2) Luffy’s Joy Boy-failed future opponents
Given that we are talking here about future opponents, there will be a fair amount of theorising regarding what they are hiding and where they are planning to go.
- Blackbeard
One thing has been revealed so far: Blackbeard will not be Joy Boy. As Whitebeard put it, “you are not the one Roger is waiting for”.
We can guess that there might be a few reasons why; one of them being that he is actively bringing despair onto people and crews and has worked in order to trigger a war against the World Government and the Whitebeard Pirates with the sole purpose of gaining Whitebeard’s Devil Fruit.
Blackbeard seems to have no problem with using any means necessary to get to his final objective, which makes him a very scary antagonist, and makes him the exact opposite of Luffy, who would prefer punching his way through a situation and breaking the schemes that are visible to him rather than playing with them.
Thus, it gives an interesting question: Blackbeard and Luffy, who from their very first encounter, were presented as complete opposite characters with the same objective, may be two sides of the same coin.
In this case, who would have the right approach to get to the Joy Boy status?
The one who will win the run to their dream.
It is to be understood that Blackbeard’s approach is doomed to be the wrong one, and maybe to be the one that would bring the world to a bigger pit of despair, while Luffy’s approach seems to be working best to give hope and dreams back to the people.
Given those elements, it is safe to assume that Blackbeard will fail to be Joy Boy and, as such, will eventually be the wall against which Luffy will have to fight in order to get to his ideal.
If we look into the pattern that we have established so far, it may be expected that Blackbeard will fall from the actions of another Emperor or of the Marines -especially given that the Warlords have now fallen from their position.
We do however need to be reminded that Luffy has already been considered a fifth Emperor by the media, and will certainly be seen as a threat of that level by the World Government after Kaido’s expected defeat.
It is therefore safe to assume that Blackbeard will be defeated by Luffy, and either forced to admit that Luffy is the man he shall follow, or fall into the pit of despair that the other failed Joy Boys have fallen into.
- Imu-sama
Saying that Imu-sama is a mystery figure does not even come close to the mystery that they are shrouded in.
This part will therefore be cramped with my own theories about who they are, where they came from and what brought them to become a “failed Joy Boy”.
Imu-sama, according to my theory, is probably someone who has aged all the way from the Void Century, surviving Joy Boy’s time and possibly being the origin of that gap in history.
I would guess that they were a person very close to Joy Boy, possibly one of the closest people in that circle of joy, who was entrusted with bringing the New Dawn after the former Empire fell.
Only, there is a catch: hundreds of years have passed, and with them, Imu’s feelings, passions and dreams.
This idea can be found in manga like Samurai Deeper Kyo, with near-immortal characters who see their feelings, passions and dreams disappear as they see their loved ones die, one after the other.
Imu-sama seems to be following a pattern close to that: as a very old being, they would have lost everything that drove them, and keeping the world as it is, through political schemes and well-placed assassinations, would become the best way to trump their boredom.
This, as a matter of fact, would be the exact opposite of Joy Boy’s true intentions, and would need to be revitalised in order to cure that terrible boredom that seems to be inflicting them.
In the case of Imu-sama, the pattern is still respected, even if it is so in a roundabout way: Imu-sama, according to this theory, is an immortal being who has founded the World Government. As such, they are intrinsically chained to its wellbeing, and they are necessarily going to need freedom from this responsibility.
3) Luffy’s hardships
- His fight against Usopp
“I feel like the crew is falling apart.” Nami said, when the fight against Usopp was approaching.
And she was right: in many ways, the situation made everyone consider their place in the crew and the legitimacy of the crew to continue.
