One Piece Officially Makes a Major Movie Canon Moment After 3 Years

With the death of Rocks D. Xebec and God Valley sinking under the sea, One PieceS ‘ latest flashback has just passed a huge milestone. Evidently, the next half of the flashback looks like it will shift the focus back onto King Harald, Loki, and Elbaph as a whole.

However, that doesn’t mean that we’re completely done with characters like Shanks, for instance. The enigmatic Emperor of the Sea could still have a role to play, not only because he was present on Elbaph on the fateful day of Harald’s death, but also because One Piece just gave his origin story the biggest spotlight.

One Piece Finally Makes Shanks’ Origins from Film: Red Canon

Following being separated from Dragon and crawling into a treasure chest in the previous chapters, chapters #1166 of One Piece finally sees the Roger Pirates discover baby Shanks aboard their ship. Interestingly, the panel depicting this moment is taken almost frame for frame from an older sketch by Eiichiro Oda.

This sketch was shared in One Piece: Volume 4 Billion, the special pamphlet distributed to attendees when Movie: Ed was released. While the fact that Shanks was found after God Valley and that he was a Figarland was already considered canon knowledge, leaving this crucial information in a non-canon film was quite inconvenient, not to mention confusing.

As such, the latest chapter finally makes this moment canon after well over three years, and it’s possible Oda’s been planning the God Valley flashback ever since. Seeing this moment recreated in the manga is also much appreciated as only a single frame ever of this moment ever made it into Movie: Ed.

One Piece Finally Fixes Inconsistencies in Roger’s Design

Granted, there are some differences between the two versions, the biggest being the addition of Shakky, but it’s safe to assume that Oda may have been planning the God Valley flashback ever since One Piece Movie: Red was released.

Having said that, other than the addition of Shakky, another huge difference between the two versions is Roger’s design. In the original sketch, Roger is seen with a mustache much like the one he sported at the time of his execution. However, when fans saw Roger at God Valley during Kuma’s flashback, the mustache was noticeably missing.

This did create a bit of a continuity error as well as the information itself Movie: Ed was accurate, but the depiction was not. However, that too has now been fixed, with Roger keeping the clean-shaven look throughout the God Valley flashback.

The manga also gives Roger his straw hat instead of his other pirate hat like in Movie: Ed and the sketch, fixing yet another inconsistency. While it may take One Piece’s anime a while to get to Elbaph with the new seasonal format, this flashback is sure to break the internet like Gear Five when it does get animated.