'One Piece' Creator Teases Its Next Arc's Unique Battles

One Piece knows how to shake up the battlefield. With guys like Monkey D. Luffy heading up fights, fans never know what to expect, and that will be doubly true when the manga reaches its next arc. After all, Eiichiro Oda did tell fans there will be one big battle shift when the 'Wano' arc makes its debut.

So, spoilers below! You've been warned!

If you aren't caught up on all things One Piece, you should know the series is in the midst of the 'Whole Cake Island' arc. The story has Luffy manning his Sanji Retrieval Team as the chef abandoned the Straw Hats when his estranged family forced him to marry a daughter of Big Mom. The ordeal has been a trying one with Luffy taking on big battles, but none of his recent skirmishes will hold a candle to what Oda is planning for the 'Wano' arc.

According to a fan-translator called Sandman, Oda opened up about his 'Wano' plans in a copy of One Piece Magazine. It was there the artist told fans he planned to make good on his manga's pirate setting and explore the world of naval warfare.

"There are ton of new characters I want to draw in Wano arc. Characters in One Piece fight mostly on land despite them being pirates. I'd like to draw some event scenes on the sea which reminds us that they are pirates. Maybe I'll change my mind, though," he said.

Fans can't say Oda is wrong with his observation; One Piece has a lot of fights, but very few of them have to do with naval combat. Yes, the Thousand Sunny has loosened canon fire before, and the Straw Hats have downed their fair share of Marine ships. However, the series has never gone all-in on a full naval battle. At some point, Luffy or his comrades shift the fight towards hand-to-hand combat, but Oda hopes to delve deeper into the wide world of naval combat soon.

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.

Are you ready for One Piece's new arc? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!