'One Piece' Drops Hint About A Missing Princess

One Piece likes to keep fans guessing when it can, but the series isn't above dropping teasers every now and again. Not long ago, readers found themselves guessing over the identity of a long-lost princess, and they think One Piece dropped a big clue about the girl.

After all, the former princess of Wano Country seems to be alive, and she may be something of a deadly beauty.

If you read chapter 932 carefully, you may have noticed an interesting showdown. One Piece ended the update with a dramatic encounter between Wano's ruler Orochi and a revered escort named Komurasaki. The beauty refused to let the egotistical ruler kill a child in her care, but tension between the two ramped up shortly before when he talked about the dwindled Kozuki clan, the former ruling family of Wano.

"His [Oden's] son Momonosuke still lives! The boy's body was never found! The blood of the Kozuki clan has not yet died out and they seek to return the Kozuki name to power," Orochi claimed.

His words were met with uncertainty, but One Piece made sure to focus on Komurasaki when he mentioned the Kozuki clan. Then, when the so-called harlot raised a hand against Orochi, she told her peers she would not apologize for her actions because of her noble lineage.

"I refuse. I do not grovel before anyone. When I know that I am in the right, I do not need to give an inch," Komurasaki said. "If you would prefer a weak woman, then strike me down now. I am the daughter of a samurai! I will not disgrace myself!"

The bold claim reassured fans Komurasaki is anything but weak-willed, but it revealed something special about the escort. The woman says she is the daughter of a samurai, and fans were quick to look into the fact. Her older age marks Komurasaki in her later 20s to early 30s, making her the perfect age to be Hiyori Kozuki.

The long-lost sister of Momonosuke has been lost for some time as she did not travel into the future with her surviving family, but fans have theorized that Komurasaki may be the heiress in hiding. The fact that Komurasaki says her father is a samurai just as the former shogun Oden was is almost too coincidental, and it has got fans eyeing the headstrong heroine even more so these days.

So, do you think Hiyori has been found...? 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. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.