One Piece Reveals How the Straw Hats Survived Kaido’s Attack

One Piece has kicked off this new decade by officially putting the cap on the first act of the Wano Country arc, and before it came to a close the latest episode of the series made sure to wrap up some lingering cliffhangers that definitely had fans worried. Before Luffy began his vicious attack on Kaido, Kaido unleashed a full display of his dragon power and seemingly wiped out the Straw Hat crew in one foul swoop in a previous episode. But now that the fight is over and the series is setting up the rest of the arc, the Straw Hats were thankfully confirmed to be okay.

Episode 916 of the series revealed that while it looked like the Straw Hats were wiped out alongside Oden’s Castle with Kaido’s Blast Breath attack, they were saved at the last minute due to some quick thinking from the newest addition to the series — Shinobu — and her Ripe-Ripe Fruit ability that rotted the ground under them.

The episode revealed during a flashback that when Shinobu spotted Kaido’s attack coming in, she used a “Ripe-Ripe Enticement Jutsu” that opened up a sinkhole under all of them. Everyone began falling through the new hole, but Chopper’s Guard Point was able to keep them from all falling through completely as he expanded to catch them and slow down their fall.

As Shinobu explained, her Devil Fruit ability allows her to mature (or as she hilariously refuses to say, “rot”) anything she touches. Thus she quickly aged up the ground underneath all of them to form the sinkhole and save all of them. Luckily, they were soon spotted by Kiku and pulled out of the hole. But while fans never quite believed the Straw Hats were in any real danger of destruction this early on in the arc, it is good to confirm that they all survived the attack. But with Luffy defeated, there’s a lot more danger on the horizon.

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.