One Piece may have already shown fans Lili through a forgettable Sanji scene

Modified Jun 02, 2024 01:34 GMT

One Piece may have already shown fans Lili through a forgettable Sanji scene (Image via Toei Animation)

Earlier this week, fans saw the alleged spoilers and raw scans for the upcoming issue of author and illustrator Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga series leaked by reputable sources. Likewise, fans excitedly began discussing these alleged events, as the series’ spoiler process has historically proven to be very reputable when compared to Shueisha’s official release.

The exciting developments that Chapter 1116 also apparently has in store further spurred One Piece fans’ discussion, with an especially discussed point being Imu’s cameo in the issue. The Empty Throne’s monarch was seen staring at a picture of a woman who looks surprisingly like Vivi D. Nefertari. In fact, Oda even seemingly emphasized this by featuring Vivi’s missing poster just a few panels after this portrait of an unknown woman was seen.

Fans are likewise assuming this to be Lili D. Nefertari, especially considering Imu’s previously established desire to “have” Vivi for themselves. While this would presumably mark the first time Lili’s visage has been seen in the series, this may not actually be the case thanks to a fairly forgettable Sanji scene from the Skypiea saga.

One Piece’s Skypiea saga continues to become essential watching after latest apparent Final Saga connection

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In the aforementioned Sanji scene during One Piece’s Skypiea saga, he and others from the Straw Hat crew are seen diving for treasure in a shipwreck on the seafloor. There, Sanji picks up a portrait of a woman with a harpoon stabbed through the woman’s head, looking at it silently before the picture is given its own full panel.

Fans initially wrote this off to Sanji’s love for beautiful women, and understandably so. However, the woman in the portrait Imu is seen staring at in chapter 1116 looks strikingly similar to the woman in this picture Sanji had found. While their expressions are different, most everything else about the two looks similar enough to assert some sort of connection.

Further supporting this idea is the fact that Sanji found this picture in a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea, and that a harpoon was stabbed through the woman’s head. With Lili having disappeared and her final resting place unknown, a shipwreck caused by an attack from enemy forces would explain both her disappearance and the harpoon through this picture of her.

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The geography of where Sanji found this picture in One Piece’s world further supports the idea, having found it on the Grand Line past the island of Alabasta. If Lili were traveling home from the Red Line via going backward in the Grand Line rather than fully circling the globe, she’d have been in the general vicinity of Jaya, where Sanji found this picture. While such a method of travel hasn’t been confirmed by the series, it also hasn’t been fully debunked.

There’s also the fact that, as the series continues to prove as the Final Saga progresses, Oda’s modus operandi is to take these tiny, seemingly insignificant details and parlay them into larger plotlines. Even within this general approach, the Skypiea saga specifically is proven to be a major piece of setup for the Final Saga’s biggest events thus far, as well as those events that directly led into the Final Saga.

However, there is an argument to be made against this idea, mostly via how offhand this panel seems to be. Typically speaking, there’s usually more to a panel than what’s shown in this example when Oda is foreshadowing something. Sanji’s penchant for beautiful women is also an inherent argument against this theory. While far from debunked, it also isn’t confirmed, meaning fans will simply have to wait and see if this Sanji scene becomes more significant.