Who Gave Shanks His Scar & in Which Episode?

We at Fiction Horizon have already established that Shanks is one of the best characters from Oda’s One Piece series. The red-haired pirate is an epic badass and one of the most beloved characters in the whole series. And that is why we have decided to tell you a bit about Shanks, i.e., to be more precise, about yet another aspect of his amazing story and history. In this article, we will tell you how Shanks received his three characteristic face scars and who was responsible for that.

As it was revealed in Episode 316, “Shanks Moves! Ceremony to the Rampaging Age!”, which premiered on July 1, 2007, Shanks received his trademark scars from Blackbeard sometime after Roger’s execution. The exact date has not been specified, nor have the circumstances. Shanks simply revealed the fact during a conversation about Teach he had with Whitebeard.

The rest of this article will focus on Shanks and his story in the series, as we will elaborate on how he actually received his three trademark scars in the One Piece series. The story in question is still quite enigmatic and focused on Shanks’ backstory, so if you don’t know the whole story of One Piece, we have to warn you that there will be spoilers in the following paragraphs.

Who gave Shanks his scars?

In order to give you a proper answer to this question, we have to explore Shanks’ backstory a bit. As a young pirate, Shanks enlists the Roger Pirates under Captain Roger and his first mate Rayleigh, here already wearing his straw hat. Shanks regularly argues with his shipmate Buggy, for example, one day, whether it is warmer at the North or South Pole. Rayleigh settles the dispute with a headbutt and says that the two of them should go there if they should already know. Shortly thereafter, another pirate ship comes into view.

The Roger pirates go into battle, and while Buggy finds and pockets a treasure map, her crew achieves a major victory and also finds the Bara Bara no Mi on board. The pirates celebrate the victory, and when Shanks goes to fetch Buggy, the two sit on the deck and talk about their plans for the future. Buggy thinks Shanks is too soft, but both of them know that they will later cross the seas with their own gangs and then face each other as opponents. When he tells Buggy that the devil fruit he captured is worth up to 100 million berries, Buggy decides to exchange it for a normal fruit.

His plan succeeds the next day, but when Shanks surprises him afterward, Buggy accidentally swallows the Bara Bara no Mi. When his treasure map falls overboard, and he jumps into the sea after her, Shanks notices that his comrade, who is usually a good swimmer, has lost it and can’t get up. Shanks eventually jumps after Buggy and saves his life. The two remain with the Roger pirates for some time and experience a number of encounters with Roger’s competitor Shirohige, among others.

When the Roger Pirates have discovered the secret of the Kūhaku no Rekishi and the Ancient Weapons, on Roger’s third and final voyage on the Grandline, the Roger Pirates encounter the pirate Shiki with his armada, prompting Roger to join him and with him to conquer the world. The Roger pirates survive the naval battle of the Edd War. Sometime after the battle between the Roger pirates and the Kinjishi gang pirates at Edd War, Shanks battles Marshall D. Teach, who inflicts a prominent scar over his eye.

A few months after the naval battle, the Roger gang gradually disintegrates. Shanks and Buggy also leave the gang. Roger hands himself over to the Navy as he is terminally ill anyway. After Roger’s gang disbands, Shanks and Buggy arrive in Loguetown for their captain’s execution, along with several other young pirates. Shanks offers his former shipmate membership in his gang, but he declines the offer.

Among the pirates attending the execution is Dracule Mihawk, with whom Shanks has a rivalry. Shortly after Roger’s execution, Shanks traveled the Eastblue and reached the Gecko Archipelago in a small rowing boat, where he recruited Yasopp. Shanks and his crew kept making stops at Luffy’s home village of Foosha Village to load up supplies and recover.

As you can see, it was mentioned in our recap of Shanks’ backstory before his first meeting with Luffy that he received his trademark scars from Marshall D. Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. This makes sense if you know Blackbeard and his trademark claw weapons that he used when he was younger; nowadays, he relies mostly on his two Devil Fruits to eliminate his opponents. Of course, Shanks’ story continues even after that as he survived whatever happened between the two heated rivals. Still, the event we have mentioned above certainly, deserves some attention as there are several things worth noting.

First of all, this was a historical event that was only mentioned once during a conversation between Shanks and Whitebeard when the two conversed about Blackbeard. It is not known when exactly it happened, save for the fact that we know that it happened sometime after Roger’s death. We do not know what caused it, whether it was an accident or an intentional injury… we basically know nothing, and it’s not even Game of Thrones.

But, from the fact that we know that Shanks and Blackbeard don’t really have an overly close relationship in the future, we can infer several things; okay, sure, who’d willingly hang out with a guy like Blackbeard, right? But that doesn’t matter now. Based on the fact that, later in life, Blackbeard both fears and avoids Shanks, we can deduce that this mentioned-only skirmish didn’t go too well for the villain.

Namely, Shanks doesn’t seem to fear Blackbeard. He just makes him sick (but doesn’t he make us all sick?), whereas Blackbeard constantly avoids Shanks in every way imaginable. Whether this event is the reason for that is, of course, unknown at this time, but since Blackbeard and Shanks haven’t really met that often, this one could very well be the reason behind that.

Of course, Oda will probably reveal what happened here, and we’ll probably get the whole story in one form or another, but for now, you have our theory to work with and some additional facts that might help.

In which episode does Shanks get his scars?

As you could’ve read above, the event during which Shanks got his scars happened at an unspecified point in the past, when Shanks, not long after Roger’s execution, met with Marshall D. Teach, who then gave him these scars. This scene wasn’t really shown, but we found out about it during Shanks’ conversation with Whitebeard. The conversation itself happened in Episode 316, “Shanks Moves! Ceremony to the Rampaging Age!” which premiered on July 1, 2007. It was adapted from Chapter 434, titled “Whitebeard and Red Hair,” of the manga, which came out on November 13, 2006, and is part of Volume 45 of the One Piece manga. This is all that is known about the chronology of the series.