How a Kids’ Show Spoils the Ending of One Piece (Spoiler Alert)

The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982) could be a major inspiration behind One Piece, including its ending. Oda could have watched it as a kid, and these are the parallels behind the theory:

• Esteban, the “Child of the Sun,” is a playful adventurer prophesied to liberate people, with little interest in being a savior. A respected sailor, Mendoza, saves him during childhood and promises to take him on adventures. Esteban carries a medallion from him that he’s meant to return after finding the treasure.
• He sails to the “New World” searching for a legendary City of Gold most people dismiss as fantasy. His ship has a lamb figurehead. Going Merry.
• Zia is the last survivor of a destroyed tribe, her people murdered and her island burned. She can read a forgotten language revealing the world’s lost history and the treasure’s location. She joins his growing crew, but pirates repeatedly capture her to translate inscriptions. She lies about their meaning.
• Esteban finds Zia, and they sail to the “New World” searching for a legendary City of Gold most people dismiss as fantasy. His ship has a lamb figurehead.
• Zia’s knowledge leads them to an ancient, technologically advanced ship with tremendous destructive power, incredible speed, and a lion figurehead. So the lamb-headed ship is followed by a lion-headed ship.
• Four secret locations, connected on a map, reveal the final destination at their intersection. Almost exactly the Road Poneglyphs and Laugh Tale.
• Along the journey, there are sky civilizations, giant tribes, people of different races and sizes, and unnatural sea currents capable of lifting ships through the air.
• An all-female Amazonian tribe captures Esteban. They fight with bows and live with snakes. He unintentionally influences the weather, fulfilling an ancestral prophecy about the Child of the Sun, and they become allies.
• The Olmecs are revealed as the force behind Zia’s tragedy. They’re an alien civilization established on Earth, using technology to dominate the world for centuries, torturing and enslaving different peoples while pursuing the city and its treasure, a particular object. Their name literally means “rubber people.”

Then comes the ending:

At the city’s blocked entrance, a man wearing the Sun God’s mask reveals the lost history. He turns out to be Esteban’s father, a priest belonging to an order connected to the ancient civilization.

Two advanced civilizations, Mu and Atlantis, were destroyed by war and devastating ancestral weapons, sinking beneath the sea. Mu’s people harnessed immense solar energy and were identified with the sun. They left behind Seven Cities of Gold, each comparable to Shandora, hiding their technology and energy for the future.

The original reason for the ancient conflict was supposedly so trivial it was eventually forgotten. Dorry and Broggy, chapter 129.

And Esteban’s medallion is a key to accessing the city and its treasure. Could the straw hat have a similar function?

Together, this brings to mind the Ancient Kingdom, Void Century, Ancient Weapons, flooded world, Vegapunk’s limitless energy, and Mother Flame.

The possible One Piece ending: Laugh Tale beneath Reverse Mountain, Luffy and Robin both needed to access its secrets, and every major faction converging on ancient power capable of reshaping the world.

And then there’s Mu, especially interesting with Imu referring to himself as Mu (ム).

If Oda took these concepts and developed them into his own story, Esteban’s ending could offer a glimpse of Luffy’s.