One Piece’s Wano Country arc has kicked off its third act, and during the entire build up to this moment we’ve been hearing all about the legacy of the former daimyo, Oden Kozuki. We’ve seen how the nine Akazaya have re-gathered and have been plotting to take back Wano in his name, but have not been privy to too much about Oden himself. Although fans eventually found out that Oden served on Gol D. Roger’s pirate crew years ago, much of what he actually meant to Wano has been shrouded in mystery. But that’s until the latest chapter.
Chapter 960 of the series began to shed light on the mystery behind Oden, and it turns out that the man himself is a lot more rough around the edges than the legends would have you expect. In fact, Oden wasn’t seemed to be liked in Wano at all in his time.
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As Chapter 960 details about him, he’s led a rough life. Breaking Wano’s laws to set sail, but failing 38 times, he seems to cause a ruckus every time he returns to the country. Ever since he was a young age, he was strong enough to fight off wild animals and was even getting in drunken fights at the pleasure halls before the age of ten. At ten, he was sent to prison, and that only made him stronger.
He re-directed a river through the country as an attempt to cure drought and ended up flooding a town, and even started gathering women for his own personal harem (much to the chagrin of the married men in Wano). This eventually lead to war with Hyogoro’s group, and led to many casualties. This forced his father, the current Shogun, to disown him.
The chapter itself reveals him in full as he desecrates the remains of one of the citizens by boiling some oden over it. This is him showing a sign of respect for his fallen friend, but in a totally disrespectful roundabout way. But even with all of these negative characteristics, there’s already a hint of why strong warriors followed Oden in the first place. Though he does what he wants with reckless abandon, it’s kind of like how Luffy just does what he wants but has good intentions when doing so. There doesn’t seem to be any malice in his actions, but future chapters may change things.
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.
