How Oda Fooled EVERYONE!

Looking back at old One Piece theories is like opening a time capsule. Some of them were shockingly close to the truth, whilst others have aged so badly that it's hard to believe that we, yes, I say we meaning me, ever took them seriously. So, today we are revisiting some of the best and, much more funnily, some of the worst that the fandom has ever created, starting with the Mihawk is a rabbit theory. These days in One Piece, we know that there are multiple Mihawkses in existence, thanks to the Seraphim, but S-Hawk was not the original mini Mihawk. That would be Randolph of the Big Mom Pirates. But, the starting point here is Randolph himself. Of all of Big Mom's Homies, Randolph, he stood out dramatically. Most of the Homies, they are goofy, exaggerated, cartoonish, and a little bit useless. However, Randolph was an unusually serious rabbit-man, wielding a blade with remarkable skill. He even rode a crane into battle like a noble knight and displayed techniques that seem far beyond what you would expect from your ordinary Homie. To remind you, an ordinary Homie is like a slice of cake that sings Disney songs at you, or a door that smiles at you suspiciously when you touch its knob, or at best, a tree that falls in love with another tree, a lady-shaped tree named Lady Tree. That's That's the sort of thing that Homies do. And that's why fans had to ask the obvious question of why is this rabbit such an asset to the Big Mom Pirates? And the answer to that was, of course, Randolph was a Homie created from a fragment of the soul of the world's greatest swordsman, Dracule Mihawk. Which sounds like a crazy idea to put together today, especially since there's no evidence that Mihawk and Big Mommu have ever maybe met. However, you also need to remember that at the time, Big Mom had a lot more street cred than she does today. These days, she's seen as a bit of a joke. She is not Big Mom, she is a big meme. But, back on Whole Cake Island, Big Mom was undisputedly a god of this world. And it was not out of the question that even the world's greatest swordsman needed to take her seriously, and that the two of them have crossed paths in the past, and when they did, it may have been in Mihawk's best interest to settle a conflict by parting with a fragment of his soul L for Big Mom to use. I mean, a lot of major characters have these sorts of black marks against their careers, such as Crocodile losing to Whitebeard or Kaido losing to Shanks notes everyone before he rose to prominence as the world's strongest creature. So, I didn't I didn't think it was crazy for Mihawk to have similar losses along his road to prominence. I mean, it kind of old being dubs, right? Because one day you come across a crazy soul woman and you think to yourself, Mihawk, mate, your sharp metal is simply not equipped for this. Then you play soul roulette and that's a rabbit is created. This is what Big Mom does. She intentionally seeks out powerful allies to build her empire like Jinbe. And this rabbit is intentionally or not extremely Mihawk coded in how he dresses. The hat alone was enough to set the fan base off, but the fact that Randolph's size also red just like Mihawk's in the manga and that he had similar attitude to Mihawk sold the idea quite solidly. Randolph he is very reserved. He barely speaks like Mihawk. So much so that you may or may not notice that Randolph in the One Piece anime is voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi, aka Usopp. And there was also the idea of the irony. A fun part about Mihawk's soul having been inserted into a rabbit because Mihawk's most famous line in One Piece is that he was not the kind of fool who hunts a rabbits with a cannon. So again, there's something quite fun about having the rabbit hunter becoming a rabbit himself. And that maybe later on during Whole Cake Island, someone was going to use a cannon on Randolph. Although this is one of those times where week-to-week fans may have been a bit blinded by a light of their own turning onning because Randolph does have a subtle personality, like the moment where he lies to Cracker and blames his crane for interrupting, which is one of my favorite Whole Cake Island moments. It's a very un-Mihawk-like thing to do. But then again, homies don't necessarily take on the full personality of their soul owners. They're a bit different to Moria Shadows. The homies are individuals who are inspired by their roots, but not governed by them. You know, we spend so much time talking about hidden history, secret identities, and people trying to uncover information that they're probably not supposed to have. But, the real world is kind of the opposite. Many of us are giving away more information than we realize every single day. 