One Piece Fandom Imagines Keanu Reeves as the Perfect Shanks

One Piece fans will do whatever it takes to keep its community going. This week, the series greeted fans with a new anime episode, but the manga hit a hurdle thanks to a one-week break. But thanks to an inspired fan, a new piece of artwork has got the fandom talking real loud right about now.

After all, someone decided to fan-cast Keanu Reeves into One Piece, and it turns out the actor would be perfectly suited for Red-Haired Shanks.

Over on Reddit, the user MrRuidiaz posted their mock-up of Reeves. The piece, which can be found below, shows how the actor might look if he were to play the famous Yonko.

Shanks Reeves from r/OnePiece

With his hair dyed a dark red, Reeves is rocking the scars which Shanks is famous for. Sure, this beard might be a new addition, but the concept art proves Reeves could pull for the swashbuckling look. The look completes itself with Shanks' usual black-and-white outfit, and he can be seen holding his iconic straw hat to his chest.

While some may question Reeves' ability to pull off Shanks, this artwork shows he has the look in him. This render may use Reeves' likeness as seen in the recently released Cyberpunk 2077 video game trailer, but the lifelike image still gets the point across. If One Piece needs a vetted action star to step in for Shanks, then Reeves would be a clear fit for the role. After all, the actor is a well-known fan of anime series like Cowboy Bebop; It is hard to imagine the star turning down the Straw Hats if he's a true otaku at heart.

So, would you be down to see Reeves' join up with the Straw Hats...? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and 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 over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.