One Piece: SHANKS explained

The Red Hair Pirates are captained by Red-haired Shanks, one of the Four Emperors of the sea. And although the Red Hair Pirates are the first crew that we’ve seen in the series, we still know very little about them. However, One Piece Film Red has revealed many secrets about this crew. So let’s begin with Shanks, who’s not only the captain but the chief of the Red Hair Pirates.

Most of the time that we see Shanks, he’s a very laid-back person who enjoys drinking and laughing. However, he can become extremely serious and powerful, capable of clashing with the likes of Kaido and Whitebeard. While he may not have a Devil Fruit, he has mastery in all three types of hockey and is one of, if not the greatest, Conqueror’s Hockey user in the series. Seriously, he has an ability that can literally stop Observation Hockey users from seeing into the future.

Now, as a baby, Shanks was found by Gold D Roger during the God Valley incident, an event in which Roger and Vice Admiral Garp teamed up to defend the Celestial Dragons from a crew named the Roxbury. It’s still very little that we know about this event, but there are many theories as to why Shanks was there out of all places. Some say that he’s Rox’s son, some say that he’s a Lunarian, and many people like to think that he’s the son of a Celestial Dragon.

There are a few clues that point to this, and the first one is that in Film Red, the Five Elders say that Shanks is part of the Feland family. We don’t necessarily know if that family is a part of the Celestial Dragons, but they very well could be because if they were, then this would explain why Shanks is able to talk to the Five Elders directly at Marijoa.

For those who don’t know, the Five Elders are essentially on top of the world. They’re the second highest-ranking individuals in the World Government, and very few people can actually get an audience with them, let alone one of the most notorious criminals in the world.

I think that this theory is plausible because if one of the Celestial Dragons was a pirate, then why would the Five Elders tell anybody about that, especially if he was on the Pirate King’s crew? Speaking of Roger, he gave Shanks the trademark Straw Hat sometime during his childhood, and as we all know, the Straw Hat is way more significant than just a piece of headwear.

This could be seen as a sign of Roger entrusting his will to Shanks. After all, he did raise Shanks since he was a baby. It’s also important to mention that Shanks was not present when Roger found the One Piece. However, he was present at Roger’s execution, which was actually the spark of his pirate adventure.

So about his life as a pirate, I find it interesting that Shanks is the youngest out of the original Four Emperors. In fact, I believe that he’s some type of prodigy because he had so much going against him. Not only did he go through the Grand Line with no Devil Fruit, but also at the beginning of the Great Age of Piracy when everybody and their mom was trying to be a pirate.

And not only that, but as an Emperor, he had to contend with three other established pirate crews: the Beast Pirates, the Big Mom Pirates, and the Whitebeard Pirates.

My theory is that Shanks had to have some sense of what hockey was early on in his career. He was on Roger’s crew, after all, and when you think about it this way, it makes sense as to why his climb to the top was so successful. If Shanks knows what hockey is early on in his adventure, it gives him an edge over many other pirates, and this is why he’s a master of it today. But about his combat ability, in Film Red, we see Shanks do all the basics.

One Piece: SHANKS explained

He moves really fast, jumps really high, and he’s about the same tier of power as all the other Emperors. Not only did he duel with Mihawk regularly before the series started, but in Film Red, we also see Shanks defeat the big bad monster with Luffy while he’s in his Gear Fifth form. Me personally, I wouldn’t put Shanks above Kaido just yet, but he was in Kaido’s top five, so to speak. Also, in Film Red, Shanks is shown to be using a flaming sword in combat.

This sword named Griffin is a saber, but I don’t think that fire is its actual ability. Maybe in the movie, it was, but “Phi fire” seems very specific and placeholder-ish, if that’s even a word. The fire just seems like a cover-up for Shanks’s real abilities that we can’t be shown yet for obvious reasons. But speaking of those obvious reasons, let’s talk about Shanks’s role in The Story.