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And despite his very impressive first outing in the Seducing Woods, I think what ends up really burying this idea was just how easily Randolph was defeated by Chopper and Carrot later on, and how Randolph immediately faded into the background, never to be relevant again. Which was a shame because even if the Mihawk idea didn't pan out, Randolph was still one of my favorite Big Mom Pirate members. And look, I know that a ton of people watching this video again I think that we were crazy for making this comparison at the time. the man on the internet. It is just a hat. How can you come to such crazy conclusions? And yes, it is very easy to judge in hindsight. However, to my utter shock, Eiichiro Oda accepted a cover request for chapter 1,164. This request was Perona chasing a rabbit with a watch, and the rabbit that Oda chose to draw was Randolph. And the reason why Perona is chasing him is because Perona thinks that the rabbit looks like Mihawk, which can mean one of two things. Either this theory does still have a tiny, tiny piece of merit. Maybe Mihawk in his more inexperienced days did stumble across a Charlotte Linlin. Or, and I think that this is the much more likely explanation, that Oda is completely trolling us with this cover because he heard about this theory when Whole Cake Island was being published. So, he's just putting it here to poke a little bit of fun at us. Regardless, unlike most dud theories that I talk about in these videos, this one still hasn't been completely disproven. It is extremely and I mean extremely unlikely, but still possible, that Crane Rider Randolph was created from a fragment of Mihawk's soul. That and that alone makes it an infinitely better idea than what I'm about to talk about next, which is one of the most insane things that I have ever heard, even at the time when it wasn't easily disproved. And it involves Admiral Green Bull, who made his first appearance in One Piece in chapter 1,053. However, he was introduced as a silhouette way back in chapter 9 or 5. And this is the silhouette that led certain brains down the very dark tunnel leading to the theory that Green Bull is Zoro's father. And it took a very very long time to reach the light at the end of this tunnel. Although, if you search for this theory on the internet, chances are one of the first things you'll find is this Reddit thread from 7 years ago titled "Theory: Green Bull is Zoro's Dad." And the evidence consists of "Zoro has green hair." It's a It's a forward theory. So, the title of the theory is actually longer than the theory itself. But it does get more compelling, not in this thread, but in others who then expanded on it. And look, I do want to give this idea some credit. I do think that it is relatively well thought out. The only problem with all of this brain thinking was that it was in service of a conclusion that was never going to happen. After all, why would one of the Marine Admirals turn out to be the father of the Straw Hats a swordsman? Well, I'll tell you why, allegedly. As Wano continued introducing more information about Zoro's ancestry, fans began noticing an increasing number of strange coincidences that seemed to allegedly point in that very direction. So, to untangle this mess, the theory really began in earnest with the introduction of Shimotsuki Ushimaru, the former daimyo of Ringo. As soon as Oda revealed this man, readers immediately noticed that, "Mate, he looks remarkably similar to Zoro." The resemblance wasn't subtle either. This dude is 100% Zoro with a blue hair alternate outfit. He is the Vivi to Zoro's Nami. Aesthetics aside though, Ushimaru and Zoro shared this unmistakable aura of a master swordsman, and I really do not blame anyone for jumping to the conclusion that Zoro and Ushimaru were related, especially because it turned out that they were. So, I can't blame people for being correct, that would be outrageous. The initial idea was that Ushimaru was Zoro's father, which was not correct. However, this was far from the end because there were a series of factors that led to Ushimaru then being connected to Admiral Green Bull. And I would say the strongest of these factors was the literal green bull that Shimotsuki Ushimaru was wearing. Because if we examine this photo picture of Ushimaru, look at that. He is wearing bulls, bulls that are rather green in my personal opinion. And this was a colossal thwack in the nuts that jolted the fan base into taking this idea quite seriously. With another compelling piece of evidence being what Ushimaru said to Yamato in the cave flashback. When Green Bull was first