So-and-So

“So-and-So” / “Sir Samurai” · unknown · captured Wano swordsman (flashback)

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A captured Wano swordsman imprisoned by Kaido in the “sacred cave” alongside the chained child Yamato (flashback, ~20 years prior, Ch. 1024). When Kaido throws in a single meal to force the starving prisoners to kill each other, So-and-So instead gives his food to the child — “A samurai does not feel hunger.” Asked his name, he says “What name does a fallen samurai need…? Just call me So-and-So.” He and the other swordsmen knew and loved Kozuki Oden (“That man was beloved to all of us”), recognize the child who styles herself “Kozuki Oden,” and give Yamato Oden’s voyage journal. Realizing Kaido means them to die, they break open the sacred cave rather than starve, telling Yamato “you’re not alone.” The chapter’s title character; the formative figure behind Yamato’s identification with Oden. (Name is the deliberate anonymizing alias 某 / “So-and-So”; true name withheld — do NOT invent one.)

Etymology

• Surface meaning. The VIZ “So-and-So” renders 某（なにがし）, Nanigashi — also the chapter’s title. 某 is a Japanese indefinite pronoun: “a certain someone,” “so-and-so,” “what’s-his-name.” It is the word you use precisely when you decline to give a name.
• The samurai layer (the real pun). 某 / なにがし (and its variant 某 / soregashi) doubles as an archaic, self-deprecating SAMURAI first-person pronoun — a humble “this unworthy one / I” used mainly by warriors from the Warring-States period onward. So when the swordsman is asked his name and replies “just call me Nanigashi,” he is answering the question of his identity with the very word a samurai uses for himself. The name is at once a refusal of a name and a badge of samurai self-effacement — exactly fitting a man who calls himself “a fallen samurai” with no name left to give. The on-page line “What name does a fallen samurai need…?” is Oda’s explicit gloss on the pun.
• No forward-leak. The name encodes anonymity, not a hidden identity — it does not point to a specific person. His true name is deliberately withheld on-page (1024 is flashback-only); the vault does not assert any later/community-proposed identity. No name-etymology Foreshadowing is filed: a name whose meaning is “withhold the name” does not encode a future reveal.

Sources: Wiktionary 某 (なにがし / ぼう readings); Japanese-pronoun references on 某/soregashi as an archaic samurai humble self-reference; One Piece Wiki, “Chapter 1024” (title なにがし). Cross-links Yamato, Kozuki Oden.

Arc-by-arc updates

Wano Country — flashback, the sacred cave (Ch. 1024)

• Imprisoned with the chained child Yamato and other Wano swordsmen in Kaido’s “sacred cave”. Refuses to fight over the single meal Kaido throws in, giving his food to the starving child — “A samurai does not feel hunger” (pp. 9–13).
• Asked his name, answers “What name does a fallen samurai need…? Just call me So-and-So” — the chapter’s title beat (p. 13).
• Knew and loved Kozuki Oden (“That man was beloved to all of us”); gives the child Oden’s voyage journal (“Oden’s Travels”) (pp. 13–14). Laments “we won’t be around to see this battle 20 years in the future that Oden speaks of.”
• Realizing Kaido means them all to starve, leads the swordsmen in breaking open the sacred cave rather than waste away, telling Yamato “you’re not alone” (p. 15). See Why Is Kaidos Son Yamato Aiding Luffy, Odens Voyage Journal Survives As Yamatos Bible.
• (Flashback character — first_appearance / last_appearance both 1024; status: unknown [fate not shown on-page].)