Yonkou | Red-Haired Shanks
Red-Haired Shanks (赤髪のシャンクス, Akagami no Shankusu) is the pirate who inspired Luffy to go on his journey and is the captain of the Red-Haired Pirates. He is also one of the Yonkou.
Shanks always wears a long black cape over his shoulders and until he met Luffy, wore a straw hat that he had worn for many years beforehand. He always wears trousers that are cut below the knee as well as a pair of sandals and is unshaven with a short beard. The most striking thing about Shanks is the color of his red hair, of which his nick-name ‘Red Haired Shanks’ comes from. He also has three scars across his left eye, which were revealed to have been given to him by Blackbeard, as well as having a missing left arm. He usually carries a Sabre on his right hip.
red haired shanks
At the start of One Piece, Shanks bore much more similarity to Luffy. As Oda’s style changed, Shanks began to become more distinct. The shape of his eyes are drawn much sharper. His nose has become more redefined, similar to how Nico Robin’s nose is heavily defined from other character’s in the series.
Shanks is one of the most laid back characters in the world of One Piece, preferring to take his time as he and his crew travels around the world rather than rushing from one place to another. Shanks isn’t cruel like many other pirate captains, nor does he rule over his crew with fear to gain respect. His friendly nature means he won’t purposely seek to harm others, and he is able to make serious characters like Mihawk join in with his fun. Yet despite how simple minded he appears at first, Shanks is a complex person with some rather difficult to understand views. For example, he believes if two people share very different views, its better they go their seperate ways.
Shanks doesn’t seem to mind what happens to himself. He’ll take others throwing food and drink or spitting on him without even fighting back, laughing with his crew at his own misfortunes. Even losing an arm did not bother him much. However he would never forgive anyone for attacking a friend. Shanks and his crew are almost always seen partying and drinking alcoholic beverages whenever they make an appearance, as the captain’s favorite pastimes are attending and hosting parties and banquets. According to Oda, Shanks is the one character that resembles himself the most out of all the One Piece characters, because of his fun-loving partying nature. He also is against the idea of needless bloodshed, even if honor is involved and so far seems to only step up for a fight when a friend is in danger.
He also likes teasing people, as demonstrated by his apparent reactions to Luffy as a child. Oda also stated that if a child asked Shanks for a Devil Fruit he’d tease them about being 10 years too young to eat one. Shanks himself was like Luffy (as a child) in his younger years.
Despite being calm and brave most of the time, he has displayed a side of him that likes to panic when things go wrong.
