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Canon, in terms of fictional stories, refers to what is considered to be an official part of the main storyline. In practice, it usually determines the material(s) "appropriate" for fan analyses, speculations, or discussions.

Generally, the parts of the main story contributed by the original creator—which, in the case of One Piece, are predominantly the chapters of the manga and the SBS—are considered indisputable canon. However, One Piece is a multimedia franchise, boasting many different supplementary materials such as anime and databooks; these materials rarely have much direct input from Eiichiro Oda, creating much uncertainty about whether their events and facts belong in the canon.

For the most part, Oda and his staff have not made explicit confirmations about which supplemental works are canon and which are not. The subject is thus left to fan judgments, which tend to differ even within the same community, but usually revolve around two general principles:

  1. The greater Oda's input in the material, the more likely its elements qualify as canon
  2. Any non-manga material that contradicts the manga disqualifies itself from canon

Below is a more extensive guide to how this Wiki approaches the canonicity (or lack thereof) of each One Piece media source when documenting knowledge about the series. These considerations have been made carefully, based on how each source is produced, but should not be treated as official declarations about the canonicity of a work. Unless confirmed by an official statement from Oda and his associates, they only apply to the operation of this Wiki, and have no authority in fan discussion.

Canon

Elements originated by these sources are treated as canonical by default, unless indicated otherwise.

Manga

Being the work that launched the One Piece franchise and the work creator Eiichiro Oda has most directly participated in, the manga is widely accepted as the highest source of One Piece canon. While not free of art mistakes[1] or writing oversights,[2] all facts introduced in the manga are considered reliable canon unless contradicted by a fact introduced later in the manga.

Zeff Breaks His Leg Off
Zeff severing his right leg to eat, depicted only in the manga, is considered the canonical reason for his peg-leg.
Mary Geoise Canon Spelling
"Mary Geoise", the manga's first romanization for the World Government capital, is considered the canonical spelling.

It should be noted that this Wiki, whenever possible, prioritizes the original Japanese version of the manga. Though the Viz-translated manga is faithful in most respects, it does occasionally diverge due to mistranslation[3] or deliberate censorship.[4]

Short-Term Focused Cover Page Serials

Short-Term Focused Cover Page Serials (more often called "Cover stories" or "Cover arcs") tell side-stories in one-page installments, typically following antagonists or side-characters after their initial encounters with the Straw Hats.

Though somewhat lesser-known than the manga's main storyline (as most of them have not been adapted by the anime), cover arcs are considered equally canonical. In fact, many of them have served to explain elements in the main storyline, such as Buggy's return from his first defeat, Hatchan's new career as a takoyaki chef, and CP9's survival of the Buster Call.

Monsters

Monsters is a one-shot manga Oda created in 1994, several years before One Piece. Initially thought to be an unrelated work, its protagonist Ryuma would later appear in the Thriller Bark Arc as a zombie; shortly after, Oda confirmed in Volume 47's SBS that this was the same Ryuma, making Monsters part of the official canon.

SBS

The SBS is a question-and-answer column that has been included in every tankoban volume since Volume 4. The typical column features Oda personally answering fan questions on a wide variety of topics, some concerning the world or characters of One Piece, some concerning the series' production, and some completely unrelated to either.

While - in most cases - directly produced by Oda, the SBS is a slightly more nebulous source of canon than the manga proper, as Oda has been known to give joke answers to even straightfoward story questions (e.g. stating that Luffy can stretch a maximum of "72 Gomu Gomu's" when a fan asked for his limit).[5] Further blurring the issue, some of his ostensible joke answers (e.g. the Marine photographer Attach) later became actualities in the manga proper.[6][7]

In any case, Oda's serious SBS answers still provide a significant amount of worldbuilding information - the Marine Ranks,[8] the exact parameters of Devil Fruit users' weakness to water,[9] and the backstory between Perona and Gecko Moria,[10] among others - and are thus considered part of the canon unless contradicted by something in a later SBS column or the manga proper.

Databooks

Databook Red Kuro

Databook Red was the first source to list Kuro's bounty and name the Gecko Islands. In lieu of contradictions by a later source, both facts are placed in canon.

The databooks are a set of supplementary volumes that examine the world of One Piece as an encyclopedia would. Though they mostly compile information already established in the manga, each one also contains at least a few previously-unrevealed facts, most commonly the names of minor characters, locations, and/or items.

Sabo Dead in Databook Green

The (in)famous Green entry listing Sabo as "killed by a World Noble's cannon" (天竜人の砲撃を受け死亡?).

