What is the One Piece? What happened during the void century? And how will One PIEce,
the possibly most well-written story of our time, end?
These are the 3 biggest questions that every One piece fan is
burning to get the answers to above anything else.
And every now and then a theory comes around, an idea so wild and different,
that no matter how unlikely it might be to actually turn out to be the truth,
it completely turns our perspective on One Piece completely on its head.
This is one of these ideas, that has a very unconventional and radical take on the final
twist on Luffy's adventure to become the king of the pirates and change the world. Why?
Because it involves one of the, if not the most controversial tropes of storytelling: Time Travel.
And yet, even though I am usually very sceptical of this concept myself, if what I'm about to tell
you is true, it would make for the most satisfying ending to One PIece, that I have yet come across.
Based on the most recents developments in the [SPOILER WARNING] we all have taken
it for granted, that Luffy is Joyboy. Whether that means that he is possessed,
has awakened his spirit or simply has inherited his will, many people were quite sceptical
about the idea that Luffy might stop being only Luffy, but become a child of prophecy, who was
destined to do great things right from the start. Luffy being some sort of reincarnation might
take away from his achievements and being the special and unique person,
who we all have grown to love and cheer for over many many years. All now thrown overboard with
the reveal that Luffy is JoyBoy, the man Roger and Oden and Manny others have been waiting for.
But what if we got it all wrong. What if it's one of Eichiro Oda's famous red herrings.
Like how teach said he didn't have that type of ambition to become the second division commander,
because of course he had much greater ambitions than that.
Or how the Gomu Gomu no mi was a mythical Zoan fruit all along. So what if Luffy wasn't
really JoyBoy. What if Joy Boy was actually Luffy, who traveled back to the void century.
Sounds absolutely ridiculous at first,
but you might be surprised how well this would fit into the storyline overall.
So even if I wouldn't rate it as the most probable thing to happen,
I'm sure you will enjoy the conclusion to this.
It all started with a message I got a few weeks ago from a mysterious subscriber of this channel,
who shared with me a number of articles and posts about the idea that the strange world of One PIece
might be the result of a time loop or time leap happening. Most of these ideas were basically
pure fan fiction. However a few ideas stood out to me as quite interesting at that point.
For instance, how certain events seem to repeat themselves throughout history. The government,
that has apparently conducted major cleansings throughout the centuries. People like Joy Boy,
Noland or Roger repeatedly popping up in different eras. How the void century and people of the
past keep communicating with the present through objects like the poneglyphs or inherited will. And
of course the parallel between Luffy's straw hat and the giant straw hat on Marijoe, kept by Imu,
the secret ruler of the world, who looks like a giant hand of a clock sitting on their throne.
And in general, as you know, time shenanigans are
and always have been a very very popular theme in Anime and manga.
The thing that finally got my full attention on this idea however, was a 2 year old
video by a smaller One Piece YouTuber called 'Otherwise ace' who published a video titled
'Luffy is the Original Joyboy from the Void Century', long before Zunisha recognised Luffy's
awakening as JoyBoy. Shoutout to him. I'll leave a link to it in the description below.
In his video he gives a bunch of wonderful evidence, how Luffy and the straw hats travelling
back to the void century would fit in surprisingly well with the story up to now. And given what we
know about Luffy and his devil fruit, I think this has all become just the more fascinating.
Before we talk about how Luffy and co would even get into the past,
let's just assume they do for now.
The most interesting and mysterious clue about Laugh Tale and the One Pice that
we have gotten in the story so far is the Roger pirates arriving there and
literally bursting into laughter, most likely after reading Joy Boys story,
as Roger himself comments that he would have loved to meet JoyBoy and live in the same era as him.
Well if LUffy were Joy Boy, that would mean that Roger was actually reading the story of the
straw hats, that we have been reading up to this point as well. A story that is meant to bring us
joy with all its adventures and a quirky crew and Luffy being the person who will
change the world by going back in time. It would also be hilarious to Roger and co,
because not only would they be reading the best story ever, but also follow the adventures of
someone who will be born 20 years later. And they themselves will be included in the story
written on the poneglyphs as well. They will all know about how they themselves helped Luffy
reach his goal. Pretty meta I know, but let's be real how awesome would that be.
Luffy would tell where he was from and about his brother ace and how his death would be
the key to becoming pirate king. Suddenly, Roger decides to have a kid, that he then
entrusts to none other than Garp, the man who he fought by side by side and Luffy's Grandfather.
It would also change the line of Roger wishing he had been born in JoyBoy's era and
Rayleigh saying that they were too early. That would all make sense if they were talking about
Luffy's era. Roger knew he would die and
never meet him. And it's also why they knew exactly about the 20 years until his return.
It of course also fits in nicely with Oden's prediction of JoyBoy returning and opening the
borders of Wano, which of course has now actually happened. Zuneshia was the one who confirmed that
his old companion had returned, and who better to make friends with a giant elephant, than Luffy,
who we have seen befriending all types of giant animals throughout the story. The kraken serum,
the bull on dressrosa, the animals during his time skip.
Now obviously, as you will already have noticed by this point,
this idea gets really messy really fast. Like, who influences what? Who actually changes the
future or is everyone just caught in a time loop? How can Luffy change the present, if
he is part of the past? Telling such a story is a real walk on the edge,
but if there is one person I would trust in pulling it off, it's Eiichiro Oda.
