Kureha

**Dr. Kureha** is a highly skilled and very long-lived doctor on Drum Island. She is referred to as "witch" by some people. She is Tony Tony Chopper's mentor.

## Appearance

Despite her exceptionally advanced age and apart from her well-wrinkled faced, Kureha is a slender woman in her prime. Dr. Kureha dresses in a style more suited to women one-seventh her age. This includes a navel ring, a shirt that bares her midriff, a purple blazer and purple low-riding pants. She has a pair of small sunglasses that, when they're not over her eyes, she wears on her forehead even when she's using glasses. She wears bracelets and rings on her left hand.[1]

In the past, she wore her hair in bunches with pink ties. Her pale yellow shirt had an alternating solid green line and purple dotted line pattern.

During the Drum Island arc, she wore pants with a pink design on the left leg and a blazer with a yellow line along the shoulders and down each arm. She wore a white shirt with a pink cherry blossom on the front and green sleeves and borders.

When Dalton informed her of the Straw Hats' bounties after Enies Lobby, her blazer and pants were solid purple. Her blazer had a fur collar and trim. Her belt buckle had either a sun or flower design on it. Her an orange shirt with a thin bull-head silhouette.

After the time skip, she does not look different from two years before. Her blazer had an orange flame pattern along the bottom and on the edge of the right sleeve. Her pants had the same pattern on the left leg. Her shirt had a top hat in front of an X (likely representing Hiluluk and Chopper respectively), which is the symbol of the Isshi-100.[4]

She was later seen wearing a shirt with a heart.[5]

## Personality

Dr. Kureha has often been called a witch for several reasons. The first is her eccentric treatment of patients whom she will violently threaten if they do not follow her orders.[6] The second is her forceful method of checking for injury for example deliberately prodding the ailing area, causing her patients pain and then having Chopper knock them out as a form of anesthetic.[7] The next is her age, a 'too young' 141. The final reason is her reclusive nature. She hates being called "old" or a "hag" and her response is generally to punch or kick the offender across the room, and often begins conversations by asking if whoever she's speaking to wants to know the secret of her youth. Kureha seems to have a drinking habit, judging by the bottle of plum sake (梅酒*umeshu*?) that she always keeps close at hand.

She is, however, a legitimate and extremely skilled practitioner of medicine, managing to cure a disease Nami had which was caused by a bug thought to be extinct.

Kureha takes utmost pride in preserving her supreme health and constitution in her prime despite being a centenarian. She would frequently misunderstood people asking her for the secret of her youth during conversations as shown with Nami and later with Wapol at Mary Geoise. Kureha takes great offense to people calling her old or any term directly related to being called an elderly and would violently assault them in retaliation as shown with Sanji and Luffy. Kureha is also sometimes referred to as being a pirate because she takes what ever she wants as payment for her medical treatments. She apparently likes pickled plums, as stated by Dalton.[8]

Despite her cold demeanor, she does have a loving side to her personality, as she considers Chopper a son and was gravely depressed when Dr. Hiluluk died.

Kureha also appears to incredibly thoughtful carefully deducting Luffy having the initial D would make him a dangerous man and being able to correctly say the Pirate King's real name as Gol D. Roger rather than *Gold Roger*. She then showed some familiarity with the Will of the D. which made her the first person in the series to mention it as most have no idea of its meaning.

## Abilities and Powers

### Medical Expertise

Dr. Kureha possesses genius skills and immense medical knowledge as one of the finest doctors in the world. Her understanding of medicine and the art of healing is exceptional even among the medically advanced doctors of the Drum Kingdom as shown as she could not only live well beyond the normal human life expectancy unaided, but also retain an immensely robust health at the same time. She managed to create an antibiotic to cure Nami when she was bitten and infected by the ancient tick, Kestia, which was thought to be extinct, and as such, the cure would be difficult to find. She is also one of the few doctors around the world authorized to use the highly restricted drug, NHC10.[9] She passed on many of her skills and knowledge to Chopper, who became a great doctor in his own right. She is also extremely good at telling temperatures, deducing Nami's exact temperature simply by poking her forehead with her index finger.

### Physical Abilities

Outside of her medical expertise, she possesses a significantly high level of superhuman strength and speed to match her vast longevity. She was shown to crush stone walls with ease and carry around and throw entire arsenal of heavy weapons effortlessly. She had immense resistance against the cold, as she is often seen walking through the extremely cold climate of Drum Island with very loose clothing. She could easily beat up Luffy and Sanji when both insulted her as as old, sending them crashing towards walls with powerful kicks.

### Attacks

* **Doctor Stop!** (ドクターストップ *Dokutā Sutoppu*?): A technique Kureha used for physical therapy. Whenever she sees a patient about to do something she believes might compromise her medical treatments or interrupt their recovery process, she 'stops' them by any means necessary whether it is to pin them down with her body or stomp them down into the ground. While her methods appear to be brutal and painful, she actually stops the patient from sustaining far worse injury than if she had let them go. For example, stomping on Sanji's damaged spine to immobilize him was a safer option than letting him fight which would have strained his injury to a point that may have prevented him from walking ever again.[10]

## TMNT X Pokemon

Kureha is one of the many doctors in the Hamato Clan. During missions, she works with Litchi and Mikan.

## Trivia

* In an SBS, a reader asks Oda if Dr. Kureha will be alright on the next year as Oda discussed that in One Piece world, a normal human can only live up to 140 years, though she is already 141 years old; Oda said she is still superhuman (in the sense that she goes *beyond* other people), so she will be okay.[26]
* At 141 years old, she is the oldest known human in the series.
* In the 4th Japanese Fan Poll, Dr. Kureha is ranked the 54th-most popular character in *One Piece*.
* Kureha has her own distinct laugh; she starts her laughs with "Hee" (i.e. Heeheeheehee!), reinforcing her similarity to a witch. However, in the anime, her laugh sounds exactly like the eerie laughter of Kitaro from the 2008 horror remake of the classic anime "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro" called "Hakaba Kitaro". Masako Nozawa voices both Dr. Kureha and Kitaro as well as Kitaro from the 1968 and 1971 versions of the "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro" anime.