'One Piece' Could Catch Up With Wano Sooner Than You Think

One Piece fans have been really enjoying the Whole Cake Island arc in the manga, but they have been especially looking forward to see what the other half of the Straw Hat crew is up to in Wano.

But when exactly is the Wano arc coming? Well, it could be coming much sooner than fans think if the manga's latest teases come to fruition.

When Chapter 900 of the series released, the series got a full color page on the front of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump to celebrate the landmark occasion. But eagle eyed fans of the series on Reddit have noticed that the magazine is teasing the upcoming Wano arc with "Forward! To the Wano Kingdom!"

The details of the tease are mixed among differing Reddit users as some argue that the tease is merely saying that Wano will come after Whole Cake Island, and has not confirmed anything about its arrival but fans are excited nonetheless. This also is enhanced by the newest chapter of the series, Chapter 901, explicitly mentions Wano by name.

When the Sun Pirates are struggling to keep the Charlotte Family away from the Straw Hats during their big escape, Jinbe asks Luffy to stay behind and help his comrades. Luffy is naturally angry at this, since Jinbe is a member of their crew now, but Luffy tells Jinbe to meet them at Wano.

Luffy trust Jinbe to come back alive, and now fans know that Oda is directly teasing the Wano arc of the series. Now that it seems like the Straw Hats are finally getting away from Big Mom, perhaps the Wano arc is closer now than ever as the Whole Cake Island arc is seemingly coming to a close.

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.