Japanese history might have inspired One Piece's Poneglyphs and their message

Modified Oct 31, 2024 16:30 GMT

Japanese history might have inspired One Piece's Poneglyphs and their message (Image via Toei Animation)

The Poneglyphs are one of the most innovative lore concepts in One Piece, with messages from the past for the people living in the future. While their true inspiration is unknown, they are truly important to the entire plotline of the series. However, their inspiration could be from a relic from the series' home country, as supported by Vegapunk's speech.

As revealed in Vegapunk's speech during the Egghead arc, the Grand Line was about to sink due to a massive flood, which is similar to Japan, as it is located in the coastal region of the Pacific Ocean, and hence is highly prone to tsunamis. Furthermore, Japan has cultural relics called 'tsunami stones,' which are centuries old and have inscriptions from the people of the past, just like the historical relics of One Piece, the Poneglyphs.

Disclaimer: This article contains potential spoilers for the One Piece manga series and reflects the author's opinion.

One Piece: Exploring the inspiration behind the Poneglyphs

A Road Poneglyph as seen in the anime (Image via Toei Animation)

The Poneglyphs are historical relics in One Piece that contain writings that tell something about the past or the upcoming future. Out of the three types of Poneglyphs, two are of most importance.

The first is the Historical Poneglyphs, which contain information about ancient people and events (for instance, the one found at the Sea Forest in Fisherman Island, that contains JoyBoy's apology towards the Fishermen tribe). The second type is the Road Poneglyphs, which detail a certain location which is presumably the Laugh Tale (for instance, the one at Zou).

Other than these relics, some other hints about the past were also dropped during Vegapunk's speech during the Egghead arc. Moreover, this speech also detailed the future of the sinking of the Grand Line, which could be the key to discovering the inspiration for the Poneglyphs.

A Historical Poneglyph as seen in the anime (Image via Toei Animation)

On the other hand, the 'tsunami stones' are historical stones (from more than 600 years ago) placed in Aneyoshi, a coastal village in Japan. These contain writings from people who were affected by tsunamis in the past. Japanese scholar Shuichi Kawashima was responsible for studying these historic relics, as they were divided into two types.

The first type is the 'To bring the souls to rest' stones, which contain writings about past events or people, just like the Historical Poneglyphs. The second type is the 'pray for safety' stones, which tell about locations that people need to be vary of in the future, just like the Road Poneglyphs.

Japan is located in the coastal region of the Pacific Ocean, which is why tsunamis are so frequent there, and also why the locals don't take them seriously. Similarly, One Piece takes place on the Grand Line, which is mostly water, making the link between the Poneglyphs and tsunami stones much more sensible.

Final thoughts

As eye-catching as this theory might sound, it is advised to take it with a grain of salt, as the information about tsunami stones is not retrieved from an officially registered Wikipedia page.

While this doesn't mean that the information about tsunami stones is fake, it is also not 100% credible. However, the link between the world of Eiichiro Oda's magnum opus and Grand Line does sound like something the author might have taken inspiration for from Japanese history.

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Edited by Janhavi Chauhan