‘One Piece’ Just Debuted The Fifth Emperor

The manga run of One Piece has officially ended the Whole Cake Island arc, and has taken the first step into its next arc, Reverie. But before everything can be wrapped up in a bow, the Straw Hats have to deal with the fallout of their actions.

Events during the Whole Cake Island arc lead to the series knighting a new Fifth Emperor joining Shanks, Big Mom, Kaidou, and Teach. But who is it? Read on only if you want to know!

Warning! Massive spoilers for Chapter 903 of One Piece below!

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Chapter 902 marked the end of the Whole Cake Island arc, so Chapter 903 begins with the fallout of its events. How does it end? With Luffy being named “The Fifth Emperor” in a report of Luffy’s fight with Big Mom by Morgans.

In the beginning of the chapter, Sanji’s bounty goes up, and Luffy’s sad because his seemed to go down somehow. But as the series was setting up its new “Reverie” arc by re-introducing older characters like Vivi, each of these returning faces was learning of Luffy’s fight with Big Mom.

Morgans lays out each of Luffy’s victories as such:

“Straw Hat Luffy had already placed 7 magical crews under his command, and is now a Grand Captain with over 5000 subordinates that answer to him. He has already attracted much attention for his brotherly relationship not only with Ace, but with the Second-in-Command of the Revolutionary Army Sabo.

He roped together organizations like the Armies of Evil, the Germa 66, the Sun Pirates, and the Firetank Pirates on the spot with his extraordinary charisma and leadership abilities. His mind devised and calculated a calculated plot to destroy the Queen’s castle. He possessed the strength to best commanders worth 800 million and even 1 billion Belly! One might even count this fracas amongst Straw Hat Luffy’s victories!

The Fifth Emperor of the Seas has arrived!”

This new label sends shockwaves through the seas and even gets the attention of the other Four Emperors, Kaidou, Blackbeard, Big Mom, and even Shanks. Now with a new title (and 1.5 Billion Belly bounty), Luffy is going to have a tougher road ahead than ever before.

Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It 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 430 million copies sold worldwide.

Eiichiro Oda also revealed some upcoming news for One Piece‘s future at Jump Festa 2018. Not only will the manga see Wano sooner rather than later, the next villain of the series is “one of the legends which lurks in the One Piece world. The greatest enemy ever for Straw Hats will hinder their way…Can you believe Marineford Summit War will look ‘cute’ compared to that?”

The new live-action One Piece series also got some new information as it was revealed that the series will portray the Straw Hats’ adventures from the very beginning, and will take place in the East Blue.

One Piece is currently in the middle of the “Whole Cake Island” arc and is now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.