Recap / One Piece: Land of Wano Arc

Short Summary

Tama! Don't set the bar too low! I'll make it your everyday life! By the time we leave this country, I'll make it a place where you can eat as much as you want!

— Monkey D. Luffy, Chapter 918

With Sanji back in tow, Luffy and his group (Nami, Chopper, Brook and Carrot) head to their designated meeting spot of Wano to both rejoin their crew and help Momonosuke and his retainers, Kin'emon, Kanjuro and Raizo, to retake the throne from the current emperor of the nation who ousted his father. However, complicating matters is the fact that Wano is affiliated with Kaido, one of the four Pirate Emperors, who's still miffed at Luffy for the loss of his SMILE Fruit operation in Dressrosa. After barely escaping Big Mom's grasp, can the crew prevail against another equally strong and feared big-name pirate?

Main Summary

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This arc contains examples of:

A to H

• Accidental Public Confession: When Big Mom finds the pot of o-shiruko empty, Luffy comments that he understands why she's sad, saying he thought it was delicious, which unfortunately makes everyone realize that he was the one who ate all of Queen's o-shiruko. In a rare moment of clarity, he realizes Did I Just Say That Out Loud?.
• Accidental Truth:
  • To stop Kaido's drunken rampage, Hawkins tells him that Luffy and Law are hiding in the ruins of Oden's castle. When Jack asks if it's true, Hawkins reveals that, though it was a lie to stop Kaido, he did hear rumors of suspicious lights being seen from the top of the mountain. Unbeknownst to Hawkins, that is where Luffy and Law were until just moments before that, and their allies are still there, so Kaido attacking the ruins does put said allies in danger.
  • To lure her to Udon, Chopper tells an amnesiac Big Mom that there are shiruko there, while silently hoping she won't go through a Hunger Pain attack when she learns there aren't any. Cut to Udon Prison, where it's revealed that Queen has tons of shiruko^note At least until Luffy eats it all.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Contrary to what he allows everyone else to believe, Kin'emon didn't lie about the meaning of Yasu's changed code to his allies because he suspected there was a traitor among them and wanted to trick him; he just sincerely misinterpreted the meaning of Yasu's message, and in fact, didn't want to think about the possibility of the traitor being a trusted ally. His mistake ends up saving the whole plan, because the traitor passes the false intel on to Orochi, who in turn doesn't take the right measures to preemptively strike back due to being misinformed, allowing the samurai to mobilize as planned.
• Adaptational Expansion: The penultimate episode of the saga's anime version has the Straw Hats say good bye to everyone in Wano, as well as those who have joined them beforehand. This includes Carrot and the other minks from Zou, who have to return home but was never shown to say their last "garchu" to the crew in the manga.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • Hawkins tells Drake that a certain man has a 1% chance of surviving through the raid, which is implied (and outright stated in the anime) to be Drake once he's outed as a spy... only for Hawkins to admit after the raid that he meant himself.
  • When Big Mom is knocked off Onigashima in the manga, Prometheus manages to catch her before she hits the water below. In the anime, she actually falls in and start sinking before Prometheus, a living fireball who is explicitly susceptible to water, dives in to save her.
• All for Nothing:
  • The good deeds Luffy did in the first act of the arc — namely, saving Tama from the Beast Pirates and stealing a treasure ship of food to give to Leftover Town — backfire almost immediately. The Atamayama Thieves steal the food Luffy gave Leftover Town, and while trying to get away, Tama ends up encountering Kaido, leaving her badly injured. What's more, Luffy's acts put the alliance to bring down Kaido in danger when Kaido goes on a rampage searching for him and blasts the ruins of Oden Castle, where half the Straw Hats and a bunch of their allies are hiding, to smithereens, followed closely by giving Luffy a One Hit Curb-Stomp Battle. Talk about No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
  • Franky joined a carpenter's guild in hopes of getting the blueprints for Kaido mansion from the guild head, Minatomo, who built the place. After weeks of labor, Minatomo tells Franky... he pawned the blueprints years ago, meaning Franky's efforts to please Minatomo were for nothing.
  • Averted with Robin's mission to infiltrate Orochi's castle. At first, it looks like she got caught by the Orochi Oniwabanshu before she could learn anything, with her, Nami, Brook, and Shinobu forced to flee from the Flower Capital. Upon taking shelter in the Northern Cemetery, Robin reveals she gathered more than enough info for the Alliance's plan but was disappointed she didn't get everything.
  • Ultimately subverted with the alliance's efforts to gather allies and Lord Yasuie's sacrifice. After Orochi captured everyone bearing the Mark of the Crescent Moon, and it seemed there was no way to free them, Yasuie gave himself up to protect the alliance's plans and give them a new meeting place. That seemed to have failed as well when Orochi's spy informed him of this and he bombed all the bridges leading to the meeting place along with the Thousand Sunny's hiding place. Then, it turns out that the Sunny survived the attack due to being made of Adam Wood, and it's revealed that Kin'emon had misinterpreted the new meeting place and the alliance had already gathered at the true location, along with Denjiro freeing all of those with the Mark of the Crescent Moon. This does mean they lose the element of surprise on Orochi though, since he was tipped off what they had intended.
  • The Five Elder Stars try having one of their top CP0 agents kill Luffy in order to prevent him from achieving the full extent of his Devil Fruit's power, with the agent in question suffering Kaido's wrath as a result of interfering in his battle with Luffy. However, not only does Luffy survive, but he ends up Awakening his Devil Fruit. In short, all the Five Elders' interference did was cost them one of their best agents, provoke Kaido against the World Government, trigger the very scenario they were trying to avoid, and indirectly cause the fall of one of the Four Emperors.
  • This arc reveals that the Alabasta arc was retroactively this for Crocodile. As it turns out, Pluton's location is not in Alabasta but actually in Wano. By the time Crocodile would have learned this, Wano would still have been under the rule of Kaido, making it next to impossible for Crocodile to ever claim the Ancient Weapon for himself.
• Ambiguous Situation: When the Roger Pirates set foot on Laugh Tale and found the One Piece, they all started laughing. Was Joy Boy such a good comedian, or is there something more, and possibly darker, to their reaction? Rayleigh did say the Straw Hats might come to a different conclusion than they did, after all.
• Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes: Big Mom develops amnesia after falling into the sea, and when she's found by Chopper, Momonosuke, Kiku, and Tama, she comes with them (under the alias "O-Lin") to Udon Prison to free Luffy, though as far as she knows, they're going there to get more oshiruko. This doesn't last very long, though, before her memories are restored and she goes right back to being as evil as ever.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: When Kaido is finally defeated, we see no one mourn, but hundreds celebrating.
• Animation Bump: The anime is shown to be more fluid upon adapting this arc, reaching movie quality. Toei hired or reassigned many top animators they had to work on this. And it shows!!
• Apologetic Attacker: After Big Mom reclaims Zeus and uses him to attack Nami, he apologized to her as he's unable to defy Big Mom.
• Artistic License – Geography: Just like most of the New World, Wano's hydrography runs on nonsensoleum. The sea currents flow into the country like some sort of reverse river, and yet the Straw Hats come across a waterfall that brings freshwater into the sea just like a traditional river. This all happens in the same water stream. The whole thing gets lampshaded.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: Apparently, triceratopses could rotate their frills like propellers, brachiosauruses could eject their torsos to constrict their prey, and pteranodons could use their beaks as slingshots by pulling back their crests. In each situation, the Devil Fruit user will claim with a straight face that this is what their animals forms actually did.
• As You Know:
  • In Chapter 957, the bounties for the Gol D. Roger and all the Emperors' are gone over in a Marine presentation. It should be redundant considering these are the most notorious pirates to have ever lived and their bounties should be well-known (especially among the Marines, whose job is to oppose pirates), but nobody's complaining since the revelation of their bounties was long-anticipated.
  • Early in Oden's flashback, a servant summarizes Oden's life up that to that point to his own father Sukiyaki, for the sake of telling the audience just how outrageous Oden's behavior was.
• Badass in Distress: Downplayed with Luffy, who spends a large chunk of Act 2 imprisoned in the prisoner mines in Udon. He did end up there by being beaten up and captured, is weakened or limited to some degree throughout his time there (either by Sea Prism Stone handcuffs or a neck brace that'll decapitate him if he steps outside the arena he's forced to fight in), and his friends and allies do try to help him escape, with Raizo infiltrating the prison to free him and Chopper, Momo, Kiku, and Tama launching a rescue attempt. On the other hand, Luffy's friends notably aren't too worried about him and feel sure that he'll be okay, and Luffy himself doesn't take his imprisonment badly at all, and instead of remaining idle in captivity, he uses it as an opportunity to train and become stronger, all while remaining a Defiant Captive who is still more than capable of defending himself from prison guards despite his Sea Prism Stone restraints.
• Bad Liar: Luffy, as per usual, combined with Blatant Lies. First, he tries to claim that he's not actually hungry after Tama tells him she doesn't have any more food left when he asked for seconds, and again when he tries to claim that he was just kidding and doesn't actually know who's secretly controlling Wano after stating only a moment before that he knows it's Kaido.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Despite the Zou Arc strongly suggesting Marco would join The Alliance, he declines Cat Viper's offer due to believing that he should stay in Whitebeard's homeland, especially given the danger of Weevil attacking. He does give Cat Viper a message to deliver to Luffy, however.
  • When Luffy arrives at the ruins of Oden Castle, Law makes some vaguely creepy comments that suggest Kin'emon is a ghost, leading into Kin'emon slowly appearing behind them... only for the following page to reveal he's just suffering from severe diarrhea, and Law just failed to explain it properly.
  • A news report involving Sabo initally seems to be suggesting that he was killed when the Revolutionary Army attacked during the Reverie, with all of his various friends and loved ones shown crying or angry while reading it. It isn't until the end of the arc that it's revealed that the report was about him suppossedly murdering Cobra and everyone's reactions were actually out of disbelief that he could be a murderer.
• The Beastmaster: Tama can pull "millet dumplings" (kibi dangos) out from her cheeks, which can tame any animal that eats them. With these, she has been able to tame powerful wild beasts. The dumplings furthermore don't work on humans, as explained by Tama herself; however, much to her shock, she was able to instantly tame Speed the moment the SMILE user ate one. Luffy reasons that this worked because Speed is half-horse.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: As a child, Yamato came to idolize Oden after witnessing his impressive feat. Kaido decided if Yamato wanted to be Oden, then he would treat Yamato like Oden until he either died or gave up his beliefs. Unfortunately, with how Kaido and Oden clashed before the latter's death, this involves Kaido beating the crap out of Yamato, starving him, detaining him up, and killing anyone who dared show kindness to Yamato. Although it made his childhood a nightmare, Yamato never gave in.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: After Chopper cures the infected Pleasures and Waiters of the Ice Oni plague, they switch sides to support Chopper, stating that they'd rather die repaying the favor to their savior than serve a Bad Boss like Queen.
• Belly Mouth: Thanks to the SMILE Devil Fruit Holdem ate, he has a lion's head complete with fangs and all coming out of his stomach.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Kaido and Orochi, who allied with each other at some point in the past. Orochi is responsible for most of Wano's suffering and is the nemesis to Momonosuke and Kin'emon, whereas Kaido is his benefactor who is also after the Straw Hats, has a poneglyph, and was a Greater-Scope Villain in the Punk Hazard, Dressrosa, and Zou Arcs. Big Mom's arrival in Chapter 930 would make it a Big Bad Ensemble as she is enemies with Kaido, but then she loses all her memories... until she regains them and sorts out her differences with Kaido. The two Emperors decide to team up for the time being, making it a true Big Bad Duumvirate.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Zoro and Sanji save Toko when Orochi spots her running to the body of her father.
  • Luffy, Law, and Kid arrive and save the Red Scabbards from a trap they sailed into by Kaido's men.
  • Denjiro shows up in the following chapter with the samurai army, signaling it by slicing one of the Animal Kingdom Pirates' ships.
  • And the chapter after that, Jimbei returns, sinking one of the enemy ships that were shooting at them from afar.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance succeeds in taking down Kaido and Big Mom, the Kurozumi bloodline is extinct (besides Tama), Momonosuke becomes the ruler of Wano, and Carrot becomes the Mokomo Dukedom's new ruler. But the newspapers reveal that Cobra was assassinated at the Reverie, Vivi has disappeared as well, Yasuie is dead, Izo and Ashura Doji were killed during the raid, and Yamato and Momonosuke have to stay in Wano to protect it from invaders despite both wishing they could go with the Straw Hats, though Luffy mentions that the option to join his crew is still open at anytime.
• Blessed with Suck: The SMILE Fruits seem to do this to many of their users, some more than others.
  • Gazelleman is a Gazelle SMILE user capable of running at incredible speeds thanks to the gazelle legs the SMILE Devil Fruit he ate provides. He, however, doesn't have the physical constitution of a gazelle to match his speed and as a result, winds up incredibly tired after running for a long distance.
  • Holdem is a Lion SMILE user whose SMILE powers most prominently manifest in a lion coming out of his stomach. The lion, however, has a will of its own and is constantly pissed at Holdem. As a result, Holdem is at constant odds with his disrespectful stomach lion with scuffles like Holdem smacking the lion's head around or the lion swiping at Holdem's crotch, which incidentally is also the lion's.
  • Dobon, a vice jailer of Kaido's prison mines, has a Hippo Smile Devil Fruit. However, it not only left him in a hybrid state but likewise formed a full hippo from his waist and around him. Not only does the hippo keep closing its mouth over him, but it likewise constantly needs to be fed large qualities of food.
  • One of the guards in Kaido's prison mines is a crab SMILE user. While his artificial Devil Fruit gives him crab claws to use, it also gave him crab legs. These made him capable of only walking sideways like an actual crab. As such, he was unable to stop Raizo from stealing a key he was guarding.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: In the past, Kin'emon and Denjiro appointed themselves Oden's bodyguards.
• Book Ends:
  • Momonosuke's dragon form towering over the citizens of the Flower Capital is drawn in an almost identical way to Kaido's entrance in the arc as a dragon. Unlike then, which was to signify the introduction of the hardest opponent the heroes have ever faced and ends with Luffy defeated, here Momo's appearance signifies the end of the Animal Kingdom Pirates dominion over a tormented Wano and the beginning of a new dawn.
  • After rescuing Otama and giving her food taken from the Flower Capital Luffy promises her that, by the time the Straw Hats leave Wano, she will be able to eat as much as she wants. Luffy recalls this promise several times during his fight with Kaido, even directly stating it as the kind of world he wants to create by defeating Kaido, and after the day is won Otama remembers Luffy's promise and is brought to happy tears.
