In its 25 years of existence, One Piece has spouted countless streams of other media: 15 films, 56 video games (if Wikipedia’s count is to be believed), a COVID-casualtied indoor theme park. Among the fans of Eiichiro Oda’s original manga and the anime it spawned, none of these off-shoots are considered canon. However, as Oda has started to get more involved in recent films and games, the border on which something is canon or not has gotten fuzzier. And, indeed, Oda was involved in the newest One Piece video game, One Piece Odyssey.
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Ahead of Odyssey‘s release in January 2023, the 2022 movie One Piece Film: Red demonstrated the canon conundrum perfectly. While the film is not canon overall, it introduces Shanks’ daughter, Uta, who does exist in One Piece canon. She has even made a cameo in the manga in the film’s release. The fact that something seemingly happens to Uta over the course of this non-canonical film makes her canon-ness downright confusing. To further muddy this boundary, Red drops some serious lore which will likely have an actual, proper reveal in the manga’s final saga.
One Piece Odyssey treads this tricky line as well. As with all the One Piece films and games which have original stories, the events of Odyssey are not canon. But, like One Piece Film: Red, Oda was heavily involved in this game’s production. He designed the new characters, Adio and Lim, and came up with the story. Unlike Uta, Adio and Lim have not been announced to exist in canon. But Oda’s intimate involvement with the story is notable, because, like Red, Odyssey teases some major lore.
Odyssey takes place on the island of Waford, a mysterious and legendary island which is home to a bunch of ancient technology that has been lost to the rest of the world. The phrase “ancient technology” is an immediate head-turner for One Piece fans, because it means that Odyssey‘s very setting has something to do with events before or during the Void Century. This is a period of history central to the world of One Piece. Its events are unknown, but when it ended 800 years ago, the World Government was established.
The manga has recently begun to scratch the surface of the relationship between ancient technology and the Void Century. So if you’re reading the manga, you know a bit more about this than anime-watchers. Suffice it to say, the Colossi on Waford look a lot like something which recently popped up in the manga. I’m not going to say anything more about Odyssey‘s involvement with larger One Piece lore, because I don’t want to spoil the series or the game for anyone. As a One Piece fan, it’s one of the most intriguing reasons to play the game.
So while the game itself isn’t canon, the lore it teases could very well eventually become canon. Which is a little confusing, right? Welcome to the wonderful world of One Piece.
(Featured image: Bandai Namco / ILCA)
