 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we are going to be discussing some rather intriguing and or shocking news, I mean I call it news, but in reality this information made its way around the internet last week, but I'm sure that many of you have yet to hear that we have confirmation on a certain fact that the fanbase have been vigorously debating ever since the very dawn of One Piece, which has resulted in the implication that there is indeed one final straw hat member left to be recruited, and yes that means one more after Jinbe. But if you're new or just more casually associated with One Piece, I want to give you some background on this because new straw hats are a pretty consistently hot topic in the online fanbase, with almost every major new character being introduced automatically being submitted as a candidate for Nakama. And speaking of I would like to submit you, dear viewers, as a candidate to become our Nakama by subscribing to the Grand Line Review and joining the Grand Fleet, which will also grant you regular One Piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. A fairly superb offer in my humble and not at all biased opinion, but in recent years this kind of discussion has become a bit more contentious, and it all has to do with a statement that Luffy made in the very first chapter of One Piece, where after dispatching the ever pesky Lord of the Coast, he seemingly arbitrarily declared that first things first, I've got to get a crew, I think about 10 men should do, which that rhymes, and that line has been taken as an indicator of when submissions to join the straw hats A core crew of 10 and anyone else is more or less destined to become an associate of the straw hat, such as the Grand Fleet, or the various kingdoms that Luffy has made alliances with over the course of the series. The problem with Luffy's statement here, though, is that this very clear number of 10 is actually far less than clear, because it's always been very ambiguous as to whether or not Luffy was including himself within that total. But let's get forward now roughly two decades to a release of One Piece magazine, which courtesy of a translation from Yonko Productions on Twitter answers one of the age-old inquiries from the fanbase. One Piece magazine reveals that Luffy isn't included in with regards to wanting 10 crewmates, which means there's one more crewmate to join, since there are nine crewmates excluding Luffy currently. And very importantly, as I stated before, yes, this does include Jinbei. Under this Luffy-less structure, he would be the ninth member, which would all but confirm that even in this exceptionally late-stage One Piece, we still have one more primary protagonist to collect, which you would think that we've already met by now and I do think we have a fairly good idea of who that may be. However, before we get into that, I do want to tackle the inevitable argument that will come up, which is that we shouldn't be reading too much into the statement made in 1997 by a cartoon rubberman, meaning that Luffy is an unreliable source of information and not everything that comes out of his infinitely wide mouth can be taken as a given, with the exception of the whole becoming a pirate king thing, I guess. But I would disagree. If Luffy was a real person, then sure, we could probably very easily dismiss the statement and most of his statements, however, he is a fictional construct. And regardless of the intelligence and reliability of his character, statements like this are made to convey information to the audience. We aren't a bunch of voyeurs peaking in on this world like some sort of reality TV show, and everything said in One Piece goes on to serve a double purpose, and at all times it is structured towards giving you information to the audience. And so it should be no surprise that this is one of those moments. This is not Luffy just dreaming on his own privately, it's Etchera Oda directly speaking to readers about his plans. Whether or not those plans have changed is another matter. However, given that One Piece magazine has felt the need to address this specific statement after complete silence on the matter for the entire history of the series, well that tells me that we should be taking this as a very strong hint if not outright confirmation that we can expect another straw hat, otherwise why bother drawing attention to it? I mean I guess it could be a sort of deliberate attempt to subvert expectations, but One Piece doesn't really do that. At least not in this sort of way. I guess I'd argue that Ace's death was a pretty huge subversion of expectation, but at the same time, there wasn't an official statement in One Piece media claiming that he would survive the paramount war to begin with. Which is a very roundabout way of saying, I believe Luffy slash Oda's words here, every bit as much as when Luffy proudly declares that he will become the pirate king. But that does leave us wondering who this 10th and final straw hat will be. And in my estimation, there are only two reasonable choices, both of whom have some very strong evidence to support one another, as well as a third arguable candidate, but one that I'm personally not too sold on. And you know what, let's start with the latter, get her out of the way, because it's Tama. And just hear me out here because it isn't as crazy or as random as it may seem. Tama actually has two very important things going for her, one of which is a direct connection to Ace, which in turn provides a very direct connection to Luffy. And Tama is actually quite similar to Luffy in that as a child, although she actually still is a child this day, but as a smaller child, she begged to join the Spade Pirates when Ace visited Wano in much the same way that Luffy wanted to join the Red Hair Pirates. And Ace, just like Shanks, rejected Tama, but he did promise, and that is an important word here, Ace promised that they would meet again one day and allow her to join his crew after becoming a Kunoichi. A Buwitching Kunoichi, to be precise, but a very strongly seeds the idea of Tama wanting to travel outside of Wano. And a desire for travel, for whatever reason it may be, is a key factor in any member joining the Straw Hats. Furthermore, Tama, apart from the Rock on Rusukaina, is currently the only character post timeskip to have worn Luffy's trademark Straw Hat, which has been used as a foreshadowing device in the past, very specifically with Robin, who took the hat and put it on in much the same way that she more or less forced her way onto the crew eventually. So there's definitely an argument to be made here for Tama, although there are definitely problems. The first of which being that Tama is only 8 years old, and while it's not unprecedented for kids around that age to be roaming the New World