We Already Know What the One Piece Is!
PREMISE:
I’ll get straight to the point: to start things off, I’ve said in the past how I’ve always believed that the One Piece is Binks’s Sake, a “laugh tale” that when you translate its lyrics from Japanese, details things that refer to events from the Void Century. I already spoke about it in deep length in the past and it’s been quite a popular theory, but that’s not what I want to focus on here. I don’t think the physical treasure is just the symbolic sake itself, or just the song, I believe there is more to this, something I’ve seen almost no one bring up, that I believe perfectly explains what the connection between One Piece and Binks’s Sake is, and what the true nature of Binks’s Sake itself is.
And that connection lies in the fact that there’s an undeniable connection between Binks’s Sake and Gear 5th. When transformed as “Joy Boy” in Gear 5th, Luffy begins mentioning lyrics of Binks’s Sake directly, such as “when we die, we all end up as bones”. Luffy is also laughing all the time, just like the main chorus of Binks’s Sake being laughter, and the rhythm of the Drums of Liberation is similar in Japanese to that of Binks’s Sake (Don-do-to-to/Yo-ho-ho-ho). So if we go by the earlier assumption that the One Piece could be Binks’s Sake, and we know Roger associated both the One Piece and Joy Boy with Binks’s Sake, then it all connects together. But how?
WHO IS JOYBOY?
Well, I think we’ve always overcomplicated this, but I feel it’s ultimately very simple: for a long time we’ve always assumed that “Joy Boy”, or the “Sun God Nika”, was a historical figure of the Void Century. But in reality, Oda has already told us this is not the case. Because Luffy’s fruit is a “Mythical Type Zoan”. And what that literally means is that Nika is a mythical figure, not a real person. Or in other words… a fictional character.
You might however argue that “Joy Boy” had to have been a real person in the Void Century, since there’s the apology poneglyph, or Zunesha calling them their “nakama” and all, but remember this: Nika may be a fictional “Mythical” figure, but it also existed in the form of a fruit. So the person of the Void Century who left that poneglyph was likely the first user of the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika that let him become the first “Joy Boy”. After all the Government did say that the fruit hasn’t awakened in centuries and has been running away for 800 years, meaning that it did have a previous user in the Void Century.
But the figure of “Joy Boy” itself is a Mythical figure, a fictional character. And this is most evident in its name, because what does “Joy Boy” even mean? You may think of a title or epithet, but actually… Joy Boy is a superhero nickname. Like “Superboy” or “Astroboy”, Nika was a fictional superhero whose superpower is “to bring smiles and laughter to people’s faces”. We even have confirmation of this with other superheroes of the One Piece world like “Sora, Warrior of the Sea”, who in Japanese is written identically to “Joy Boy, Warrior of Liberation”. Joy Boy is a fictional comicbook superhero, and when you put it all together, it makes perfect sense.
WHAT IS THE ONE PIECE?
I believe the One Piece treasure itself is the manga version of Binks’s Sake, a comicbook that stars the adventures of the fictional superhero, the “Warrior of Liberation Joy Boy”.
And this couldn’t be more evident than in the actual awakening of the fruit, where we see Luffy turning into a goofy rubberhose character who, just as Kaido put it, seems to be like something “out of a comic strip”. That’s why he is so cartoonish, because he literally IS something out of a comic strip.
And think about it this way: what happens when you read about Gear 5th in the manga? What emotion does that instill in us?
HE LAUGHED
It now makes perfect sense why Roger and his crew laughed in front of the treasure that Roger described as a “laugh tale”, because it’s the story about Joy Boy being silly and cartoonish and thus “delivering smiles and laughter to people’s faces by acting silly”. Roger was literally reading peak fiction to his crew and they were all laughing at how silly and funny Joy Boy’s whacky shenanigans were.
Roger referred to “Joy Boy” not necessarily because he may have been the one to leave behind the treasure, but because Joy Boy is the protagonist of the treasure itself. And he may have even not been referring as wishing to be born in the Void Century, but wishing to be born later into the present day to witness Luffy transforming into the new Joy Boy.
You could even see Binks’s Sake, the song that came out of this story, as something like the equivalent of the anime opening or the soundtrack of the story itself or something like that. Even the Straw Hat you could see as something like merchandising if you wanted to, but the thing is that this adoration around the “Sun God” is ultimately an adoration of a fictional story, in the same way some like us are so fascinated with the One Piece manga.
HOW WAS THE ONE PIECE MADE?
My belief is that during the Void Century, there existed this comicbook about the Warrior of Liberation Joy Boy that spoke of ideals of freedom and equality in a world that was steeped in slavery and suffering. Slaves and prisoners were so inspired by this book that they began to venerate it, treating Nika like a god (literally in the same way we call someone like “Oda” as “Goda” when you think about it) and prayed that he somehow could be real and liberate them. So desperate was their condition of life that they wished this figure of positivity could somehow exist and come save them.
And that dream eventually took the form of the Nika fruit, which an influential figure of the Void Century ate to help bring a change to the world for good. Yet even when they were killed and the fruit reborn, they wanted their ideals to be preserved, and for someone to one day change the world and then help spread this story, the One Piece, across the entire world to help educate and teach future generations about the true history, freedom, and equality.
Whitebeard said that when the One Piece would be found, the “world would be turned upside down”, but this is often mistranslated as meaning a big conflict or war. However the Japanese term (世界をひっくり返る) is more accurate to “overturning the system”, bringing a social change to the world. So it is likely that it will be the ancient weapons that will spark the final conflict and help bring a physical change to the world, which is the reason why Roger was “too early” (something that was already indicated being due to the ancient weapons being born after Roger died, which is why he was “too early”), but the treasure itself is more meant after to help unite a broken world as “one piece”, which Roger couldn’t do as the change for good brought by the ancient weapons could not yet happen.
WHAT DOES THE “ONE PIECE” MEAN?
Because I ultimately think that the reason behind the One Piece being a laugh tale, a story, is to serve as a thematic parallel for what this story means to us. One Piece, the manga of our world, is a story that helps educate people and connect people together. It teaches us about the values of unity, connection, peace over war, love over fear, to the point that you could argue it has helped change so many of us into better people who want to make an impact for the better in the world.
And in much the same way, I think the One Piece comic in the OP world will help educate future generations to share similar ideals of love and equality, to think for yourself rather than believe in propaganda. Even if One Piece won’t completely change our world, you can’t deny that in some way, small or big, it has helped bring a good influence to so many people.
And so I could find nothing more fitting than the treasure itself being a symbol of the entire journey we’ve taken to get thus far as well as what makes this manga so incredibly special to us. The One Piece treasure is so much more than just “the friends we made along the way”, it’s the physical embodiment of everything that this manga and the memories we’ve made means to us and the narrative message of how stories can be a powerful way to change the world and educate people for the better.
TL;DR: The Nika fruit is a “Mythical Type Zoan”, meaning that “Joy Boy” is a mythical figure, or more literally a fictional character, someone that never existed. So I believe that the One Piece treasure is a “laugh tale”, a comicbook starring the superhero “Joy Boy” whose superpower is to deliver smiles and laughter to people’s faces, which is why Roger laughed when reading the One Piece he called a “laugh tale”. Read the full thing for more details!
*Theory by OharaLibrarianArtur
