第189回：My Seven Great Mysteries of ONE PIECE

While Odacchi recovers from his eye surgery let’s take a look at some unsolved mysteries from the series that I hope are addressed before we see Luffy set sail for the last time! Ranked from ‘Hmm, curious…’ to ‘PLEASE ODACCHI I GOTTA KNOW!!!’ here are my top seven mysteries from ONE PIECE that I’m dying to find out the answers to!

Who is this mysterious individual sharing a drink with a (rare) pleased-looking Crocus?

The posture, act of sharing a drink, and look on Crocus’ usually stern face suggests that this is a reunion of sorts, but even after 455 chapter we still don’t know this person’s identity! Some people have suggested that it’s Gold Lion Shiki and the hair is similar for sure but I just don’t see that being a possibility. The Wano-style kasa hat suggests that whoever this person is, they made QUITE a journey on the Grand Line.

It couldn’t possibly be…THAT PERSON…could it?!

What exactly happened here?! Does anyone know?! I would love to know! Beige’s ship gets sucked up into the sky by some massive…THING and we never heard about it again! When Beige took a larger role during Whole Cake Island I assumed Odacchi would weave this adventure into the tale but it never materialized! While ONE PIECE isn’t lacking for massive sky shadows and weird events that can be chalked up to, “Yeah, the Grand Line is a weird place,” I can’t help but believe Odacchi plans to expand on this weirdness someday and with the mystery of the Mother Flame looming (literally) over the story, I hope that day is sooner rather than later!

I’ve talked about this at length before but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a place on this list: Did Zoro die at Wano?! The grim reaper scene seemed like it could’ve been played for laughs with a reveal that it was actually Brook (turns out nope, he was later confirmed to be elsewhere at the time) along with a few other absurdist explanations, but with Odacchi dropping the subject entirely and avoiding addressing the event (directly) to this day, it seems more and more likely that the reaper might have been an actual figure from Yomi! Perhaps we’ll find out more about this event as we approach the end of the series!

For almost two decades, I’ve been dying to see what Franky saw when he flipped through Pluton’s blueprints. What did this ship capable of mass destruction look like?! Personally, I like to think that it resembled a mecha-dragon. The naming of the Celestial Dragons along with their mark *and* their affinity for dragons seems to suggest that dragons were a symbol of power to them. Were dragons so respected and feared that the created their greatest warship in their image?

With the threat of Kaido having been quelled, by Godzilla logic, the only thing more terrifying than a dragon, is a mecha-dragon war machine!

The giant straw hat in Imu’s cold storage room seems like it has strong connections to people from Nerona Imu’s past but that doesn’t answer the question of how a nearly identical miniaturized version wound up in Gol D. Roger’s possession. The Poneglyphs are believed to be the only remaining symbol of the Void Century, but is Roger’s hat another symbolic relic from the conflict that allowed Imu to grab power? If so, how did such a relic wind up in Roger’s hands?

Yes, of course we all want to know what the D stands for and that will probably remain a mystery until we fully understand the events of the Void Century. In the meantime, Chapter 1085 confirmed one of my own long-standing theories that ‘D’ isn’t necessarily just a family namesake. The ‘Will of D’ may also be a mindset or even a set of beliefs that a ‘D’ can simply pass on to anyone whom they feel is deserving. Luffy’s case here is a highly simplified version, he likes and respects Sabo for his toughness and values so he doesn’t mind sharing his name with him. Likewise, in the past, D may have been passed along in a similar fashion from person to person whom they felt upheld a set of ideals or displayed personal strengths that aligned with the original carriers of the title.

Judging by Imu’s response to Lily’s use of ‘D’, those set of ideals proooobably don’t align with his own and that means Luffy and Imu are not likely to get along well either. I guess what Corazon said is true…

Interestingly enough, Odacchi’s basic autographs from all the way back at the start of the series up until modern day incorporate this design choice.

They say that ‘X marks the spot’ so can we expect that subtle design that hasn’t been abandoned in 26 years to play some kind of symbolic role in the story?