Who’s the father?

I’ve been a bit busy with work and the final courses for uni. I’ve been busy with the final courses of uni for like 3 years now, so take that last one with a grain of salt but I promise you I’m not a total failure. Maybe. Either way, I’m likely going to slow down posts a little bit and in that spirit the next few One Piece posts might be a bit more silly and short than some of my usual stuff. We’ll return to deeper dives when life gets less hectic. But today, let’s ask an important question; who’s the father?

I am of course talking about the father of Makino’s child. For those who aren’t this into the silly details of the story, Makino is the bartender from Luffy’s hometown. She was seemingly friends with Shanks and his crew and also knew Luffy as a child, which means there is a decent chance that some of Luffy’s family is also familiar with her. Her child was born during the two year timeskip without it ever being revealed who the father might be, with the exception of Oda in a story saying that the father is probably “that person”. Which means he clearly has someone in mind. But who could that be?

There are a few characters that come to mind that make sense for the story, but most of them I think aren’t true. I considered Ace, as it would be poetic for him to have a child and the line of Roger to still continue, but Ace was a decade younger than Makino and she was almost more of a mother figure to the trio of boys than anything else, so that would be weird. Another option I thought of was Dragon, but he’s too old. He’s almost double her age as of right now and although he’s always seen staring towards East Blue, that’s probably because of Luffy (and perhaps his wife) and likely not because of a fling with Makino. It could also be someone we don’t know yet or is just a random villager, but let us be honest, there’s only one likely person on our mind.

And that of course, is everyone’s favorite red haired emperor, Shanks. Shanks is known to be friends with Makino, frequenting her bar and even staying there for long times in the past. He’s charismatic as hell and we know he can travel really quickly which means it’s not unlikely that he once again spent some time in East Blue during the timeskip. He might have gone there to inform the people of Ace’s passing before Garp showed up, who knows. They also seem to have some chemistry in the earlier episodes. One thing makes this feel a little bit weird though. Shanks already has a child in Uta, who as far as I’m aware is considered to be canon. That would make it weird for him to have a second child (this time by blood) and the manga never actually acknowledging Uta. It could just be that stories of Uta being canon are highly exaggerated and it was just hinted at it being that way to make the movie more popular, I don’t know.

If I look at the options I can think of, Shanks stands out as the most logical one. And I’m willing to up the prediction a little bit that if this really is Shanks’ child, he’ll probably not survive the series. It seems like he’s unbeatable and there’s no one that can harm him and wants to do so, but you never know. Kids can be a big death flag. It could also be his excuse to retire from the pirating life, showing a different ending to becoming one of the strongest in the world. With Roger, Rocks, Kaido, Big Mom and Whitebeard all dead, it seems like all of the most powerful pirates in the One Piece world die while still in the business of pirating. Showing Shanks as the first of a generation of captains that actually gets to retire would be a very nice way to sunset the series. And what better way to do it than to retire to a sleepy village in East Blue with a wife and a kid. But that’s just a theory. A GAME.. sorry, I can’t, I can hear lawyers in the distance.
If you enjoyed this little post, please leave a like, I am desperate for love. Okay, maybe not like that. Either way, let me know if you think there are other options for the father of this child and as always, thanks for reading.