Shanks

"Listen up… You can pour drinks on me, you can throw food at me… You can even spit on me. I’ll just laugh that stuff off. But… Good reason or not… Nobody hurts a friend of mine."

- Shanks

Shanks (シャンクス) Red-Haired Shanks is a legendary and powerful pirate in the Grand Line, being the captain of the Red Haired Pirate Crew and one of the Four Emperors in the second half of the grand line. Furthermore, he is Monkey D. Luffy's childhood hero and a former member of Gol D. Roger's Crew. Overall, he is greatly respected by most of the characters, despite having a 'soft' and friendly nature and never appearing in actual combat until he started a fight with Whitebeard. As a whole, he does not make many appearances in the series, although he appears in a majority of the opening or closing themes of the anime. Shanks always wears a long black cape over his shoulders and until he met Luffy, wore a straw hat that he had worn for many years beforehand. He always wears trousers that are cut below the knee as well as a pair of sandals. The most striking thing about Shanks is the colour of his red hair, of which his nick-name 'Red Haired Shanks' comes from. He also has three scars across his left eye, which were given to him by Blackbeard a long time ago. He has a missing left arm, that he had lost when he saved Luffy from a Sea King. Shanks and his crew are almost always seen partying and drinking alcoholic beverages whenever they make an appearance as the Captain's favourite pastimes are attending and hosting parties and banquets. According to Oda, Shanks is the one character that resembles himself the most out of all the One Piece characters, because of his fun-loving partying nature.

Personality
Shanks is one of the most laid back characters in the world of One Piece, preferring to take his time as he and his crew travels around the world rather than rushing from one place to another. Shanks is not cruel like many other pirate captains, nor does he rule over his crew with fear to gain respect. His friendly nature means he will not purposely seek to harm others, and he is able to make serious characters like Dracule Mihawk join in with his fun. Yet despite how simple minded he appears at first, Shanks is a complex person with some rather difficult to understand views. For example, he believes if two people share very different views, it is better they go their separate ways.

He also is against the idea of needless bloodshed, even if honor is involved and so far seems to only step up for a fight when a friend is in danger. He also seems to admire those who have courage, as seen when a young Luffy stood up against Higuma for insulting Shanks and also when he saw Coby gathering his courage to stop the war as the young marine believed that it was pointless to continue.

Shanks also has skills of diplomacy, as shown when he brokered a ceasefire between the Whitebeard Pirates and the World Government. His skills in diplomacy are so great that he managed to convince Sengoku to agree with his proposition, even though Sengoku has a strong hatred of pirates. He also likes teasing people, as demonstrated by his apparent reactions to Luffy as a child. Oda also stated that if a child asked Shanks for a Devil Fruit he'd tease them about being ten years too young to eat one.Shanks himself was like Luffy (as a child) in his younger years.