For the first time EVER in the history of
One Piece, we learned a MASSIVE FACT about the forbidden history of the Void Century
AND the true identity of the legendary Joy Boy. And of course this is all thanks to Vegapunk’s
shocking message from chapter 1114 where he confirmed the MIND BLOWING fact that Joy Boy
and the Sun God Nika are NOT. THE SAME. PERSON. And while many people have speculated that
they were separate characters, now that we basically know for sure we can now take everything
that know and analyze these two enormously important figures. Because first off Vegapunk says that Joy Boy
fought with the same stretchy body as the Legendary Sun God Nika from the fables of
Elbaf. Which confirms what we already knew that Joy
Boy had the same Nika powers that Luffy now possesses. But what is new from this information is that
it appears the Sun God Nika was already a legendary figure from the past even before
Joy Boy’s time. So just like Luffy, Joy Boy inherited Nika’s
powers instead of being the original source of them. Now, we don’t know if Joy Boy got these
powers from a devil fruit or from some other method, but this information essentially disproves
one major community theory. And that is that Joy Boy put his soul into
a devil fruit so he could pass on his powers. This was a popular idea around the time that
Luffy first awakened his devil fruit in Wano. But clearly that is not the case anymore since
we have basically confirmed that Joy Boy used the same powers as Nika had in the past. So that’s one theory disproved, but what’s
even more shocking is that if Nika was a legendary figure even before Joy Boy, that gives us
a HUGE HINT about what the world was like in the extremely distant past. Because one thing that we know about Nika
is that he is a mythological savior to slaves. So if the original Nika was not from the Void
Century then that means that Nika was needed to save slaves from even further back in the
future. So the world was not just a great and happy
place in the past. In fact, the fact that Joy Boy and Nika are
two different saviors from two different eras leads me to believe that the history of the
world has gone in cycles, much like our real world. The cycle probably goes something like this. The world starts out free but eventually one
person or a group of people takes control of the world and enslaves others. Then after years of this enslaved state, a
savior rises up to free the world from its oppressive rulers. Which then leads to another period of freedom. And if this had happened multiple times, then
it makes sense that the Nika myth would be present in many cultures, especially if the
savior has similar powers each time. But that’s all speculation, so let’s get
back to some facts that we do know about the legendary Nika. Because the strongest connection we have between
Nika and our current characters comes from the race of giants. In fact, Nika has been linked to the giants
of Elbaf multiple times in this arc. In this very chapter Vegapunk tells us that
Nika is a legend of worship in Elbaf but even back in chapter 1106 the Giant Captains Dorry
and Broggy specifically pointed out that Luffy’s Gear 5 powers resemble that of the legendary
Nika. So clearly, Nika is a such an important figure
in the Giants’ lore that even his powers are clearly described. But that’s not the only connection we have
because if you remember back to Big Mom’s flashback we learned that the Giants have
a celebration called the Winter Solstice. How this works is that the giants give thanks
to the sun by eating a bunch of food, then they fast for twelve days, and then they break
their fast by having another giant feast and giving thanks to the sun. Which if you look at it closely, this celebration
is a near perfect representation of the cycles of the history. For example, the world starts out in a period
of peace, then there are many dark days of struggle, and then at the end they come out
of the dark times by feasting and thanking the sun. And if that doesn’t sound familiar to you,
then you haven’t been paying close attention to like the entire story because this basically
happens in every single one piece arc. The straw hats come to a new and exciting
place, then they learn the dark secrets and go through a period of struggle. Then they defeat the final villain of the
arc and finally celebrate with a feast. Some arcs even go so far as to match the end
of the arc with the rising sun. And of course at this point we know that Nika
represents the sun, so it makes sense that the true purpose of the Winter Solstice is
a celebration of Nika saving the giants from some past period of intense darkness. Regardless, I say all that to really drive
home the point that Nika is a figure who has most likely shown up many times throughout
history and Luffy is the latest version who will save the world. What’s truly exciting though is apparently
Nika doesn’t always win. Because clearly Joy Boy didn’t win because