  • At the beginning of the arc it is shown that the children of Wano are being fed propaganda painting the Kozuki clan as corrupt rulers in their history classes. After Orochi's regime is torn down a new history teacher arrives and teaches the children the true history of Wano and the Kozuki clan.
• Breaking Old Trends: Word of God has confirmed that for once, they plan on having Luffy fight Kaido as soon as possible instead of dragging things out. In-universe, the rest of the crewmates try to clear out as many distractions as possible so Luffy can conserve energy, knowing he's going to need everything he's got to take on Kaido.
• Brick Joke: In the very beginning of the arc, Usopp is selling a "miraculous" toad oil that can heal sword wounds instantly. When Zoro gets stabbed, later on, Hiyori and Toko use some of this oil to treat him, unaware that it's completely useless.
• Bring It: On both sides of the conflict once the Battle at Onigashima begins. Big Mom and Kaido thinking Luffy's all bluster and talk but invite him to try and defeat them anyway. And Luffy declaring outright war on the two right then and there with the manpower to back it up.
• Broken Pedestal: Kaido is a villainous example. At first, Yamato trusts Kaido well enough to believe he would never actually kill him and that the explosive handcuffs are just a bluff. But when Luffy removes the cuffs and they explode seconds later, Yamato sides with the heroes to help take down his father for good.
• Brutal Honesty: Luffy, upon hearing that Tama is waiting for Ace to return, instantly tells her that Ace is dead. Tama does not take it well.
• Burning the Ships: Upon reaching Onigashima, Kin'emon deliberately sinks the ships the samurai had used to reach the island, showing how serious they were about saving Wano if there was no going back. Franky warns him not to try it with the Sunny.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • This arc sees the return of the rest of the Straw Hats (Zoro, Usopp, Robin, and Franky), who haven't appeared in 86 chapters and over two years of real-time. We also get a return for Marco, and later for Basil Hawkins, Trafalgar Law, and his Heart Pirates. We also get a return for Jack as well.
  • Despite being declared dead by the World Government following the war at Marineford, Moria returns and makes his first proper post-timeskip appearance in the interlude between Acts 1 and 2 of the arc.
  • Several members of the Worst Generation have reappeared after a long absence; in addition to the aforementioned Law and Hawkins, Eustass Kid and X Drake reappear, and Blackbeard also returns properly, following his voice-only appearances in the Dressrosa arc. Later, Scratchmen Apoo also makes his comeback.
  • Last seen in his cover story wherein he was dragged away by Drake, Caribou makes his return as one of the prisoners kept along with Luffy and Kid.
  • After being left in a rather dire situation at the end of Whole Cake Island arc, Jimbei shows up safe and sound just as the climax of the Wano arc is about to get underway.
• Bus Crash: Absalom, Moria's crewmate, was completely absent after the Thriller Bark arc. However, the Blackbeard pirates reveal that they killed him offscreen and stole his Clear-Clear Fruit powers.
• Call-Back:
  • The chapter in which Sanji's half of the Straw Hats reappeared after a long absence in the Dressrosa arc (Chapter 795) was called "Suicide". The first chapter of Wano, in which Zoro's half of the Straw Hats reappear after their long absence from the Whole Cake Island arc, is called "Seppuku", which is a Japanese ritual suicide.
  • Also an awesome subtle one to Mihawk vs Zoro long ago where Mihawk used merely a small dagger to defeat Zoro, proving that indeed, any sword, even the littlest one, can be a dangerous and powerful weapon with enough willpower. Zoro, after being ordered to commit seppuku by a corrupt magistrate, instead uses the small seppuku blade to kill the magistrate (and, in the anime, the surrounding samurai) to escape.
  • Way back during the Marineford arc, it's mentioned in Little Oars Jr's flashback that Ace learned to weave the giant's Japanese hat in Wano. The first local Luffy befriends in Wano is Tama, who mentions that her profession is weaving hats and her home, Amigasa village, is named after a type of Japanese woven hat. As it turns out, Tama had been an acquaintance of Ace when he was in Wano.
  • Luffy meets the descendant of Kotetsu, the man who forged the cursed Kitetsu blades. He is also the current holder of Nidai Kitetsu, the sword made directly before Sandai Kitetsu, the one Zoro presently has. This sword also has a curse.
  • When Zoro and Luffy arrive in the Village of Leftovers, they meet Kiku, a woman who is quite tall. Zoro only appears to come up to her chest. When he casually mentions the woman's height, Luffy chimes in that Big Mom was larger.
  • When Kin'emon is telling the Straw Hats the story of how he, Momonosuke, Kanjuro, and Raizo left Wano and eventually all became separated, he concludes it with a How We Got Here recapping what we and the Straw Hats already knew about that: their separation from Raizo and promising to meet him on Zou; the remaining three washing up on Dressrosa and Kanjuro becoming separated from them while Momo and Kin'emon accidentally went to Punk Hazard; Law cutting Kin'emon into pieces on Punk Hazard.
  • Kin'emon remarked that he hated dragons. Why? His worst enemy becomes one.
  • Chapter 936 sees the return of the Happiness Punch from the Alabasta arc; except it's accidental this time. Nonetheless, Sanji calls out the name of the "attack" as he's nosebleeding.
  • Grandpa Hyou mentions that Wano warriors have their analogue to Haki and uses the "Cut steel but not paper" analogy Zoro's swordsmanship teacher used in the Alabasta Arc.
  • The name SMILE for the artificial Devil Fruits made by Caesar Clown and Doflamingo comes from a side effect of the imperfect Fruit, in which nine out of ten people will end up becoming a Perpetual Smiler. Furthermore, the loss of sadness references the name of Caesar's formula SAD.
  • Luffy rips off Hyogoro's neck collar similar to how Silvers Rayleigh freed Camie in Sabaody arc.
  • In Chapter 951, Kaido and Big Mom's clash split the heavens in half, which is exactly what happened when Whitebeard and Shanks clashed after the Enies Lobby arc.
    • This gets another Call-Back in Chapter 1026, when a clash between Kaido and Luffy does the same thing — once and for all cementing that Luffy has truly reached the same level of strength as the Emperors.
  • Much like Chouchou in Orange Town (Buggy Arc), there happens to be a canine that never left his master's home.
  • Zoro gets another cursed sword and survives it by pure willpower.
  • Ace once remarked, in an oddly ambiguous way, that Blackbeard lived "twice the life" as him. When Buggy and Shanks are discussing rumours about Teach being unable to sleep, Shanks is envious that he could live twice as much as an ordinary person.
  • During Oden's time with Roger's crew, we see familiar scenes such as Roger hearing the voices of the Sea Kings, Roger telling Pedro he'd have his time to shine eventually, and Shanks and Buggy bickering over which pole is the coldest.
  • When Gol D. Roger is about to state what he plans to do to by getting to the end of the Grand Line to Whitebeard and Oden, it cuts away, then returns to their reaction. This is exactly the same thing that happened when a young Luffy was telling his plans to Ace and Sabo.
  • Roger is seen wondering if his future son will eventually find the One Piece. This was The Stinger of the movie Stampede. He then mentions he'll have one last talk with his rival Whitebeard, as seen during one flashback in the Marineford arc.
  • To prevent the Straw Hats from attacking Onigashima, Orochi sends some Gifters to destroy the Thousand Sunny, which they attack with some bombs. However, the ship shows up just fine later, and Franky reminds us that the ship is made of wood from the Adam tree, which, as he mentioned back in Water-7, was so durable that it could withstand cannonballs being fired at it.
  • Luffy slamming Kaido with his Red Roc move in chapter 1000 resembles when he one-shotted that Pacifista in Chapter 601.
  • Chapter 1002 has Luffy No-Sell Big Mom's lightning attack. When she asks how come he was unscathed, he replies that it's just because he's made of rubber, just like in his fight with Eneru.
  • Queen recalls how none of the waiters can get SMILEs now that Doflamingo's factory is destroyed.
  • In Volume 55's SBS, Oda was asked what would happen if a Six Powers user broke their finger while using the "Index Gun" technique, with Oda only answering that it would be incredibly painful, and probably happened to the CP9 at least a few times during their training. Here, something identical happens when Who's-Who, an ex-CP9 member, tries using Index Gun on Jimbei, who swiftly break his fingers before defeating him.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Kaido could easily kill anyone with his strength, but he keeps his more worthy opponents alive so he can make them work for him, including Luffy. Needless to say, it ends up backfiring massively.
• Cave Behind the Falls:
  • The entrance to Whitebeard's hometown is hidden behind a waterfall.
  • Climbing up the waterfall via being pulled by carp is one method of entering Wano. The second method is entering a cave behind the waterfall which leads to a port with an elevator that goes up to Wano. Entering this cave, however, is only possible with permission from Orochi or Kaido.
• Censor Steam: The audience has their view of Yamato's chest blocked by steam when he bathes with the male Straw Hats. Sanji and Brook are able to see it just fine.
• Cerebus Retcon: Toko and Tonoyasu's Stepford Smiler tendencies are later revealed to be side effects of the artificial Devil Fruit SMILEs, which result in Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul.
• Changed My Mind, Kid:
  • After telling Nekomamushi that he couldn't come to Wano to help as he had to watch over Whitebeard's old home island, Marco shows up anyway.
  • In Chapter 950, Luffy asks Kid if he wants to help them take down Kaido. Kid angrily refuses, citing his previous experiences in alliances with other pirate crews, and he and Killer storm off on their own path. Twenty-seven chapters later, he's returned with his crew to assault Onigashima alongside the Straw Hats and the Heart Pirates.
• Character Development: Sanji has gone through this — in the Totto Land arc, Sanji displayed a burning hatred for his family, the Vinsmokes, for all the abuse they inflicted on him for being "weak" (except for Reiju, who helped him behind the others' backs). And in the Reverie arc, when Sanji discovers that Niji slipped him a Raid Suit out of goodwill, he angrily proceeds to denounce Germa's technology and refuses to use it. However, by Chapter 930 he seems to have gotten over it, as he prepares to use it to fight Page One despite knowing he'll end up exposing himself as a full-blooded Vinsmoke to Kaido's men.
• Childhood Friend Romance: In Chapter 960, it's revealed that Kin'emon and his wife Tsuru have known each other since childhood.
• The Chosen One: Gol D. Roger is revealed to be The Unchosen One, as he conquered the Grand Line only to find some kind of task he could not fulfill. After leaving Laugh Tale, he overheard some Sea Kings declaring that two kings would be born after 10 years and begin their journeys at the age of 15.
• Colony Drop: As part of his New Onigashima plan, Kaido uses his Devil Fruit powers to raise and relocate Onigashima to the Flower Capital, turning the battle into a Race Against the Clock to stop him before it reached the capital. Unfortunately, the situation goes From Bad to Worse as the island starts to break apart as Luffy chips away at Kaido's stamina, a sign that the island will fall out of the sky the moment Kaido is defeated. Even worse, since it has a massive stockpile of weapons and gunpowder, Onigashima will destroy Wano if it hits the ground, so Momonosuke and Yamato have to relocate it out to sea before it happens.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Hawkins makes it clear to Luffy and Zoro that he has no intention of making it a fair fight. He will stack his deck as much as he can.
  • Even with Kaido and the Beast Pirates on his side and the rebel alliance being heavily outnumbered, Orochi destroyed all the bridges leading to the rebels' rendezvous point rather than let their planned showdown go smoothly.
• Connected All Along:
  • Tonoyasu, the savior of Ebisu Town, and Toko, the sweet little girl that the Straw Hats meet who is an attendant to the courtesan Komurasaki, are father and daughter. Furthermore, Yasu is also a former fellow daimyo and ally of Oden's.
  • Komurasaki, Wano's famous courtesan and Toko's boss, is Kozuki Hiyori, Oden's daughter and Momo's sister, giving her a familial connection to the alliance to take down Kaido.
  • All of the Four (or Five) Emperors are personally connected. Whitebeard, Kaido, and Big Mom served together in the Rocks Pirates and fought against Gol D. Roger and Garp 38 years ago. Shanks would later serve under Roger while fighting against Whitebeard, while Blackbeard served under Whitebeard and personally scarred Shanks during this time until he made his move. Of course, and many years later, Shanks personally influenced Luffy to pick up the path of piracy.
  • Wado Ichimonji, Kuina's katana that Zoro received from her father, was forged alongside Enma by her grandfather Kozamuro.
  • Zoro, Kuina and her father are descendants of Ryuma.
• Continuity Nod: At the very tail in of the arc, Robin finally reveals that the ponegliff she read in the Alabasta arc stated Pluton was in Wano. Tenguyama ultimately confirms it's true.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Just after arriving in Wano, Luffy meets a girl whom Ace owed a promise to and gets himself a cursed sword related to the one Zoro owns. Taken a step further when he ends up running into Zoro not long after, and then encounters Kiku and Tsuru, respectively another retainer of the Kozuki Clan, and Kin'emon's wife.
  • While heading towards the Udon prison, Big Mom starts obsessing over o-shiruko, which worries Chopper because he knows that if they get to the prison and there's no o-shiruko there, her hunger pangs will likely be triggered and that might also act as a trigger to bring back her memories and therefore put Luffy in extreme danger. Luckily, Queen just happened to bring a huge amount of his favorite food to the prison, which happens to be o-shiruko.
  • Raizo tries to steal the key for Luffy's handcuffs and after getting the key he discovers that the key he took wasn't for Luffy but for Caribou.
  • It's revealed that Kaido's arrival on the Kid Pirate's base was an aversion of this: Apoo turned out to be a mole all along.
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: Because of the commotion that Big Mom is causing in prison, Caribou is able to cut off all communication in Udon and Raizo is able to get the key for Kawamatsu's handcuffs without any problems.
• Cool Versus Awesome: Samurais vs Dinosaurs.
• Correlation/Causation Gag: When the Worst Generation confront the Emperors, Luffy asks Law to teleport Kin'emon and the Scabbards to safety, just as he was preparing to do it of his own accord. As such, Law became irritated due to Luffy making it look like that Law was taking orders from him.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower:
  • Law attacks Hawkins in disguise, but when the former starts using his Op-Op powers, Hawkins instantly figures out who it is.
  • Acknowledged by Sanji in Chapter 930, who prepares to fight Page One with his Raid Suit despite knowing it'll expose him as a Vinsmoke.
• Crapsack World: Life outside of Wano's capital is not happy to say the least.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: The collars that Luffy and Hyogoro are wearing threaten to cut their heads off after an angry, amnesiac Big Mom sends them flying out of the ring. Luffy desperately tries to save Hyo and somehow uses his Armament Haki to remove both of their collars in a manner similar to how Rayleigh freed Camie back in the Sabaody Arc. Hyogoro then attempts to invoke this again by refusing to flee from Big Mom, forcing Luffy to save him by attempting to repeat this feat.
