One Piece Introduces the Strange Otoko to the Anime

One Piece's Wano Country arc continues the first steps of its second act with the latest episode of the series, and it's setting the groundwork for the new status quo moving forward. Following Kaido's attack on the Straw Hats and Luffy's defeat, the work to building forces for a revolution is now back in full swing. Except this time, Sanji, Nami, Brook, Chopper, and Carrot are now part of the crew working in the shadows to find those who are willing to overthrow Orochi in the coming battle. But Sanji's drawn a lot of attention.

Taking on the role of "Sangoro," Sanji has set up an udon cart and his cooking has drawn the attention of all the women in Wano. This also included a strange young girl with a permanent smile on her face (even when she cried), Otoko. She made quite the impression on the Straw Hats with her plucky spirit.

Like the previous young girl who had been struggling in silence and trying to mask her pain with a positive demeanor, Otama, Otoko is a young girl who tried to buy some udon. When some goons attacked Sanji's cart and knocked the bowl out of her hands, she began to cry. But Franky called her weird because while she was sobbing, a huge grin never left her face.

And like Otama, Otoko has been forced to work as much as she could to save enough money to buy this bowl of udon. So she was devastated when the bowl was knocked out of her hands. But even when telling this story, she couldn't stop smiling. But her infectious laughter also made the Straw Hats laugh and smile even if they couldn't figure out why she couldn't stop smiling.

But Otoko later revealed that her job was actually being an attendant to the Oiran, the most beautiful woman in the Wano Country. So while she's a mystery for now, there's going to be more from her soon enough as the Oiran makes her debut in the next episode. What did you think of Otoko's debut? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 90 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.