After years of absence and sporadic appearances, Shanks the Red is currently one of the most talked about characters in ONE PIECE. Captain of the Red Pirates, he is one of the Four Emperors. But where does his incredible strength feared across the ocean come from?
Recently, in the ONE PIECE manga series, Luffy showed off a new power-up, the Fifth Cog, obtained through a new evolution of his Devil Fruit. Likewise Shanks strength comes from a devil fruit?
Shanks only appeared 20 times in ONE PIECE, totaling over 1000 chapters. So from the emperor we really know very little and it is not clear to everyone whether or not they possess the power of a devil fruit.
Shanks has had contact with the Devil’s Fruits twice, as far as we know. The first time happened when he was part of the crew of Gol D. Roger. At that time it was very close to the Frutto Bara Bara, but it was eaten by Buggy, who also became Emperor. The second time it happened at the beginning of ONE PIECE when his crew discovered the gom gom fruit. Also this time the fruit was not eaten by Shanks, but accidentally by little Luffy.
Well both times Shanks managed to get close to a devil fruit, He never had the opportunity to acquire his powers. So, did Shanks eat a devil fruit or not? At the beginning of the story written by Eiichiro Oda, we see him diving into the sea to save Luffy, who instead drowned precisely because of the gomu gomu fruit. So it’s clear that at least at this point, Shanks had never eaten fruit.
Even now, as far as we know about the character, Shanks doesn’t own a devil fruit. His strength is based solely on his physical abilities, haki control, and sword skills. Despite only having one arm and never having to deal with the Devil Fruit’s powers, Shanks is one of the strongest characters in ONE PIECE.
Leave a Comment