• Cry Laughing:
  • A dark example when Tonoyasu gets executed. The citizens are saddened, but almost all of them, including his daughter, bursts out laughing when he gets shot. Zoro is enraged by this, but Hiyori reveals that the citizens, although just as genuinely sad as she is, are incapable of expressing any other expression than smiling, because of the SMILE Fruits Kaido brought to Wano.
  • The Roger Pirates burst into laughter for some reason upon finding the One Piece, to the point tears rolled out of their eyes.
  • Oden was devastated by the news of Roger's execution, and yet he laughed out loud through his tears at how incredible his life and death were.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Luffy vs. Urashima in their sumo match. The only time Luffy is in remote danger of not winning is at the beginning of their fight when they match blows and both of them almost fall out of the arena; once they recover, Luffy dodges every single one of Urashima's blows (including some that are highly illegal in sumo wrestling), then completely defeats him in one powerful hit.
  • Luffy vs. Holdem. He was originally going to avoid fighting anyone else and leave Bakura Town, but when he learns that Holdem hurt Tama, Luffy furiously defeats Holdem in one hit with his Red Hawk attack.
  • Luffy vs. Kaido. Literally the only reasons Luffy gets to land any hits on Kaido is because the latter was intoxicated. The moment Kaido sobers up, Luffy gets taken out in a single strike.
  • Luffy and Kid vs. Dobon. While in the prison mine, Luffy and Kid are confronted by Dobon and are swallowed by his large hippo mouth. Inside, they easily knock him out and are applauded by the other prisoners for it.
  • Sanji and Franky vs. the members of the Kyoshiro gang who try to extort money from Sanji and spill his food on the ground. Unfortunately, though, this results in the gang sending assassins (Drake and Page One) after him.
  • Luffy again, vs. several large groups of Kaido's lower-ranked men during the prison battle. He knocks the entire first set out with just Supreme King's Haki, and easily defeats another entire group offscreen.
  • Queen vs O-Lin (aka Big Mom). Queen got his face stomped to the ground after transforming into a massive brachiosaurus.
• Darkest Hour:
  • The Nine Red Scabbards get this in Chapter 959, as Orochi had used information he gained in Chapter 955 to sabotage the rest of the allies, by destroying all the bridges and bombing the ships they had built, including attacking the Thousand Sunny, stranding the 5000 strong army. Kin'emon urges the Scabbards to attack Onigashima right now, before Kaido and Orochi unleash their full forces, which is tantamount to suicide right now, as Momonosuke points out. Turned out that Kin'emon simply went to the wrong port, bringing The Mole Kanjuro out in the open.
  • Chapter 1043 has Luffy, who was already reaching his limits, getting restrained by Guernica and left wide open for Kaido's club. The attack seemingly kills him, and the narration even deems Kaido the victor. Kaido heads back into the Skull Dome to declare Luffy's death and pick off anyone still willing to oppose him, while vowing to work every citizen of Wano (even women and children) to death once Onigashima arrives in the Flower Capital. Even though Kaido is heavily injured at this point, the few people who can fight at his level have exhausted themselves elsewhere, and Yamato believes that all they can do now is go down fighting. With all hope seemingly lost, Zunesha arrives and announces Joyboy's return to Momo just as the supposedly dead Luffy smiles and begins to transform...
• Dashed Plotline: Following Luffy being freed from Udon Prison, the remainder of Act II speeds up the remainder of the days till the Fire Festival, with the act ending just as it's about to begin.
• Decapitated Army: Zigzagged. Following Kaido's defeat, the remnants of the Animal Kingdom Pirates are still standing and attempt to continue the fight, shocked that Kaido actually lost. Fortunately, Yamato tells them the Straw Hats and their allies have just saved them by stopping Onigashima from falling, and warns them that if they make any attempt to attack his allies, they will have to answer to him.
• Defeating the Undefeatable:
  • Played With when Luffy defeats the undefeated and renowned yokozuna Urashima in a sumo match.
  • Played straight when Kid and Law defeat Big Mom, albeit by knocking her off Onigashima.
  • Luffy gets perhaps his biggest moment of this when he finally defeats Kaido.
• Defiant Captive: Luffy and Kid are both this throughout their time in Udon Prison, talking back to the guards and attacking them in self-defense, and not giving any shits at all that they can have their limbs cut off and/or be executed for doing so.
• Delayed Reaction: Towards the end of the arc, when Dogstorm and Cat Viper tell Carrot that they want her to be the new ruler of the minks, she responds casually to it...before following it up with a Big "WHAT?!".
• Delicious Distraction: The fan-requested cover for Chapter 930 has Charlotte Cracker beating Urouge in a water race by throwing biscuits to distract Urouge's dolphin.
• Designated Girl Fight: Mostly played straight in the final fights at Onigashima, as per usual, though it is played with a bit more. It's especially noticeable in that there are two high-ranked female subordinates in Kaido's crew—Ulti and Black Maria of the Tobi Roppo—who do indeed end up fighting the two female Straw Hats.
  • Thought Ulti does clash a bit with guys like Luffy, Usopp, and Yamato, the vast majority of the damage she receives comes from Nami and Big Mom, the latter of whom deals her a major blow that temporarily knocks her out and the former of whom ultimately defeats her for good (albeit with help from Zeus, but he's still following Nami's instructions).
  • Actually invoked in the case of Black Maria vs Robin. Black Maria originally captures Sanji, beats him up, and tries to force him to call for Robin so she can capture her. Sanji does so, but only because he is confident that Robin will be able to take care of herself and win the fight and knows that he cannot. It's played straight by the end in that Brook (who doesn't have any problems fighting women) comes along with Robin, but does leave Black Maria's defeat to her.
  • Subverted, however, with all of Black Maria's female subordinates; they fight both Robin and Brook, but the latter is the one who ultimately takes them down.
  • Also largely averted with Big Mom; she delivers a One-Hit KO to Ulti and menaces Nami and Tama (along with Usopp), but any conflicts she has that can actually be called a real fight are primarily with men (mostly the allied Supernovas).
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Yamato gives everything short of a "screw you" to Kaido by rejecting his plans to have Yamato become the Shogun of New Onigashima and later when he realizes that the handcuffs his father placed on him were actually meant to kill him after all.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Or bitch-slap Cthulhu, in this case. Komurasaki does so to Orochi, the shogun himself, when he was trying to kill her attendant, Toko, who's just a young girl. When present members of Orochi's court frantically urge her to beg his forgiveness on her knees, she flatly refuses, stating that she will not back down if she knows that she's in the right.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Kamijiro, Holdem's lion stomach, got angry with him and gave him a Groin Attack at one point. Unfortunately, since Kamijiro shares Holdemm's body, he also felt the manhood pain.
  • When Kid saw Kamazo being taken to Udon, he recognized him (thanks to his laugh) as Killer and attempted to attack the guards escorting him, forgetting that he had a Sea Prism Stone shackle on his arm and couldn't use his Devil Fruit powers, resulting in him being recaptured.
  • When listing Oden's wrongdoings, a servant mentions that at 14 years old he changed his attitude and, during a drought, diverted the river straight into the capital. However, it led to the capital getting flooded, causing even more damages.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: X Drake, Page One, Queen, Ulti, and Sasaki ate Zoan Devil Fruits that allow them to transform into dinosaurs; an allosaurus, a spinosaurus, a brachiosaurus, a pachycephalosaurus, and a triceratops respectively. There's also King, who ate a Devil Fruit that allows him to transform into a pteranodon. The Devil Fruits these six ate are identified as being different ancient type models of the Dragon Dragon Fruit line. Thus, the prehistoric reptiles these six turn into are classified under as different dragon subspecies.
• Discard and Draw: Zoro ultimately gives up Shushi at the behest of Komurasaki who cites that it was a national treasure of the country and believed to be one of the reasons Wano fell into ruin after it was stolen. In return, she gives him Enma, a blade that once belonged to Kozuki Oden himself.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Speaking ill of the current ruler of the island or mentioning the previous ruler has the guards instantly attacking the naysayer to keep rebellion from stirring. At worst, they kidnap them to be slaves somewhere. And at best, they kill the offender outright.
• Downer Beginning: Act 3 begins like this with the Akazaya Nine seemingly abandoned by their allies, unable to contact Luffy and the others, and their rendezvous spot has been seemingly attacked due to an incident Orochi caused the night before.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • When reading the newspaper, Sanji delusionally wonders if the princesses he knows are obsessively talking about him, but in reality they were all talking about Luffy.
  • When Tama hears from Luffy that Ace is dead and never coming back for her, she undergoes a Heroic BSoD and says that Luffy doesn't know what a nice person Ace is or understand her hardships... since Luffy didn't tell her that Ace was his brother whom he grew up with and who died in his arms.
  • Oden once invited a young Franky to join the Roger Pirates, but Franky didn't trust him and even at present time he has no idea that guy was Oden.
  • Roger hoped for his son to inherit his will, but Ace rejects it as their connection causes him no end of grief. By a contrivance of fate, it is Ace's sworn brother Luffy that has the same ambition as Roger and is entrusted with his straw hat by Shanks.
  • When Oden left the Roger Pirates, he put on a big smile because he was sure he'd meet his crewmates again.
  • As the narration for Chapter 979 notes, Orochi is at ease because he thinks he's successfully stopped the raid on Onigashima, where in fact the alliance has landed and are on their way to Kaido's castle.
  • The Five Elder Stars discuss the Gum-Gum Fruit's true nature while convinced that Guernica's sacrifice got Luffy killed by Kaido and prevented its Awakening... right as the audience is watching it happen.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Once the samurai army raid Onigashma, Kin'emon uses his power to turn the clothes of the group into that of Kaido's men so that they can sneak in undetected, though he states they'll go back to normal if the clothes are taken off or damaged.
• Driven to Suicide: In Chapter 918 of the manga, it's implied in one panel that a mother in Okobore was about to kill her baby and then hang herself due to being unable to provide food for the both of them. Thankfully, this was averted in the nick of time as Luffy just then came in with a whole ship filled with food to give to the starving civilians of the leftover town. In Episode 908 of the anime, this scene was censored with the removal of the knife the mother originally held and the nearby noose.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After spending several arcs as a main character, along with the reveal that he was the traitor being a major plot point, Kanjuro ends up being defeated by his former friends offscreen. Subverted when he shows up alive later on and using a Living Drawing of Oden in an attempt to lead the Scabbards into their deaths, before making his escape again and telling them he will use the same trick to kill Momonosuke.
• Dynamic Entry: Franky and Brook show up at the Onigashima Palace riding on Kurosai FR-U IV, crashing through a wall and slamming into Big Mom's head in the process. Brook likewise cuts Zeus before she has a chance to use him against the heroes.
• Easily Forgiven: After Raizo unlocks his handcuffs, Caribou begs Luffy to take him with him and that he has turned over a new leaf. When Luffy believes what he said and forgives him, Caribou is so shocked by it that he wonders if it's a trap and he's even more afraid of Luffy now.
• Ecocidal Antagonist: The arc emphasizes Kaido's villainy and negative impact on Wano Country through how it's been polluted through his weapon factories, making the rivers poisonous, and by extension the animals that drink from them, which also hurts the people of smaller villages and settlements in Wano as much as the environment.
• Edible Theme Naming:
  • Certain names within the Kozuki clan are named after food. Kozuki Oden and his father, Kozuki Sukiyaki are named after Japanese soup dishes, Oden and Sukiyaki respectively. With the various allusions to Momotarō, Kozuki Momonosuke is obviously named after the titular hero whose name translates to "Peach Boy". The family name, Kozuki means moonlight but if the "o" sound is shortened, it can mean red bean. The Nine Scabbards that serve the family are called Akazaya in the original Japanese and does indeed mean red scabbard/sheath. However, there is also a type of food called Akazaya Mochi, which is red bean paste in baked mochi.
  • Five of the six major regions in Wano: Ringo, Kibi, Kuri, Hakumai, and Udon, are all named after food. They are however spelt slightly differently in Japanese in order to sound more like locations.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Buckin and Weevil plan to attack Whitebeard's village in hopes of raiding the treasure Whitebeard left behind. It turns out that the village is Whitebeard's treasure all along, having spent all of his money to renovate and develop it behind the scenes. Marco sighs that Whitebeard doesn't have any 'treasure' left for them after all.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Somewhat downplayed, but Eustass Kid and Killer clearly feel like this about their failed alliance with Basil Hawkins and Scratchmen Apoo. Apoo turned out to have been working for Kaido the whole time and set Kid and Hawkins up with their alliance, and Hawkins, pragmatist that he is, submitted to Kaido in order to survive as opposed to fighting him like Kid and Killer tried to do, and didn't lift a finger to help them after Kaido defeated and imprisoned them. Kid is jaded enough by his experiences with both of them that he turns down an offer from Luffy to join Luffy's own alliance, stating that he'll never trust anyone else again.
• Evil Power Vacuum:
  • With Kaido no longer around as a strong deterent, Wano is now suseptiable to invaders, a fact that the samurai are forced to admit after Admiral Ryokugyu's attack.
  • It's pretty much said that the downfall of Big Mom and Kaido as Emperors, along with the events in Reverie and dissolution of the Seven Warlords, has shaken up the status of the entire world, with the full extent of the effects currently unknown.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Played straight in a very rare occasion for the series (where most arcs are set over a few days at most). Act 2 is set over the course of two weeks, starting shortly after Luffy is captured and ending just before the Battle of Onigashima.
• Face Death with Dignity: In Chapter 1047, with Onigashima about to fall out of the sky, the samurai alliance decide they are okay with dying since it means Kaido is nearing his end in his battle with Luffy, which means that Wano will soon be free. Kaido's men, on the other hand, call them crazy.
• Face Fault: Franky, Robin, and Usopp get this after reading how brutally Luffy was defeated by Kaido.
• Facial Composite Failure: After the riot at Yasui's execution, Orochi's samurai put out wanted posters of the Straw Hats. Rather than photos, the posters are hand-drawn, and are incredibly stylized, to the point that Ussop and Robin can avoid identification just by changing their expressions.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • While heading to Wano, the Straw Hats failed to notice that a large octopus boarded their ship in the background and was even standing next to Nami and Brook. They finally noticed it when it started making noises.
  • During the last bits of the climax, no one in the Flower Capital sees Onigashima headed for the city. Especially when Luffy and Kaido clash with their Conquerer's Haki in their final attacks with a spark that should be equal to a sun. Nor do they see the massive explosion cause by Big Mom's defeat (granted them not hearing it was at least explained to be due to Law using a silence power on her). Or hear or feel Kaido knocked into the ground from Luffy's attack either. Remaining utterly oblivious to all of this until a nearby volcano erupts which signals the end of Kaido's rule.
