One Piece Teases the Secret of the Kozuki Clan

One Piece‘s Wano Country arc has reached a new stage as Luffy and Zoro have crossed the first major bit of trouble in the region. After saving Otama from Holdem’s grasp in Bakura Town, now Luffy is turning his attention toward Kaido proper as he and Law prepare for the next big attack on the Emperor. But in gathering together at the ruins of Oden Castle, it’s revealed that the Kozuki Clan is harboring a major secret. One that sees the names of characters like Kin’emon and Momonosuke engraved on various graves.

While fans were introduced to their plight long before the Wano arc, it appears that they were still hiding something fairly important as their names mark graves alongside the name of their lord, Kozuki Oden. The preview for the next episode digs into this even more.

Episode 909 of the series is titled “Mysterious Grave Markers! A Reunion at the Ruins of Oden Castle!” and the preview teases that a “heartbreaking event” took place over twenty years ago. This event damaged the name of the clan itself, and led to the story of the event being “distorted.” There’s even a tease that Luffy will be overwhelmed by the truth of the shocking secret, and this is all very foreboding.

It’s odd enough that their names are on gravestones in the ruins of the old Oden castle, but the startling twenty years ago comment certainly is the most surprising. The characters don’t exactly look like their from 20 years ago, especially the young Momonosuke, so their must be some kind of explanation behind this.

The One Piece series is full of fantastical powers, and it’s not like Brook isn’t a walking dead man, but there’s still a great mystery as to what this all means. But if it’s enough to “shock” Luffy and the others, then surely the explanation behind it all is going to be something Luffy and the others have not come across before.

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.