One Piece Reveals Orochi's Horrific Rise to Power

The third act of One Piece's Wano Country arc has made a surprise detour with a major flashback fleshing out the history of the world as a whole. Detailing how Kozuki Oden traveled with both Whitebeard and Gold Roger's crew, the latest few chapters of the series revealed that Wano ended up much worse off in his absence. With Oden officially making his return to the Wano Country, it's here he finds that the (current) Shogun has been Orochi this entire time. Thus the country has fallen into way worse state of affairs than before.

With Roger's crew disbanding in Chapter 968 of the series, Oden is forced to come home after spending years traveling, and despite him being around Orochi continues to grow in political power. By the time Oden is around to act, it's too late for him to actually make a notable difference without hurting those around him.

Upon returning to Wano in Chapter 968, Oden finds that the people still support him thanks to the work of his wife Toki in the time he's been away. But he soon finds that his father had passed in the time he was away, and Orochi took over as successor. The story's been twisted too as Oden only saw him as a bum who constantly asked for money, but according to the people, Orochi was like a brother to him.

Factories are beginning to pop up over the region, and people are forced to work in them for pennies. But no matter who tries to fight him, thanks to the backing of Kaido, they are quickly overwhelmed and killed. Due to the threats on Toki's life, Oden's vassals are pinned down from acting too. But when Oden tries to make a move himself, he sees how dangerous Orochi really is.

In Chapter 969 of the series, Oden tries to attack Orochi but is quickly blocked by the power of the Barrier Barrier Fruit. This has been a long play by their rival Kurozumi Clan, and Oden is forced into non-action himself lest Orochi unleash his political and Kaido backed power on his loved ones. Orochi managed to slither his way so deep into Wano's core, by the time Oden can do anything about it...he can't. All Oden can do is watch as it's all ruined slowly.

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Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 90 volumes, and 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 over 430 million copies sold.