• Faking the Dead: May overlap with Death Faked for You depending on how much Kyoshiro turns out to be involved, but after Komurasaki slapped Orochi to protect Toko, Kyoshiro seemingly cut her down and killed her as punishment in an apparent show of loyalty to the shogun. It's later revealed that not only is Komurasaki still alive (unbeknownst to the rest of the country), she's actually the grown-up Hiyori, Momo's little sister.
• Fanservice: Both Nami and Robin get some gorgeous clothing and a bath scene together.
• Fetch Quest: After learning that Minatomo had pawned the blueprints for Kaido's mansion years ago, Franky races around the Flower Capital to track down the blueprints, the search getting more convoluted as the blueprints kept trading hands. He's forced to give up the search when the trail went cold after an unidentified man stole the plans.
• Final Boss Preview: Upon first encountering Kaido, Luffy fought him, only to be soundly defeated with a single blow, giving a glimpse of how powerful Kaido is and how hard Luffy will have to work to defeat him.
• Fisher King: The country was said to be prosperous during the rule of Momonosuke's family. But once Orochi took over, he allowed Kaido to build his SMILE factories there, which devastated the land and practically destroyed the majority of the surrounding villages due to the poisonous runoff seeping into the waters. This made it unfit to drink or hunt wildlife due to the animals likewise being poisoned from drinking said water. The only thriving area on the island is, unsurprisingly, the city where Orochi rules from, the Flower Capital.
• Flashback: One that takes place not long after the start of the third "Act" in the arc when it seems Orochi has stifled the resistance's efforts to attack during the Fire Festival. This one covering Oden's backstory, how he came to rule Wano and the events leading up to this death. We likewise get more insight into Gol D. Roger's final journey.
• Floating Continent: In 997, Kaido lifts up Onigashima with his fire clouds and prepares to move the entire island to Wano to act as its new capital.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Before The Reveal that Momo and his retainers traveled forward in time by 20 years, there are some hints dropped that something's off with the apparent timeline that we and the Straw Hats in-universe had been led to believe:
    • Back in Zou, Momonosuke commented that he had met Gol D. Roger before, with Usopp assuming he had to be lying or mistaking it for someone else because Roger should have been dead by the time that Momo, an 8-year-old boy, was born.
    • Momo also clearly remembered his parents dying and Kaido taking over, which would imply that it only happened a few years ago at most. However, Tsuru and Kiku tell Luffy and Zoro that Oden Castle stood on the mountaintop 20 years ago, and that Bakura Town was a peaceful place until Orochi and his men came in and took over the houses there 20 years ago.
    • Momo still remembers when Dogstorm and Cat Viper were best friends, despite it later being stated that their falling out happened when Pedro and Wanda (who are in their early 30s) were still children.
    • We see a Wham Shot of graves for Momo, Kin'emon, Kanjuro, and Raizo, among others, in the ruins of Oden Castle. These graves look far too old for them to have faked their deaths anytime recently.
    • A subtle hint shows up right at the beginning of the arc, where it's stated that Ryuma's corpse and Shusui were stolen 20 years ago. Both were in the possession of Gekko Moria, who lost his crew to Kaido not long after Roger's death.
  • In a few scenes, Kin'emon expresses a distaste for dragons, even complaining when Kanjuro creates one to scale Zou. This turns out to be a big hint as to Kaido's powers.
  • When Zoro first arrives in Ebisu Town, there is a large amount of emphasis placed on the citizens driving to get him to drink their water, as well as a suspicious shot of him looking at the well they're using. This is a big hint towards the true nature of the town's joyful nature.
  • In Chapter 925, Mihawk tells Perona that it's probably a good thing she's leaving, while looking at the newspaper, a big hint as to what's happening at the Reverie.
  • In the opening they show Kyoshiro along with the rest of the nine red scabbards. Then Chapter 973 reveals that Kyoshiro is Denjiro.
    • Also foreshadowed by the fact that it was Kyoshiro who cut down Komurasaki (ie Hiyori), but she was revealed in her next appearance to be completely unharmed...
  • In Chapter 997, as Zoro is making his Badass Boast to Queen, the building begins to shake, causing many to suspect that Zoro has Supreme King's Haki. Zoro denies it was him, and it turns out that the earthquake was Kaido was using his powers to lift Onigashima into the sky. Over ten chapters later, after Zoro deals his final attack to Kaido, Kaido confirms that Zoro does have Supreme King's Haki, having sensed its imbuement in Zoro's attack.
  • In Chapter 912, when Hawkins first confronts Luffy and Zoro, he states that their only two options in Wano is either to join the mighty, or scramble and run in fear. During his battle with Killer, it's made clear that this was the same choice Hawkins himself faced when Kaido attacked their alliance, and moreover, he secretly regrets choosing servitude to Kaido, especially since the alliance repeatedly proves capable of fighting back against the overwhelming might of the emperor's forces, which is why he ultimately stands against them to justify his own cowardly choice.
• Foregone Conclusion: During Oden's flashback, he becomes furious after learning everything that Orochi and Kaido have done to Wano while he was away. Chapter 968 ends with Orochi freaking out as Oden leaps at him, blades drawn... but by this point in the present, Oden is dead while Orochi is still alive, so it's obvious that something is going to stop him. When Oden later resolves to fight Kaido, the audience already knows that Kaido will come out scarred, but victorious.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • What happened to Momonosuke and his retainers (sans Kiku, who stayed behind) when they tried to leave Wano. First, they were spotted by the enemy and chased; then shipwrecked due to not having navigational skills, resulting in Raizo being separated from the other three; then they washed up on Dressrosa, Momo got on the wrong ship by mistake, and Kanjuro was captured and left behind; and finally, after the ship Kin'emon and Momo were on arrived at Punk Hazard, Law (an enemy at the time) sliced Kin'emon up into the pieces that the Straw Hats found him in when they came there. Kin'emon mentions that they'd almost given up hope by the time they met the Straw Hats.
  • The secret plans of The Alliance begin to fall apart in this fashion: first Zoro gets arrested and then becomes a wanted man throughout Wano after escaping. Then Zoro, Luffy, and later Law all have their covers blown by Hawkins. Luffy gets defeated, captured, and thrown in prison by Kaido himself. Franky's part of the mission turns out to have been a Wild Goose Chase, since the carpenter he was working for didn't have the blueprints Franky needed in the first place. Then Sanji beating up the members of the Kyoshiro Gang who were trying to intimidate him causes Kyoshiro to send powerful assassins after him, forcing Sanji to risk blowing his cover fighting them while Usopp, Franky, and Law have to flee from the Flower Capital to avoid potentially being exposed as well. Robin finally gets the invitation to Orochi's palace that she needs for her portion of the mission, only to be discovered by Orochi's elite bodyguard squad, the Oniwaban, while searching his palace, and when chaos ensues from Toko laughing at Orochi, it forces Robin, Nami, Shinobu, and Brook to flee the Flower Capital as well. When the three girls return to visit the hot springs, they are spotted by Hawkins and only narrowly escape thanks to Sanji, and to top it off, Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin have been captured to lure Law out, and Kaido's and Orochi's forces have found out about the crescent moon tattoos.
  • The heroes already had their hands full just staying one step ahead of Kaido's forces, before Big Mom teamed up with him and put the heroes in a situation so bad that even the World Government would crap its pants.
• From Nobody to Nightmare:
  • In a poor country, there lived a young orphaned boy who was struggling to survive. That boy would later grow up to be Whitebeard, an Emperor of the Sea!
  • In the same vein, Kaido and Big Mom. While Big Mom's own rise was detailed in the last arc, this arc reveals Kaido and Big Mom used to be rookies in the Rocks Pirates crew.
• Gaia's Lament: Kaido's factories have turned the countryside of Wano into a wasteland where the rivers are poisoned and wild animals roam free in abandoned villages.
• Gave Up Too Soon: Narrowly averted. When Daifugo was about to kill him, Hyougoro was ready to accept his fate just before Luffy saved him. Shortly after that, Hyougoro reunited with Raizo and learned that the Nine Red Scabbards were still alive, meaning that the spark of rebellion hadn't been extinguished. Hyougoro himself noted that if it hadn't been for Luffy, he would've died without learning there was still hope for the future of the country.
• Geisha: Robin is disguised as one while in the country, in order to work her way into Orochi's castle.
• Generation Xerox: After being occasionally implied over the course of the series, this arc confirms that Zoro is a dead ringer for "Sword God" Shimotsuki Ryuma, the Famous Ancestor of his childhood rival Kuina and the rest of the Shimotsuki Family and the man (well, zombie) Zoro inherited Shusui from. Ryuma was also a one-eyed samurai, and shared a similar fighting style and code of honor with Zoro (in part due to the latter being trained by one of his descendants). These similarities are why the natives of Wano come to trust Zoro much, and why Oden's retainers barely protest when Hiyori decides to pass Enma onto him to replace Shusui. They even note that the fact that Zoro, who so heavily resembles Ryuma, is the one to (admittedly unwillingly) return Shusui to Wano cannot be a coincidence, but rather fate itself at play.
• The Glomp: Luffy glomps Zoro in delight when they finally meet up.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • In the Wano Arc, Kid and Law both discuss using their awakened Devil Fruit abilities in the middle of battle. While they've unlocked the ability, they both know it's an absolute last resort attack since it consumes a huge amount of stamina, which means certain defeat if it doesn't finish their opponent very quickly. They decide to use their awakened powers anyway since their opponent is Big Mom, whose Nigh-Invulnerability has tanked everything they've thrown at her thus far. Their attacks do injure her, but all it really does is piss her off and start taking the fight more seriously.
  • As the battle between Luffy and Kaido reaches its peak, the Five Elders become so scared of Luffy's growth and potential that they have one of their CP0 Agents do the unthinkable and kill Luffy. Essentially, the leaders of the World Government would rather deal with Kaido's world-encompassing war than the sheer havoc Luffy would bring. It backfires epically. It turns out the near-death experience from being bashed by Kaido's club allowed Luffy to Awaken his Devil Fruit, allowing him to instill the land around him with Toon Physics, which is what the World Government was trying to prevent.
• Going Native: Since the Straw Hats would stick out like sore thumbs if they went into the country in their regular wear, they adapt to the feudal era style of the island in order to blend in with the locals.
• Good Samaritan: Yasu is this for the town he lives in, Ebisu. He has quite a bit more money coming in than the rest of the people there since his daughter, Toko, works in the capital and sends most of it to him; however, he gives most of it away to the other townspeople to make sure they're taken care of, even at the cost of going hungry himself and is thus considered a saint by everyone in Ebisu.
• Good Versus Good: Luffy's fight with Big Mom in Udon is a version of this. Big Mom in her O-Lin persona is genuinely nice and only tries to bring back the delicious oshiruko to the people of Leftovers Town. In her child-like mind, Luffy was the greedy bastard who ate it all.
• Grave Robbing: A heroic variation. In the Ringo region, the dead are buried with their swords, so Kawamatsu began a practice of taking those weapons so the uprising will be armed. However, he was imprisoned in Udon before he was finished, but somehow the work was completed during the time until he was freed by Luffy.
• Groin Attack: In retaliation towards Holdem, the lion coming out of Holdem's stomach swipes at his master's crotch. However, as Holdem and the lion share the same body, this hurts both Holdem and the lion.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing:
  • After eating one of Tama's millet dumplings, Speed instantly gets tame and starts obeying Tama, calling the little girl master and such. Although Tama explained shortly before that humans aren't affected by her dumplings, Luffy figures that this worked because the SMILE user is half-horse. As for Speed, while she still retains part of her autonomy when dealing with others, she completely follows Tama without any reservations.
    • While the effects of the dumplings eventually wore off, Tama is a far better boss to the SMILE users than Kaido and the Lead Performers, so they end up following her without any issues.
  • Big Mom also suffered from a benevolent version of this. After losing her memories, the kindness of Tsuru and the people of Wano turned her good.
• He Knows Too Much: Why Law (in disguise) decides to attack Hawkins. Since Wano is an isolationist country, most of the citizens there wouldn't know anything about the Straw Hat and Heart Pirates; since Hawkins is one of the few people in Wano who does know who they are, Law plans to take him out.
• Heroic Second Wind: Due to the CP0 agent interfering, Luffy seemingly takes a fight-ending blow from Kaido. Just as Kaido declares to the remaining combatants that he's the victor, Luffy manages to recover, awakening his Devil Fruit in the process.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Upon arriving in the land of samurai, Luffy figures he wants to give swordfighting a try. What follows is Zoro being flabbergasted at his captain's sheer disrespect for the blade: Luffy tosses the scabbard away and merely holds the sword as an accessory for his standard punch attacks.
• Hidden Buxom: Because of the traditional kimono, which is suited to conceal breasts, most female characters in this arc (most noticeably Robin) do not show their usual bustline. Word of God is that he originally drew them the usual way, but after receiving complaints from kimono experts, he opted for following their advice, giving Wano women this treatment.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: While it's unknown how much of what she said was real or faked, Hiyori was almost certainly putting this on at least to some degree as the courtesan Komurasaki. In her latter identity, she was aloof to most people at best and downright cold at worst, but when she meets Zoro later after having faked her death as Komurasaki and ditched that identity, and introduces herself as Hiyori, she's much friendlier and more openly upbeat.
• History Repeats:
  • A famous and dangerous pirate attacks the World Government, and the Marines are forced to team up with other pirates to contain the threat. Afterwards, the government covers up the good pirates' involvement while showering praise to the highest-ranked Marine present, which becomes a source of shame and frustration to said Marine. Are we talking about Garp and Roger vs. Rocks, or Smoker and Luffy vs. Crocodile?
  • Sanji once more has the bad luck to get paired against a female enemy pirate, in this case, Black Maria. Since he won't fight against women, he'e once more defeated and has to be bailed out by his fellow crewmates, this time Nico Robin and Brook. And just like last time he saves a weaker crewmate before starting a fight with the third strongest enemy in the opposing group.
  • Twenty years previously Kaido fought Oden and ended up scoring the decisive hit to end their fight when Oden was distracted by an outside force (in this case the old hag who transformed into Momo with the Clone-Clone Fruit). At the climax of his fight with Luffy their final clash is interrupted by one of the CP0 members whose outside interference slows Luffy just enough for Kaido's blow to get in first. The fact that he had another fight with a Worthy Opponent interrupted clearly dosen't sit right with Kaido.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Babanuki attempts to shoot a poison cannonball at Luffy with his stomach-elephant's Sneeze of Doom. Luffy just ties the trunk up in a knot, causing the shot to backfire and defeat Babanuki.
