At this point, Eichiiro Oda-san really ought to come out with a designated list of franchise entries that are and aren’t canon to the One Piece timeline. It’s such a long-running anime that, really, how do you count what actually happened in the timeline, and what is just filler that the company is selling to fans? After One Piece: Red got rumored as the first canon movie in the series, fans of the iconic Shonen manga are now questioning if the same could be said for Stampede.

One Piece: Stampede is not canon. It was the 14^th entry to a list of movies that have come out related to the series in the past two decades or so. It was released in 2019 to a ton of fanfare, with the mangaka himself serving as the creative supervisor for the whole thing. It’s widely considered that any movie that is worked on by Oda-san himself is automatically canon, but that isn’t the case here.  

That’s the main problem with One Piece; there is just way too much hearsay about how the timeline works. This is immensely daunting for any newcomers to the fandom because there is just so much material to go through here. Like, One Piece has been running since the late 90s, practically non-stop. There is just so much material to sort through, with the episodes in the anime alone. How do you discern what is relevant and what isn’t?

With stuff like Red, they announced that parts of it were canon because of its implications on the main plot going forward. With something like Stampede, however, it’s a little more complicated. As thrilling as the movie was, could any part of it be considered canon? Let’s break it down in Lore Analysis – where we take a closer look at the background of certain anime to see if we can predict where the plot is headed. Today, it’s one of the many wayward adventures of the Straw Hat Pirates!

Why Is One Piece: Stampede Not Canon?

The main reason Stampede isn’t considered canon is that the 13 entries before it is also non-canon. One Piece is famous for all of its movies being deemed non-canon by the creator himself, whether he helped with the plots of said media or not.

This frustrates a lot of fans because, while the action is fun, it’s hard to remember what matters in the context of the main plotline and where. Even with Red, it isn’t considered fully canon to the manga and anime, only parts of it are. This can be confusing to remember because it has major heavy hitters plot points such as Monkey D. Luffy, our protagonist, finally getting to meet Red Haired Shanks, after years and years. You know, the main motivation for the former becoming a pirate in the first place. Like, those aren’t things you can just ignore or deem as filler content.

But it’s easier to see why Stampede isn’t in the same boat because the premise there is relatively tame. It’s just a massive Pirate Festival where all the top dogs gather to duke it out for a lost treasure that supposedly belonged to Gol D. Roger, of the Roger Pirates crew. Yes, the Pirate King himself. But it’s just a treasure hunt movie with no impact on the anime itself.

Why Adjusting A Canonical Timeline Is Important In Shonen:

It’s important to remember that this isn’t some run-of-the-mill anime. This is One Piece we are talking about, with legions of fans who spend countless hours documenting every single happening throughout the series. Like, this is the only one of the Big 3 anime that is still ongoing.

Therefore, it is really important to have a backlog of what happens during the main plot. We are getting closer to the end of Luffy’s story, and you can’t have plot holes at this point. Everything that happens, has to be for a reason and not just for the heck of it. So, to have non-canon elements mixed up with canon ones is going to create way too much confusion.

It’s important to rectify the official timeline so that when the story ends, there isn’t this sense of a rushed or badly done ending. Accurate timelines matter when your manga has been running for over 20 years. So, you might as well do it right!