Databooks may be the most contentious source of One Piece canon; while their covers give sole attribution to Oda, fans have suggested that their contents are largely compiled by Shonen Jump editors (or even other fans, as the books are typically called "fanbooks" (ファンブック, Fanbukku?) in Japan) and thus cannot stand as canon by themselves. This grew especially controversial around the early 2010s, amid debates over whether Sabo had survived the events of Chapter 588; many fans cited an entry from the databook One Piece Green: Secret Pieces as evidence of his death, only for Chapter 731 to later establish that he had, in fact, survived.

On the other hand, Oda has been known to cite databooks as a valid source of canon on at least one occasion.[11] The general policy of this Wiki is to treat all databook facts as canon, unless contradicted by the manga, an SBS column, or a later databook.

One Piece Magazine

The installments of One Piece Magazine are similar to databooks in that they provide supplemental information about the series and are attributed to Oda himself. They have provided information such as the appearances of multiple Devil Fruits and the size measurements of the series' largest characters. However, parts of the magazine that give information about non-canon works, such as films and live events, are not considered canon. Additionally, the novels contained in the magazines, save for novel A, are not considered canon due to being written by other people.

One Piece novel A

One Piece novel A, consisting of two volumes, chronicles the life of Portgas D. Ace from the start of his pirating voyage to his time as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates. As stated below, One Piece novels are predominantly considered non-canon. Novel A is currently considered the sole exception, due to being confirmed as an official work supervised by Oda. Additionally, none of the information in novel A has been contradicted by other canon media.

Grand Line Times

This is a review of material already presented in the manga. It is considered canon. It was made by Oda, when he was ill, to help fans catch up with the series.

Non-Canon

Elements originated by these sources are treated as non-canonical by default, unless indicated otherwise.

Anime

Gaimon With Straw Hats

While Gaimon is canonical, his meeting Zoro and Usopp—a detail exclusive to the anime—is not.

Toei's anime version of One Piece, by far the most prominent adaptation of the manga, is correspondingly the largest source of mistaken (or debatable) canon. Though not as divergent as most other anime adaptations of long-running manga, the One Piece anime has still altered, rearranged, expanded, and occasionally removed material from virtually every section of the manga; for his part, Oda has stated that he participates little in anime production beyond supplying concept art.[12]

Sometimes Toei can subtly foreshadow the events that are coming up in the anime (mostly due to events being done in the manga prior). This can be seen when a ghost of the Going Merry is shown during the sea train ride, and also after the Luffy versus Usopp duel, where Toei had Zoro acting cold towards Usopp by telling Chopper not to talk about him. Fans thought that this move was out of his character but in the manga, Zoro acted the same way after Luffy learned that Usopp wanted to re-join but did not like the idea of Luffy being weak like that. In the anime, Boin Archipelago was a giant plant with the mouth in the middle, it was confirmed canon later in the manga, the same goes to the shadowy figures Zoro faced turning out to be apes, who were confirmed in the manga except that they were baboons instead. But the anime is not always trustworthy. The anime was meant to describe the events in the manga, expanding the roles and actions to fill up the 30 minutes time frame. They add events, histories, information, and extra scenes not found in the manga.

Toei has even created some plot holes. For example, in the Warship Island Arc, Zoro stated that there was nothing he could not cut, but the fact that he claimed that the chains he cut were steel is a major plothole as in the manga (and the anime), he was shown to be unable to cut steel until the Arabasta Arc, when he cut Daz Bonez. In the Davy Back Fight Arc, Chopper ate three rumble balls without turning into Monster Chopper, but Chopper was not supposed to eat another rumble ball within 6 hours. In the Diary of Koby-Meppo cover story adaption, Garp, Koby and Helmeppo went up Reverse Mountain, but in the manga they went through the Calm Belt, however Toei covered up the mistake by having Koby state that the newspaper was wrong. In the anime, Toei tried to explain why Sanji was in a sweet dress by saying that Caroline had him release his "inner maiden" which turned Sanji into an Okama, thus causing him to lose his interest in girls and leading to him deciding to be friends with them while in the manga he was forced to wear it. Sanji was no longer wearing it and had reverted to his old self when he met Ivankov. In the Warship Island Arc, the crew saved Ryu, an old and weakened dragon, however, in the Punk Hazard Arc, the crew stated that the dragon they had encountered on Punk Hazard was the first they had seen.

Fillers

For the purposes of this Wiki, filler refers to material that is exclusive to the serialized TV anime. It can refer to whole episodes or arcs driven by plots not found in the manga, or to individual scenes inserted into otherwise-canon material.

