 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece, and today it's time for another discussion which comes up every now and then within the fanbase, which is the idea of if and when Luffy will ever have to take on his mentor, Redhead Shanks. And it's not as simple as the discussion as you may think, so I will be presenting ideas both in favor and against this idea. But to begin, a lot of people may immediately dismiss the concept of Luffy vs Shanks altogether, because on the surface, there really is no need for these two to ever However, it's fairly undeniable that our protagonist, Monkey-D Luffy, does not quite see things that simply. Or maybe simply isn't quite the right word, as in fact Luffy holds an alternative yet equally a simplistic view, which is that at some stage, he will need to crush each of the four emperors, of which Shanks is certainly one. Now this was stated when Luffy and Law first formed their pirate alliance on Punk Hazard, and I want to remove any ambiguity from this statement. A lot of people may try to argue that this doesn't necessarily mean crush in combat or whatnot, but once again, at this stage in the story, Luffy was more than willing to meet each of the emperors, including Shanks in battle. Because when Law made it clear that his intentions were to bring down Kaido, Luffy's response was, okay, as long as Shanks isn't the first. So while Luffy's personal preference was not to face Shanks immediately, in the back of his mind, Luffy does seem to truly believe that overcoming Shanks will be a necessary feat in his path to becoming the pirate king. And this also harks all the way back to chapter one, where Luffy developed his dream to become a pirate even greater than that of Shanks, to have a crew better than the red-haired pirates, and of course, become the pirate king. To which, of course, Shanks responds by giving Luffy the straw hat and telling him to return it to him once he has become said great pirate. Not the pirate king necessarily, just a great pirate, which is incredibly ambiguous, and it brings up the question of exactly how Luffy plans to fulfill that condition. And I think it is fairly reasonable to assume that becoming a great pirate in Luffy's eyes means defeating Shanks. And I say this because at the time this declaration was made, the only experience of pirates Luffy ever had was with Shanks and the red-haired crew. And so becoming a great pirate to Luffy almost certainly means standing on equal, if not greater ground than Shanks, who at this point is Luffy's only means of comparison. And the simplest way to achieve such a thing would not only be to defeat Shanks in combat, but perhaps even realizing Luffy's open romantic ideal of having a crew that could defeat the red-haired pirates. That would be one way to fulfill his promise, and what I genuinely think is Luffy's thought process. So if things were left entirely up to Luffy, then I'd have no doubt that this battle would be a key event happening sometime in the future. However, we do also have to examine the other side of this promise, which is Shanks. And I don't think that his thoughts on this matter are anywhere near as easy to dissect as Luffy's. Primarily because Shanks is a character who even after 22 years of being involved in this story is still shrouded in almost complete mystery. At best, and even this I feel is a bit of a stretch, you could maybe make the argument that Shanks has alluded to a future conflict, he just hasn't stated it quite as directly as Luffy. Although I do think the only way this argument can be made is by examining Shanks' facial expressions whenever Luffy comes up, usually in reaction to one of his new bounties. He often has this look of determination and excitement, and artistically, he's also often silhouetted or bathed in shadow in some way, visually implying that there may be some ominous overtones at play here. And I don't personally subscribe so much to that idea, but I won't deny that the signs are there if that's what you'd like to read into. But for me, the main thing with Shanks is that he's always talking about meeting Luffy, but his most recent reaction to Luffy's 1.5 billion berry bounty being that it will be time to meet soon. And I think that Shanks is commenting on Luffy fulfilling the criteria of becoming a great pirate from his own perspective, particularly because Luffy is now an emperor, which in terms of status is equal to that of Shanks. And there are going to be a lot of people out there who fight this idea, but Luffy is indeed the Fifth Emperor, it's in the story, it's official, yes it was slightly fabricated by Morgans, but it's a thing and you'll have to deal with it. So if anything you could take Shanks' statement to mean that Luffy has fulfilled the condition set upon him, and it is finally time for the two of them to meet after all of these years and return the straw hat. So my personal reading of Shanks' perspective is that he does not intend to actually fight Luffy, but at the same time I have to admit that we know far too little to solidly make that conclusion, and we should probably take this opportunity to define what we mean by fight actually, because that can have a variety of different outcomes. For example there's a sect of thought out there that places Shanks has the antagonist of his own arc, in which Luffy will have to engage in an all out battle and overcome him in some sort of traditional one piece arc villain kind of way. However, a fight definitely doesn't need to be that sort of all out slogfest where two individuals give absolutely everything they've got. It could be a more subtle engagement of blows in which Luffy and Shanks immediately take measure of one another and a mutual understanding is achieved that Luffy has finally met the criteria to return the hat. This second case is what I would subscribe to, more than Shanks needing to be beaten in the same way as a traditional one piece antagonist. And the primary reasoning for that is simply that Shanks is not an antagonist. And yeah I know there's a ton of theories out there that Taut Evil Shanks is some sort of giant mastermind of the one piece world, but I think the overwhelming amount of evidence of Shanks and his interactions with this world highly contradict that. So if a fight was to happen between he and Luffy then there would be no animosity and no desperation to overcome which is usually a key factor in Luffy's biggest battles. And if it does happen it really doesn't need to be anything more than a few quick hits between friends and or rivals. So there's that, Luffy intends on fighting Shanks, Shanks may or may not feel the same way. But the primary reason why I don't think this fight will ever happen has more to do with outside forces. And to get a bit metaphorous second I do have to point out that Shanks is a mentor character and one piece doesn't generally end well for its mentors. They often end up dying tragically on my tad and passing their inherited will onto those that they have mentored. And while this usually occurs within the confines of a flashback I suspect the Shanks will still follow this eventual fate thus preventing an eventual fight with Luffy due to narrative circumstance. And just to go on a bit of a tangent for a second I'm less concerned with how Shanks will die technically or who will kill him, which we will get into in a second, but