- Hello, and welcome to the grand line review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today we are going to be examining
the journey of the most famous item,
within the entire series.
Which oddly enough, is not the One Piece itself,
whatever that is.
But actually the trademark straw hat,
or more accurately, I want to ask exactly how many people,
throughout the history of One Piece,
have actually worn, said straw hat.
Because it's actually a fair few more than you may remember,
and I'm sure that this list will only continue to grow
in the future.
But it is quiet an interesting thing to examine,
how exactly this hat has been passed through One Piece,
and the key characters who have ended up
as caretakers of the item, if only temporarily.
Because most of them
do have some pretty great meaning attached to them,
most but, not all.
And most but not all also very accurately describes,
the amount of viewers currently subscribed
to the GrandLine review, which is sort a madness,
because clicking this vibrant creation,
would grant you regular One Piece content,
uploaded straight into your YouTube feed.
So let's keep building this grand fleet valves,
because I want you, yes, you.
But onwards actual video thing,
we do of course need to start,
with our earliest confirmed knowledge of the straw hat,
which would be proudly sitting at top the head,
of a young Gol D. Roger.
Looking rather startlingly like Luffy,
within his youth.
And this revelation came to us,
courtesy of a brief flashback from Silvers Rayleigh,
reminiscing upon the first time that he had met Roger.
And at stage, unfortunately, little is known,
about how Roger originally acquired the hat,
and by little I of course mean, absolutely nothing.
And so it's entirely possible, that this right here,
was a simple stylistic choice from Roger.
You know, he was a young poor pirate,
and the only thing he could afford was a basic straw hat.
However this is pretty unlikely,
given the prominence of the straw hat in this world,
by which I do of course mean,
the giant straw hat located on Mariejois.
And while we're not concerned,
with that particular hat in this video.
It does signify that Rogers headwear of choice,
is anything but arbitrary.
This story could stretch back an awfully long time,
with Roger inheriting the hat,
in the same way that it's future wearers would.
And who knows it could even be a relic,
from the void century or even beforehand.
And on the off chance,
that it was indeed a random choice by Roger,
then that is still certainly going to have been
a fate of choice.
However, as of right now,
we can only track this hat as far back as Roger,
which is a shame.
However, we can track pretty far,
into the opposite direction.
And the next owner of this hat would be one Shanks.
And as of right now,
we are not privy to the moment
where Roger handed the hat over,
however, Shanks appears to have been entrusted with it,
from a very young age,
and in fact, he has always been seen wearing it,
in any flashback involving this band of legendary pirates.
And Shanks himself happens to be
every bit as mysterious of a figure,
as the straw hat itself.
We really know next to nothing about his past,
or why Roger chose to entrust him with this artifact,
however it would be a decision that would keep
the straw hat from becoming too prominent in the public eye.
And this is because Shanks was a mere apprentice pirate
during the age of Roger, and the straw hat itself,
was never strongly associated with the pirate king.
Which I find fascinating,
because that under the radar nature,
is a trend that would continue with Shanks.
Sort of like the hat was hiding from the world,
until it found its primary wielder.
An event that would come to pass fairly earlier on
in Shanks's pirating career,
as after the execution of his former captain Roger,
Shanks went about crafting his own crew,
and would one day fatefully make port in Foosha village,
where he met a boy named Monkey D. Luffy.
And of course we all know the story from here,
or at least we should, if you're watching this video,
I'm assuming you do,
but basically Luffy's bold ambition
triggered something in Shanks,
something that reminded him of his former captain.
And as such, Shanks left his inherited straw hat with Luffy,
asking him to return it, when he became a great pirate.
Which is still very vague criteria to the date,
but oh well.
And it's only really in retrospect,
that we do see what a massive decision this was to make.
Reading or watching One Piece for the first time,
this moment does hit very hard,
because it is seen
as a token representation of Luffy's dream,
as well as his promise to Shanks.
Something to remind Luffy to always keep striving forward.
However, after learning of Roger's legacy,
we can now pinpoint this as the moment,
when shanks discovered the inheritor
of his former captains will.
And so Shanks, without a second thought,
ended his time as the caretaker of the straw hat,
and passed it on, to its next vessel.
Which is where it would become a world renowned symbol.
Previously, neither Roger nor Shanks,
had the time to become globally infamous,
whilst dawn in the straw attire.