As filler exists mostly for logistical reasons (e.g. preventing the anime from overtaking the manga, making sure an episode reaches the proper length), it cannot meaningfully affect the canonical storyline. However, because the anime also presents itself as a single, serialized story, most filler tries to reconcile with canon events instead of overwriting them.

Here are the list of filler arcs and filler episodes added by Toei Animation.

Movies, Specials, and OVAs

Apart from the TV anime, Toei has also produced a number of standalone films and specials under the One Piece license. These typically make no effort to reconcile with the manga's or the TV anime's current storylines beyond the Straw Hats' membership, and are thus not regarded as canonical.

  • Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack is the first anime in a movie form created in 1998 one year before Toei took rights to create the series based on the manga. Only Luffy, Zoro and Nami are in it, since it released when One Piece was in the Syrup Village Arc, which is why Usopp did not appear. Ganzack, a villain with a armor with a crab claws was a basic concept for Don Krieg.
  • Movie 1 takes place in the East Blue, just before Sanji is introduced.
  • Movie 2 takes place between the Loguetown Arc and the Warship Island Arc. While it could be in canon with Ace and Vivi having a cameo appearance in the credits, their color schemes are different from those shown in the manga, and later the anime.
  • Movie 4 took place after Arabasta, the confrontation between Gasparde and Luffy was similar to the confrontation between Crocodile and Luffy (Luffy screaming Gasparde's name like he did with Crocodile and coated his hands with powder to fight Gasparde like he used blood to fight Crocodile).
  • Movie 5 took place while the series was in Skypiea.
  • Movie 7 was supposed to take place before Water 7. Although there are machines in the movie, Oda later added Karakuri Island to the canon storyline, although the only mechanics on this island were the Automata created by Moonwatcher. While this movie is not to be consider canon, it shows Luffy activating Gear Second unwittingly, being a possible explanation for the origin of the technique.
  • Movie 8 was supposed to take place during Arabasta Arc but many things were changed. Ace, Rainbase, the Marines, and Mr. 3 did not appear in the movie, making it different from the canon Arabasta.
  • Movie 9 is a remake of the Drum Island Arc, but Vivi is not in it, and Robin and Franky make an appearance, and Wapol has an older brother and new subordinates. It is dramatically different from the canon events that occurred at Drum. However, the revised 2014 edition adds an additional scene which retroactively makes it a dream that a post-timeskip Chopper experienced while on board the Thousand Sunny after the crew has reunited, setting the movie sometime after the Fish-Man Island Arc but before the Punk Hazard Arc.
  • Movie 10 takes place on Merveille. It takes place between the Thriller Bark Arc and Sabaody Archipelago Arc, because Brook has joined the crew and it occurs before the crew is separated. As it is the only movie directly written by Oda, its canonical status is somewhat more ambiguous; see "Partial/Ambiguous" below for details.

Cross Epoch

This is a crossover comic that features the Dragon Ball and One Piece cast, but does not have anything to do with the main storyline, and fans do not consider those canonical.

Video Games

Video Games may feature characters and events from the manga, but they have nothing to do with the canon storyline. In fact there are games that have original non-canon characters:

  • One Piece: World Seeker: Which features a large number of original characters who reside on Jewel Island, from the occupying Marines led by Isaac to the citizens led by Jeanne.

Live Shows

There have been a variety of real-world One Piece events in Japan that have original plots and characters. Major events include:

  • The One Piece Premier Show, an annual stage show at Universal Studios Japan in which the characters are portrayed by human actors. There is a new plot each year.
  • One Piece Live Attraction, a stage show at Tokyo One Piece Tower that has currently undergone four iterations, each with unique plots.
  • One Piece x Kyoto, an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the series which contained an art exhibit depicting a story of the Straw Hat Pirates in Wano Country. The climactic scene was drawn by Oda.

The plots created by these live events have little to no connection to Oda or the manga storyline, with the story of One Piece x Kyoto actively contradicting the manga.

Features

Toei has inserted special features that have nothing to do with the canon.

Omake Features

Most of the comics Oda drew in the omake have nothing to do with the canon, despite the fact that Oda drew them. The comics often humorously feature the One Piece cast in different roles and different situations which are standalone stories. However, the only omake which could occur in continuity is Report Time, which chronicles the Straw Hat crew's eating habits during the first parts of their voyage, up to Sanji joining, but it is unconfirmed if it actually is.

