One Piece Introduces Gorgeous New Hero Kiku

One Piece’s Wano Country arc has been a huge hit with fans thus far as the anime has seen a huge wave of fan favorite characters returning to the series, but that’s not the only exciting prospect as many new characters will be introduced over the course of the arc as well. Fans were already introduced one of the big new additions to the anime series, the adorable Tama, in a previous episode, and the latest episode revealed another key debut.

Episode 899 of the anime featured the debut of the important, and notably gorgeous, O-Kiku to the series. She’s introduced as someone who works at O-Tsuru’s teahouse, and she’ll be playing a key role in the events to come.

Voiced by Mariya Ise in the anime, O-Kiku appears at the tea house serving someone a dango made out of leftovers. While this person is enjoying it, he’s soon interrupted by the boisterous sumo Urashima. It’s here that Urashima proposes to O-Kiku, and tries to get her to quite working at this tea house. He wants her to stop “living pathetically,” and while O-Kiku remains stoic it’s clear that this is bothering her. She begins to react when Luffy and the others suddenly show up with the sick O-Tama in tow.

O-Kiku helps O-Tsuru brew the tea that will remedy O-Tama, but this is only the first of the major events of the Wano Country arc that she’ll be involved in. As the anime continues, fans will learn more about O-Kiku and see why she’s an important addition to the arc. Like O-Tama, her adventures in the anime are only just beginning. Thankfully, her debut matches how much she stands out in the manga’s version of the events.

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.