The covert operatives of the World Government in One Piece, Cipher Pol 0 are the ones that handle all the dirty work. Their members are often involved in deep undercover investigations, true identities unknown. Sometimes they’re just sent for assassinations, but nobody is any wiser about who they are. The shadowy organization known as Cipher Pol 0 will keep the Gorosei’s interests as their top priority, and they have no qualms about killing anyone in One Piece.
Fair warning, this article contains spoilers for One Piece through chapter 1090. The manga is available to read on Mangaplus and Viz online. Proceed with caution!
What is Cipher Pol 0?
Cipher Pol as an entity is a series of spy networks throughout the world. They number 0-9, with the Cipher Pol 0 as the strongest and most secretive. These agencies span the Grand Line, New World, and surrounding four seas to keep things in check for the World Government. This can range from simple intelligence gathering to assassination, usually handled by 0 or the higher numbers.
Most of Cipher Pol 9 is now part of Cipher Pol Aegis 0, which is a more specialized team. It doesn’t change much about their status, but does give the team some fancy new wardrobe upgrades.
Is Cipher Pol Part of the Navy?
Absolutely not. Cipher Pol is a part of the World Government and only answers to them. While interests usually align with the Navy and they occasionally join forces, Cipher Pol has no obligation to Navy officers. The only ones that Cipher Pol will answer to besides the Gorosei are requests by Celestial Dragons, which are still small requests all things considered.
Rob Lucci
The leader of Cipher Pol 9 and later 0 in all but name, Rob Lucci has been a long-running antagonist. Stranger now in the Egghead Island arc he’s become a temporary ally to the Straw Hats. Rob Lucci is a man of few words, preferring to do his talking through Hattori his pet pigeon. He’s a great ventriloquist, and uses it to throw enemies off as well as his disguise. Where Rob Lucci truly excels though, is murder. He’s a vicious fighter, with mastery of the Six Powers and a Zoan Devil Fruit.
The Cat-Cat Fruit, Model: Leopard is just as ferocious as Lucci, giving him the brute strength to tear enemies apart. It’s not often that he has to pull these powers out, preferring to stick with his Six Powers skills to take out enemies. In cases like Luffy though, he’ll assume a hybrid beast form that’s a terror in size and deadliness. He and Luffy destroy most of Enies Lobby in their battle, and Lucci only manages to lose by the slightest margin even then. When he reappears at Egghead Island later, his Devil Fruit Awakening makes him even more dangerous.
Kaku
The not-Usopp of Cipher Pol 0 is probably the member that’s not given enough credit. He’s strong, able to go toe-to-toe with Zoro and keep him in a close battle. Even though he loses, he still comes back with his Four Sword Style later in Egghead Island with an even greater mastery of the Six Powers with it. Kaku has all the strength to make a great agent, it’s just his ridiculous appearance that frequently puts him in the backseat to the others. His Devil Fruit doesn’t help much, as he ate the Ox-Ox Fruit, Model: Giraffe.
The giant square nose is made even more apparent in his beast form, but he makes up for it with blistering speed and fierce attacks. He’s able to swing his long neck around to send damaging attacks at enemies, and even infuses his nose with Haki for a battering ram. Kaku doesn’t get near the credit he deserves, but he’s definitely the strongest Cipher Pol 0 member behind Rob Lucci in the current story.
Kalifa
The deep-cover femme fatale of CP0, Kalifa starts out as the assistant to Mayor Iceberg in Water 7. Her reveal as one of the many Cipher Pol agents deep undercover in the Galley-La company and surrounding city was shocking. The betrayal of Iceberg, whom she knew everything about, all for her loyalty to the World Government, though she does get a Devil Fruit from the situation. The Bubble-Bubble Fruit, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, allows Kalifa not only to create bubbles but to bubble-ize her enemy.
Of course, Sanji is the first to be taken out at Water 7 thanks to this ability, but Nami suffers just as easily. Kalifa doesn’t pull any punches, and is only defeated thanks to Nami’s quick strategic thinking. She’s still an incredibly strong member of Cipher Pol 0 though, and one of their most trusted assassins.
Blueno
He may not look it, but Blueno is a fast fighter with an extremely powerful Devil Fruit. He’s probably the third strongest member of the former Cipher Pol 0 team, thanks to his Six Powers skills and Devil Fruit abilities. It’s these powers from his Door-Door Fruit that makes him such a pain in the ass for Luffy. Blueno can open doors anywhere he pleases, even in empty space, that leads into a sort of side dimension. It’s not only great for espionage and infiltration, but battle as well.