One major issue with this idea, that 'OtherwiseAce' mentions with this theory
is the fact, that Buggy, Crocus, Shanks and Rayleigh, all members of the Roger
pirates didn't recognise Luffy as JoyBoy. Interstingly enough however, we do know,
that it was exactly those 3, Shanks, Buggy and Crocus, that stayed behind as the ROger pirates
traveled to the final island. They were the only 3 who never got to read the entire story.
On top of that, I personally think that for Shanks and Crocus you could
very well argue that they DID in fact recognise Luffy. As I've talked about a bunch before,
Shanks basically bet everything on Luffy becoming the person Roger had been waiting for. Similarly,
Crocus wonders if Luffy is that same man they're waiting for,
implying that Roger was waiting for Joyboy, who we now know IS in fact Luffy.
And Rayleigh, who DID go to Laugh Tale, has been acting very suspiciously around Luffy
right from the start. The very first words he tells Luffy is that he has
wanted to meet him, the very same words ROger used on Laugh tale.
He even offers Luffy to tell him the secret of Laugh tale,
already knowing that Luffy would refuse and then goes on to train him personally
for 2 years. Rayleigh know exactly that Luffy is Joy Boy.
Actually looking at it from this lens makes all of Luffy's interactions with
Rayleigh pure goosebump moments for me. Like when Rayleigh asks Luffy whether he
can actually do it and conquer the grand line, that smile he has there is just
so so all-knowing. He tells robin not to be hasty and continue their journey on step at a time, as
if to say that they shouldn't skip ahead to the point, that he already knows. He says that even
if he told them, the straw hats wouldn't be able to do anything about it the way they are now. Like
dude, if Rayleigh knows what the straw hats will become and tell them the truth,
of course it wouldn't help Luffy and co at all. They would still need to become strong
enough first. And he literally tells Robin, that they will see it all in the end anyways.
Now that is of course highly confidential and senstitive information that Rayleigh is sharing
here, even without giving away the entire story. And you really wouldn’t want that falling into
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In that case, Robin might very well have been the one who wrote the poneglyphs in the first place,
including the one on fishman island, that first mentions JoyBoy by name. It would
mean that Joyboy's promise to the mermaid Princess
is literally Luffy's promise to Shirahoshi the last time that they met in the present.
What I love so so much about this theory up to this point, is how it deals with the idea of
prophecy and Luffy being JoyBoy in by far the most elegant way, I have come across. Luffy and the
straw hats literally being the one who created the poneglyphs and told Roger about himself and their
journey, telling him exactly when they would arrive at wano and free it...perfect. It would
also open up other funny possibilities, like Luffy being the first one to pass on his straw hat,
only to receive it 800 years later by shanks. Or Franky being Vegapunk who got left behind
in the past. You get the idea. I'm sure you guys will be able to come up with a ton more.
Now, assuming that all of this were actually true, which I think already would require
a lot of assumptions to be true, all of this leaves us of course with another big
question: How would the straw hats travel back in time in the first place?
Well the first very good message here, is that time travel has been established as a
real possibility in One Piece with the introduction of Toki and her powers. For now,
it's only possible to travel into the future, but it opens the door
very wide to the possibility of traveling into the past as well.
One option would be that Laugh tale itself functions as a sort of portal to the past,
which would be similar to the idea that it is a portal to the underworld,
based on the song binks sake, that seems to contain a lot of hints about the one piece.
Another possibility could be the national treasure of marijois, maybe that giant straw hat itself,
being a device that allows for time travel. Which might be, how Imu and the world government have
remained in power for so long. Whenever something went wrong, they would just
reset that event and make it never happen. That would be a pretty freaky idea, that the
government has actually been overthrown a bunch of times before, but they always changed the past.
That would also work nicely with the image of imu and the throne looking like the hand of a clock.
But by far the most likely option would of course be the possibility of
a devil fruit having that ability. As you probably know, there are certain sets of
Devil fruits that work as either extensions or opposites to each other. Like the fire fruit
being a weaker version of the magma fruit or baby 5's fruit being a stronger version
of mr 1's. Then there would be opposite one's like Bello betties fruit and Perona's. One that
drains morale and one that boosts it. Kanjuro can make 2d things 3d and Giola turning 3d things 2d.
Giola, who by the way is part of the same crew as Treble. Now in case you don'T know,
I've been trying to overtake Treble in terms of bounty worth. This slimy and obnoxious man has
a bounty of 99.000.000 Berries and if you convert all 580.000 of you awesome people into yen, that
would give me a bounty of 58.000.000. I just cant let that stand. So please help me overtake trebol.
Now this theme of opposite and supplementary fruits is especially for paramecia type fruits.
In other words, if there is a Devil fruit that allows you to travel into the future,
it would not be all to far fetched to have a fruit that allows you to do
the opposite. Or maybe it is an awakening ability of the time time fruit.
Toki of course is a super interesting character in this context in particular. Why did she travel
into the future from the void century? How did she know where to travel to to meet oden? How
did she know to send the samurai exactly to Luffy's time period? And why did she decide
not to travel into the future herself? If she met Luffy and Co during the void century,
she would know about the ancient kingdom's demise being near and
trying to prepare a counter move. She would be the perfect candidate to send the straw hats
back into their time and then follow them into the future to try and take down the world government.
Time travel or not, Devil fruits will most likely be the key to the void century and the secrets of
the one piece world. And if you truly want to understand where they might have come from,
you really shouldn't miss out on this video right here.