'One Piece' Shares Dark New Details About Wano

When fans of One Piece first heard about Wano, it became a place of fable. The mystical land of samurai was closed off to the world, leaving guys like Roronoa Zoro rather curious about its history. Now, the manga is stepping into Wano's long-awaited arc, and some details about the country have been shared.

And, as you may have guessed, Wano's isolationism hasn't gone over very well.

Monkey D. Luffy and Zoro are given the quick lesson when they stop to help O-Tama. The girl winds up being treated by an older lady called O-Tsuru, and the woman explains why her village, Leftover, is able to eat food grown in Wano without being poisoned.

"Do you see that mountain over there with no smoke rising about it? There used to be a castle on top of it. It was visible from here. That was Oden Castle, but that was over 20 years ago," O-Tsuru says.

As the woman explains, the castle used to be operated by the Koizuki Clan as it ruled over Wano before the Beast Pirates moved in. O-Tsuru says the castle had a massive farm that Oden built to feed the region's people, but the Shogun Orochi has closed it to the public. Instead, the ruler hordes the food and only gives it to government officials.

"We are the people and things that they no longer need. We survive by buying the rotting ingredients they sell us," the lady explains. "That's why this place is called the town of left-overs! It's fine. At least, we are able to survive here."

Given Wano's isolated state, all of its supplies are met in-house. Without any trade route in place, there is no way to bring in food from other areas, and the areas of Wano able to produce edible food are ruled by the upper class. People like O-Tsuru are left to tough it out in the slums with little aid, and you can guess how angry that kind of treatment makes Luffy.

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's 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.

How dark do you think Wano's past will get before this saga is all said and done? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!