Foreshadowing Franky’s Power-Up?
The cover shows Franky in what appears to be a fighter jet-style vehicle — released alongside an event announcing new One Piece anime voice actors. Seems promotional. But look more carefully at the feet visible in the frame: those are unmistakably Gundam feet.
Gundam’s design has three components: upper body, Core Fighter, and lower body. The pilot sits at waist level, controlling the entire machine from the navel position — exactly how Franky General works. Putting this together: with Vegapunk’s technology, I think the Soldier Docking System is going to gain a “fighter unit,” transforming Franky General into a flying giant robot.
Supporting detail: the other crew members in the cover are wielding Bubble Guns. Which raises the possibility that Franky himself might be equipped with Bubble Gun and Bubble Shield systems — meaning he could fight Logia users directly for the first time. Whether this plays out in Elbaf or later, the cover feels like a deliberate setup.
Luffy Imitating Jinbei
Last chapter’s cover was a Jinbei homage, and the jingi energy carried over into this chapter’s main story. Is it direct cause and effect — Oda seeding the main plot from the cover story — or just Luffy doing what Luffy does (copying his crew members for fun)? Both readings work. Probably both are true.
A Greeting Learned from Makino?
The formal yakuza-style greeting Luffy cuts with Saulo — where does it come from? Theory: Luffy and Ace learned the proper way to show respect to benefactors from Makino at the Dawn Bar in Foosha Village. The character “Makino” is almost certainly named after Masahiro Makino, the director of Jirocho Sangokushi — the film Oda has called his personal bible, and whose DVD he directly petitioned to be made with his own cover illustration.
The chain: Makino Masahiro → Makino taught Luffy and Ace → she taught them in the yakuza-style of Makino Masahiro → therefore, Luffy’s instinct to “cut jingi” with Saulo is Makino’s influence running through him without him knowing it. It’s the kind of layered reference Oda buries 800 chapters deep.
Norse Mythology’s Well of Knowledge
The owl’s library has a spring at its base. Spring + repository of knowledge = Mímir’s Well, the Norse mythological spring where Odin sacrificed one eye in exchange for wisdom and the ability to see all things. One eye sacrificed → eye patch.
Oda has been hinting at a “certain pirate who wears an eye patch” for years — a figure he’s promised to eventually introduce. The Elbaf arc, with its dense Norse mythology scaffolding, feels like exactly where that character might finally arrive. Watch this space.
The Shanks Twin Theory
Since the Levely arc (around volume 90), a hooded figure has been appearing intermittently — similar build to Shanks, similar face, but with the left-eye scar status unclear. Chapter 1134 brings another reappearance that might finally settle whether this figure is Shanks or someone else entirely.
Personally: I was completely dismissive of the “Shanks has a twin” theory when it first circulated. I’ve since come around to “plausible” — but the evidence is structural rather than direct.
Self-Homage as Evidence
Here’s the reasoning: in the miniature garden inside Road’s territory (Ch.1128), a creature appeared that looks exactly like the Flying Fish Riders. Flying Fish Riders = Duval arc homage. Duval was Sanji’s lookalike — a completely different person who happened to share a face. If Oda is running a Duval-sequence homage right now, then introducing a character who resembles Shanks but is a different person fits cleanly into that structural pattern.
Add to that: Garling and at least one or two other characters in the story share visual traits with Shanks. The “that guy” Whitebeard referred to on his deathbed — the one connected to Shanks’ origins — is probably a father, brother, or twin.
“That Guy”
Whitebeard’s dying words included a reference to “that guy” in connection with Shanks — a line that has never been fully explained. Given the accumulating evidence of Shanks-adjacent lookalikes (Garling included), the most likely reading is that Shanks has a family member — father or sibling — whose identity is being slowly revealed through the current arc’s structural homages. I’d love to be wrong about this. A twin Shanks or a split-personality Shanks is genuinely hard to accept emotionally. But the breadcrumbs are there.
