps of her hero Kozuki Oden.
To this end, since her introduction to the world of One Piece in 2020, the matter of whether Yamato identifies as a man or a woman was eventually put to rest by series mangaka Eiichiro Oda himself – twice, no less.
The first rebuttal came in the form of Yamato’s ‘Vivre Card’, an official profile written with approval from Oda, wherein the heroine was explicitly labelled as a woman.v
The second would occur roughly two years later when, in 2023, the young warrior was included in a cover illustration specifically highlighting the female character from across the franchise, as illustrated for the manga’s 1084th chapter.
Unfortunately, it seems like Oda’s own words have been ignored by Bandai Namco’s English localization teams.
On August 10th, the English-language version of the One Piece Treasure Cruise mobile game kicked off its latest event, Clashing! Burning! Super Battles! VS Super Sugo-Fest! Battle of Onigashima.
As part of this event, the game introduced a new card for Yamato, its art based on a drawing Oda produced of the heroine as an Oiran (the highest ranking Japanese courtesan during the Edo period) for the official One Piece magazine.
Notably, in the original Japanese (as translated for BIC by Twitter user @ChernobylFruit), Oiran Yamato’s card, though it refers to her as “Kaido’s Son”, refrains from using any specific pronouns in its actual description.
“The appearance of becoming the best courtesan in Wano Country, Ccptivating the people of Wano with beauty that hides strength..Taking a breather with a kiseru – a Japanese smoking tobacco pipe – in hand,” reads the card.
However, in the English release, Yamato’s card instead and unmistakably refers to her as a man.
“Son of Kaido, here he appears as the best Oiran in the Land of Wano,” reacds the text on the localized version of her character card. “Yamato captivates the people with Wano with beauty that conceals his strength. Yamato takes a break by posing with a kiseru pipe with one hand.”
Interestingly, while ideology stands as the current speculated reason as to why this change was made, there exists the possibility that it may actually be, at least in part, the result of a machine translation error.
As noted by @nekorize, when ran through Google Translate, the machine learning tool replaces the gender neutral text with masculine pronouns – “He has become the most beautiful courtesan in Wano. He captivates the people of Wano with his beauty and hidden strength. He is taking a break with a tobacco pipe in hand.”
However, as of writing, it remains officially unknown as to just why, whether through human or machine hand, the English version of One Piece Treasure Cruise has chosen to continue pushing the false ‘Yamato is actually a man’ narrative, nor whether or not its localization was done with the assistance of any sort of translation tool.
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