One Piece Odyssey – Why Jimbei Isn’t Playable

The next One Piece video game has been announced, as One Piece Odyssey is coming in 2022. One Piece Odyssey is an upcoming JRPG that involves the Straw Hat Pirates being trapped on a mysterious island after their ship has been wrecked in a storm. The first trailer for One Piece Odyssey has been revealed and fans have noticed that a major character is missing, as it seems that Jimbei won’t be joining the other Straw Hat Pirates in the game.

One Piece follows the Straw Hat Pirate crew, as they search for the mythical treasure known as One Piece. The story started out with Monkey D. Luffy wanting to be the captain of his own crew. Over the course of the series, he added different characters to the crew, each serving their own roles aboard the ship. This means the number of main characters in the series has increased throughout its run. One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda is known for breaking the crew up during arcs so that different characters can have their time in the limelight, and it also stops the arcs from running for too long. One of the complaints with the current Wano arc of the manga is that it features all of the Straw Hat Pirates and many of their allies, causing it to run for a long time, as each character has been given the spotlight at different points in the story.

There have been many One Piece video games released over the years and they try to feature as many of the Straw Hats as possible as playable characters. This is helped by One Piece being a battle manga, so all of the crew members are suited for roles in a video game. One Piece Odyssey has been in development for so long that one of the new Straw Hat Pirates has been left out, as it seems that Jimbei won’t appear in the game.

Jimbei Officially Joined The Straw Hats In 2020

Jimbei has a long history in the One Piece manga. He was first mentioned in passing in Chapter 69, where it was established that he was a member of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Jimbei finally appeared in the flesh in Chapter 528, which was released a decade later. He was introduced during the Impel Down arc, where he was a temporary prisoner of the government, having refused to fight against Whitebeard in the upcoming planned execution of Ace.

Once Luffy breaks into Impel Down, he frees Jimbei, who proves to be a reliable and powerful ally. Jimbei would later have a major role in the Fish-Man Island Arc, which ended with Luffy asking him to join the Straw Hat Pirates. Jimbei refused at that point, as he was still affiliated with the Big Mom Pirates. He would later have a big role in the Whole Cake Island arc, saving Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates once more. In Chapter 976, Jimbei officially joined the Straw Hat Pirates. This chapter was first released in April 2020, a decade after Jimbei first appeared in One Piece and over twenty years since he was first mentioned.

One Piece Odyssey Features All Of The Straw Hats (Except For Jimbei)

Now, it’s been confirmed that One Piece Odyssey is the next One Piece game. The official One Piece Odyssey page on the Bandai Namco website has confirmed that the game will feature Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and Brook as playable characters. The One Piece Oddysey trailer also shows all of these characters in action, using their special abilities in combat, as well as seemingly performing combo attacks. Fans have noticed that Jimbei is not listed among the crew members on the website, nor does he appear in the trailer. The trailer features several group shots of the Straw Hat Pirates and Jimbei is not with them. The One Piece anime has featured the episode where Jimbei joins the crew, so it’s no longer considered to be a spoiler.

One Piece Odyssey Entered Development Before Jimbei Joined The Crew

One could argue that the timeline is the reason that Jimbei isn’t in One Piece Odyssey. Jimbei only joined the Straw Hats in the most recent arc of the anime, which is still ongoing with no end in sight. The One Piece video games have ignored the timeline in the past, so it wouldn’t be out of place to include Jimbei in the crew and just treat it as happening in an alternate reality.

The real reason is likely due to the production schedule for the game. The official trailer for One Piece Odyssey on the Bandai Namco YouTube channel opens with a message from One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, who has created different character and monster designs for the game. Oda mentions creating the designs for the game three years ago, suggesting that it started production in 2019. It’s likely that development was already underway on One Piece Odyssey when Jimbei officially joined the crew. There have been instances in the past of content being cut from video game adaptations when it would involve upcoming ideas for the manga or anime, such as how developers cut Super Saiyan Gohan from a Dragon Ball Z title on the Super Nintendo.

Jimbei Could Appear As DLC In One Piece Odyssey

Luckily for Jimbei, Bandai Namco loves DLC, especially in the One Piece video games. It’s possible that Jimbei is being saved for post-launch DLC, along with other popular characters from the Wano arc, like Yamato. The fact that Jimbei can breathe underwater and is an incredible swimmer means that it’s easy to explain how he shows up on the island where the Straw Hats are trapped, and his loyalty to the crew gives a reason for him to go on a rescue mission in the first place. He could also appear in a post-story campaign for One Piece Odyssey, where he arrives on the island after the Straw Hats have left. One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 had DLC characters from a number of different arcs, so Jimbei could be joined by characters from the entire series.

Source: Bandai Namco/YouTube, Bandai Namco

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2503 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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