The speed and Door-Door Fruit powers of Blueno even require Luffy to bring out a whole new ability. Their fight at Enies Lobby has a massive turning point when Gear Second goes into effect, and Luffy flips the script. Blueno’s Iron Body can’t even keep up with the amount of sustained damage, but despite his early defeat, he’s still one of Cipher Pol 0’s strongest.
Spandam
F. this guy. Really, Spandam deserves no sympathy, he’s like if Helmeppo was allowed to run amok for the rest of his life. Spandam has no redeeming qualities, is barely good at using the Six Powers. He would be dead if not for his sword. That makes it sound like he has skill with a sword, but he doesn’t. The only reason Spandam gets through anything is that his sword ate the Elephant-Elephant Fruit! Now it can switch from sword to elephant at will. His name is Funkfreed and he is a completely innocent unwilling victim of Spandam.
The height of nepotism, Spandam’s father was the previous leader of Cipher Pol 0, Spandine. He was just as much of a dick, but at least had some clout to back it up. Spandam meanwhile, is nothing but a little bitch who was only capable of hitting Nico Robin while she’s restrained. Lower than trash.
Jabra
The big bad wolf of Cipher Pol is just that, and even leads the Straw Hats resident liar on with his own fibs. Jabra is devious, with Six Powers abilities to back it up. His Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Wolf makes him even more dangerous, as he assumes a hybrid form with sharp claws and fangs. Jabra isn’t quite a master of the Six Powers, but he does have enough to make himself a threat. By the end of their fight at Enies Lobby, Jabra is just one of the Cipher Pol members who fall to Chopper’s Monster Point form.
Fukurou
There’s a reason he has a zipper on his mouth, and it needs to stay closed much more than it does. Fukurou is a loudmouth member of Cipher Pol, great at chatting up locals while undercover for information. The thing is, he’s also really bad at keeping information secret. He tells everyone he meets every secret he knows, whether it’s his to tell or not, and it often leads to big trouble with his other Cipher Pol members.
Despite his big mouth, Fukurou is more than capable in fights. He has great mastery over the Iron Body technique, as well as the Six Powers Finger Gun ability. Though he’s definitely not the strongest of Cipher Pol, since he goes out pretty early on in Enies Lobby. Still, he’s good enough to make it into the promotion to Cipher Pol 0 along with the rest. If Spandam gets in there’s not a very high bar, though.
Kumadori
Yeah, this guy is just weird. There’s no good way to describe him, but he has this weird control over his hair. That and he’s very creepy, but ends up taken out by Chopper fairly early thanks to Monster Point. Despite Kumadori’s seeming proficiency in the Six Powers, he takes a loss really quickly to get him out of the way for stronger Cipher Pol agents.
Guernica
One of the newer members of Cipher Pol Aegis 0 to debut. Guernica seems to be the leader of the secretive group that gets everything done. Guernica pulls the strings to have Big News Morgans run the fake story about Doflamingo. He’s also at the raid on Onigashima, along with some of the other more secretive members of Cipher Pol 0. His strength is immense, as it has to be for him to reach that kind of position in Cipher Pol.
During the battle of Wano the Gorosei order him to not let Straw Hat Luffy live. Throughout the span of Wano, Guernica takes out X Drake and Izo, plus makes his way through most of the performance floor unscathed. Then this guy has the absolute balls of steel to make a jump as Luffy is going in to attack Kaido and hold the Straw Hat Captain back. He holds Gear Fourth Luffy back and takes the full brunt of Kaido’s hit along with him. Then, because that REALLY pisses Kaido off, Guernica takes a hit hard enough to send him soaring from Wano. Nobody knows if he’s still alive!
Joseph
A more mysterious and quiet member of Cipher Pol 0, Joseph doesn’t say a whole lot. He’s a background character in the raid on Wano. He does help Guernica carry out any orders or just keeping any pesky intruders out, though. His status is still unknown, but if anyone made it out of the raid on Onigashima, it was probably him.
Cipher Pol 0 is a wildcard in the overall story of One Piece, though it seems they’re still in the antagonist camp. There’s still a lot happening on Egghead Island though, with Lucci and Kaku in the same boat as the Straw Hats. That’s not to say they’re going to stay on friendly terms with the pirates, but some new motives may pop up for certain Cipher Pol 0 members. No matter what, the final saga of One Piece is heating up!