And so Luffy would be the one to make the straw hat famous,
even becoming known as straw hat Luffy himself.
With very few people recognizing
the true significance of this item.
I mean, sure, there were a couple who recognized it
from the early days of Shanks,
but it is a very, very rare individual,
who went so far as to associate it with Roger.
In fact, it's hard to say if even Luffy's grandfather Garp,
one of Roger's sworn rivals,
would have made that connection with the straw hat.
And if he did,
he certainly has not made it known to us as of yet.
And as such Luffy remains the primary wearer of the hat,
and more than likely will continue to be,
for the rest of One Piece.
But that doesn't mean that from time to time,
this intriguing little existence,
hasn't made its way onto other heads.
Because next up we have Nami,
the earliest person in chronological publication history,
to wear the hat that was not Shanks or Luffy.
And also this was the first example
of the straw hat being used as something
other than a symbol of inherited will,
because on this occasion,
it was used to provide a sense of comfort.
Nami in an incredible pit of despair at this moment,
and became desperate enough to ask Luffy for help.
At which point he boldly declared, yeah of course,
but it wasn't quite that simple.
It wasn't so much words that struck Nami,
but the choice he made to place the straw atop her head.
In this moment, this was Luffy entrusting Nami
with his dreams.
Because previously he had stated
that this hat was his treasure.
And to show that he was serious about freeing Nami
and defeating Arlong,
he very much struck an equivalent bargain.
He trusted Nami with his future ambition
to become the pirate king, and by doing so,
he requested that she trust him, to defeat Arlong.
An idea that worked out pretty well
for both of them in the end,
with Luffy holding up his end of the deal
by destroying Arlong's aquarium,
and Nami becoming the navigator of the straw hats.
Plotting a direct course for the goal,
of Luffy becoming the pirate king.
It was a pretty stunning moment really,
to see Luffy so easily relinquish the straw hat,
after being so overly protective of it,
for as long as we'd known him.
But that certainly would not be the last time,
that this hat would find a temporary head to lay upon.
And skipping ahead in the story a fair bit,
the next one would be a certain Nico Robin,
during the tail end of the whiskey peak arc.
But this is actually such an underrated example
of how brilliantly a symbol hat can be used,
because in this Luffy obviously just didn't give it up,
like he did with Nami.
This time around, Robin actually took the straw hat,
with her Devil fruit for powers,
and then just playfully plunked it
a top of her funky cowboy hat.
Which just as a side note, is a stylistic choice,
that I really missed from Robin's character.
Bring back the hat.
But in context, this is a display of power to be wary of.
You know, a villain who can just appear so casually,
and take away the symbol of everything that is Luffy.
At least that's how you would take it,
upon initial reading or watching.
In retrospect, however,
it is one of the greatest pieces
of foreshadowing in the series,
because this is owed a very clearly signaling,
that Robin would lay to go on to become a straw hat member.
And really, I don't know how much more obvious
he could have made it.
She is literally wearing the hat,
but not only that, Oda also told us,
how she would become a straw hat,
which was by Robin more or less,
forcing her way onto the crew.
In the same way that
she forcibly took Luffy's hat right here.
It planted a seed of Robin
being the ones to take the initiative,
but it was masked in an almost, flirtatious kind of way.
You know, it was Robin more or less trying out
the idea of becoming a straw hat.
And look, maybe I'm just reading too much into this,
as per usual, on this channel,
but even if it was a complete coincidence,
it does line up pretty damn nicely,
with how future events played out,
and as such, it was another great example,
of the fated path of the straw hat.
Not every wearer of the hat
turns out to be some sort of fated profound example though.
And we will indeed see that with the next few,
because we are now going to skip to Long ring long land.
An arc focused almost entirely on comedy.
And in order to dawn an Afro, for reasons,
Luffy needed to entrust Usopp wit temporary management,
of the straw hat.
And I don't think there's any greatest symbolism
at play here,
other than displaying just how much Luffy trusts Usopp,
and the degree of their friendship,
because plenty of other crew members,
have held the hat for Luffy,
but very few have gone so far as to wear the hat,
which is a big step.
Let's not understate this understated action.
And I'd like to think
the choice to have Usopp wearing the hat here,
was ultimately made to set up the greater heartbreak
that would occur during water seven.
You know, to give us a moment of showing how powerful,
this friendship between Luffy and Usopp was,
right before it was destroyed in front of our eyes,
in the very next arc.
