One Piece‘s Wano Country arc has taken a brief detour from the current action between the rebellion and Kaido’s forces to explore more of the past of Kozuki Oden and it’s revealed many of the reasons why he not only was a member of Whitebeard’s crew but Gol D. Roger’s as well. The latest chapter of the series saw Oden officially joining Roger’s crew for a year, and in this year some pivotal moments of the series as a whole that fans have been hearing about for quite some time.
Gol D. Roger’s legendary journey around all the seas of the world in search of the Poneglyphs to Laugh Tale, and it’s here that Oden learns that Roger only has about a year left to live. But in the search during this year, Roger’s crew suddenly makes a familiar trip up the Knock Up Stream to Skypiea and some very familiar icons are briefly seen.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Chapter 966 of the series has Oden’s diary account of his travels with Roger’s crew, and towards the end of the chapter they find themselves riding up the Knock Up Stream much as Luffy and the Straw Hats would end up doing years later. They’re all shocked that there’s an island in the sky, but there’s no details given about the Skypiea people of that time. Still, one notable Skypiea icon does make an appearance however.
Making their way up the beanstalk that Luffy would climb years later, Roger’s crew finds the giant golden bell and Roger decides to leave it in place. The young Buggy asks to bring the bell with them, but Roger declines as he doesn’t have the time for that now. It’s here that Oden reads the Poneglyph warning of a weapon named Poseidon, and Roger tells him to carve the also familiar message “I hereby guide this document to its end!”
This Oden flashback has begun to fill in some critical pieces of One Piece‘s history, and now each new chapter is all the more enticing as there’s no clue of what’s next to come as Roger continues his journey to the final island of Laugh Tale.
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.