like, say, Buggy, Shanks, and Blackbeard, it is still very difficult to picture one becoming a Straw Hat. And furthermore, even if we invest heavily into the idea of Ace's promise and Luffy being the vehicle to fulfill said promise, Tama still has yet to uphold her end of the bargain. She is not Kunoichi quite yet, and thus in my mind cannot set sail, because that's how one piece is. Characters like Tama keep their word, and as such I think that her adventure will occur long after the Straw Hats have concluded their various pieces of business in one piece. So now let's move on to two much stronger candidates, either of whom could quite easily hop aboard, and the first of which is now the classically speculated character. And she is a good candidate for almost every reason imaginable. Now one key thing that character possesses, which Tama currently does not, is a more specifically defined dream or goal. Straw Hat crew members are inseparable from this concept. They can't just hop aboard the ship for a good time, they're here to pursue their own desires in addition to making Luffy the pirate king. And Carrot's desire currently would be fulfilling the inherited will of Pedro, the jaguar mink who very boldly proclaimed that it was the Straw Hats who would bring about the dawn of the world. A very vaguely defined concept that is important to both the mink tribe and the Kozuki clan. So naturally, to achieve such a thing it makes all the sense in the world to join the crew, especially since Carrot has a demonstrable roll aboard the ship being a lookout. One of the very few classically pirate positions left available. And stick another box Carrot also comes equipped with her own tragic flashback, only it played out in real time with Pedro on Holcake Island. And really there's only one thing that holds me back from being super certain about Carrot, and it's all down to her relevance on Wano, which has been close to zero. This wouldn't be an issue if she was already a crew member but leading up to a massive moment like say joining the Straw Hats, the character in question tends to be quite hyper focused on. Otherwise I imagine that the eventual moment of joining would have little dramatic impact and minimal satisfaction attached to it. So in my mind, something very major needs to happen on Wano to give Carrot this final push, and whilst not impossible, the longer this arc continues, the less likely that's looking. However, I will admit that the overwhelming possibility does still exist. However, there just so happens to be another character though, whose chances I would, in all seriousness, put as equal to if not greater than that of Carrot. But I do need to put in a spoiler warning for anime only watchers because crazily enough, this character has not yet been introduced to you. And with the way things are going, they probably won't be for a very, very long time. So if you're not keen on some of the old spoilers then please do skip to this time. But for everyone else, here we go. And yeah, it's obviously Yamato. So obvious that I have made a fairly recent video detailing this possibility alone. So as a result, I'm not going to dive into it quite as deeply here. But Yamato is pretty on the road to brute forcing his way to becoming a straw hat member, kind of like how Odin had to practically brute force his way onto whitebeard ship. Yamato has the innate desire for adventure and exploration that both Carrot and Tama have, but also a dream to fulfill and inherited will in regards to Kozuki Odin. And given how intrinsically linked Odin is to just about everything in One Piece, be it Roger, whitebeard, joyboy, and even the void sentry through Toki, it's difficult to imagine someone so directly invested in the idea of being Odin, not becoming wildly important in the end game of One Piece. And Yamato probably cannot inhabit that role of importance by remaining on Wano. So I do honestly believe that Yamato is a pretty shockingly reasonable candidate to be our final crew member. And if you want a more in depth argument as for why then please do go and check out my video, link in the description. But now let's also address some potential issues that may derail this whole final crew member being sought idea. The first of which is that we already have this potential 10th crew member, we just don't have her aboard at the moment, who was of course Nefertari Vivi. Information about Vivi is a bit more vague though, and according to her Viviakanda book entry, she was considered a straw hat and is now considered a former straw hat. And Odin has said that her trademark number of joining the crew would be 5.5 indicating that she slots in between Chopper and Robin in terms of joining order. Now this isn't to say that things won't change in the future especially since Vivi is now much more relevant than ever, having been seemingly targeted so specifically by EAM. So yeah, maybe there is a world where Vivi does rejoin the straw hats for the final climactic saga, thus filling this seemingly empty slot. Which is an idea that quite honestly I don't mind, I just don't quite see it as anywhere near as likely as the other options. And some people out there might also attribute some spots to the going Mary and Thousand Sunny, but obviously they don't count in the numbering, so sorry Mary and sorry Sunny. And finally, just because I know at least one person is going to bring this up in the comments, in the Vis English translation, Luffy specifically mentions that he wants at least 10 men, which the literalists out there would take to exclude Nami and Robin. However, in reality, this is just the nature of early Vis translations. English One Piece is kind of cringy to read for the first few volumes because they really hype up the piratey language, saying things like Miharties and Grog and all of that stereotypical crap. And this line is a victim of that. So just imagine Luffy saying it with a piratey voice. Yarrrr, first things first, I've got to get a crew. I think about 10 men should do. Whereas in Japanese there is no gender specified, it's just a wash of crappy westernized English pirate stereotypical language and not to be taken seriously whatsoever. But there we go, some interesting food for thought. I for one am really glad that One Piece magazine went so far as to make this distinction clear because it's something that I've been arguing on both sides for as long as I've been reading this series and it does generate some pretty great excitement for our 10th and final straw hat. Now confirmed to be not including Luffy. But what do you guys think? Please do let me know down in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel. For more glorious One Piece business, upload it straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now this has been the Groundline Review and I'll see you next time.