he wasn’t able to keep his promise to the Fishmen. He failed to bring them to the surface, and
on top of that the world was forced to live under the rule of the new World Government
and its secret ruler, Imu. But now let’s dive into Joy Boy a bit more
because there are layers to what we learned about him in this chapter that you may not
realize. On the surface, we had the stunning reveal
from Vegapunk that Joy Boy was THE FIRST PIRATE who set out to sea. Which is just insane! Like what does that even mean??? You might be wondering how that is even possible
because surely there were people before him that sailed on the ocean, right? Well, it's not so simple. So to really understand this we have to think
about the world right before the Void Century. As we discussed in the last chapter review,
there is pretty strong evidence to suggest that the one piece world was not always covered
with water as it is now, but at one time it experienced a major flood. So if Joy Boy really was the first pirate,
maybe he was the first to set out on the new oceans after the world wide flood. Which is a strong possibility, I also think
that there is another option here. Because in One Piece the sea represents many
things. For most people, it is a dangerous obstacle
that separates their islands from the rest of the world. But it is even more dangerous for devil fruit
users because the sea literally hates them and will leave them unable to move if they
fall in. So, it is also possible that the world before
the Void Century made it illegal for people to sail on the seas because of the dangers
it represented. Which could explain why Joy Boy was actually
the first pirate if he was the first to break this rule and set out to sea. And to add on to this, we know that Luffy’s
definition of being a pirate is all about freedom and adventure. So by calling Joy Boy the first pirate, it
is possible that Joy Boy was the first to really represent this spirit of freedom and
adventure that Luffy has always shown us. Or there is even one more possibility which
takes us all the way up to the moon. Because if you look back through Enel’s
cover story, we can clearly see a civilization once existed on the moon. And many people think this is the highly advanced
civilization that is mentioned in the past, so what if Joy Boy became the first pirate
by LEAVING the moon kingdom and traveling down to the Blue Planet. That would certainly fit with the idea of
Joy Boy making friends with races all around the world, and could even explain why the
moon civilization fell into ruin after Joy Boy and his Nika powers left the moon. That being because Nika's Drums of Liberation
heartbeat seems to be capable of powering the ancient technology - the so called Eternal
Flame, which we'll discuss more in just a few minutes. However, Joy Boy’s title as the first pirate
also brings up some very confusing questions. Because for the longest time we have figured
that Joy Boy was the leader of the ancient kingdom. And during the Egghead arc we had confirmed
that the ancient past was technologically advanced, so many of us logically thought
that Joy Boy was the leader of this high tech society. However, Vegapunk clearly says that he was
born in an advanced society, so the technology existed before he was born, and he also appeared
to leave the society behind by becoming a pirate. So all this leads to the super interesting
question: Did Joy Boy form the Anceint Kingdom after he left the advanced civilization? Or maybe was he a leader of the high tech
society and then he gave up his title to become a pirate? And could Joy Boy’s adventures - where he
befriended many different races of the world - have caused the eventual war that led to
the Void Century? And wow, I simply cannot wait to find out
the answers to these questions, but there is one other piece of evidence that I want
to point out about the timing of Joy Boy becoming a pirate and the eventual war with the Twenty
Kings. Because back in chapter 965 we learned that
Amatsuki Toki, the wife of Kozuki Oden, had a very interesting childhood. According to her, Toki’s parents were from
Wano but she actually does not know where she was born. To me hints that she was probably born on
a ship which was sailing around the world. And if that’s the case, then it would likely
have to be after Joy Boy became the first pirate. We also know that Toki fled her time hoping
to reach the time of the new Joy Boy, which hints that she was born into a time of war. So it was likely that setting out to sea was
one of the major reasons or effects of the Void Century war in the first place. If we are talking about sources of conflict
though, there is probably no more important resource in the world right now than the Mother
Flame that was FINALLY REVEALED for the first time in this chapter. And wow, call me crazy, but I did not expect
