Yamato, also known as Princess Oni, is the daughter of the former Emperor Kaidou in Oda's One Piece. Trained from a young age to be Kaidou's heir, Yamato instead developed a deep admiration for the samurai Kozuki Oden. After his death, Yamato decided to "become" Oden, impersonating him and adopting his ways. After meeting Monkey D. Luffy, she joins the Alliance in order to defeat the Beast Pirates and escape Onigashima. Yamato is by all accounts one of the most intriguing characters in the series, and in this article, we will explain why Kaido, her father, continues to call her his son.

The answer to this question is very simple: Kaido calls Yamato his son because Yamato decided to identify as a man. After being impressed by Kozuki Oden, Yamato decided to fully become him, which included changing her biological sex. Since then, she has identified as a man, so Kaido continues to call him his son.

The rest of this article will focus on Yamato and her gender. We'll give you all the known details about this issue, which remains one of the most important problems in the current One Piece narrative, as well as its connection to the main question of this article. However, you should be aware that there will be some spoilers in this article, so be careful how you approach it.

Yamato's Gender Explained

The question of Yamato's identity is one of the most complex issues in One Piece, despite the fact that it isn't a major plot-related mystery and that Yamato has the right to be whoever she wants. However, it is a persistent enigma, and its solution has certain implications for this article, which is why we must also discuss it here. Indeed, it is impossible to answer this question about Yamato without addressing the question of her identity.

As we've mentioned in some of our previous articles, Yamato is a biological female. Born Kaidou's daughter, she looks like a girl, and everything about her is very feminine, in terms of her physical appearance. Despite this, she currently considers herself a man. However, the manga has inconsistently referred to her as both a female and a male character, depending on the chapter and the situation.

But, regardless of the fact that the question of his gender remains a mystery until Oda decides to resolve it (or not resolve it), there is a very important reason why Yamato continues to consider himself a man and this reason is linked to Kozuki Oden, a legend of Wano Country and a character who left a lasting impression on this part of Oda's world.

In particular, Yamato aspires to resemble the legendary samurai Kozuki Oden and holds him in higher regard. On several occasions, she has called herself Oden and even adopted his gender by calling herself "son of Kaidou" because Oden is male. Oden's son, Momonosuke, was horrified when Yamato announced herself as such, despite her initial reluctance. Yamato has displayed an outspoken attitude towards this identity over time.

In direct opposition to her father's plans for the nation, Yamato also wishes to fulfill Oden's goals, including opening Wano's borders. Yamato has shown remarkable determination in fighting Kaidou's confinement despite him not being entirely free. She may have been more obedient to him at first, but after a fight with Ace, she rebelled by destroying Kaidou's dragon statue, sparking another outright revolt.

Even though Yamato has fully embraced her role, she still refers to Yamato as "another name of her," maintaining her old persona. Yamato corrected Luffy when he called her by a nickname, showing that she dislikes people calling her by the wrong name. Yamato dreams of leaving Wano Country and setting sail with the Straw Hat Pirates, just as Oden did with the Whitebeard Pirates and the Roger Pirates decades ago. Yamato considers Oden's logbook her "bible" after reading the amazing deeds recorded in it.

As you can see, this is a rather complex question. First of all, Kozuki Oden was an enemy of her father, Kaidou, who was the ruthless ruler of Wano until his defeat at the hands of Monkey D. Luffy. Kaidou was a ruthless ruler, but he was also a shitty father, and this was evident on several occasions. However, he wanted Yamato to be a powerful warrior and his successor, he didn't really care for her, and there was no love between them when she was little. As you might assume, Kaidou wasn't the sweetest or kindest father. He's also one of the reasons why she has a very masculine attitude and why she fights like a boy, even though she's a girl.

The second thing to note here is that Yamato is actually a girl, but it's only because of Oden that she explicitly decided to refer to herself as a boy. This is because not only does she admire one of her father's greatest rivals, but she also changes her entire identity because of him. And this is actually the answer to the question we posed here in this article. Yamato calls herself Oden because she admires the deceased samurai so much. It wasn't enough to fight like Oden, and it wasn't enough to simply admire him; Yamato had to completely become Oden to show how much she respected the samurai.

Now that we've given you all the information you need, you can... no, you can't deduce anything for yourselves because the answer to that question remains unknown. We can confirm that Yamato was born a woman and is biologically female. As things stand, Oda has no plans to change this in the future. We can also confirm that Yamato presents as male because she wants to be Kozuki Oden: "Oden was a man, wasn't he? So I chose to be a man too!"

Why does Kaido call Yamato his son?

Well, the answer to this question becomes quite simple once you know all the facts we've presented above. Yamato is a complex character in many ways, which is why she's so interesting. She's biologically female, but she was raised as a warrior by one of the strongest characters in the entire series, which is why she's never been overly feminine, even though she's called a princess. At one point, she was impressed by the story of Kozuki Oden, one of her father's biggest rivals, and decided to elevate it.

She was so impressed by Oden's story, his heroism, and his skills that she wanted to become Oden, which was especially problematic, considering how her father had killed and despised Oden. And the change was complete. It wasn't just a matter of recreating Oden's moves and techniques, no, Yamato decided to completely become Oden (at least in every non-physical way possible), which is why she decided to become a man, despite being a biological woman. From that moment on, Yamato was known as Oden and identified as a man. And Kaido respected that, which is why he called Yamato his son.