As an otaku, you must have had debates regarding various anime topics. It could have been what the best power system is or who’s stronger across anime universes. Well, one popular debate I have had is, ‘Who’s the smartest character in anime?’. You might answer Shikamaru from Naruto or Light from Death Note, but there’s one character no one ever brings up in these debates – Dr Vegapunk.
In the One Piece universe, there is no debate that Dr Vegapunk is the smartest character alive, and his achievements and creations are a testament to that. From being the research director of MADS to working for the World Government as the leading scientist of the SSG and now being an ally to the Straw Hats, Vegapunk has done a lot.
Eiichiro Oda’s Mad Scientist
When it comes to characters, Vegapunk is one of Oda’s craziest and hyped-up creations. He was first mentioned to us back in Chapter 433 by Koby when he was still a Petty Officer. In this chapter, Koby mentioned that the reason he and the Navy were able to get to the Grand Line through the calm belt was because of the Seastone — Vegapunk’s creation. Helmeppo also added that Vegapunk could explain how the Devil Fruits worked and could even imbue their powers into objects. We wouldn’t get a formal introduction to Vegapunk until Chapter 1061 during the Egghead Arc. A whole 628 chapters later! Even then, we were only introduced to one of his Satellites, who saved Luffy and his Straw Hats from a mechanical shark. It wasn’t until Chapter 1066 that we got to meet the real Dr Vegapunk.
The Six Satellites Of Dr. Vegapunk
When we first got introduced to Vegapunk, he appeared as a young woman. This confused many of us who had pictured the mad scientist as an old man. Fan theories were created that she was a clone of the original Vegapunk due to the “Punk-02” label on her shirt. This theory was proven true in Chapter 1062 when she told the Straw Hats that she wasn’t the original Vegapunk. As the Arc progressed, we discovered that the female Vegapunk we knew was named Lilith. And she was just one of the six bodies of Vegapunk.
It was revealed that due to how busy he was with his inventions, Vegapunk split his consciousness into six people, who are called Satellites. The six Satellites and Vegapunk himself can share the same consciousness. This is because they are connected to Punk Records — where Vegapunk’s brain is stored. While these six bodies all answer to Dr. Vegapunk, they all have their names and embody a part of Vegapunk’s personality. They are all just as intelligent as Vegapunk himself and have contributed to a lot of his works and inventions. Here’s what we know of Dr Vegapunk’s Six Satellites.
Shaka
Shaka represents the logical and rational part of Vegapunk. He is the most calm of the 6 satellites and seems also to be their leader. We get to see him for the first time in Chapter 1062 when he tells Lilith she was wrong for attacking the Straw Hats and should bring them to him. He carries a mysterious aura around him, which could be attributed to his physical appearance. He wears a mask and a long dark coat with the words “Vegapunk 01” written on it. Unfortunately, Shaka gets killed in Chapter 1077 while trying to protect Vegapunk’s real body from the Seraphim.
Lilith
Lilith is the first Satellite we were introduced to. She represents the “evil” aspects of Vegapunk. This is shown in her willingness to steal from ships that trespass into Egghead, justifying her actions to be protecting Dr Vegapunk’s work. She is very rash and prone to bouts of anger. Despite all these, Lilith is highly intelligent. Her engineering skills are top-notch notch, being able to transform Sea Beasts into cyborgs.
Edison
Edison represents the thinking part of Dr Vegapunk. He is a prime contributor to Vegapunk’s inventions because he is responsible for many of the ideas Vegapunk uses. He has a mechanical structure but is less combative than other satellites, preferring to think up new ideas and work on them.
Pythagoras
Similar to Edison, Pythagoras is a mechanical being. He represents the wisdom of Vegapunk. Because of this, he prefers to solve problems diplomatically, looking for ways to avoid violence. We see this in Chapter 1068 when Pythagoras tried to reason with the CP0 agents not to kill Vegapunk instead of resorting to violence. Pythagoras is very intelligent and has been shown to work with Edison to form experiments to test out his ideas.
Atlas
Atlas is drawn as a large girl towering over the likes of Jinbe. She represents the violent aspects of Dr Vegapunk. She is a very powerful character thanks to her godly strength and durability. Atlas was able to hit Luffy (who is a Yonko) with enough force to bruise him and also tank a punch from him without receiving any damage.
York
York is one of the more complex Satellites due to her being an antagonist of the Egghead Arc. She represents the greediness Dr Vegapunk has. Her task is to ensure Dr Vegapunk and the other Satellites stay replenished by eating and sleeping for them. She is usually seen as lazy, but this was shown to be an act of hers. In Chapter 1078, York shows her deceptive and selfish nature when she betrays her Satellite brethren, looking to kill them and become the only Dr. Vegapunk. While the six bodies are referred to as Satellites, Dr. Vegapunk’s original body is known as Stella.
Vegapunk’s Genius
Dr Vegapunk is the smartest human alive in One Piece. He is said to be at least 400 years ahead of his time. His understanding of several fields of science and technology allows him to do pretty much anything. Even as a young man before eating the Brain Brain Fruit, Vegapunk had many crazy ideas under his belt. He single-handedly built his lab and the various devices and animal robots within it on Karakuri Island. When Franky entered Vegapunk’s old lab, he was astonished at the work and blueprints that Vegapunk had long created. One of his greatest feats of intelligence and skill was removing his brain and storing it safely without killing himself. Then he gave himself and his Satellites the ability to connect to his brain.
