In One Piece Background and origins Originating from the island of Ohara in the West Blue, and followed her steps, becoming an archaeologist herself at the age of eight. While Robin's father has remained unrevealed to present, Olvia mentioned that it was her personal goal to fulfil his dream of locating and deciphering Poneglyphs — large and apparently indestructible steles inscribed in an ancient language unknown to most of modern men, which are scattered around the world and known for delivering informations about world's history not to be found in any other source. Olvia left Ohara when Robin was two years old, joining a research expedition, and only returned six years later, alone. Behind her teachers' backs, she acquired from them the outlawed knowledge of how to translate the ancient stones called Poneglyphs, which are scattered around the world. She came to share their goal of finding the elusive Real Poneglyph, which is said to tell the world's lost history and especially that of the Void Century — a piece of history dating 800 years before the main events, after which the
World Government came into form, and which has been erased from all Government-approved sources.
Ohara incident and life on the run When Robin was eight years old, she met a castaway giant on Ohara's coast, Jaguar D. Saul, who informed her that he was a Vice Admiral and that the World Government had found out about Ohara's researches, and had sent a battlefleet to suppress all archaeological research, the researchers, and the library itself. On the same day, Nico Olvia returned to Ohara to carry the same information. Just later the battlefleet arrived and opened fire on Ohara, including on the evacuation ship carrying civilians by order of then-Vice Admiral
Sakazuki, while Saul was frozen to apparent death by Vice Admiral
Kuzan. Robin could flee the attack as its sole survivor thanks to Kuzan's help following Saul's last wish and lived on the run for twenty years. She was given the
epithets "Demon of Ohara" and "Devil Child" by the World Government, with a bounty of 79,000,000; the true reasons for the bounty remained classified and she was officially wanted for an attempt to overthrow the World Government.
Ms. All-Sunday, Operation Utopia, and meeting the Straw Hats Left orphaned and traumatized, Robin became a criminal and unable to trust anyone, as well as to be trusted by either civilians or pirates due to her exceptionally high bounty and her fame of being a traitor, an assassin, and a lone rider. At age 8 she joined her first pirate crew and at age 23 (fifteen years after the Ohara incident), she could enter the Grand Line from her native West Blue. At the same time she pursued her archaeological researches and she managed to locate at least one Poneglyph, as still a pre-teen in the West Blue. At age 24, one year after entering the Grand Line, she travelled to Arabasta Kingdom where she joined
Sir Crocodile's
crime syndicate Baroque Works, serving under codename Ms. All-Sunday as the organization's vice-president (only junior to Crocodile himself, and the only agent to actually know his true identity, as for all of the others he was known under codename Mr. 0). Within Baroque Works, Robin/All-Sunday acted primarily as a supervisor, coordinator, and liaison agent between Mr. 0 and his subordinates. Their ultimate goal was to locate and decipher the Poneglyph hidden under Arabasta's capital city Alubarna (codenamed "Operation Utopia"), which Crocodile knew contained crucial informations for an ancient superweapon known as Pluton. Given her unique ability to read Poneglyphs, Crocodile had taken advantage of his own position as Warlord of the Sea to track down and hire Robin. Robin first met her would-be crew mates upon infiltrating their ship and offering them a rare Eternal Pose which would have led them to a secure island, however far from Arabasta. However, Luffy refused her offer and destroyed the Eternal Pose, claiming that she had no authority over their ship's whereabouts. She was revealed by
Princess Vivi as Baroque Works' vice-president, and claimed having purposefully lured Vivi to know Mr. 0's true identity. Immediately after, Crocodile was faced and ultimately defeated by
Monkey D. Luffy. After the battle, Robin gave Luffy the antidote against the poison in Crocodile's hook, and asked him to be left in the collapsing Tomb of the Kings, as her wish was to finally die. However, Luffy refused to listen to Robin and — despite her protests — carried her out of the dungeon saving her life.
Joining the Straw Hats and visiting the Sky Island Once again finding herself with nowhere to go nor to come back to, Robin infiltrated the Straw Hats' ship once again and asked to be included in the crew, claiming that by not fulfilling her wish to die, Luffy had made her an unforgivable insult and that she held him responsible for her continued existence, and for the first time she voices out her personal quest of locating the Rio Poneglyph. Despite the crew's protests (save Sanji), Luffy accepted her as the seventh member of the Straw Hats. Robin was initially solitary and spent her time on the Going Merry mostly reading history books and being revered by Sanji, with
Zoro being the only remaining crew member to still be wary of her. Shortly after Robin's inclusion, the Straw Hats arrived in the island of Jaya, and after
Nami's Log Pose began pointing upwards, they used a vertical water stream known as the Knock Up Stream to travel to a legendary island in the sky, Skypiea. Here, Robin examined the ruins of the civilization that ruled the island in the past and, most importantly, the Poneglyph located in the ancient capital city Shandora, containing informations about another ancient superweapon, Poseidon; she furthermore discovers that it also bears a message in the ancient language, but left in recent times by none other than
Gol D. Roger, discouraging scholars to go further in their research. On Skypiea, the crew also faced and eventually defeated the tyrannical
Eneru.
