'One Piece' Reveals One Super Dark Cannibal Arc

One Piece can be dark when it wants to, but there are some topics audiences felt the show wouldn't touch. In the past, everything from human trafficking and even genocide has been covered by Eiichiro Oda's series, and a touchy new topic was just touched upon in the anime's latest episode.

So, if you have an issue with cannibalism, then you will want to go into One Piece's new episode rather carefully.

This weekend, One Piece saw its 837th episode go live, and anime-only viewers were stunned at what went down. The update continued its exploration of Charlotte Linlin's past, and Big Mom saw her origin story end with a massive twist.

After taking in Linlin from the giant, Mother Carmel and her brood moved the girl away from her former home and decided to throw a birthday celebration for her. On Linlin's sixth birthday, the girl found herself surrounded by her new family, and she could not stop herself from eating all the sweets around her. However, her voracious appetite could not be stopped, and Linlin wound up eating Mother Carmel as well as all of her children. Big Mom did so without even realizing what she had done, and Linlin was distraught when she realized she was alone afterwards.

Of course, the anime took on this big moment with a fair bit of censorship. The show refrained from showing any gore as Linlin chomped down on her surrogate family; Instead, Big Mom was shown eating them as if they were little cupcakes which is far. After all, that is what Linlin saw them as when she started eating.

For anime-only viewers, the shocking revelation came as a surprise. Sure, Big Mom is not the nicest of people, but her dabble into cannibalism is pretty dark. The horrifying event led Big Mom down the road she's come to walk, and her almost unhealthy obsession with Mother Carmel makes a bit more sense now. After all, you'd probably have a guilt complex over someone if you accidentally ate them, you know?

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 shocked by this big One Piece revelation? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!