'One Piece' Explores Its New, Horrifying Prison Camps

One Piece is no stranger to giving prison tours, and it seems the series is ready to introduce another despicable jail to audiences. However, this time around, fans will be begging to rescue its inmates no matter whether or not they pled guilty.

Recently, Eiichiro Oda's series delved deeper into the inner-workings of Wano. The isolated country was introduced fans earlier this year when One Piece kicked off its 'Wano' arc, and fans have learned its politics have bred one nasty prison system.

So, it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to stay at Udon's Prisoner Mines or Impel Down.

Chapter 926 kicked kicked off with a look at the Straw Hats as they seeded Kozuki's rebellion with the public, but it paid visit to Monkey D. Luffy before long. The captain has been thrown into prison in the hopes of being reeducated in Kaido's favor, and it seems Udon's Prisoner Mines is trying to do more than teach. After all, the prison doubles as a slavery front. Prisoners are all forced to assist in weapons making, and they are tossed aside as soon as they become useless.

"If you won't work, at least go die in a corner somewhere so you don't block the way," one guard is seen saying as he cracks a whip.

The abusive system is by no means healthy, but Udon's Prisoner Mines only gets worse. Fans learned those imprisoned are forced to work for their rations no matter their age, and one guard is more than happy to threaten an older inmate who seems to have been in this camp for some time.

"Are you having trouble earning enough food as you're getting older, Grandpa Hyou," the guard asks an elderly man after he earns a single ration. "You're finally about to kick the bucket!! Talking back to a guard comes with the punishment of amputation. You know that, don't you?"

The rest of the camp pleads for Hyou to ignore the ribbing as the older man can't do anything against the guards. The prison's corrupt ecosystem has made it so that inmates have become victims while the guards are free to abuse their power. Eventually, Luffy is given a chance to re-educate some of the guards when he's subjected to punishment alongside Eustass Kid, and fans are feeling confident the pirates will find a way to free all those unfairly imprisoned before the 'Wano' arc ends.

Did you expect anything different from Wano here...? 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.