  • Queen trying to make a game of keep away with the antidote to his ice plague virus only resulted in the heroes managing to get it and Chopper managing to synthesize enough to cure it. He likewise has his men turn against him after he proclaims them useless and expendable.
  • Kaido's intention with the SMILEs was to make the mightiest crew in the world with more devil fruit users than anywhere else. It comes to bite him in the ass when Tama, with the help of Nami and Usopp, uses her own Devil Fruit power to take control of Kaido's troops during the Onigashima battle. This has such a dramatic effect that the CP0 agents note that the opposing forces in the conflict are now almost equal in manpower.
  • Who's-Who's transformation in a sabertooth tiger gives him a long tail. Jimbei actually steps on his tail to prevent him from dodging his secret technique.
  • Orochi orders the the kazenbo drawing to destroy the Onigashima stockade, but that plan backfires thanks to Kid and Law beating Big Mom who drags the spirit down with her as she falls from the island. A small part of it returns after Hiyori traps Orochi under some rubble and negates his power with a seastone needle. Orochi thinks it's there to help him, but since he ordered it to "be where he is" the spirit goes toward him and sets him aflame.
• Hope Spot:
  • The food Luffy distributes to the Leftover Town seems like it will be the end of the hunger issues in Wano. Two chapters later, the Ayamatama Thieves come and raid the village, looting most of the food and putting the town back to square one.
  • Speed tried to flee to center of Wano with Tama to avoid Jack and his legion awaiting them, only to find Kaido approaching them. Kaido immediately blows the defected Speed and Tama away in a single blow.
  • Law and Luffy come up with a plan to get Kaido to come after only them, since Kaido doesn't know about the presence of the rest of the Straw Hats and Heart Pirates in Wano yet. An accidental misdirection later, Kaido destroys the ruins of Oden Castle in one single attack, with the majority of the alliance in the castle (although, unsurprisingly, it's revealed in the following chapter that they survived).
  • Right after the above-mentioned incident, Luffy goes all out against Kaido, starting with a massive Elephant Gun and then going Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs in Gear Fourth, knocking the dragon out of Kaido, with Jack and Hawkins watching with horror and amazement at Luffy's (apparent) victory, with Luffy declaring himself as the Pirate King. Kaido gets up, none the worse for wear, revealing that he was just toying with Luffy in his bare minimum. Kaido then proceeds to refute Luffy's boast, and knocks him out in a single blow.
  • After Robin gets the invitation to enter Orochi's castle, she tries to search for poneglyphs. Unfortunately for her, she's cornered by the Oniwaban.
  • After Luffy figures out where Kaido gets his monstrous strength from, he then tells the other Supernovas to leave Kaido to him and he challenges him without any of his Gears. Later, it's revealed that Luffy was crushed again, and is falling unconscious from Onigashima to the ocean below.
• Hot Springs Episode: Nami, Robin and Shinobu are seen together in a bath house.
• Hypocrite: Orochi is revealed to be one, in multiple ways:
  • The main reason for his execution of Kozuki Oden and Toki was that they wished to open Wano to the world. In his first appearance, we see Orochi dealing with the World Government for money and weapons, even procuring Navy battleships.
  • He becomes murderously angry with Toko and tries to kill her because he believes she's laughing at him. Orochi was the one who purposely took away Toko's and the rest of Ebisu Town's ability to do anything but smile and laugh, thanks to sending them dud SMILE Fruits that would take away their ability to show rage and sorrow (and thus, keep them from showing their sadness for their friends and family who starved to death).
  • Despite condemning Wano to ruin due to the mob persecuting his clan and killing his parents, Orochi himself proves to be no better than them when he dismisses Kaido killing Higurashi despite her ensuring his rule, and forcing Tama's parents to work in one of Kaido's factories under harsh conditions, which caused their deaths.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Sanji calls out Chopper cutting out a picture of Kureha in the newspaper... only to do the same thing himself so he can look at beautiful women.
  • Jack, of all people, calling Kaido crazy when he realizes he's drunk while coming to Kurbro in his dragon form.
  • Buggy accuses the Marines of pulling a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on the Warlords without their consent, while secretly planning to leave his subordinates behind as a distraction while he makes his escape.

I to P

• I Choose to Stay:
  • Towards the end of the arc, Dogstorm and Cat Viper choose to remain in Wano and be Kozuki retainers once more. As such, they choose Carrot to be the new leader of the Mokomo Kingdom.
  • Despite hoping to join the Straw Hats throughout the arc, Yamato tells Momonosuke at the last second that he's actually staying behind to explore Wano like Oden did. In reality, Admiral Ryokugyu's easy victory over the samurai made Yamato realize how vulnerable the country is without Kaido. Unwilling to abandon the recently-freed Wano, Yamato chooses to stay behind to protect Momo and the others (and makes up an excuse to avoid hurting Momo's pride). While Luffy accepts Yamato's reasoning, he leaves him with an open invitation in case he ever changes his mind.
• I Have Your Wife: Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin are captured by the enemy with the intent of luring out their captain, Law. It ends up working as Law turns himself in to free his men, though he's later freed by an unknown individual.
• Inevitable Waterfall: Inverted, Luffy's group find themselves being pull toward one from the bottom of the falls when they enter Wano.
• Info Dump: Almost the entirety of Chapter 957 is backstory about the Rocks Pirates (previously only mentioned very briefly in the Reverie Arc) and its relevance to the current plot and characters, as well as the long-anticipated reveals of the Emperors' and Gol D. Roger's bounties.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Similar to Tra-guy/Traffy, Luffy also gives a nickname to Kid in this arc: "Jagged-guy"/"Jaggy", presumably referring to Kid's spiky hair.
  • "Yasu" for Tonoyasu/Yasuie. Amusingly, this gets some Accidental Misnaming from Zoro, who calls him "Kasu" (meaning "scum/trash") in Japanese and "Assu" in English.
  • Page One is exclusively addressed and referred to as "Pay-Pay"^note (or "Pay-tan" in the original Japanese) by his fellow Tobi Roppo member and "big sis" Ulti.
• Insult of Endearment: Franky's boss insults him in praise of the quality of his work. Franky thanks and insults him right back.
• Internal Reveal: Apparently due to Wano being such a closed off country, Tama did not learn that Ace had died. Tactlessly, Luffy immediately reveals the horrible truth to her. His indelicate bluntness however is not taken well and thanks to certain circumstances such as the pressing need to help cure Tama and Luffy's own simple-mindedness, he has yet to elaborate further on what happened beyond the simple fact that Ace is dead.
• Irony:
  • Tama, a girl with the power to create foods, has to live in famine and eats rice only twice a year. This is because the food she makes from her own body doesn't fill her up at all.
    • The girl Luffy and the others decide to definitely free Wano from Orochi and Kaido for - Tama - is also a Kurozumi, from the clan responsible for the present situation of Wano in the first place.
  • Momo gaining a dragon form from the SMILE he ate — the same form as Kaido — is seen as this In-Universe and out. Kiku even lampshaded this.
  • When Kaido appears and Luffy charges to confront him, Law goes after him while ordering the others to remain hidden in the castle ruins for their own safety, claiming Kaido's only after him and Luffy. Unfortunately, due to an Accidental Truth that Hawkins told Kaido, the Emperor destroys the castle ruins where he believes Luffy and Law are hiding. As such, Luffy and Law end up being spared from the blast while everyone else is at the mercy of Kaido's attack (though it's later shown that Shinobu kept them safe).
  • The raid suit Sanji received from his brother allows him to turn invisible among other things. As such, one of Sanji's more childish dreams was essentially fulfilled by the very science he hated. The irony of this isn't lost on Sanji as he makes a note of it.
  • You'd think that Luffy causing a ruckus on Onigashima would ruin the alliance's plan by blowing their cover. Nope. Luffy's chaos actually helps the alliance by drawing away guards that would've spotted them.
  • After twenty years of fearing the prophecy of the Nine Red Scabbards taking their revenge against him, the one who brings about Orochi's end is his own ally, Kaido.
  • A flashback of Kaido's reveals that it was Higurashi that made the alliance with Kaido and brought him to Wano. Considering that she would end up being killed by Kaido for interfering in his battle against Oden, it mixes with Hoist by His Own Petard and Evil Is Not a Toy.
  • The World Government essentially brought about their harbinger of doom by trying to kill Luffy, to prevent said doom from ever awakening.
• Is This Thing Still On?: Bao Huang was about to make an announcement on the Marys' PA system that Momonosuke had fallen off Onigashima in order to break the samurai's spirit. When she sees Nami take down Ulti, she freaks out at the defeat of two Tobi Roppo^note Page One was beaten by Big Mom earlier, only remembering too late that she broadcasted across the island.
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • Shinobu is a middle-aged woman who, while not a total Gonk, is not particularly attractive in the present day, either. It's revealed that, back in the day, her beauty was on the level of Nami and Robin, and was something she was known for. She does eventually return to her beautiful state towards the end of the arc after being drained of most of her fluids by Ryokugyu.
  • While Kin'emon's wife, Tsuru, is moderately attractive in the present, 41 years ago, she was exceptionally beautiful.
• Kabuki Sounds: The octopus that snuck onto the Straw Hats' ship utters these, banging its head for drum sounds and uttering "Yooooo".
• Kaiju: Chapter 954 introduces the Numbers, giant-sized, dragon-looking beasts.
• Kangaroo Court: Zoro is instantly accused of murdering people just on the assumption because he was holding the Shusui sword. Turns out the magistrate wanted to use him as the Fall Guy for the latter reason for his crimes.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • Carrot and Wanda fight Perospero to avenge their ally Pedro, but are taken down easily when their Sulong forms wear off thanks to clouds covering the full moon. Unfortunately for him, they weren't the only ones with a score to settle as the Sulong forms of Cat Viper and Dog Storm defeat both him and Jack later, when the full moon is in clear view again.
  • Despite Big Mom remaining undefeated in the Whole Cake Island Arc, this arc finally ends with her being defeated by Law and Kid and getting removed from the Four Emperors.
• Killed Offscreen: In the interlude between acts 1 and 2 of the arc, it's revealed that the Blackbeard pirates had killed off Absalom and stole his invisibility Devil Fruit powers offscreen sometime before Moria came looking for him.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Big Mom ends up losing her memory after being knocked from her ship and washes ashore on Wano.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Sanji uses the Power Perversion Potential of his Germa invisibility suit to spy on naked women in the bathhouse, including Nami and Robin. Nami later beats him up for it so badly that his entire face is completely composed of bruises from the beating. Granted that it is Sanji, to him it is Worth It.
  • Daifugu constantly beats up the prisoners and, during the revolt, use the Excitement Bullets on them to stop Luffy and his allies, breaking the prisoners' spirits however, after Luffy motivates the prisoners, they proceed to beat the crap out of Daifugo, who can only brag of his now useless status as Vice Warden before being beaten by the very same person he used to punish.
  • A bunch of Beasts Pirates casually spill pots of o-shiruko, mocking the suffering of the people in the leftover towns. Later, during Big Mom's battle with Kid and Law, she demands o-shiruko from the Beasts Pirates, but they can't give her any because they wasted them all, so she ends up stealing their lifespans instead.
  • Towards the climax of their battle, Kaido mocks the Samurai's views on finding glory in death, calling it just an excuse to justify their loss and inherent weakness. Luffy retorts that the Samurai are strong people, only for Kaido to refute that whomever wins a fight doesn't need any excuses to defeat their opponents, only that they were the stronger one in the end. Shortly afterwards, the head CP0 agent holds Luffy back from his last attack long enough for Kaido's own to hit him before he can stop, effectively giving Kaido an excuse to justify his "defeat" of Luffy, despite what he claimed. Kaido's devastated face shows the irony of the situation runs deep, especially since it echoes his earlier "victory" over Oden. It's to the point he happily jumped to the opportunity to fight Luffy again after awakening his Devil Fruit, with no excuses this time.
• Ladykiller in Love: Revealed to have been the case for Kin'emon for a long time. He's perverted and likes to flirt with and ogle beautiful women, but he has a wife, Tsuru, and his first thought to himself when he sees her again is that she's still beautiful even after 20 years.
• Literal Metaphor: When Oden said he wanted to open the borders of Wano, he meant by literally tearing down the rock walls surounding Wano.
• Make an Example of Them:
  • Why both Drake and Page One—two of the six strongest Headliners—are sent after "Sangoro" after he beats up members of the Kyoshiro gang.
  • After Luffy attacks one of the wardens for threatening an old man he befriended, Queen decides to execute the both of them by making a showing of it via a sumo ring, placing a collar around their necks that'll cut their necks if they step outside the ring and sending in his men to fight them. He does show some "fairness" by removing the Sea Prism Stone cuffs from Luffy's hands but fully expects the numbers to overwhelm Luffy sooner or later.
  • When Yasu is arrested and turns out to be a former political rival of Orochi, Orochi decides to have his execution televised along with Komurasaki's funeral. It backfires because Yasu uses the event in order to discredit the Shogun and get some heat off the alliance's backs.
• Mama Bear:
  • Toki, Oden's wife, used her Time Travel powers to send their son Momonosuke and several family retainers into the future, and sent their daughter Hiyori away with another trusted retainer, to save them from being murdered by Kaido and Orochi like she and Oden were (and separates them in the hope that at least one of the two siblings can survive).
  • Komurasaki shows this for her attendant ("kamuro") Toko as well; despite being known as a cruel woman, she clearly has a soft spot for the young girl, and when Shogun Orochi tries to murder Toko simply for (apparently) laughing at him, Komurasaki pleads for her life and then, when that doesn't work, outright bitch-slaps him to protect her. Considering that she is actually Hiyori herself, apparently, this runs in the family.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Almost everyone, including the protagonists, the citizens, and even Kaido's men, has one when Kaido shows up as a dragon to order Jack to capture the Straw Hats.
  • The protagonists get another when Kaido heads towards their hideout in the ruins of Oden Castle and opens fire with a Breath Weapon.
  • Jack, Hawkins, and the rest of the Beasts Pirates get it when Luffy fights Kaido and makes him go to his normal form. And then Kaido sobers up.
  • Kaido's forces freak out over Big Mom coming to Wano with her children because they know that she will tear the island apart looking for Luffy. Luckily for them, one of Kaido's Three Disasters, King, swoops in and attacks the ship, knocking Big Mom into the water.
  • All of La Résistance when they discover Orochi's forces have found their crest and are now on the lookout for them, robbing them of their element of surprise.
