Is ‘One Piece’ Heading For A Zoro-Centric Arc?

Ever since Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece teased the idea of a samurai-filled Wano arc, there has been much fan debate over how much the arc will explore One Piece‘s own roaming samurai, Roronoa Zoro.

After the Whole Cake Island arc explored more of Sanji’s past and generally fleshed out his character, some fans believed that the same will be for the Wano arc and Zoro, but is that going to be the case? Maybe not.

As pointed out by Reddit user accicieff, there are no clues that have pointed to the fact that Wano would be Zoro focused. As they point out, “it was Oda’s editor, an official source, who revealed that Sanji’s character was going to be explored, and plot-wise Sanji was the very reason why the arc started” and that Zoro may just get an integral role in the arc but not necessarily one that explores his past (most likely making up for the lack of “screen time” the character has gotten since the Straw Hats split up before the Whole Cake Island arc).

This is a fine point to make as most fans have fallen in love with Zoro’s lack of back story throughout the series. Other than finding out how he trained as a child during the East Blue half of the series, fans have come to love Zoro’s air of mystery around his personality and strength.

Most fans don’t even need the Wano arc to be as explorative with Zoro as it was with Sanji, as many of them will be happy just seeing Zoro have cool battles after such a long time of him being away. Maybe a return to his Asura form is in order?

Whether or not the Wano arc explores Zoro’s past, if it’s anything like the Whole Cake Island arc fans are in for a great time. What do you think? Want to learn more about Zoro’s past or should he stay mysterious?

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.