Long Ring Long Land, Water 7, and Enies Lobby Upon returning from Skypiea, the Straw Hats stopped off at Long Ring Long Land where they briefly confronted Pirate captain Foxy and his Davy Back Fight challenge. Immediately after, Nico Robin was tracked down by Kuzan (now serving as Admiral under codename Aokiji), who had heard of her joining a new crew and had decided to check her whereabouts in person. After initially stating that he is not on official duties and is not seeking confrontation, Aokiji changed his mind and attacked the crew, since with the addition of Nico Robin he judged them too much of a threat for the world. Thus he easily defeated Luffy, Zoro and Sanji attacking at once, and froze down Robin herself. Luffy fought Aokiji one-on-one to buy time for Zoro and Sanji to unfreeze Robin, and ended up defeated and frozen down himself. However, Aokiji spared him and the rest of the crew, choosing not to go after them since he believed Nico Robin would have betrayed and destroyed them anyway. After the confrontation with Aokiji, the Straw Hats sailed to Water 7, a city renowned for its shipwrights, in order to have their ship repaired and potentially add a shipwright to the crew. While there, Nico Robin was approached by a masked man who simply mumbled the words "CP9" to her, and leaving her in shock. She followed the man, whom she was later seen with by Sanji. The CP9 threatened Robin with an island-destroying Buster Call should she not help them to assassinate Iceburg, the city major, steal the blueprints for the superweapon Pluton from him, which they believed were in his possession through inheritance from his late master shipwright Tom; they also threatened her to take the guilt of Iceburg's assassination and follow them to the World Government military base Enies Lobby to be executed for her crimes against the world, otherwise the agency would have attacked the Straw Hats. Upon reuniting with the crew, Robin told them about "the darkness in [her] heart" and that she was about to leave them, since she had one goal she could not reach while with the crew. That night, CP9 and Robin raided Galley-La, the city's largest shipwright company, and tried to kill Iceburg. The assassins revealed themselves as a government secret agency. The CP9 located the blueprints in
Franky's hideout, an underworld don who also had been Tom's apprentice, and stole them. After discovering her real reason for leaving and that her true goal was their safety, the Straw Hats travelled to Enies Lobby and declared an open war against the World Government just to get her back. She realized that she has finally found people who will never sell her out and becomes part of the crew, and voiced out her will to live. After defeating the CP9, the Straw Hats managed to flee back to Water 7 and have their wounds healed, but had to bid farewell to their ship since it was too damaged to sail again. However, Franky, who had fought with them at Enies Lobby, decided to build them a new ship, and expressed his personal dream that it could conquer the Grand Line. Robin was once again approached by Aokiji, who voiced out his surprise at CP9's defeat and asked Robin whether she had finally found her place to stay — to which she answered "Yes". Aokiji then left, remarking that Ohara had not been fully destroyed. After the Enies Lobby events, Robin also learnt about Monkey D. Luffy being grandson to Vice-Admiral
Monkey D. Garp, and son to none other than
Monkey D. Dragon, the world's most wanted criminal and leader of a revolutionary army. She also received a new bounty of 80,000,000, a small increasement from her previous one, which she speculated was due to Aokiji's personal intervention. Before leaving Water 7, she also was instrumental in convincing Franky to join the crew.
Thriller Bark After leaving Water 7, the Straw Hats sailed through the Florian Triangle — a sea zone perennially covered in fog — and met a ghost ship and its only sailor, pirate musician and undead skeleton
Brook, whom Luffy immediately invited to join the crew. He accepted, but his casual mention of having had his shadow stolen some years before caught Robin's attention. Immediately after, the Thousand Sunny was captured by Thriller Bark, the world's largest pirate ship. Here the Straw Hats faced the undead pirates led by
Gecko Moria, one of the seven Warlords of the Sea, a pirate with the Devil Fruit ability to steal and freely manipulate people's shadows and, through them, have the shadow's owners under his control. Here Robin expressed her grimly aesthetic tastes, supporting Luffy's proposition to explore Thriller Bark since she "like[d] thrills" and finding Cerberus — a three-headed zombie dog — "cute". While exploring the island/ship, Robin was paired with Franky, with whom she fought the giant zombie spider-monkey Tararan and learnt from Brook the zombies' weak point, salt. She also teamed up with Chopper to defeat zombie surgeon and Moria's right-hand Dr. Hogback, but was robbed of her shadow by Moria. After Luffy's victory over Moria, Robin and the rest of the crew fought and were defeated by Warlord of the Sea
Bartholomew Kuma, who was sent to capture Luffy. Kuma destroyed Thriller Bark and knocked down the Straw Hats but, out of respect for the crew's loyalty to their captain, accepted Zoro's offer to move all of Luffy's pain to him, then left. The crew threw a party with Moria's former slaves, and despite Sanji's effort to keep the crew unaware of Zoro's sacrifice, Robin managed to eavesdrop on the conversation; they spent some days on Thriller Bark to dispose of the fallen and recover from injuries, then set sail for Fish-Men Island.