His brilliance is once more shown when he and his MADS team cracked the code to the Lineage Factor. The blueprint of life. This gave him the ability to practically create and manipulate life, as they showed when they created a clone of Stussy. He also has great expertise in bioengineering and biomedical fields. Dr. Vegapunk was able to turn Kuma into a cyborg, create the Pacifistas (clones of Kuma), and imbue them with some of Pika Pika no Mi‘s abilities in the form of lasers, although they lacked Kuma’s own Devil Fruit abilities. He would later refine his cloning abilities and create perfect clones of the Seven Warlords of The Sea with Lunarian attributes — The Seraphim.
Knowledge Of Devil Fruits
Vegapunk also possessed vast knowledge and insight on Devil Fruits. He figured out how the powers of Devil Fruit get transferred to the water and was able to use this knowledge to imbue Devil Fruit’s powers into non-living things like weapons. It was through this that he could create the Seraphim by using the Lineage Factor of an individual who had consumed a Paramecia devil fruit to create Green Blood, which flows within the Seraphim.
His knowledge of Devil Fruits also allowed him to figure out the truth about Luffy’s Devil Fruit after seeing its true form. He even has a theory on how Devil Fruits are created. He theorizes that Devil Fruits are born from the desires of humans, which is why the sea doesn’t allow any user of Devil Fruits to swim in it because it considers those desires to be beyond the kind of world humans should live in. Vegapunk’s feats of intelligence are too many to name. He is responsible for a ton of technological and scientific advancements within Oda’s One Piece universe.
The Nomi Nomi no Mi (Brain Brain Fruit)
We have to give props to the cleverness Eiichiro Ida put into naming this devil fruit. The Nomi Nomi no Mi is Dr. Vegapunk’s Devil Fruit. It is a Paramecia Devil Fruit that gives Vegapunk the ability to store and remember any new knowledge he acquires in his brain forever. The downside though is that his brain keeps growing and getting bigger the more he learns. At a point, Vegapunk’s brain was said to become so huge it rivaled the size of giants.
This inconvenience forced Vegapunk to find a solution, and that was to cut his brain out. Insane right? But if there’s anyone who could pull that off, it is going to be Dr Vegapunk, and he did. He removed his brain and stored it in Punk Records on Egghead Island. From there, the brain can connect with its body through brain waves sent from an antennae. Just like any other Devil Fruits user, Vegapunk is unable to swim in the sea without drowning. That’s one thing he hasn’t cracked.
Vegapunk’s Past
Vegapunk was born and raised on the island of Karakuri. While growing up, Vegapunk showed his genius potential by building his lab from scratch. Within this lab, he made a lot of cool scientific inventions, such as robotic animals that still work decades after their creation. At a point in his life, Vegapunk stumbled upon the Brain Brain Fruit and ate it. It gave him infinite retentive memory and a head that kept growing as he gained more knowledge.
Forming MADS
Vegapunk would later travel away from Karakuri Island and form MADS, an illegal research organization with Vinsmoke Judge, the leader of the Germa Kingdom, Queen the Plague, an All-Star of the Beasts Pirates, Buckingham Stussy and Caesar Clown. While Judge, Queen, and the rest put their time into building destructive weapons, Vegapunk puts his time into inventing beneficial products like the GP flowers. During their time together, the team discovered the Lineage Factor and used this technology to create life in the form of a clone of Stussy. This caught the eye of the World Government, who deemed the discovery a threat and sent the Navy after them.
Working For The World Government
The Navy would eventually catch Vegapunk and put him in their employ. There, he became the lead scientist of the SSG and got famous for his work on Seastones and Devil Fruits. To ease his research work, he created his Satellites whom he visited Mary Geoise with. While there, they saw how cruel the World Government was. It was in this time period he met Kaido after he got captured. Vegapunk managed to get some of Kaido’s Lineage Factor and cloned his Devil Fruit. In this time span, Vegapunk got to meet Monkey D. Dragon when he traveled to Ohara to pay his respect to the dead Professor Clover. While on the island, Vegapunk found giants recovering the books that were saved by Ohara’s scholar after the World Government’s raid on their island. It was here Monkey D. Dragon vowed to create an army to fight the World Government’s injustice.
Vegapunk’s Character Design
When we first met Vegapunk, he was an elderly man of 65 years of age. He is a tall and slender man with a longer-than-normal head with spiky white hair, a mustache, and eyebrows. His large head has been cut open and has had the top half replaced with what looks like the top of an apple with its leaf still intact. He also has a very long tongue and a round nose. He is usually wearing a pink shirt under a white coat and purple pants. Before removing his brain, Vegapunk had a massive head, which was the side effect of his Devil Fruit, the Brain Brain Fruit.
In terms of personality, Oda wrote Dr Vegapunk to be a moral character. This can be seen in his unwillingness to involve humans in his experiments and his goals of creating inventions that can help humans in the present and future. He even chose to work for the World Government despite their ruthless nature because he believed they provided the necessary resources to make inventions that could benefit the masses. Since his Satellites are an extension of Vegapunk’s personality, it’s safe to say he has those qualities too. This means that he is a logical and rational thinker like Shaka, he has evil and malevolent thoughts like Lillith, Edison’s thoughtfulness, Pythagoras’ wisdom, and Atlas’ anger. His scientific nature also makes Vegapunk a very curious and inquisitive man.