shown to us in chapter 905, years before his full introduction, he casually claims that he had not eaten for three years. This bizarre statement seemed impossible until chapter 1024 introduced us to an equally bizarre piece of samurai philosophy. When imprisoned by Kaido, Ushimaru proudly declared that a samurai does not feel hunger. And to many readers, this felt like Oda deliberately connecting two otherwise unrelated characters through an oddly specific trait. Because Admiral Green Bull was also able to live in this samurai-esque lifestyle just to a much greater extent, as if he may have been an even more powerful Ushimaru. Of course, these days we know that Green Bull does not eat because his forest Logia devil fruit allows him to survive through photosynthesis. He eats light. And with this information, we can also pinpoint that Green Bull ate his devil fruit three years ago. And also, there is an irony to him fighting on the side of the Marines and the world government because Green Bull is actively trying to prevent the dawn of the world, whether he realizes it or not. And as such, he is denying himself a great feast of light. Imagine how delicious that sweet, sweet dawn would taste. However, the parallels, they would not stop paralleling. And they became even stronger when people noticed that the Zoro himself had his own starvation scene back in the Romance Dawn era. Spending days tied to a post without food and displaying that samurai attitude that Ushimaru did and at the time Green Bull was assumed to be doing. Because how could someone intrude on this theory and say, "Nah, ah, Green Bull's probably a plant." You'd be laughed right out of the circus. All of the other clowns would be pointing and laughing at you. So, this hunger motive seemed too specific to be coincidence, and so the idea was formed that the Green Bull was actually Ushimaru. And given that Ushimaru was already pretty much confirmed to be Zoro's father, therefore the answer is that Green Bull is Zoro's father. This is what I call a compound theory. It's a theory that relies on another unproven theory being correct. Sort of like playing theory Jenga, which almost always results in the tower crashing down. And so, it became time to re-examine the silhouette. For years, Oda refused to reveal Admiral Green Bull's face. All fans had to work with was a vague outline showing a tall swordsman with long hair, and many viewers convinced themselves that this jawline, it looks strikingly similar to both Zoro and Ushimaru. And you know what? To be fair, even with Green Bull's full reveal, he still kind of does by One Piece standards. Anyway, Green Bull looks a lot more like them tough samurai dudes and the thousands of other wacky male faces that Oda could have chosen for him. However, then came the most extraordinary thought of all, which was color theory. Very useful in painting, much less useful in theory crafting. Supporters argued that Oda loves assigning colors to characters. So, naming an admiral Green Bull while simultaneously making Zoro's defining color green couldn't possibly be accidental. After all, red is Luffy's color, and he was inspired by red-haired Shanks, and Sanji's father was Vinsmoke Judge, who pissed his pants during Big Mom's tea party, and piss it is yellow. So, Sanji something something yellow. And that's how color theory works. Which also resulted in crack count theories being conjured to make fun of the connections. My favorite of which is this incarnation of Zoro's family tree, where he is the son of Roronoa Ricardo and goes on to have a child with Rocks D. Xebec, who is the sister of Gol D. Roger, and so on. It is a fun tree. However, rather than resembling a noble samurai admiral, Green Bull, or as we now know him, Aramaki, turned out to be loud, arrogant, and fanatically loyal to the world government. His personality clashed dramatically with Ushimaru's, to say the very least. But, what officially killed this idea was when Oda revealed Zoro's actual family tree in an SBS segment. And whilst he is related to the Shimotsuki clan, there is no Green Bull to be found. But, it was fun while the idea lasted, which was for far too long. But, nowhere near as long as this next idea, because it involves a two-decade-long theory involving Gin from Baratie. In all of my many years of being a One Piece fan, the character who I have seen the most speculation on is, without a doubt, Gin. There has always been a theory that Gin will be returning in each and every single arc, and this is one of my favorites. So, let us all gather around to read Gin's Return in Wano theory. I'm going to be discussing why I believe Gin will be making a comeback in Wano. Sorry if this is a bit