Dr. Hogback is a legendary surgeon whose reputation was so massive that Chopper once said he'd saved more people than there are stars in the sky. Then he vanished from public life, leaving the medical world scrambling to figure out what happened to him.
It turns out he'd been holed up on Thriller Bark the whole time, conducting experiments on the island's zombie population. When the Straw Hats encounter him, he lays it all out: he's researching the fundamental nature of life and death. Nami, Usopp, and Chopper are the ones who actually meet him and get the full explanation of what he's been doing.
Like most One Piece characters, Hogback has a distinctive laugh—"fosfosfosfos"—that's pretty hard to mistake.
Character-wise, he fits the classic mad scientist archetype that runs through Thriller Bark's ensemble of horror movie references. Think Dr. Frankenstein vibes: brilliant, obsessed, and willing to push ethical boundaries in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
