New Evidence Stresses Jinbe's Straw Hat Connection in 'One Piece'

Warning! Spoilers for the One Piece manga below!

One Piece fans have been teased at Jinbe's full induction into the Straw Hat Pirates for years now, and with the latest developments in the manga that day has come closer.

For those who still doubt Jinbe's eventual inclusion, however, this next piece of evidence surely cements his place in the crew.

Jinbe is introduced as a crewmate of Straw Hats in Kurumazaki Shrine known as spiritual spot for entertainment industry.😍 People need to pay 90 dollars to get his name featured on the red fence. Shonen Jump office paid for it. (Pic thanks to @mizopocke on instagram) pic.twitter.com/j9AhXtzWtl

— sandman (@sandman_AP) December 7, 2017

As spotted by Instagran user @mizopocke (and relayed by @sandman_AP) Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump has officially labeled Jinbe as a member of the Straw Hat Pirates on the Kurumazaki Shrine, where other members of the Straw Hat Pirates are listed.

The Kurumazaki Shrine is a place where people in the enterntainment industry go to pray for fame and success. Artists can pay a fee of 90 dollars to get a piece of red fence with their name on it at the shrine (or write their name on a stone, take it away with them, and return a blank stone to the shrine when they get their wish), and Shuiesha has paid to the fee to officially induct Jinbe into the crew.

As seen in the current "Whole Cake Island" arc in the One Piece manga, Jinbe had just fully asked Luffy to become a member of the Straw Hat crew now that his business with the Fishmen and Big Mom Pirates are all taken care of. The rest of the characters made note of Jinbe's stewardship, and proved that he will bring an integral key to Luffy's crew. Although Jinbe has been involved with Luffy in the past, this is the first full addition to the crew since Brook during the "Thriller Bark" arc.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with 430 million copies sold worldwide.

One Piece is currently in the middle of the "Whole Cake Island" arc and is now streaming on Crunchyroll and FunimationNOW.

Are you happy to see Jinbe is now an official Straw Hat pirate? Talk to me @Valdezology.