Although a character appears in the anime of One Piece in over 80 episodes, he is mostly seen in the background. By now, the character has become a running gag, appearing even in some movies and intros.
What kind of character is he? In One Piece, there is often a character who has a human body and a panda head. This is Pandaman. Although Pandaman has not uttered a single word, he has a backstory.
Pandaman is a wrestler. He is often beaten up by others because he claims to have seen Princess Kaguya. Therefore, he wants to become a villain. The character was born in Tibet and abandoned as a baby in a bamboo grove. He was raised there by living pandas.
Pandaman has not paid his debts to another side character named Tomato Gang, which is why he is constantly being chased by him. To collect the debts, Tomato Gang hired the character Unforgivable Mask, a rival of Pandaman. The panda man also has a female counterpart named Pandawomanmi, whom he loves.
Pandaman even has an astonishing bounty of 3,333,333 Berry. This is probably because he has debts to Tomato Gang. Unfortunately, his story is not told in the anime but rather by the author himself in Q&A sessions with fans.
Pandaman even appears in the latest One Piece movie:
Pandaman is frequently seen, but only for a short time
Where does he appear? Pandaman has several appearances, not only in the anime.
- In the manga, he appears at least once in every volume starting from volume 5.
- In the anime, he is seen in over 80 episodes.
- Pandaman also appears in 2 intros.
- Even in the live-action adaptation, he is seen once as a bush and once in the book Noland.
Additionally, there are more spin-offs and video games in which he is featured. Presumably, Pandaman will continue to be a fixed part of One Piece in the future. However, it is questionable whether he will intervene in the story by the grand finale.
Besides Pandaman, there are other characters that are not seen very often in the anime and manga. Some of them we probably see even less than Pandaman. MeinMMO has listed 5 characters that definitely deserve more screen time: There are many cool characters in One Piece, but these 5 are seen far too rarely