And obviously wearing the straw hat
is not the only thing that makes that effective.
It's the sum of Luffy and Usopp's interactions,
throughout the series.
But even though this event happened,
under purely comical circumstances,
this was ultimately a very efficient use,
of one of the rare times that a character other than Luffy,
would wear the straw hat.
Now, as for the next occasion,
this would have very, very little meaning.
But the next person to actually wear the straw hat,
would be Sweet Pea on Amazon Lilly,
who for whatever reason,
just took the hat while Luffy was unconscious,
and after waking up, naked, in a prison cell, as you do,
Luffy promptly took it back by stretching his arm.
And there really isn't a whole lot more to this moment,
than the very basic idea,
that the straw hat is always fated to return to Luffy,
at least for the time being.
So I probably shouldn't have used the word, always there.
But this is a feature that we had seen before,
in the Alabasta arc,
where Luffy actually lost the straw hat,
in his fight against crocodile,
but then apparently a miscellaneous soldier found it,
and from there it made its way back to Luffy,
in a very improbable manner.
But hey, that's just fate, I suppose.
Although a better example of this fate,
would certainly be Marineford,
where Luffy lost his hat again,
after the death of Ace.
And not only did this hat make its way to Luffy,
but it did so via the hand of Shanks,
the person who gave Luffy his straw hat to begin with,
as well as Buggy,
another former member of the Roger pirates.
So in this case,
we have a very strong showing of fate,
and inherited will at play.
For the time being,
this hat simply refuses to be separated from Luffy.
Although in that respect,
I might have some bad news for this here hat,
because as it turns out,
the being in the series to spend the most time,
wearing a straw hat, is not in fact Luffy.
And it is actually this rock,
who had the job of wearing the straw Hat,
for two whole years, while Luffy was training.
And let's give this rock
all of the credit that rocks deserve,
because it did a fantastic job.
Over the two years,
the straw hat remained completely unmoved,
much like the rock itself,
no animal or weather condition
was able to take command of it,
although to be fair,
the Island that the rock was located on Rusukaina,
which is within the Calm belt,
so yeah, weather shouldn't exactly be an issue,
but still the rock did a fantastic job,
and I think it deserves to be recognized for just that.
But after the time skip with Luffy reclaiming his hat,
there hasn't really been anyone who has dawned it,
until all the way in Wano, which is a pretty massive gap,
but one way we would find another wearer
of the fabled straw hat in O-Tama.
And this occasion was actually quite similar
to Nami's pre time skip situation,
where Luffy seems to have given O-Tama
the hat to wear temporarily, as a sign of comfort.
As well as practicality, I suppose,
because Luffy needed to carry her on his back, and as such,
he could not have the straw hat there.
So in this case, what better spot was there,
than O-Tama's head.
And obviously as a result of this,
the whole O-Tama for straw hat train
has been going strong in the fan base,
who see this as a symbolic gesture,
much like the one we had with Robin.
But then again, it could also be a fairly casual choice,
like with Sweet Pea on Amazon Lily, so know,
not everything has a grand hidden meaning behind it.
Although I suppose, we will see soon enough.
And in Non Canon events,
I do also want to point out,
that in version two of Romance dawn,
the prototype of One Piece,
we even have the early significantly more piratey Garp,
wearing the straw hat, and in this story,
he was of course the one who Luffy inherited it from.
Which is a very strange timeline indeed.
But there we have 23 years of One Piece history,
and really only a handful of select individuals,
who have actually worn the legendary straw hat.
Most of the time when this occurs,
it carries very interesting implications,
whether it's reinforcing the friendship of Luffy and Usopp.
Foreshadowing, Robin joining the crew,
or it's deeply symbolic gesture to Nami.
And as such, I would keep a very keen eye out for this hat,
because if someone is wearing it, who is in Luffy,
then chances are,
you should take a moment to examine that situation,
because there is probably a very good reason,
that the hat happens to be right there,
at that particular instance, or not.
It could just be an Amazon Lily situation,
but the former, is much more likely.
But what do you guys think,
please do leave your thoughts in the comments below,
or even join my discord server.
And if you'd like to see more videos like this,
then please to go and check out some of my other content,
or even subscribe to the channel,
for more glorious One Piece business,
uploaded straight, into your YouTube feeds.
But for now, this had been the GrandLine review,
and I'll see you next time.