One Piece's Joy Boy reveal teases Oda's Fullmetal Alchemist inspiration for the character's backstory

Modified Aug 05, 2024 07:30 GMT

One Piece could have taken some cues from Fullmetal Alchemist (Image via Bones). — One Piece could have taken some cues from Fullmetal Alchemist (Image via Bones)

One Piece chapter 1122 was recently leaked and one of the most awaited moments in the series came to fruition, as author Eiichiro Oda finally showed glimpses of the Joy Boy character.

Fans also noticed that this important character is missing a leg and has a prosthetic arm, while Emeth is a robot, which is why a lot of people are thinking that the manga could have been inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist.

The aforementioned anime features Edward and Alphonse Elric doing an alchemy ritual to bring back their mother from the dead, but they fail. Edward loses an arm and a leg, and Alphonse's soul is trapped in armor. A One Piece fan on X has theorized that Eiichiro Oda could have based the tragedy of Joy Boy and Emeth on these two characters, and there are some hints that that could be the case.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda as a whole.

The story of Joy Boy and Emeth in One Piece could have been inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist

Expand Tweet

The final page of chapter 1122 showed Joy Boy talking to Emeth several centuries ago and had the former missing a leg and having a prosthetic arm, at least from the angle it was displayed in the manga. In that regard, there have been some claims that these two characters were inspired by the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist.

The Elric brothers used alchemy in an attempt to bring back their deceased mother but failed miserably, with Edward losing an arm and a leg and Alphonse's soul being trapped in a giant metal armor. It is clear that those are similarities to the case of Joy Boy and Emeth, so it would be interesting to see if author Eiichiro Oda was inspired by Hiromu Arakawa's series.

If there is an inspiration there, it is likely that Emeth was human at some point and ended up trapped inside a robot's body, thus explaining his friendship with Joy Boy. There have been theories claiming that Oda could introduce the concept of alchemy in the story, so this setup could be quite useful in that regard.

The relevance of Joy Boy in the story

Joy Boy could be Oda's long-awaited "eyepatch pirate" (Image via Shueisha)

There is no denying that Joy Boy might be one of the most important and influential characters when it comes to the events in One Piece. He is widely regarded as a legendary enemy of Imu and the World Government, with this pirate being the last line of defense during the Void Century, or at least that seems to be the case.

It is also likely that Joy Boy left several elements, as shown by the Haki attack he gave Emeth in the latest chapter, before his passing, so the future generations could stand up against the World Government. But there is no real information, as of this writing, when it comes to his origin, motivations, the race he was a part of, and how he ultimately lost against Imu so many years ago.

Final thoughts

The idea of Fullmetal Alchemist inspiring Eiichiro Oda to create the characters of Emeth and Joy Boy in One Piece could have a degree of validity. This could also suggest that these two characters lost something that led to their current condition.

Related articles

Edited by Ahana Mukhopadhyay