my thinking has more to do with the straw hat itself. This hat is the most dominant symbol of inherited will within the series, having been passed down through at least three individuals being Roger, Shanks and now Luffy. So one big problem I encounter when thinking about Luffy ever fighting Shanks is that I don't think it's very in keeping with the theme of this hat for it to be returned to its former bearer because its entire concept is that it just continues to be inherited by the next generation. So imagine a situation where we come to the end of one piece and Shanks is no longer with us in this world. However his demise occurred before Luffy was able to return the straw hat. He would then most likely be inclined to unknowingly continue the tradition of finding a young enthusiastic kid to give the hat to and proceed with the inherited will legacy. For that to occur though Shanks needs to no longer be in the picture, meaning that Luffy is very unlikely to have the opportunity to fight him. And yeah I know a lot of this is based on my own personal narrative speculation but even if we do ignore the hat there is a strong connection brewing in the background between Shanks and Blackbeard which also threatens the possibility of Luffy versus Shanks. Blackbeard is the great meta story that has been developing in the background of one piece ever since Drum Island which saw one culmination in the Paramount War tying up connections with Ace and Whitebeard however one thread currently left open is Blackbeard and Shanks. Shanks is probably the only pirate in this world who is as concerned about Blackbeard as everyone else should be. They fought before, he gave Shanks a scar and I believe that Blackbeard is Shanks's number one concern in this world which will lead to a conflict between these two individuals and rather sadly probably Shanks's death thus preventing Luffy from reuniting with and potentially fighting him. Instead Luffy would then be forced to go about becoming a great pirate in a different manner and go on to become the pirate king. Facing off against Blackbeard with the inherited will of both Ace and Shanks behind him are how lovely and once again yeah this is all based on massive speculation from me but when you have a topic like will Luffy ever fight Shanks this stuff does come up because there are a near infinite amount of variations to explore because if this battle does happen it will be closer to the end of the series and there is an awfully long journey to go on so I'm basing my answer on the ideas presented by the story itself and even then there are a bunch of other ideas that could lead to this event happening for example maybe Shanks is the one holding the final Road Ponyglyph and he demands that Luffy prove himself before he allows it to fall into Luffy's I guess Robin's many hands. Although to be honest that sounds a lot like a video game scenario where contrived fights need to happen because combat is the main focus of the game but despite technically being a battle manga action really is not the lifeblood of one piece it's more about dreams and adventure so I don't see a boring scenario like that occurring. To be perfectly honest the only way I see Luffy fighting Shanks is if as mentioned before the biggest twist in the series comes around and he turns out to be some gigantic villain which forces Luffy and the straw hats to engage in battle otherwise there's just far too much that isn't quite going in the favor of this conflict I mean yes Luffy thinks that that is the way forward but I don't think that Shanks takes on that same view and even if they do both have a mutual understanding and think that a fight will be necessary under whatever circumstances that doesn't account for looming outside forces that could sweep in to prevent it. So in the end Luffy versus Shanks while it does sound like quite a hype event almost like Zoro versus Mihawk it really isn't necessary to the series Luffy does not need to beat Shanks in order to become the pirate king in the same way that Zoro does have to overcome Mihawk directly to become the world's greatest swordsman rather I believe that Shanks's purpose in the story is pretty much exactly the same as chapter one he is here to pass on his inherited will to Luffy and so as fun as it might be to see I highly highly doubt that this fight will ever happen but that pretty much does it for this discussion on whether or not Luffy will fight Shanks. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line view Patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible and if you'd like to see more videos like this but apply to other anime and manga series then please do check out my second channel New World Review for all of your wider needs and if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my Discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis and finally please do comment with your thoughts on a potential Luffy vs Shanks. This has been the Grand Line review and I'll see you next time. When did you think the one piece anime was at its best including story, animation and just overall opinion it could be a certain episode or an entire arc. Alright so if we take a really microscopic view of the anime I honestly think it was at its best during those first two episodes of Warner those two episodes were near flawless as Toei had implemented their new art style which gave us character models that looked almost exactly like they were ripped straight from the manga and blasted on the screen. Plus in a very rare event they gave us legitimately great filler like that Zoro Tatsumaki moment is probably one of my favorite things I have ever seen in the anime but very sadly the anime quite quickly fell back into garbage filler and horrific pacing and it became a struggle to watch week to week which is why I just don't do reviews anymore. If I had to pinpoint a longer period where the anime was at its best it's probably from episode one all the way up to the end of skypea. I mean yeah there were a ton of filler arcs and the animation definitely doesn't hold up by today's standards but those really were the glory days of the one piece anime. While I'm sure there are many one could say what is one thing dragon ball should learn from one piece to improve itself. Hmm interesting question so if dragon ball was to go back in time because I don't think there's anything it could do to fix itself now and take some lessons from one piece I'd say that it should really be aware of using a universal power system like ki because it basically led to the idea that whoever has the most ki will always be the fastest and the strongest and those who have lesser ki just become redundant and it makes for some really boring battle interactions as opposed to the devil fruit system in one piece where you can have a whole ton of fun and intriguing fights. I'd also say stop practically power leaping because every time a new villain appeared towards the end of dragon ball and all throughout z and super they made a whole ton of characters almost entirely useless as a result of the huge power leap and because of the idea that the only way a character could gain strength was through a very narrow power system. I much prefer a world like one piece where every character can be relevant regardless of their quote-unquote strength. If Nami eats asasno me will she have a big ass too? um