  • Everyone in Udon Prison (except Hyogoro, who doesn't know who she is) makes an Enel face when Big Mom arrives there.
  • Everyone in the New Marineford freak out when the news of Big Mom and Kaido teaming up is known.
  • Orochi's forces get this after Kaido beheads him instantly and gives them a choice of to join his crew or die.
  • Kaido's mooks when they realize Yamato is no longer their ally.
  • All of Kaido's forces when they get a report of enemy forces storming Onigashima and increasing rapidly, finding themselves effectively caught with their pants down.
  • Everyone in Onigashima is comically terrified after Luffy unlocks Gear 5 and goes Toon Physics on them.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: After Awakening his Devil Fruit, Luffy grabs Kaido and manhandles him in this manner, while he was in dragon form.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: All three of the Monster Trio get two apiece, earning the second one during the raid on Onigashima.
  • Luffy masters an upgraded form of Armament Haki which enables him to inflict damage without even touching his enemies. When he has a rematch with Kaido on Onigashima and this still isn't enough, he also figures out how to infuse his attacks with Conqueror's Haki, allowing him to deal damage to Kaido without even directly touching him. He then gains a third powerup when his Devil Fruit Awakens.
  • Zoro trades in Shusui for the even more powerful Enma, the blade wielded by Oden himself. He also starts to awaken his Conqueror's Haki during the battle against Kaido.
  • Sanji, after accepting his pride is a secondary concern to helping his friends, chooses to use his Raid Suit, which grants him enhanced physical abilities along with invisibility. Then, in his fight with Queen, the exoskeleton Judge modified him and his brothers in the womb to have—which Sanji was believed for his whole life to have not developed thanks to Sora's actions—finally emerges, though it leaves Sanji afraid that he'll also lose his empathy to become like his brothers.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Luffy seems to treat his time in the Udon prison as if it was training camp.
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • Law gets frustrated with Zoro for messing up the alliance's plan by causing an incident with Holdem. However, he doesn't realize that Luffy, who wasn't aware of the plan (and probably wouldn't have paid attention to it anyway), was the one who took the Headliner down. Zoro is unfazed by Law's words.
  • Page One rampages through the Flower Capital and destroys all the soba shops looking for "Sangoro" (Sanji). When the shop owners plead for him to stop, Page One just callously tells them that they should call for Sangoro, since he won't stop attacking until the latter appears.
  • Buggy accuses the Marines of taking Crocodile and Doflamingo's actions out on the rest of the Warlords.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
  • Once Yamato realizes that Kaido plans to make him the new Shogun of New Onigashima in Orochi's place over his objections, as well as his callousness towards his life, he decides to turn on his father to join the heroes.
  • Queen infects the Pleasures and Waiters with the Ice Oni virus, outright telling them that he thinks they're useless and expendable. So when Chopper cures them of the virus, they quickly change sides to support their savior instead. Queen is still shocked by their heel-turn.
• The Mole: Surprisingly a lot of them in this arc.
  • As it turns out, Apoo was this in his supposed "alliance" with Hawkins and Kid. He was actually working for Kaido since well before that time, and him "joining" the alliance was a setup for the other two.
  • There's also an unidentified traitor within the Kozuki force's ranks feeding Orochi information about their plans. Yasiue's sacrifice to give them time to regroup and prepare is rendered for naught when the spy gives Orochi their new plans. Eventually it's revealed to be Kanjuro, who's also a Kurozumi member and an actor whose family was killed during a stage play right in front of his eyes. The sight traumatized the poor boy so much that he's since grew up and spent his life trying to "find the best role to die as".
  • X Drake turns out to be a Double Agent, spying on the Beasts Pirates, and reports to Koby about Luffy's imprisonment and Big Mom and Kaido teaming up, revealing he's actually part of the Marine and a member of a group in the organization known as "SWORD".
  • Ironically Orochi has a mole in his court as well: Kyoshiro who's later revealed to be Denjiro who suffered a major Disease Bleach after Oden died that changed his features. It was such a radical change that Orochi didn't recognize him when he offered his services to him. This allowed him to keep tabs on Orochi and later protect Hiyori when he found out she was alive. Speaking of whom, Hiyori infiltrated the castle as a concubine when she came of age and helped where she could till she eventually was "killed" by Kyoshiro for "defying Orochi".
• Mugging the Monster: Kyoshiro's goons try to intimidate Sanji and extort money from him, but they pushed Sanji's Berserk Button by spilling all his soba noodles on the ground resulting in Sanji and Franky taking them down instantly. After beating them, Sanji shoves all the noodles that were on the ground into the mouth of the goon who spilled it.
• Multiple Head Case: The powers of the SMILE Devil Fruit Holdem ate manifests most prominently with a lion's head and paws coming out of his stomach. The lion however has a will of its own and is often at odds with Holdem.
• Mundangerous: While its cause is supernatural, near the end of the raid a mundane fire is close to killing everyone in Onigashima. Chapter 1046 is composed almost entirely of people on both sides trying to quench or escape it.
• Mythology Gag: In the "Boss Luffy" series of special anime AU episodes where the One Piece characters were living in feudal Japan, Zoro was a ronin (wandering samurai for hire) and Franky was a carpenter, which are the same roles they pretend to play while undercover in Wano.
  • The carpenter Franky is shown speaking within chapter 909 is Minatomo, a joke character from SBS Volume 7.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In addition to "Jack the Drought", we get "Queen the Plague" and "King the Conflagration/Wildfire" to round out the Three Disasters.
• Negated Moment of Awesome:
  • Luffy finally confronts Kaido and pulls no punches against him, instantly going into Gear Four and unleashing his most powerful attacks on Kaido. Kaido just shrugs off Luffy's blows and takes him down with a single strike.
  • After Luffy subconsciously uses advanced Armament Haki to free himself and Hyougoro from their collars, Hyougoro tries to invoke Crisis Makes Perfect to get Luffy to master it by having him deflect an amnesiac Big Mom. Unfortunately, Big Mom ends up sending the two flying into a wall.
• Never Found the Body: Orochi claims this is why he's so worried about Lady Toki's prophecy- Although Momonosuke and the retainers were written off as dead, their bodies were never found.
• Next Tier Power-Up: All four of the heroic (in quotation marks for Kid) Supernovas get an important boost in this arc.
  • In exchange for having to give Shusui up, Zoro receives Enma, a cursed sword once wieled by Kozuki Oden that devours Haki and uses it to release massive strikes that can cut through anything.
  • Law is revealed to be able to temporarily awaken his Devil Fruit. In this state, his once-stationary Rooms can now be moved and he can generate special Rooms for specific effects, like K-Room to manipulate the shape/size of objects, R-Room lets to dictate a specific effect in the Room like the erasure of sound.
  • Kid is also able to temporarily awaken his Devil Fruit. In his awakened state, he can selectively apply magnetism effects to objects that weren't originally magnetic.
  • Finally, Luffy fully awakens his Devil Fruit, completing his evolution from a Rubber Man to a Rubberhose Man that forces the world around him to operate on cartoon logic. When using his power, the environment (and people) becomes rubbery, and his methods of attack are limited only by his imagination.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: All of the stunts Luffy pulled back in Totto land come calling this arc to collect payback. Had Luffy not angered Big Mom so much, she would not have chased him to Wano and then teamed up with Kaido to make things worse for everyone. In his defense, Luffy only went to Totto land for a stealth mission to rescue Sanji and retrieve a copy of Big Mom's Road Ponelglyh, until escalating circumstances brought on by the fact that Big Mom immediately detects Luffy's presence the moment he set foot in her territory forces his hand, leading him to pull said stunts.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • For the past 20 years, Kaido and Orochi have been imprisoning dissidents in Udon; On its own, it means they've got their enemies not only under lock and key, but have their labor as well. But it also means that when Luffy and the Red Scabbards take over the factory, they've got several tens of thousands allies for their attack on Onigashima!
  • When the Okobore townspeople cover for the rebels by Taking the Heat for the continued farm thefts, Holdem burns down their town in retaliation. When Big Mom learns of this from Tama, angry of what happened to the town that kindly treated her oshiruko, she immediately ends her alliance with Kaido. Holdem's act ended up costing his crew a powerful ally in the long run.
  • Twice from Queen in quick succession:
    • After recovering from Big Mom's attack, Queen uses his brachiosaurus form to do a diving headbutt on her, hoping to knock her out. All this does is restore her memory. Then she suddenly falls asleep, which saves everyone — but especially Luffy — from her rampage.
    • He then quickly has her chained up and takes her to Kaido's island with most of his guards, leaving only a small amount of security behind at Udon. He apparently either forgets, doesn't notice, or doesn't care that 1) Luffy is still there and has managed to free himself of all restraints, and 2) all communication throughout Udon is cut off. Queen has now essentially given Luffy free reign to rampage through the prison, with no way for the guards there to contact Queen and let him know about this. This gets zig-zagged a bit since the prisoners are so broken they still obey the commands of the one left in charge... until Momonoske arrives and raises their morale and Luffy show he's willing to fight for them as well. After which the heroes take over the prison easily.
  • Orochi does this again, capturing everyone in the Flower Capital who has the moon tattoo to corral any supporters of the Kozuki clan. Of course, this just means that the alliance no longer has to search the city; everyone who would aid their revolt is now in one place!
  • During the battle at Onigashima, Queen infects samurai and his men with his Ice Demon virus and throws the antidote to Apoo, who's on the floor with the infected, directing everyone's attention to him and telling him to run and keep the antidote from them until the virus eventually kills them. This backfires when Zoro swiftly defeats him, grabs the antidote and throw it to Chopper who manages to make a bomb out of it and cure the infected. What's more, since Queen callously sacrificed his men and straight up told them to their faces how expendable they were, they side with the heroes in fighting the Animal Kingdom Pirates, essentially giving his enemies more allies.
  • The Five Elder Stars try having one of their top CP0 agents kill Luffy, who is on the last legs of his duel with Kaido. Unfortunately for them, Luffy finally awakens his Devil Fruit powers and gains a Heroic Second Wind, which allows him to defeat Kaido for good.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: As the final bout against Kaido and Big Mom starts, Law teleports Luffy out of harm's way just to complain that he didn't save their wounded allies earlier just because Luffy asked. In response to Kid making fun of them both, Luffy dares them not to react to the easily avoidable burst of fireballs Big Mom has sent at them. Even though both Law and Kid refuse to play such a stupid contest, they can only grimace alongside Luffy as they do stand still and take the hits square in the face.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Drake frees Law after he's captured by Hawkins. However one of Kaido's men spotted him on the act and reported back to Queen, blowing his cover. Queen and the other Tobi Roppo just play along and wait till they find Yamato to confront him. But the samurai's attack forces their hand and they try to ambush Drake and make him reveal that he's actually a Marine spy.
• No Honor Among Thieves: In chapter 985, Kaido reveals he plans to make Wano into a pirate kingdom for himself with Yamato as ruler and instantly decapitates Orochi once he starts to object, stating he doesn't care what family is in control of the land as it'll be his regardless. Showing that Kaido only saw Orochi as a means to an end to get the island under his control until he was ready to go forward with his plans.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: Not the main fight against Kaido, but after everything that happened in the Whole Cake Island arc, who would've expected Big Mom to be defeated by somebody other than Luffy, namely Kid and Law.
• No Range Like Point-Blank Range: As one point during their battle, Kaido turns full dragon, grabs Luffy in his mouth, flies high into the air, looks downwards, and fires his Blast Breath the very moment he releases Luffy, ensuring he gets scorched by the full brunt of the fiery beam, with no chance to dodge it, and is thrown through every layer of Onigashima and out through the bottom.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Tsuru looks like she stepped out of an Ukiyo-e painting.
• Nose Bleed: After seeing Nami naked, Sanji gets a massive one! Again.
• Not So Stoic: Jack was introduced as a No-Nonsense Nemesis who almost eradicated the Minks on a whim (a correct whim, at that), and was steady even when his crew went down by Zunesha. When Kaido drunkenly rants about killing Luffy and Law, Jack is the one who points out that Kaido is the drunk one, with a Face Fault to boot.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: The final gag of the arc for the heroes is Kidd mocking Luffy and Law's crews for wanting to leave Wano via the elevator, enraging both rival captains into just sailing off the country's massive waterfall with him instead. Naturally, everyone survives with only minor damage to their ships.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The events of the Reverie and this arc completely shatter the already unstable Balance of Power left wobbling in the wake of Whitebeard's death. The Seven Warlords are disbanded and reduced to wanted criminals like every other pirate with Marines expending fighting strength trying to arrest them, while the World Government's worst fears are confirmed when the Emperors Kaido and Big Mom stop opposing each other to team up and create a threat more dangerous than ever seen before. However, Luffy's alliance would go on to defeat that threat, naming him and Buggy Emperors of the Sea.
• Offhand Backhand: A kidnapper spots Luffy on the beach and tries to shoot him with a sleeping dart. Just as he's about to fire, Luffy stretches his arm and punches him without even looking.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Due to the faster pacing of the arc, quite a bit of the action is left to the reader's imagination.
  • When the Straw Hats (minus Luffy and Chopper) witness Yasu's execution and Zoro and Sanji intervene to save Toko, it quickly escalates into a brawl, with Zoro fighting Kyoshiro while trying to attack Orochi, Sanji battling Drake, and the rest of the Straw Hats getting into a skirmish with the Oniwabanshu, who want to capture at least one of them for interrogation. Later, it's revealed that all seven Straw Hats involved escaped successfully.
  • At the same time, Law shows up to rescue his crew, and because they're being held hostage, he is forced to give himself up and is next seen beaten up in a jail cell, with Hawkins preparing to interrogate him. But then the next time he shows up after this, Law has somehow turned the tables against Hawkins (possibly with help from Drake) and successfully escapes.
  • After Luffy and his allies take over Udon Prison, Kid turns down his offer to join their alliance, and leaves with Killer to go find and rescue the rest of his crew. The next time they all show up, the Kid Pirates are indeed all back together again.
  • Kyoshiro, who is actually Denjiro, manages to somehow break the 1000 imprisoned Kozuki sympathizers out of the Rasetsu District prison offscreen, allowing them to join the raid on Onigashima.
  • A retroactive one: Jimbei and the Sun Pirates were able to escape from Big Mom after staying behind at the end of the Tottoland arc to fight her and let the Straw Hats escape. There were some injuries to the Sun Pirates, but Jimbei helped treat them, and the crew threw a party for him as a send-off for him joining the Straw Hats.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Law has one when he's told that Luffy is on the island and rattling the patrols, which will no doubt get the attention of Orochi and eventually Kaido.
