'One Piece' Introduces Its 'Wano' Arc Heroine

One Piece is toeing into its latest arc, and it has been a long time coming. At long last, [...]

One Piece is toeing into its latest arc, and it has been a long time coming. At long last, Eiichiro Oda has brought the Straw Hats into Wano Country, and the series just introduced the heroine of the new arc.

Thanks to Weekly Shonen Jump, One Piece introduced fans to a little girl named O-Tama not too long ago. The heroine has been set up as one of Monkey D. Luffy's first Wano allies. The captain ends up saving the girl from two thugs, and their relationship becomes more involved from there.

As it turns out, O-Tama meets Luffy after she is caught in an isolated jungle in Kuri. The girl is nabbed by two human traffickers who wish to punish her since she's connected to the Kozuki clan, a taboo family from Wano. The pair threaten to sell her to a red-light district, but Luffy throws those plans awry when he shows up.

After a thorough beatdown, Luffy and O-Tama manage to escape the thugs, and the girl brings the Straw Hat back to her house. The girl explains her dream of becoming a kunoichi, and she feeds Luffy some rice despite the treat being meant for her birthday. By the chapter's end, fans learn O-Tama has a rather surprising connection to Ace, leaving Luffy stunned as he discovers another piece of his brother's hidden past.

Right now, there is no telling how O-Tama will filter into the 'Wano' arc overall, but her entry to the series is an intriguing one. Her character is the first fans have seen from Wano, and O-Tama seems plenty welcoming. Given the secrecy surrounding Wano, fans are sure to meet a bunch of unique characters in Oda's latest arc, but O-Tama will be hard to beat given how adorable her introduction was.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It 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 430 million copies sold worldwide.

Were you surprised to see Ace name-dropped so suddenly? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

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