For most of the plot, Shanks has been in the background, only making brief appearances here and there, but we do hear stories that he took part in, such as when he defeated Captain Kidd or when he prevented Kaido from attending the Paramount War.

Also, for those who somehow don’t know, Shanks is pretty much solely responsible for setting the events of One Piece in motion when he gave the straw hat to Luffy. This is because he saw the will of Roger within Luffy, and he knew that he would become a great pirate someday. This also might imply that Shanks knows something about the will of D that the audience doesn’t know yet, but that’s purely speculative.

On the topic of the Red Hair Pirates themselves, though, the second in command and right-hand man of Shanks is Ben Beckman. In harsh contrast to Shanks, he is cold and calculated most of the time. Ben wields a flintlock rifle, and he can imbue the bullets with Armament hockey.

This is how he was able to hold Admiral Kizaru at gunpoint during the Paramount War. Right behind Ben, we have Yasop and Lucky Roo. Yasop is the sniper of the Red Hair Pirates and the father of Usop. Being known as the Chaser, Yasop specializes in Observation hockey. He is said to have never missed a shot, and Yasop is seen wielding both a rifle and a pistol.

Lucky Roo is the cook of the crew. Now, in Film Red, we see him use his unique combat style called self-bullying, which is basically just Choji’s Human Boulder from Naruto. However, most people know Lucky Roo for his Everlasting smile and chunk of meat that he carries around everywhere.

There are other officers on Shanks’s crew. We haven’t been shown much of these guys yet, but we do know that they are all wildly powerful. In fact, it seems that unlike other Emperors, the bulk of the Red Hair Pirates’ strength is distributed evenly.

What I mean by this is that while other Yonko crews are marked by how strong their captain is, the Red Hair Pirates seem more relative to each other in terms of power,” quote Beckman. “Rue, Yasop, his crewmates are wildly renowned with a high average bounty and the best balance of any pirate crew. No soft targets here.”

This statement is framed in such a way that the Red Hair Pirates’ main strength is the force of their core crew, not their insanely powerful captain or their overwhelming forces. Speaking of overwhelming forces, we do know that the Red Hair Pirates have an extended party beyond their core members, but the exact numbers and to what extent we have no clue, and I hate saying that, but that’s what I get for making such a speculatory blog.

And lastly, just like all the other Emperors, the Red Hair Pirates do have territories as well. So, about the goals of the crew throughout the story, Shanks and the Red Hair Pirates have been peacekeepers. From what the audience has been shown, we can see that they’re most interested in keeping balance throughout the pirate world while also acting as criminals towards the Marines.

One Piece: SHANKS explained

And it wasn’t until just recently that Shanks actually decided to go after the One Piece, even though Luffy is already three-fourths of the way there. Many people speculate that Shanks has the last Road Poneglyph to go to Laugh Tale, and I agree with this.

As a matter of fact, my theory is that he’s either going to fight for or steal all of Luffy’s Poneglyphs because even though he is still Luffy’s inspiration, they are still both Pirates at the end of the day. But that’s pretty much everything that we know about Shanks and the Red Hair Pirates. Me personally, the Red Hair Pirates are just not as interesting to me as all the other Yonko crews.

I mean, we have seen barely anything about them, but we’ve seen barely anything about Blackbeard as well, and you know, I still find them more entertaining than the Red Hair Pirates.

Their designs and their powers just aren’t clicking with me, and you know when we get to the Elbaf arc or whenever we’re gonna see Shanks again, you know, I definitely want them to be expanded upon, but you know, I don’t think it’s gonna be as interesting as all the other Emperors.

I’m gonna keep doing blogs on all the Emperors until I get bored, I guess, but don’t worry, it’s not gonna be, you know, Whitebeard, Kaido, Big Mom all in like consecutively three weeks. I’m gonna sprinkle in other blogs in between, but guys be sure to like and subscribe, and you know what’s funny? I used to say that like at the end of every blog a long time ago when I had no subscribers at all, but now that I do, I barely ever say it. So, you know, I really like how I’ve evolved over time. Anyways, bye. Thank you.