it to be a LITERAL FLAME, let alone a small ball of fire inside a tank of some liquid. Like how is that even possible? And what is that liquid? Is it water? Or some other special solution? I’m not sure, but I have so many questions
and that single panel of the giant tank has SO MANY clues. But first let’s talk about the flame itself. Based on what we’ve been told previously,
this Mother Flame is an imitation of the Eternal Flame that used to power the ancient civilization. And just looking at the whole tank itself,
it kind of reminds me of a nuclear power plant. In case you didn’t know, nuclear power plants
use heat from nuclear fission to boil water. This superheated water then creates pressurized
steam which is used to spin mechanisms that produce energy. So that could be exactly what we are seeing
here, with the Mother Flame boiling the water that then produces energy. Now, we don’t know what that energy is currently
being used for, but we do know that it is needed to power Imu’s super weapon. Now let’s look at the actual flame itself
here because there is no real clue on how this flame is burning inside the water. Is it some sort of magical flame? Or some scientific source or heat? We don’t really know, but Oda could have
drawn inspiration from the ancient Greeks who were known to have their own special flames
that could burn on water. However, the process to create these Greek
flames was lost to history somewhat like the ancient kingdom’s power source. But as we’re looking at the flame, it kind
of reminds me of the way that souls are shown in one piece. For example, take Brooks’ soul. And while it’s not exactly the same, it
is possible that the Mother Flame we see here has some connection to souls in the One Piece
world. Especially because it seems to be alive in
some ways. Just look at the panel above the giant robot. Here we see the flame seems to swell larger
in response to something. It could be that it is reacting to Luffy's
Gear 5 transformation, the Iron Giant robot, or possibly Saint Saturn destroying things
in the room. And this last option does seem likely given
the fact that Saturn seems to react to the flame itself. First, he has to shield himself somewhat from
seeing it, and then we also see him turn back into his human form. And I'm really curious if he transformed back
into a human because of the Mother Flame or because he just wanted to be smaller in size,
I’m not sure, but it could be that the Mother Flame has some negative effect on the demonic
Gorosei. That’s far from the only interesting clue
we can see in this panel though because you may have noticed the markings for S-108 and
A&Mu on the giant tank. And while it isn’t immediately apparent
what these mean, I did a little research and found some interesting connections. Let’s start with the numbers. Because the number one hundred and eight has
many important religious and mathematical meanings. Just a few quick examples, the number one
hundred and eight is the number of earthly temptations in Buddhism and temple in Japan
will ring a bell one hundred and eight times at the end of the year to ward off the temptations
for the new year. In Hinduism beliefs, there are one hundred
and eight deities and there are also one hundred and eight connections between the chakras
in your body. Many religions take the number one hundred
and eight to be fundamental to the creation of the world, with the number one representing
the Divine, the number zero representing the void, and the number eight representing the
infinity. The number also plays an important role in
our own planets and the sun. For example, at certain times of the year,
the earth and the moon are separated by a distance one hundred and eight moons. Same thing with the sun, earth and the sun
are separated by a distance one hundred and eight suns. And there are many more examples with this
number, but just know that one hundred and eight is a very important number related to
the very existence of the world itself. So what is this number doing on the tank containing
the Mother Flame? Well, it could just be a hint from Oda that
the Mother Flame is the key to life and energy. Or it could have just been a pride thing where
Vegapunk wanted his creation to be super important. Or if we circle back to the Buddhist belief
in one hundred and eight temptations, this could be a sign that the Mother Flame will
tempt humanity and someone will have to overcome it to save the world. But you might be shocked to hear that the
letters right below this special number could hold even more significance for the future
of the story. Because here we can see A&Mu, which at first
glance doesn’t really mean anything special. But after researching some possibilities,
and looking at this from a Japanese perspective, I think I might have some idea of what this
could be hinting at. And let’s start with the most shocking idea
which is that the A and the Mu represent the supermassive lost continent of the old One
Piece world. Because if you look at legends from our own
