第183回：Super ‘Duper’ Novas?

We already know that Shanks’ personality has attracted a myriad of fiercely loyal crewmates, but this giant child’s reaction at the bar has been the first indication that Shanks’ personality and lifestyle have captured the starry-eyed attention of children other than just Luffy when he was a child in Fuusha Village.

We’ve witnessed how Luffy and the Strawhats have influenced and inspired children around the world almost from the very start with Rika in Shells Town, the young fishmen, the children of Punk Hazard, and most recently Toko and Tama, just to name a few. This chapter suggests that Shanks may also have left his impression on children throughout the world. If this is true, I’d be interested to see what this will mean for future generations and how these individuals will come to interact in the future, beyond the adventures of Luffy and his crew.

According to Shanks’ Vivre Card, he’s not a fan of blueberries. If that’s the case…why are giant-sized blueberries prominently featured almost directly next to him on the table?! The French name for blueberries(myrtilles) has related them to a sense of betrayal due to the origin of their name coming from the Greek mythological figure Myrtilus who was involved in a tragic plot of betrayal and murder. While there’s a small possibility Oda *may* have gone down that rabbit hole in order to decide Shanks’ least favorite food, I wonder if it’s simply because the ‘cool’ blue of blueberries clashes drastically with his ‘fiery’ red.

Pretty slick of Odacchi to utilize the same shaded silhouette of Vegapunk in this chapter that he used in 684. The design is so specific that it’s easy to see he had Vegapunk’s character design solidified at *least* as early as 2012, a decade before his debut! Exciting to think about what designs Oda has been waiting to reveal for years and years as we proceed through the final saga!

Although the base designs themselves are certainly different, the general use of tattoos by the Shandian (historic and present) and a Lunarian like Alber is bare minimum a coincidence and at best a deeply-rooted shared history & culture.

The presence of white versus black wings also stirs important questions about ancient races and their relationships to one another. At the most basic level, if we’re to consider a bleached vs black scheme where black represents the moon and bleached represents the sun, it’s possible that white-winged Shandians yearned for the sun, while black-winged Lunarians yearned for the moon.

Oddly enough, the ancient artwork found by Enel which supposedly displayed life on the moon, showed no signs of black-winged Lunarians and only ethnicities that might be considered Shandian, Bilkan, and Skypiean. The story of how these races and ethinicties came together and drifted apart in history may be the key to understanding the complicated history of ONE PIECE’s world!