Oda's Involvement

Oda has occasionally been involved in non-canon material:

  • Oda wrote the story for One Piece Film: Strong World and was executive producer for One Piece Film: Z and One Piece Film: Gold.
  • Oda has designed many anime-only characters for Toei (anime)[13] and Bandai (video games).
  • Oda provided character designs for the first OVA characters. Sketches of these can be found in one of the early volumes.[14]
  • The character Musshuru was created by Oda for the 9th One Piece movie as Wapol's brother.[15] Due to many of the other changes in the story, including the inclusion of Robin and Franky to the story of the discovery and joining of Tony Tony Chopper, it cannot be considered canon in the continuity.
  • Oda has also designed other non-canon characters such as Accino,[16] Gasparde, Z, Ratchet, and more.

Partial/Arguable

Non-Serial Cover Pages

The majority of the manga's Cover Pages are non-serial; instead, they depict various characters (most often the Straw Hat Pirates) in context-free scenarios with no dialogue whatsoever. As a result, they are almost never regarded as having any weight on the main storyline; by the same token, however, they almost never openly contradict the main storyline (at most occasionally depicting technology that does not appear to exist in the world proper).[17]

Chapter 165

Chapter 165's cover, indicating the original Clima-Tact is canonically red, not the anime's better-known blue.

In any case, it is generally assumed that all cover pages are (even if conceptualized via fan submissions) drawn solely by Oda, and correspondingly represent the design elements he intends as canonical. For this reason, cover-page art is sometimes used as a basis for canonical name spellings and color schemes, especially those never confirmed by the main storyline.

Novels

Similar to Toei's films and specials, Shueisha has published a number of standalone novels under the One Piece license. Their canonical status is somewhat more debatable, and fall across two categories.

Adaptations

Every One Piece theatrical film—in addition to Production I.G's one-off OVA and the 3D2Y special—has received a tie-in novelization, generally held to be equally non-canonical. More ambiguous, however, is Tatsuya Hamazaki's 2000 novelization of the Loguetown Arc—to date the only known prose publication directly adapting the manga, and one of a very few to feature illustrations from Eiichiro Oda.

Story-wise, the novel is most notable for introducing Daddy Masterson and his daughter Carol, along with the North Blue goggles that Usopp wears throughout the Straw Hats' Grand Line adventures. This material (later adapted as Episode 50 of the anime) is often assumed to have happened "off-screen" in the manga, based on an SBS where Oda confirmed that Chapter 98 was originally meant to show Usopp buying the goggles, but cut the scene due to page-length limits; however, it should be noted this SBS says nothing about the Mastersons, or that the goggles would have been attached to any wider story.[18]

To date, the Mastersons have not been referenced in any databook or supplementary work, and it remains unknown if they are canonical, or even if they were in fact Oda's creations. The same applies to all the other elements introduced in the novel (such as the fortune-teller who declares that Luffy has a "conqueror's countenance" (覇王の相, Haō no sō?)),[19] with the exception of Billy the Orca Killer, whose sword Yamaoroshi was listed in One Piece Magazine's catalog of Meito.[20]

(A related rumor states that Oda had removed "many" would-be canon stories from the Loguetown Arc so the Straw Hats could enter the Grand Line by Chapter 100. This, at best, remains an inference with no official confirmation.)

Original

From 2017 on, Shueisha has also published several novels featuring original stories (almost all initially serialized in One Piece Magazine), which frequently add new details to canonical characters, settings, and events:

Of these, none were written by Eiichiro Oda, and only novel A is known to have involved any direct contribution from him (specifically, concept art for Masked Deuce, Isuka, and several other characters). Pending further announcements from Shueisha (or analyses on whether the stories contradict any facts established in the manga), this wiki's current policy is to treat novel A as canonical, and the others as non-canonical.

One Piece Film: Strong World

The anime's tenth theatrical film, Strong World, is to date the only film directly written by Eiichiro Oda. This fact was greatly publicized in its promotional materials; allegedly, a few even stated that Oda considered it part of the manga storyline, though this remains unconfirmed.

As a whole, Strong World is among the films most conciliatory with the manga storyline, fitting into the several-day gap between the Thriller Bark Arc and the Sabaody Archipelago Arc.[21] Nevertheless, fans have cited several inconsistencies—most notably that it features Zoro fighting at full health, when similar exertions on Saobaody quickly reopened his wounds from Thriller Bark.[22] In addition, none of the film's plot developments have ever been referenced in the manga, even in passing.

Further muddling the issue, the film's main antagonist Shiki is generally considered part of the canon. In addition to being conceptualized and designed entirely by Oda (with an entire special chapter of the manga tying his backstory into that of Gold Roger and many other characters), he has been referenced twice in manga storylines—the Impel Down Arc[23] and the Wano Country Arc[24]—otherwise unrelated to Strong World, though only by epithet and never by name.