Sabaody Archipelago, crew split, and Tequila Wolf At the Sabaody Archipelago — the last islands of the first half of the Grand Line — the Straw Hats met
Silvers Rayleigh, who in the past had served as Gol D. Roger's
first mate. He confirmed that the Roger pirates had left the message on Shandora's Poneglyph and also that they had found the Rio Poneglyph and read the True History. Robin declined his offer to be informed of it, but was still warned by Rayleigh that they were mere pirates and lacked the scholarship to fully understand the text, and that Robin herself would probably come to different conclusions than theirs, leaving her puzzled. Shortly after the archipelago was raided by Admiral Borsalino (codename
Kizaru), who had been sent to eliminate the pirates after Luffy had punched a World Noble — a direct descendant of the World Government's founders — in the face during a slave auction. With her mates, Robin fought a Kuma-looking cyborg, before the real Kuma showed up and sent each of the crew members to separate locations scattered around the world. Nico Robin was sent to Tequila Wolf, a country in the East Blue whose inhabitants had been enslaved 700 years prior and forced to build a seemingly endless bridge. Robin herself was captured and put to work, without being given any explanation as to why the bridge had to be built. She was later able to escape slavery by stealing keys to her handcuffs, just before the country was liberated by the Revolutionary Army. Robin was informed via newspaper of the Marineford War, and that the bridge construction was a direct order coming from the World Nobles. She also received Luffy's message to train for the next two years, before meeting again at Sabaody. The Revolutionaries explained that they had been looking for her for ten years given her unique knowledge of Poneglyphs, and that Dragon wanted her to join the Army. She declined the offer to be protected, but accepted to meet Dragon. However, she remained wary of the Revolutionaries, refusing to enter their ship's cabins since they had no escapes, and spending the whole journey to the Revolutionary Army's base on the deck. She also stated that for the first time that she wanted to become stronger for someone else. Robin spent two years training with the Revolutionaries, learning to better master her Devil Fruit powers and also fundamentals of Fish-Man Karate, which she implemented in her sprouted limbs to deliver stronger hits. Robin honed her Flower-Flower Fruit powers to the point where she could create full-bodied duplicates of herself and even wings made of arms and hands, allowing her to fly. She was also given a new epithet, "Light of the Revolution".
Reunion, Fish-Man Island, and to the New World Robin was the eighth Straw Hat member to return to Sabaody, doing so secretly in order to lose World Government agents chasing after her. She reunited with Franky, Nami, Usopp and Chopper at Sabaody's Grove 17, and after the whole crew reunited, they set sail for the underwater Fish-Man Island. After Robin was unsuccessfully captured in Wano by CP0, the Government's direct intelligence agency after another Cipher Pol agency, CP9, had already failed to execute her two years prior, her bounty was raised to over seven times her previous bounty, from 130,000,000 to 930,000,000.
In other media In the
anime television series adaptation of the manga, Robin's voice actress is
Yuriko Yamaguchi. In the
4Kids Entertainment English adaptation, her Baroque Works codename was changed to
Miss Sunday and she is voiced by
Veronica Taylor who portrays her with a country accent. In the
Funimation English adaptation, her voice is supplied by
Stephanie Young. In addition to the anime, Robin is featured in many of the adaptations based on the
One Piece media franchise, including
films,
video games, and others as well. Emiya Ichikawa II performed as Robin in a
kabuki play inspired by
One Piece that ran at Tokyo's
Shinbashi Enbujō throughout October and November 2015. Robin has also appeared as a
playable character in the crossover fighting games
Jump Super Stars and
Jump Ultimate Stars. Robin is portrayed by
Lera Abova in the
live action adaptation, in this series having more role before her first encounter with the Straw Hats, in a subplot where she visits Shellstown and Loguetown, and later having appearances during the events at Drum Island. ==Reception==