  • He has another when he realizes that his plan to take down Kaido has been compromised by Hawkins having already met Luffy in Wano earlier and by the latter taking out Holdem.
  • Tama is utterly shocked when she learns from Luffy that Ace died two years ago in Marineford. She later gets another one when Nami tells her Ace was actually Luffy's brother, leaving Tama dumbstruck and horrified of what she said to him when they first met.
  • Kaido gets one when he sees Big Mom and most of her commanders trying to get into Wano. It's not so much out of fear of her, but because he knows that, if she lands on the island, she'll completely rampage through it looking for Luffy, causing a war between her forces and his that will no doubt ruin the last SMILE operation he has.
  • Yamato has a wake-up call where, despite being uncertain that Kaido's willing to blow up his own child with his shackles, he finds out that's not the case.
  • Jack and Perospero both get one when they see the cloud cover that blocked the full moon and reverted Dogstorm and Cat Viper back from their empowered Sulong forms was blown away by Kaido and Luffy's fighting, allowing the two Minks to be empowered by the moon once again and quickly dispatch the two of them.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: The Big Mom Pirates' reaction to being knocked off the waterfall into Wano for a second time.
• Older Than They Look: Thanks to Aramaki's attack, and having most of her fluids drained away, Shinobu ends up looking as beautiful as she did twenty years ago.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: When Orochi and Kaido's forces start cracking down on supporters of the plan to attack Onigashima, using the encoded flyer and moon ankle tattoo as evidence, Tonoyasu lets himself be arrested and then claims the markers were just a prank he cooked up as a final "Screw You" to Orochi. This makes it look like Orochi just made a bunch of false arrests out of paranoia, and in turn weakened his standing among his samurai.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Chapter 910 ended with the Sunny going up a fall but suddenly caught in a whirlpool then cuts to Luffy and Sunny on a beach with no sign of the others. 911 reveals Luffy used his balloon form to bounce his group off the ship so Sanji could carry them safely onto the island. Luffy was about to follow after them (promising to find the Sunny later) but the octopus had grabbed him and prevented Luffy from doing so as the ship was sucked into the whirlpool.
  • Kin'emon's explanation does this for his party, as he details what happened after Oden's wife threw Momo and his retainers to the future, with greater details on Momo's shipment to Punk Hazard, Kanjuro's capture, Raizo's drifting to Zou, and Kin'emon getting slashed to bits by Law.
• One-Steve Limit: Broken with Tsuru, a tea shop owner (who is later revealed to be Kin'emon's wife) unrelated to the Vice-Admiral of the same name. The difference is that Wano's Tsuru's name is written in kanji instead of hiragana.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Speed is a Horse SMILE user whose SMILE powers most prominently manifest in her being a centaur. Unlike the centaurs from Punk Hazard who're humans whose upper torsos are attached to animal bodies via Law's Devil Fruit powers, Speed is a more unconventional looking centaur. Rather than simply a human torso atop a horse body, she retains her human thighs as opposed to how horse front legs and upper bodies would normally look like. The best description of her would be that she has a similar built that the Centaurian Motaro from Mortal Kombat is depicted with. Apart from that, she has horse ears and her face distorts to become more horse-like, teeth jutting out and all, whenever she smiles.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • Momonosuke and Kaido both ate Devil Fruits that turn them into Eastern dragons. The Devil Fruit Momo ate was a SMILE made by Vegapunk and the dragon he turns into is a small pink one. Kaido meanwhile ate a regular Devil Fuit and the dragon he turns into is a massive blue one that possesses both Eastern dragon antlers and Kaido's horns.
  • Orochi ate a Devil Fruit that essentially allows him to turn into a literal Orochi. Although classified as a snake due to Orochi's Devil Fruit being identified as a mythical type model of the Snake Snake Fruit line, the creature he turns to is depicted as an eight-headed four-legged Eastern dragon.
  • There are a number of characters that ate Devil Fruits that allow them to turn into prehistoric reptiles. X Drake, Page One, Queen, Ulti, and Sasaki are capable of turning into dinosaurs, an allosaurus, a spinosaurus, a brachiosaurus, a pachycephalosaurus, and a triceratops respectively, while King is capable of turning into a pteranodon. Since their Devil Fruits are identified as being different ancient type models of the Dragon Dragon Fruit line, these prehistoric reptiles are classified as dragons.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Kozuki Oden was apparently this towards his son Momonosuke and their family retainers; while it's unknown exactly what happened in the situation, the retainers claim that, despite it being their duty to protect Oden, he instead gave up his life so that they and Momo could escape.
  • Luffy gets a big moment of this towards his crew and allies; when Kaido blows up Oden Castle, where they are currently hiding, Luffy instantly attacks him and punches him in the face in fury, Emperor of the Sea be damned.
  • Luffy shows a mix of this and Big Brother Instinct towards Tama, rushing into Bakura Town to save her after she's kidnapped, immediately going apeshit on Holdem once he discovers that Holdem hurt Tama while he was holding her captive, and showing even more fury towards Kaido than he already had after the above incident after finding out that Kaido attacked her and Speed.
  • Law also shows this towards his crew when Shinobu accuses Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin (who've been captured) of spilling the details of the Alliance's now-leaked plans to the enemy. He furiously insists that his crew would rather die than betray them and that Shinobu shouldn't underestimate them, states that he'll prove this to her after they're rescued, and gives her a massive Death Glare when she states that captured alliance members should just be killed to keep them from talking.
• Passing the Torch: When Dogstorm and Cat Viper choose to remain in Wano, they appoint Carrot as the new ruler of the Mokomo Kingdom. Despite her protests that there are others more qualified than her in terms of strength, they cite their reasons for being that she had grown a lot on her adventures with the Straw Hats and that Pedro's will lives on in her more than any one else. Even Wanda and the Musketeers support the decision and believe Carrot can do it.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The courtesan Komurasaki is shown to have scammed at least three different men in the past, who sold off everything they had, including their homes, to earn the money to buy her freedom so they could be together...only for her to reveal that she just spent all the money they gave her, leaving them penniless. This would be an ordinary case of Kick the Dog… if it weren't for the fact that at least one of these men, Bingo (and implied to be the case with the others as well), sold off his family to gain money as well. Considering what we've seen of slavery in Wano, it's hard to argue that these men didn't deserve at least some of what happened to them for knowingly dooming their own families to this fate...just to earn money to get laid by a beautiful woman. This is further driven home when it's later revealed that the three of them ran an arson ring to make money off of grieving people.
• Perpetual Smiler: Invoked and deconstructed to hell by the residents of Ebisu Town. They are like this because, like the Pleasures of the Beast Pirates crew, they've consumed dud SMILE Fruits that came with no powers and only the drawbacks: in addition to be unable to swim, they are unable to express any emotions and facial expressions except for smiling and laughter, meaning that they are unable to show their sadness, anger, and pain when their friends and family starve to death around them.
  • This tragedy was invoked by Orochi, who insists that Wano is a heavenly paradise and was getting tired of all the tears and sorrow from the Leftover Town's citizens as they starved to death; as a result, he had these failed SMILE Fruits sent to the town along with the leftovers to rob these citizens of the ability to do anything but smile. Their (forced) smiling is why the town was eventually named "Ebisu" in the first place, after a Japanese deity who was usually depicted smiling.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: When it looks like Luffy is departing from Wano without saying goodbye to Momonosuke and Kin'emon, the new shogun furiously rushes over to the Thousand Sunny and... quickly turns to Inelegant Blubbering as he thanks Luffy for avenging his parents and begs him to not leave. Luffy says that although Momo is a weakling he still is like a little brother and a honorary crew member to him, so he gifts him a Straw Hat Pirates flag both as a reminder of his seafaring adventures and as a warning against any threats to Wano.
• The Pollyanna:
  • Ultimately subverted. The entire population of Ebisu Town always continue smiling and appearing to be happy despite living in the horrifying, poverty-stricken parts of Wano, but it's later revealed that they were all given failed SMILE Fruits that they ate to keep from starving, which forcibly prevents them from expressing any emotions but smiles and laughter.
  • Tonoyasu comes closer to playing it straight, though. He justifies it by noting that humans are the only creatures that can laugh, so they're making the most of it by smiling constantly; after The Reveal, he comes across as making the best of his shitty curse and trying to genuinely be cheerful to go along with his forced smile.
• Poor Communication Kills: In Wano, people use "Smart Pond Snails" (Smails) to call each other instead of the normal transponder snails. However, each Smail has weak signal strength, so they need a "Boss Snail" to send and receive. As part of their scheme to bring down the Udon factory, Caribou smothers Udon's Boss Smail, not only keeping the guards from communicating with each other, but also from contacting Kaido's forces on Onigashima.
• Power Perversion Potential: Noting the Raid Suit he got from his brother gives him invisibility, Sanji immediately uses it to fulfill his lecherous dream of peeking into women's baths unnoticed the moment he gets the chance.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Luffy takes advantage of his time in Udon Prison to train, first by doing manual labor while wearing sea prism cuffs, then by using Queen's execution sumo tournament to develop his Armament Haki to the point that he can deflect attacks without touching his opponent like Rayleigh.
• The Promise: Ace had made one with Tama to allow her to join his crew when she was older and became a kunochi. Sadly it's one he couldn't keep due to the events of the Marineford arc with Tama never even knowing of his fate before Luffy arrived due to the country being sealed off and not receiving outside news.
• Properly Paranoid: A Dramatic Irony variant, as Orochi is actually justified in his fear of Lady Toki's prophecy coming true.
• Public Bathhouse Scene: Nami and Robin are taking a bath in a hot spring bathhouse of the mixed-bath variety.
• Pun: All of the Four Emperors' bounties have puns in them:
  • Big Mom's bounty of 4,388,000,000 has 88, in Japanese is "haha", which translates to "mom".
  • Kaido's bounty of 4,611,100,000 has 110, in Japanese is "hyakujuu", which translates to "lot's of animals". It can also be translated in kyajyjuunoou, which means "King of the beasts".
  • Blackbeard's bounty of 2,247,600,000 has 47, in Japanese is "shishi", which translates to "one's mentor", hinting at his connection to Xebec. Though it has also been noted that this is the real Blackbeard's bounty, inflated to today's rate and transferred into yen.
  • Shank's bounty of 4,048,900,000 has 489, in Japanese translates to "shiyaku", which can be pronounced as "Shanks".
  • Whitebeard's bounty of 5,046,000,000 has 46, in Japanese translates to "shiro", which translates to "white".
  • Gol D. Roger's bounty of 5,564,800,000 has 648, in Japanese translates to "rojiya", which can be pronounced as "Roger".

R to Y

• Race Against the Clock: While there was already the matter of stopping Onigashima before it reached the Flower Capital, with Luffy chipping away at Kaido's stamina, Momonosuke and Yamato race to relocate Onigashima before it falls on the Flower Capital. Another wrinkle gets added when Orochi has Kanjuro create a fire creature to make its way to Onigashima's weapons stockade in the hope of destroying the island, everyone in it and the Flower Capital to boot, forcing Yamato to rush to the stockade to stop it.
• Rage Breaking Point: Oden attempted to overthrow Orochi upon returning to Wano but after several of his people were attacked by Orochi and Kaido's men he agreed to a deal wherein he would dance naked before the castle once a week for five years and in return Orochi and Kaido would leave the country at the end of this period without causing anymore casualties. However, Orochi and Kaido didn't honor their part of the deal and later captured Hyogoro and killed his wife for preventing them from building factories in Kuri. Oden finally snaps from this and leads his retainers on a war against Kaido's forces.
• Really Royalty Reveal:
  • Komurasaki is actually Hiyori, the daughter of former daimyo Oden and Momonosuke's sister.
  • Tonoyasu is eventually revealed to be Yasu'ie, the former daimyo of Hakumai (just as Oden was the daimyo of Kuri), whom Orochi believed to be dead.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Luffy gives this to the prisoners of Udon for just allowing themselves to think being ruled over by Kaido and Orochi was a better way of life as opposed to fighting for their country. To drive it home further, Luffy willingly takes the effect of the Plague Bullet into himself to showcase he's more than willing to risk his life to free the country, and asks why, if an "Outsider" like him can do so, the people who have lived in the land since birth can't do the same. It ultimately works, and once Luffy takes down the warden of the prison, the prisoners swiftly take control of the facility.
• Required Secondary Powers: Gazelleman is capable of running at incredible speeds thanks to the SMILE Devil Fruit he ate. Unfortunately, while he's capable of doing so, he doesn't have the physical endurance to match his speed. As a result, he's left wheezing greatly with his sides in pain after running a great distance.
• Rescue Arc: From 976, it becomes this as Momonosuke is taken hostage and carried off to Onigashima. Giving extra incentive for the heroes to take Kaido and Orochi down. They ultimately succeed just as they the samurai reveal themselves and kick the invasion into full swing
• Retired Badass: Since his defeat at the hands of Blackbeard, Marco has peacefully retired to becoming the doctor to Whitebeard's hometown.
• Retool: Downplayed, but Word of God says that Wano as an arc was designed to be a soft-reboot of the series, easily accessible without having gotten fully caught up with rest of the series. This is most evident with the anime, which saw a considerable amount of changes to the staff, along with a major Art Shift. A later confirmation shows that Oda considers everything from the Wano arc onwards to be the whole of One Piece, with everything before essentially a giant prologue for those just coming into the series.
• The Reveal:
  • Contrary to what the reader is made to think, Wano being conquered by Orochi and Kaido isn't a recent event, but something that occurred 20 years ago. The reason why Momonosuke and his retainers are still young is that they were thrown forward through time by Oden's wife Toki.
  • The reason why Kin'emon hated dragons? The boss of the ones who ruined them is one.
  • Tonoyasu's true identity is Yasu'ie, the former daimyo of the Hakumai region of Wano, which means he once held the same rank in the country as Oden himself.
  • The SMILE Devil Fruits only have a 10% success rate when it comes to gaining their powers; the other 90% only come with the drawbacks of being unable to swim or show any emotions besides smiling and laughter. The "Waiters" in the Beast Pirates crew are members who are waiting to get their SMILE Fruits, the "Gifters" (and some of the Headliners) are the 10% who got powers, and the "Pleasures" and residents of Ebisu Town consumed the 90% failed Fruits, and thus were forcibly made into Perpetual Smilers.
  • The pirate alliance between Eustass Kid, Scratchmen Apoo, and Basil Hawkins was a sham from the beginning on Apoo's end; he was actually already working for Kaido the whole time, and tricked Hawkins and Kid, resulting in the former submitting to Kaido to save himself and the latter refusing to do so, attempting to fight Kaido along with Killer, and being beaten up and imprisoned for it.
