One Piece Reveals the Birth of Momonosuke

Wano Country is one of the most tragic locales that Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates have traveled to. When our favorite crew of swashbucklers decided to meet her following their time skip training session, the arc became one of the hardest hitting, and most well received, story lines in the franchise’s history. With both the anime and the manga covering this recent arc, the manga is far ahead of its “cousin” in terms of where the story is. The most recent installment didn’t just give us more of an idea into Wano’s past, but showed us just how Momonosuke was born.

The son of both Oden and Toki, Momonosuke has a tragic past. With both his parents tragically dying due to a coup, the young samurai finds himself the “victim” of his mother’s Devil Fruit ability, using her power to transport her son into the future and attempt to save him from certain death. With his parents gone and no country to call his own, Momonosuke eventually ran into Luffy and is still a part of the Wano Arc among the many moving pieces of the story.

Momo’s parents met when Oden decided to leave the country of Wano, begging the pirate Whitebeard to take him with him to help show him the world. The legendary pirate wasn’t quick to have Oden join his ranks, instead telling the wandering samurai that if he wanted to join his crew, he would need to hold onto his ship via a chain in the water for three days!

Before the challenge was completed, Oden let go of the chain in order to save a woman in distress, who just so happened to be his future wife in Toki Kozuki. Following her rescue, Whitebeard couldn’t help but let Oden join the pirates, realizing that the only reason he let go was to save another.

In the most recent installment of One Piece, we see Oden and Toki welcoming their son into the world, delivering Momonosuke on Whitebeard’s ship, far from the country of Wano. Momo was definitely born in happier times, prior to the tragedy that befell his family.

What do you think of the story of Momo’s birth? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the Straw Hat Pirates!

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.