One Piece: Oda Reveals His Plans For Shanks In The Final Saga

Shanks, the Captain of the Red Hair Pirates, is one of the most important characters in One Piece, being the one primarily responsible for the story even taking off in the first place. Shanks has always been shrouded in mystery, and Oda has treated this character very carefully so far.

Shanks only appears rarely in the story and his true motivations, goals, and even a significant portion of his past remain unknown for now. However, all that is set to change in the Final Saga of the story. It is here that Shanks will play an incredibly important role and Oda has already confirmed it to all the readers on multiple occasions.

Oda Confirms Shanks Will Play A Big Role In The Final Saga

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If there’s one thing that fans know about Shanks, it is that he will be extremely important in the Final Saga. There are some fans who believe Shanks will be just another side character that Oda throws some light on in One Piece’s Final Saga, like other Yonko, or perhaps antagonists like the Admirals, or World Government men, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth of the matter is that Shanks is incredibly important and he will be central to the vast majority of the Final Saga. All things in this saga will, in one way or another, revolve around the red-haired pirate and Oda has already said as much to the fans.

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While Oda wasn’t exactly sure when One Piece would end and when the Final Saga would begin, there was one thing he always believed to be a solid indicator of the story being in the Final Saga, and that is Shanks. According to Oda himself, when Shanks appears frequently, One Piece is in the Final Saga. Here is what Oda had to say:

When Shanks appears frequently in the manga, you can assume that One Piece has entered the final saga. — Eiichiro Oda, 1998

Oda Confirms Shanks Is One Of The Biggest Players In The Final Saga

Egghead’s End Confirms Shanks’s Important Role

Oda has already stated that he has huge plans for Shanks in the Final Saga of One Piece, but that’s not all. Not only is Shanks going to appear frequently in this part of the story, but it is also confirmed already that Shanks will be a major player. Once the speech that Vegapunk delivered in Egghead ended, Oda highlighted the major players of the Final Saga of the story, and Shanks was highlighted as one of the main players.

The fact that Shanks and family were there means that things will be centered around them more than most others, and that fills fans with joy. It is essentially confirmed that the Final Saga will see Shanks play a role that can even rival Luffy’s own, and fans absolutely cannot wait to see that.

One Piece Chapter 1149 will be out in a week. As usual, One Piece is going to drop on Sunday. In Japan, One Piece drops at 12AM JST on Monday. However, the vast majority of international readers will see the chapter available on May 11. The official release date of One Piece Chapter 1149 is May 25, 2025. Fans can read the chapter for free on Manga Plus.

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

Writers

Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda

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  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)