world, the two most famous mythical lost places that you hear about are Atlantis and the Land
of Mu. Now these are actually the same place just
referred to by different names, but the main idea is that this place was a massive continent
that was destroyed by some ancient catastrophe and then sunk in the ocean. Of course, there is no actual proof of this,
but Oda could have used it as a reference in regards to the Mother Flame. In fact, maybe Vegapunk believes that the
Mother Flame is the key to discovering the possible lost continent. On the other hand, it could be that Vegapunk
is giving a warning that using the Mother Flame could end in the same result as the
flood that possibly covered the ancient lands. Of course, that’s all speculation based
on real world inspirations, but there are a few other ways to look at the letters on
the tank. First of all, the symbol for "and" can be
read as “to” in Japanese, so if you put that together you get Atomu or Atom. So perhaps this was just his clever way of
naming his power station similar to how we use nuclear fission power stations in our
world. The other possibility would be that the symbol
& is used to represent joining the A and the Mu. So possibly bringing two continents or ancient
civilizations together. Which yeah, is a bit of a stretch here but
there are just so many cool ideas that can be found from this one panel. Speaking of incredible ideas though, perhaps
the most obvious reference in this chapter is Vegapunk comparing himself to our real
world Icarus. Now if you don’t know, Icarus was the son
of a great inventor who was locked away for knowing the secrets of a mythological king. Then one day, Icarus’ father made a pair
of wings to escape their prison. Which worked perfectly, but unfortunately
Icarus died because he enjoyed his freedom too much and he flew too close to the sun. So if Oda is comparing Vegapunk to Icarus
that means that Vegapunk let himself go too far and was the cause of his own downfall. Which we clearly see because his desire to
research the void century is part of the reason he was hunted down by the world government. And while Joy Boy’s origins and the Mother
Flame were the biggest parts of the chapter, there were some other mind blowing details
that we simply must discuss. First, the ancient robot is up and moving
around and it seems like NO ONE can stop it. But what exactly is it going to do? Then we also see Luffy and the giants running
from Saint Warcury, where Luffy still cannot damage the fire-breathing demon boar. Which is actually a bit surprising. Luffy was at least able to smack Saturn around
a bit, so does that mean Warcury is on another level than Saturn? On top of that, we find out that Vegapunk
only recorded his message a few days before the current events, and he actually correctly
predicted that there would be a world wide earthquake. But what we didn’t know was that this earthquake
took place on the same day as everything is currently happening, which honestly, is a
bit strange. Why did it take so long after Lulusia was
destroyed for the earthquake to happen? I mean, we’re talking like six days later. So there’s definitely something strange
going on there. But then we got one of the most heartwarming
moments in recent chapters when for the first time since the pre-time skip we see an actual
picture of the giant Saul. We see him in a forest laughing as he listens
to Vegapunk’s message. And personally I am just so happy to see him
again. Obviously, we saw him in a dark panel earlier
in Egghead, but this is the first full picture of him. Clearly, he is doing very well, though in
this picture I don’t see any scars on him, so maybe he is not the Man Marked by Flames
after all. Regardless, Saul seems to already know what
Vegapunk is going to say, so I just have to imagine that he will play a big role in revealing
more ancient lore when we finally reach the Elbaf arc. Which just makes me all the more curious for
Elbaf because I for one cannot wait to see what happens when the Sun God Nika shows up
on their island. Will they still follow their prince Loki or
will they follow Luffy as their leader? And what happens if Luffy and Shanks end up
fighting? Who will the giants side with in that epic
clash? And will we learn the true history of what
happened with Nika and the giants? And perhaps the biggest mystery of all, what
was Joy Boy’s relationship with the giants and other allies? Because as we’ve said, Joy Boy clearly made
allies all around the world and likely had members of all the races on his crew. I’m talking giants, minks, fishmen, dwarves,
and of course people from the strongest countries such as Wano. However, you might be surprised by how much
we can already speculate about these people, so if you want to know EXACTLY who was on
Joy Boy’s pirate crew, you can watch this video right here. Shanks for watching, and as always, I’ll
see you in the next one.
