Jango’s Bounty at 9,000,000 Berries

A Marine tribunal is about to hand down a death sentence, and a lieutenant stands up to argue the case by dancing it. The entire courtroom joins in. The judge eventually grants the acquittal on one condition: that the improvised counsel be demoted. That is how this file was closed.

The figure deserved better than its reputation. Nine million looks negligible measured against the New World, but it was roughly three times the average bounty in his home sea, the East Blue. Jango was Captain Kuro's first mate, and he held command of the Black Cat Pirates alone for the three years his captain spent pretending to be dead. The scheme aimed at Kaya's inheritance in Syrup Village was his to run, and he ran it for three years without the man who designed it.

The ending is less dignified. His own crew abandoned him unconscious on an island after the defeat, and he survived by winning a dance contest. That is where he met Fullbody, the man who would later trade his rank for him.

Very few files in this registry close like this one. Not a capture, not a death, not a lapse of time, but a pardon paid for with somebody else's career. Jango did not stop working afterwards. He changed employers. His method has not shifted an inch either: a disc on a string, a two-beat count, and then the instruction. He turned it on himself at least once, which remains the most effective contribution he ever made to his own downfall.