'One Piece' Reveals Wano's Dark Secret To Oppression

One Piece spent a long time seeding hype for its visit to Wano, and the country had its debuted this year. Now, fans are learning more about the mysterious land, and it turns out Wano's ruler is as awful as everyone made him out to be. After all, he's found a clear way to keep his people oppressed, and the secret has come to light.

For those caught up with One Piece, they will know the manga is pacing through the 'Wano' arc nicely. Not long ago, chapter 926 hit shelves to entertain readers, and it was there fans learned how Wano's shogun keeps all his subjects from rising against him.

As it turns out, Orochi learned it was easy to control the masses when they were given no way to fight him one on one.

Thanks to a couple of Wano natives, readers overheard that Orochi has banned all forms of self-defense and martial arts. The tidbit is revealed when two younger guys hear about the Kozuki clan's impending rebellion, and an elderly man comments on its odds of succeeding.

"If this had happened a decade ago, I would be going too. But... in any case, how will you two get weapons? Only samurai are allowed to carry swords in this country," the older man says.

"Kendo and all of the martial art dojos like karate and judo have been outlawed by Orochi already," the guy continues. "He's removed the power source of any possible rebellion."

Naturally, the younger men are willing to risk life and limb if it means taking down Orochi. The shogun might take good care of his inner circle but the rest of Wano is left to suffer. As the island country practices isolationism, many citizens don't know better than to trust Orochi, and Wano is educating its children with full-on propaganda. Now, fans know the shogun has taken away the masses' means of fighting, but that is alright. After all, the Straw Hats are very familiar with brawling, and Monkey D. Luffy will be the first to arm Wano's rebels when the time comes.

Are you surprise the shogun would sink this low? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 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.