too long, but this is as short as I could make it. Anyways, below are the reasons why I believe Gin will be returning soon. Reason number the first, Gin's lost words. So, in this picture, Gin says that he wants to meet again in the Grand Line. Now, this may not seem like that big of a deal, but the thing is that Oda wouldn't make Gin say this and then never make them meet ever again. Also, if he was to make Gin die, then he wouldn't have killed him off in front of us, because by now we should all know that no one is dead in the One Piece world unless they die right before our eyes, or if they die in a flashback. Unless your name is Sabo, lol. On the other hand, you could argue that he only had a few hours to live, but remember, this is One Piece, where you can survive anything as long as your plot armor is strong enough. And I've got to say, so far, this theory, it is 100% correct. It is so much better than the previous two, because you really cannot trust anything anything that Oda says or does when it relates to the topic of death or impending death. Reason number two, Oda hasn't forgotten about him. I've heard quite a few people say that Oda probably forgot about Gin or he doesn't care enough to make him come back. But guess what? In 2015, over 15 years after Gin's last appearance, Oda told us Gin's birthday in an SBS in volume 81. That birthday happened to be April 7th if you desire to celebrate it, which was chosen because Gin it means silver and the atomic number of silver is 47, so 47, April 7th it is. Reason number three, the Beast Pirates. One of the reasons why I believe it's very likely for Gin to make a comeback in Wano rather than a future arc is that he seems like a good candidate for the Beast Pirates. Firstly, there is a theme of card ranks and card games within the Beast Pirates and coincidentally, there is a card game called Gin. Hmm. So, I think this mostly relies on believing that his name is Jin and not Gin, but yeah, it's fine. That's fine. It's still a pretty good theory. Also, it is very much possible that Gin ate an artificial Zoan DF to boost his strength and become part of Kaido's Smile army. This would also explain how he survived in the New World. Gin was actually shown to have quite a few Japanese elements to him. First off, his weapon of choice is pair of tonfas tipped with iron balls, which I will say in an SBS, Oda has implied that those iron balls are actually Gin's uh real balls. But forget about that, let's continue. Tonfas are mostly associated with the Okinawan martial arts, which originate from the Okinawa Islands in Japan. Also, the dragon on Gin's jacket has a similar shape to Kaido and Momonosuke's dragons. Dragons in the One Piece world are only associated with Wano. I don't know about that one. Which is further proof that Gin could have some sort of relation with Wano. So, dragons, we've seen a lot of different dragons, most of them not on Wano, but honestly, I still don't hate the idea. I I mean, I do kind of hate the Smile Fruit idea, but connecting Gin to Wano is being done in the exact same way that we've connected a million other characters before. Reason, I forget which one we're up to, his role in Wano. I think I may be going too deep into this, but I'll say it anyways. So, I think he will most likely fight Sanji because in East Blue, he was slightly stronger than Sanji, and it would be cool to see them reunited again and see how strong both of them have become since the last time they met. I think that after his last fight with Sanji, he might help out the Straw Hats as a way to repay his debt to Sanji from when he fed him in Baratie. That would be really cool, and it would show how Sanji's kindness towards Gin helped the Straw Hats make a strong ally or some like that. I'm going to stop now cuz I'm just making stuff up at this point, lol. That last sentence, it's probably the most true part about this theory. It's always good when people can admit that fictional pirates does not have to be serious, and I will give full credit to the defenders of Gin's relevancy. They had a rough couple of decades. However, the dude did finally reappear again in chapter 1,117 after a 1,050 chapter absence in the series. And of all places to see him, Gin was on Hachinosu with Don Krieg, meaning that the two of them, now they don't join in Kaido, but they may have actually joined the Blackbeard Pirates and are set up to encounter the Straw Hats once more in the future. So, Gin on Wano may not have been correct, but something more exciting is on the cards because Gin in the final war is extremely possible. But, for now, I want you to let me know what your favorite polyaged One Piece theories are in the comments below.