Cracking One Piece’s 1,000-Year Riddle: The Ancient Kingdom Truth That Changes Everything

If you come to One Piece for goofy pirates and big punch-ups, cool, same. But the latest fan theory making the rounds tries to reframe the whole saga as a thousand-year chess match with Joy Boy as the player moving all the pieces. It is wild, it is detailed, and it actually lines up with a lot of canon. Buckle up.

The pitch: Joy Boy as the long-game architect

Fan theorist Ohara lays out a case that Joy Boy didn’t just live in the Void Century — he built a plan designed to outlast him by a millennium. The Poneglyphs, the Ancient Kingdom, the Sun God Nika fruit, Gol D. Roger’s voyage, even Shanks’ moves in the current era — all part of one master timeline that ends with Luffy choosing whether to remake the world.

• Joy Boy, per the theory, was the first pirate and the original Nika user who clashed with the Ancient Kingdom during the Void Century.
• Vegapunk confirms in Chapter 1115 that sea levels rose ~200 meters back then, drowning continents. Joy Boy lost that war, but set the board before he fell.
• Joy Boy and the Kozuki Clan forged the Poneglyphs and had Queen Nefertari Lily scatter them — not just as history logs, but as a future roadmap: Void Century truth, Ancient Weapons locations, and the route to Laugh Tale.
• The endgame Joy Boy left behind allegedly offers two terrifying doors: trigger another global flood and reset civilization, or destroy the Red Line to merge the seas into the All Blue. Either way, it fulfills the prophecy of a New Dawn.
• Imu, the shadow monarch everyone pegs as the final boss, might not be the pure villain here. The theory argues Imu has quietly protected certain relics and bloodlines that matter to Joy Boy’s plan.
• Roger and Shanks are framed as Phase Two and Phase Three of Joy Boy’s blueprint — each carrying a piece of that will and steering the world toward Luffy.

The Void Century receipts

This is where the theory leans on canon and then takes a leap. We know the sea rose 200 meters and entire civilizations vanished. We know the Poneglyphs exist and point to the Ancient Weapons and Laugh Tale. The theory connects those dots into something harsher: Joy Boy designed a fork in the road that forces a world-scale choice — flood the map again and start over, or shatter the Red Line so every sea becomes one. Either path supposedly births the New Dawn people keep whispering about.

So what is Imu doing?

Here’s the curveball. If Imu wanted Joy Boy wiped out, why are so many legacy pieces still around?

The theory notes that Imu hasn’t directly targeted Luffy (the current Nika/Joy Boy figure), didn’t erase Zunesha or the Iron Giant (both relics of the old era), and keeps a massive straw hat stashed in that freezing vault under Mary Geoise — a symbol tied to Joy Boy, Roger, and now Luffy. There’s also Imu’s fixation on Queen Lily, the ruler who sided against the 20 Kings and helped scatter the Poneglyphs.

Put together, the take is that Imu embedded with the winners a thousand years ago as a double agent, steering the World Government, Celestial Dragons, and the Void Century cover-up into a managed narrative — all to make sure the plan reaches the moment when Joy Boy reappears. It’s a bold swap that turns the supposed devil into a very patient gardener.

Roger and Shanks: the mid-game

Roger’s trip to Laugh Tale reads very differently through this lens. When he gets there, he realizes he’s early — the timing’s wrong for the New Dawn. So he kicks the can to the next generation and, crucially, to his own family line.

'My son will find the One Piece.' (Chapter 968)

The theory says Roger meant Ace. The plan? Shanks swipes the Nika fruit (likely because Roger told him to), Ace eats it, and the torch gets passed properly. Except Luffy accidentally downs the fruit instead. That single bite flips the board.

The Luffy switch

Shanks doesn’t freak out — he smiles. From that moment, everything he does nudges Luffy toward the role: handing over the straw hat (not just a keepsake, but a public signal that a new era started) and clearing a path for him. Look at the mentors orbiting Luffy — Crocus sends him into the Grand Line via Reverse Mountain, Rayleigh teaches him Haki, Mihawk sharpens Zoro, Whitebeard bets his life at Marineford — all figures tied to Roger who conveniently end up boosting Luffy. The theory calls that design, not coincidence.

Fast-forward to Luffy awakening Gear 5 and fully embodying Nika. Shanks? He immediately sets sail for the One Piece. Remember Roger’s 25-year wait? That clock just hit zero, and the endgame kicked off.

The ask at Laugh Tale

Where does this all land? At a choice. Once Luffy learns the full story — Joy Boy’s century, what the Ancient Weapons are really for, and what the One Piece actually is — he has to decide: preserve the world as it stands, or break it to build something new. If the theory is right, the treasure isn’t gold. It’s truth, freedom, and a dawn that finally ends a thousand years of managed history.

So who’s really steering the ship?

If Ohara’s read is on target, Joy Boy has been the real mastermind all along, with Roger and Shanks running the middle legs and Imu playing a very long undercover game. Big swing, but that’s why it’s buzzing.

Drop your take: Joy Boy or Imu — who’s actually pulling the strings?

One Piece is streaming on Crunchyroll if you want to mainline clues and yell at your screen like the rest of us.