Apart from Shiki, the only Strong World-original element to be even tangentially referenced by the manga is the plant Daft Green, which apparently has non-poisonous variants on Rusukaina.[25]

Finally, it should be noted that the anime-original Little East Blue Arc, despite being designed as a prologue to Strong World, is generally not considered canonical, as no aspect of its plot (which ends with Shiki not even knowing of the Straw Hats' involvement) has ever been referenced by the film or the manga.

Trivia

References

  1. See To Err Is Oda
  2. One Piece Manga — Vol. 48 Chapter 464 (p. 5), Sanji states that he studied Devil Fruits as a child (a fact later confirmed in Chapter 840), contradicting a scene in Chapter 66 where he expresses surprise when told Devil Fruit users cannot swim.
  3. One Piece Manga — Vol. 9 Chapter 75 (p. 10), Arlong tells his crewmen to offer the 77th Branch a bribe of Beli2,000,000 (2百万で手を打てね, Ni-Hyakuman de te o utene?). Viz mistranslates this as a demand for the 77th to pay the same amount.
  4. One Piece Manga — Vol. 17 Chapter 155 (p. 17), The Baroque Works membership chart states that Mr. 2 was not given a female partner because he is an Okama (implicitly qualifying him as his own female partner). Viz changes this to "He doesn't want one."
  5. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 4, "How far can Luffy's arms stretch? Please tell me."
  6. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 24, "Who is it that takes those pictures for the wanted posters distributed by the Marines?"
  7. One Piece Manga and Anime — Vol. 45 Chapter 436 (p. 3) and Episode 321, The Post-Enies Lobby Arc depicts Attach talking about photographs of the Straw Hat Pirates, confirming his existence in the canon.
  8. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 8 (p. 84), "I don't understand the Marines system very well. Is Captain the highest rank?"
  9. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 41 (p. 206), "Crocodile can't fight water because he's "sand," right? Then how does he bathe?!"
  10. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 82 (p. 102), Perona's past with Moria is explained.
  11. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 47 (p. 46), Oda indicates that One Piece Yellow's entries on Very Good, Shu, and Sharinguru (and their respective abilities) are all accurate.
  12. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 21 (p. 164), "First of all, what I MUST tell you is that I am a manga artist so I don't make anime. What I can do is help out with the character designs for anime-original episodes. Nothing major."
  13. One Piece Manga - Color Walk 3, 4, 5, Drawings for Movie 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and Special 1 were included within.
  14. One Piece Manga — Vol. 5 (p. 28, 48, 70, 90 and 148).
  15. JUMP Festa 2008 - Oda reveals that he created Musshuru for the 9th Movie.
  16. Art Oda's concept ideas for Accino.
  17. One Piece Manga — Vol. 4 Chapter 33 (p. cover), The Cover Page depicts the Straw Hats in airplanes; notwithstanding special flying machines such as the Ark Maxim, no equivalent technologies are known to exist in the main storyline.
  18. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 13 (p. 104), Oda explains Usopp's goggles, and shares a rough-draft page cut from Chapter 98. Note that the last panel seems to end the entire scene, and the equivalent Nami and Sanji scenes—included in the manga proper—each last exactly one page.
  19. One Piece Novel — Loguetown Arc, See this excerpt from Logpiece. Note that many fans have theorized this scene was meant to foreshadow Conqueror's Haki.
  20. One Piece Magazine Vol.6 (p. 23).
  21. One Piece Manga — Vol. 50 Chapter 490, After leaving Thriller Bark with Brook as their newest recruit, the Straw Hat Pirates encounter several days' worth of hazards before (re)encountering the Red Line and meeting Camie. The TV anime inserts the Spa Island Arc into this gap.
  22. One Piece Manga and Anime — Vol. 52 Chapter 510 (p. 9) and Episode 402, Luffy and Sanji are disturbed to see Zoro collapsing so quickly into their battle with the PX-1.
  23. One Piece Manga and Anime — Vol. 54 Chapter 530 (p. 5) and Episode 425, Sengoku states "the Gold Lion that could fly" managed the only successful escape in Impel Down history.
  24. One Piece Manga — Vol. 95 Chapter 957 (p. 6), Sengoku states "the Gold Lion" was one of many legendary pirates who started under Rocks D. Xebec.
  25. SBS One Piece Manga — Vol. 61 (p. 124), Oda states that the tree on the last page of Chapter 597 is part of the Daft Green "family" and emits a similar smell that repels animals, but does not have poison spores.

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