Oda Officially Confirms the Strongest Yonko Nearly Joined the Marines — One Piece’s Ultimate What-If
Red Haired Shanks may be the strongest Yonko right now, but One Piece chapter 1163 reveals he almost became a Marine—not for his Figarland Garling lineage, but because of a disastrous mistake at God Valley—just as new details on Dragon come to light.
Well, that escalated quickly. One Piece chapter 1163 finally spells out how close Shanks came to growing up in a crisp Marine uniform instead of becoming, arguably, the scariest Yonko on the board right now. And no, it had nothing to do with his famous last name. It was a chaotic chain reaction on God Valley that almost rerouted his entire life.
The short version
Chapter 1163 confirms Dragon tried to hand baby Shanks to the Marines during the God Valley mess. He was literally steps away from doing it until a couple of Rocks Pirates turned the entire battlefield into a magnetized junkyard and blew up the plan. Shanks then crawled into a treasure chest, got scooped up by the Roger Pirates, and the rest of the series happened. That long-running 'treasure box' mystery? Closed.
How we got there: the God Valley setup
Here is the context the chapter fills in. Shanks is the son of Figarland Garling and the twin brother of Shamrock. When the twins turned one, Garling stabbed their mother. With her dying breath, she asked Monkey D. Dragon to save both kids. Dragon used the chaos on God Valley to escape with them.
Chapter 1163: the near-Marine detour
- Dragon spots a Marine ship and decides to leave baby Shanks with them. If that happens, Shanks likely gets raised as a Marine instead of a pirate.
- Right then, Captain John of the Rocks Pirates activates the Jiki Jiki no Mi. The magnetic pull yanks Dragon’s gun, and because it’s slung across his body, it drags Dragon — and the kid — away from the Marine ship.
- Captain John starts hauling in treasure for himself, but Ganzui (another Rocks Pirate) cuts in and attacks John with his, yes, booger technique: Sky Snake Red Cannon.
- The resulting explosion leaves John badly hurt and breaks his control over the magnetism. Dragon and a rain of treasure crash back down.
- In the scramble, Shanks slips from Dragon’s grasp. While Dragon looks for him, baby Shanks crawls into a nearby treasure chest.
- That chest is the one that ends up aboard the Roger Pirates’ ship. They open it, find the kid, and take him in. Mystery solved.
Why this matters
If Dragon had pulled off the drop-off, Shanks probably grows up Marine-side and becomes a nightmare for pirates instead of the World Government. Instead, fate — plus a magnet fruit and a booger cannon, somehow — nudges him onto Roger’s path, and he grows into the Yonko who can tilt the table whenever he feels like getting involved.
A couple of notes worth flagging
People often point to Shanks’s lineage with Figarland Garling as the defining factor in his story. This chapter pushes back on that. The near handoff to the Marines wasn’t about family ties; it was just Dragon making a split-second call during a warzone.
Also, that tiny sequence of panels does a ton of heavy lifting: it closes the loop on the treasure box origin and reframes how narrow the corridor was between Shanks the Marine and Shanks the Yonko.
Where to read/watch
The One Piece manga is available on Viz Media. The anime streams on Crunchyroll.