One Piece: What Happened to the Original Joy Boy & How Did He Die?
Now that Luffy has been identified as the second Joy Boy in One Piece, interest in that character has once again peaked, and fans, naturally, want to know who Joy Boy was, where the title comes from, and what happened to the first Joy Boy, seeing how Monkey D. Luffy is the second one. In this article, we are once again going to talk about the original Joy Boy, as you are going to find out what happened to him and how he died.
The fate of the original Joy Boy has not been revealed yet, and neither has his true identity. We know that the original Joy Boy lived sometime during the Void Century and that, based on the known information, he was present – either personally or as a symbol – in the world of One Piece for about a century before eventually disappearing. Since he was friends with Zunesha at the time, it could very well turn out that the giant elephant knows exactly what happened to the original Joy Boy, i.e., how he died and why. He also knows his true identity. So far, though, the series has not revealed any of these facts, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
In the rest of this article, we will tell you everything we know about the first Joy Boy in the One Piece franchise, as you might have deduced from the title and the introduction. You’ll find out the known history and notoriety of the character, i.e., why the title of Joy Boy is such an important factor in the mythology of One Piece and what actually happened to him in the end, i.e., how the original Joy Boy disappeared a long time ago. This article might contain a certain amount of spoilers, so be careful how you approach it.
Joy Boy is, by all means, dead – too much time has passed – but we don’t know any details about his demise
In Wano Country, Zunesha finally heard the “Drums of Liberation” after so much time, and thanks to them, he was able to identify the second Joy Boy. As you might have guessed, it was Monkey D. Luffy, but since Joy Boy was perceived as a warrior of freedom back in the time, and we all know that Luffy wants to create a free world, it actually makes sense that Oda made Luffy the next Joy Boy, as it solidified his role in the story.
But, this doesn’t really interest us here and now, as we are going to discuss the original Joy Boy in this article to reveal what actually happened to him and how he died so many years ago. So, let us begin.
Joy Boy was a legendary character from One Piece who was part of a series of important events on Fish-Man Island during the Void Century; this is why his personal history is so closely tied to that of Fish-Man Island. The Poneglyph later found in the Sea Forest made reference to him, and that was actually the first time that Joy Boy was mentioned as a character; we never found out his real name, as Joy Boy is a title of unknown origins.
We know that Joy Boy took Noah, the famous ship, to Fish-Man Island around 900 years ago, and since we know that the Poneglyphs were made around 800 years ago, i.e., a century later, when he wrote his letter of apology to the Fish-Men, we can actually deduce that Joy Boy’s legacy later for nearly a century. How he was able to live for so long is not known, but it isn’t anything overly surprising for the world of One Piece.
What else do we know about the original Joy Boy? Well, we know that the One Piece treasure, or at least a portion of it, had once belonged to Joy Boy, and Roger would later gather and bury this part, along with what he collected himself, i.e., the rest of the treasure, on Laugh Tale. As we’ve said, he was first mentioned about 900 years ago, with no prior mention of him, when the inhabitants of Fish-Man Island and Joy Boy made a promise to each other. Joy Boy offered them Noah, which would eventually be crucial to their history, but it is not really known what he was supposed to do for them. But, whatever the terms of this vow were, it seems that Joy Boy was unable to keep his word.
Namely, until a specific day would arrive, the residents of Fish-Man Island promised to look after Noah, albeit we still don’t know the full extent of their promise as the details of the vow are scarce. Later, in a letter discovered in the aforementioned Poneglyph, Joy Boy expressed regret to Poseidon for being able to keep up his end of the bargain. At about the same time, he disappeared. We know that he also made it to Grand Line’s last island, but we don’t know when that happened, i.e., whether it was before or after his disappearance.
So, based on this, what can we deduce about Joy Boy’s fate in the series? Not much, really. We can probably confirm that he is dead, as he was last seen and heard off 800 years ago, and his being alive would be strange even for One Piece standards, but you never know with Oda, so we’ll say that he is 99.99% dead. How did he die? Well, that is a major mystery.
The letter of apology he addressed to Poseidon indicates that something happened to him and that he failed to do what he had to do for some objective reason, i.e., that he was somehow stopped from doing it, that he fell ill, or that someone defeated him. This is mere conjecture on our part, so we’re just giving out possible reasons for his disappearance that could but might not be true.
The Void Century is still a big mystery, and while Oda is sure to explore it in future volumes of the manga, we still know very little about it, and once that breaks loose, we will have a ton load of new information in front of us.
Until then, we can probably go back to Zunesha, the giant elephant who identified Luffy as the second Joy Boy. Zunesha has been around for centuries, and he knew the original Joy Boy well; in fact, they were very close friends and partners in their adventures.
We are certain that Zunesha knows everything we want to know about the original Joy Boy; that would make perfect sense, seeing how the two of them were close to each other. He knows his identity, and he probably knows how he died as well, or – at least – what could have happened to him 800 years ago, which is the last time we’ve heard of him, based on the information we have.
