Doctor Kureha

Kureha (くれは, Kureha), also known as Dr. Kureha (ドクター・くれは, Dokutā Kureha) is a highly skilled and very long-lived doctor on Drum Island. She is referred to as "Witch" (魔女, Majo) by some people. She is Chopper Tony Tony's mentor.

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 * —Dr. Kureha.

Appearance

 * Voice Actor: Julie Mayfield (English), Masako Nozawa (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)

Appearance
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.

Pre-Timeskip
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.

Post-Timeskip
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 Hiriluk and Chopper respectively), which is the symbol of the Isshi-100.

She was later seen wearing a shirt with a heart.


 * Hair Color: Light White/Yellow
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Gray-Brown?
 * Age: 139 (debut), 141 (after timeskip)
 * Birthday: May 13th
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

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. 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. 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.

She has kept herself as healthy and fit as a woman in her prime despite being over 140 years old. She considers herself a beautiful virgin flower. She is also quite strong, able to smash through solid brick walls, and even claimed that she could assist in the battle against Wapol's group. 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.

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. Hiriluk 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 King of the Pirates' real name as Roger D. Gol rather than Roger Gold. She then showed some familiarity with the Spirit 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
Dr. Kureha possesses great abilities as a doctor, as shown by her great health even though she is 141 years old. She managed to cure Nami when she was bitten 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. 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.

Outside of her medical expertise, she possesses a certain level of superhuman strength, resistance and speed. She was shown to crush stone walls with ease. She had great resistance against the cold, as she is often seen walking through extremely cold climate of Drum Island with very loose clothing. She is shown chasing Luffy and Sanji, then later Chopper, throwing various weapons that were previously used for wall decoration, possibly as part of a collection, from out of nowhere.

Techniques

 * Doctor Stop! (ドクターストップ, Dokutā Sutoppu): 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, 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.

Past
Dr. Kureha had an odd relationship with Dr. Hiriluk, seeming to enjoy the camaraderie of a fellow "doctor", but dismissing most of his ideas as those of a quack. When she realized that Hiriluk is dying, she agreed (reluctantly) to his last requests: to make his life's work come to fruition and to train Chopper Tony Tony in medicine. During the time since Hiriluk's death, she trained Chopper in medicine, claiming she taught Chopper "everything she knew", and was fairly impressed by the young reindeer's skill.

Anime and Manga Differences

 * In the manga she has a very dark shade of grey hair color instead of light white/yellow.
 * In the anime she encounters a freezing Zolo on her way back to the castle, who she refuses to give him a ride in her sleigh for calling her an old lady.

Notes & Trivia

 * In an SBS, a reader asks Oda if Dr. Kureha will be alright on the next year as Oda discussed that in Fairy One Piece Tail 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.
 * At 141 years old, she is the oldest character (excluding Zunisha) in the series.
 * In the 4th Japanese Fan Poll, Dr. Kureha is ranked the 54th-most popular character in Fairy One Piece Tail.
 * Kureha has her own distinct laugh in the Japanese version; 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.