  • Drake's turn from Marine to Pirate never happened. He's actually a secret agent who infiltrates pirate organizations (explaining why he joined Kaido) as well as the leader of a Marine unit called "Sword" that Koby is part of.
  • Indeed, as was speculated in earlier chapters, Big Mom and Kaido were indeed in the same crew. But the real shocker of the chapter was that Whitebeard, the Token Good Teammate of the Emperors, was also in the same crew as Big Mom and Kaido. In fact, defeating their captain Rocks was what sowed the roots of all the future Emperors, and propelled Garp to being the Hero of the Marines.
  • The people who helped Orochi take over Wano were originally owners of the Clone-Clone and Barrier-Barrier Fruits respectively.
  • The fourth Poneglyph, the current location of which has become unknown, used to be located near Fish-Man Island, in the Sea Forest right next to the Poneglyph mentioning Joy Boy's apology.
  • Roger and his crew laughed their collective asses off upon finding the One Piece, the legacy of Joy Boy. This is why the name of the final island, Raftel, is meant to be spelled as "Laugh Tale".
    Roger: Oh, Joyboy... I wish I'd been born in your time!! This is quite a treasure you've left behind!! A tale full of laughs!! Say, that gives me an idea! We're the first people to reach this final island in 800 years... why don't we give it a name? We'll call it "Laugh Tale."
  • That debt that Big Mom holds over Kaido? Chapter 999 reveals that she was the one who initially gave him his devil fruit!
  • Chapter 1007 reveals that the artificial Devil Fruit that Momo ate which lets him become a dragon isn't just similar to Kaido's ability, it is the same ability, having been replicated using Kaido's DNA by Vegapunk, making it the first example of two people having the same Devil Fruit power at the same time.
  • In Chapter 1044, it turns out that Luffy's fruit was given the name of the Gum-Gum Fruit by the World Government so that it's true name would be stricken from all records. In actuality, Luffy's fruit is a Mythical Zoan called the Human-Human Fruit Model: Nika.
  • Pluton is revealed to be in Wano, and by opening the boundaries of Wano only it can be operable.
• Running Gag:
  • Big Mom's Pirates being knocked off the waterfall while trying to enter Wano. The first time King did it to keep them from coming into the island. The second is from Marco, so they won't interfere during the battle against Kaido and Orochi.
  • During the climatic confrontation against the Animal Kingdom Pirates during the raid on Onigashima, several battles against the Tobi Roppo or the Calamities has them pull off biologically impossible stunts beyond merely transforming into a dinosaur, such as Queen being able to separate his head and neck from his main body and transforming himself into a snake-like form, or Sasaki being able to fly by spinning his Triceratops frill on his neck like a helicopter blade, and then claiming that in ancient times, said methods are exactly what the dinosaurs used to hunt their prey. The kicker? Their opponents are shocked, but otherwise don't deny their claim at all.
• Sadistic Choice: The people of Ebisu Town suffered this when Orochi sent them failed SMILE Fruits. Either they eat them and lose the ability to show any emotion aside from smiling and laughter, or starve. Their empty stomaches ended up trumping them.
• Samus Is a Girl: From Kaido's dialogue, we're lead to believe he has a son named Yamato. When we finally meet Yamato, it turns out he's looks like a girl. Yamato declares himself a man so as to better emulate his hero, Kozuki Oden. Even after this reveal, all of Kaido's subordinates refer to Yamato with masculine pronouns, such as "young master", which the Doflamingo Family used for Doflamingo himself, and even Luffy, upon befriending Yamato, goes with the masculine nickname of "Yamao" ("Yamabro" in the English translation).
• Saying Too Much: Big Mom becomes really depressed when she finds the shiruko pot is empty. Luffy sympathizes with her, commenting that he'd want to eat it again. Big Mom then realizes that Luffy ate all the shiruko and becomes enraged with him.
• The Scapegoat: Zoro turns up in the Wano kingdom with the sword stolen from Ryuma's grave and it isn't long before the authorities understandably pin the crime of grave-robbing on him. However, the guy who oversees Zoro's suicide ritual notes Zoro looks too young to be the actual culprit and believes he likely bought the sword off someone, and still holds him responsible for the crimes of a murderer recently terrorizing the streets of Wano... only for Zoro to respond in turn by cutting the man down, whom he realizes is the actual street murderer.
• Scenery Porn: Wano looks absolutely gorgeous, to say the least. Subverted in a big way though when we see what the country looks like outside the capital, however.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Despite being offered to succeed Orochi as the next Shogun of New Onigashima, Yamato leaves the Animal Kingdom Pirates for good, feeling frustrated by Kaido's monstrosities.
• Secret-Keeper: Komurasaki's attendant, Toko, is one for her, being one of the former's few friends who's aware of her true identity of Kozuki Hiyori.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • The Kurozumi Family was shunned by Wano citizens for attempting a coup leaving the whole clan dishonored, with even the innocent members labelled as traitors and watched for another possible betrayal. Which... of course leads to Orochi betraying Wano and surrendering it to Kaido because he got a chance to enact revenge.
  • In order to prevent Luffy from realizing the true power of his Devil Fruit, the Five Elder Stars ordered CP0 to ensure his elimination, even at the cost of enraging Kaido and losing one of their best CP0 agents. As a result of their interference, Luffy ended up taking a massive blow from Kaido that nearly killed him... which resulted in him awakening his Devil Fruit.
• Senseless Sacrifice: The Five Elder Stars order one of their CP0 agents to ensure Luffy is killed, even though they know that it will enrage Kaido for interfering in his fight and he will retaliate against the agent. Unfortunately, they ended up sacrificing the agent for nothing as Luffy survived. Adding insult to injury, the interference ends up being the very catalyst for Luffy awakening his Devil Fruit.
• Seppuku: Zoro's first appearance in this arc has him being put through this ceremony for being convicted as a murderer, and having the Shusui sword on his possession. The minute he's given the Seppuku blade, he uses it to cut apart the magistrate charging him and the building.
• Share the Male Pain: A literal example; when Holdem's lion stomach Kamijiro stabs Holdem in the groin, he ends up feeling it too because he shares Holdem's body.
• She Is All Grown Up: Momonosuke last saw his little sister Hiyori 20 years ago, when she was just six years old. However, thanks to her not traveling in time, she has aged normally to the present day, and is now such a beautiful young woman that she made a name for herself under the identity of Komurasaki, the most beautiful courtesan in all of Wano.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Luffy and his half of the Straw Hats finally enter Wano, the Sunny sails through a scene that is a direct reference to the famous Japanese woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
  • The way Tama is introduced; the pose she's presented in, along with the way she's drawn, are taken directly from one of the most famous Ukiyo-e paintings.
  • One of the Beast Pirates' Gifters is straight-up named Batman.
  • Momonosuke and the retainers traveling twenty years through time brings to mind another time-displaced samurai.
  • The Combination Attack of Kaido and Big Mom is pronounced as "Hakai" in Japanese.
  • The Dub adds a reference to Chumbawamba from Usopp
• Significant Name Shift: After renouncing his family ties, Yamato no longer refers to Kaido as father, but by his name.
• Sins of the Father: Chapter 971 reveals the entire Kurozumi Family was Persona Non Grata in Wano due to the failed coup committed by Orochi's grandfather. Even if he committed Seppuku to 'atone' for his crimes, the underhanded manner in which the coup was attempted was declared to be dishonorable, leading to Orochi's distant relatives fleeing Wano to avoid persecution. Also a reason why Orochi immediately turned coat when given another chance for revenge.
• Skewed Priorities: Queen invokes this with his henchmen at the prison. Queen tells them to rank them their problems but starting with the third most important problem and going up to the first.
• Sleep Cute: While Zoro is recovering from a stab to the shoulder, Hiyori decides to sleep next to him. Toko similarly sleeps on Zoro's side.
• Something Only They Would Say: Denjiro talks about a key detail of the Mountain God incident to prove his identity to the other Red Scabbards. Kin'emon was the one responsible for it but most people thought it was Oden's fault. Only Oden, Kin'emon and Denjiro knew the truth, and one of the three is dead. That he in his persona as Kyoshiro knew it was Kin'emon was enough to prove to the latter that it is beyond all doubt Denjiro in disguise.
  • When Kyoshiro appears before the alliance to aid them, he proves his true identity as Denjiro by revealing that Kin'emon was the only responsible for the Mountain Boar incident that Oden got blamed for, something no one else but Denjiro knew about.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Usopp poses as one for his cover identity in Wano.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Big Mom arriving in Wano to get revenge on Luffy causes problems for Kaido. After Big Mom washes up ashore on Wano with amnesia, Chopper exploits this by having her go to Udon to break Luffy out of prison. Her appearance practically made it easy for Luffy and his allies to take over Udon: she unintentionally saved Kid and Killer and broken open Kawamatsu's cell during her fight with Queen, her rampage created the perfect distraction for Raizo and Caribou to get the key for Kawamatsu's handcuffs and cut off all communication in Udon, Luffy manages to remove his and Hyogoro's deadly collars when she tries to kill him, she wreck havoc through the prison trying to chase down Luffy, and after Big Mom falls asleep Queen quickly has her chained up and takes her to Kaido's island with most of his guards and only leaves a small amount of security behind at Udon.
  • Thanks to Kanjuro, Orochi was able to launch a night attack that demolished all the bridges and ports in Wano that the rebels had planned to use to gather together for their raid on Onigashima. Despite this, the raid is able to continue undaunted because Kin'emon misinterpreted the message Yasuie used to change the plan while nobody else did. Kanjuro in turn got the plans wrong because of this, and the actual assembly point was closer than the one Kin'emon was assuming, so everyone in motion well before Orochi was. Denjiro initially assumes this was a fantastic bit of misdirection, but soon everyone is trying to get Kin'emon to admit he got it completely wrong.
  • In Chapter 1042, Luffy attempts to use the last of his Gear Fourth strength to deliver a final blow to Kaido, only for one of the CP0 agents to interfere.
• Spoiler Opening: While the anime is regularly guilty of this, it's taken up to eleven with the Wano arc's first opening theme, "Over the Top". It not only shows a ton of characters and foreshadowing for what's going to happen to some of them later, such as Yasuie, but also manages to spoil the manga it's based on by strongly hinting that yakuza boss "Napping" Kyoshiro is actually Denjiro of the Nine Red Scabbards...a full eight months before the manga finally revealed it to be true.
• Spotting the Thread: When Orochi claims to Yasuie that Oden secretly stole from his coffers, Yasuie immediately spots a problem with that story. While Oden would have done the deed, he would have been brazen about it. Being discrete is completely out-of-character for Oden.
• Statuesque Stunner: Kiku, a very pretty woman who is so tall that even Zoro, who's a fairly tall guy, only comes up to her chest height-wise, which he comments on.
• Stopped Reading Too Soon: While reading the newspaper, Chopper and Sanji cut out pictures of Kureha and the princesses, respectively, from the newspaper instead of waiting to finish reading the whole paper. By doing this, Nami is unable to read the article that talks about Kaido and Big Mom.
• Suicide Mission: Fearing Luffy was growing too powerful, the Five Elder Stars order one of their best CP0 agents to ensure he is eliminated. The Elders, the agent in question, and the rest of CP0 all know that this will enrage Kaido as he doesn't like outside interference in his battles. Sure enough, after the agent prevents Luffy from attacking, causing him to receive a massive blow from Kaido that knocks him out, the Emperor meets out quick retribution, which isn't seen onscreen. It turns out to have been in vain as the blow Luffy received ended up triggering his Awakening.
• Sumo Wrestling: Being based on real life Japan, Sumo wrestling is naturally revered. One of the people that works under Kaido, Urashima, is one such Sumo, though he abuses his status to get whatever he wants. Later in the story, Luffy, Zoro and Kiku come across a match he's having. But when he goes to kill Kiku for cutting off his topknot (which is very important in sumo culture) Luffy steps in to defend her and they both get into a sumo match. Not surprisingly, Luffy wins with little effort.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: During their fight on Onigashima, Killer accuses Hawkins of this, stating that even though the alliance has come farther against the Animal Kingdom Pirates than he expected, he can't bring himself to turn against Kaido because he doesn't want to admit that he betrayed his alliance with Kidd for nothing.
• Sure, Let's Go with That:
  • When Zoro and Luffy introduce themselves to Tsuru and Kiku, Luffy starts to give them his real name, before Zoro interjects with "He's Luffytaro." Without missing a beat, Luffy adds "That's right, I'm Luffytaro!"
  • When Yasuie changes the original message telling the alliance to meet at Habu (Snake) Port, Kin'emon tells his allies that Yasu's change was to add "legs" to the snake, turning it into a lizard and thus informing them that they should meet at Tokage (Lizard) Port instead. After the Nine Red Scabbards show up to find no one else there, the ships seemingly destroyed, and that Kanjuro is The Mole in their organization, Denjiro shows up soon afterwards with all the samurai allies and reveals that Yasu's change was really telling them to hide in the wharf of Habu Port^note (specifically, it was saying to take the original "habu minato"—Snake Port—and cut out all of the syllables in the middle so you're left with "hato", meaning "wharf"). Denjiro praises Kin'emon's "cunning plan" of purposely giving the suspected traitor false information to pass on to Orochi, and Kanjuro also believes Kin successfully fooled him. Kin just goes along with it and agrees, but it's made abundantly clear that he did no such thing; he just genuinely misinterpreted Yasu's message, and his mistake happened to work out for the best.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Kanjuro is leading a tied-up Momonosuke through Kaido's fortress, we get a panel of Momo looking at a knife on the ground. Since he told the alliance that he'd find a way to free himself, you'd think this would kick it off, right? Except the next time we see him, he's been beaten to a pulp by Kanjuro, whose abilities as a master samurai easily trounce any impromptu escape methods an 8-year-old boy might find.
• Symbolism: When Yamato explains about meeting Ace when he came to the island wanting to challenge Kaido (who was away at the time). Ace had destroyed a dragon statue as insult to the pirate emperor as well as to show Yamato he was against him, leaving a flaming imprint on the side of it. At the climax of the arc, when Luffy lands the final blow on Kaido, it's in the exact same area Ace hit the statue, symbolizing Luffy fulfilling Ace's promise to Yamato from the past.
• Systematic Villain Takedown: Averted. Despite Luffy's intentions to finish his business with Big Mom after dealing with Kaido, Big Mom wasn't willing to sit around and wait after everything Luffy and his crew had done in Tottland, leading to her arriving in Wano and forcing the Straw Hats and their allies to deal with her as well. This results in both Emperors falling in this arc.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In a flashback, Kin'emon tells the Straw Hats that they best blend in with the rest of the populace and stay out of trouble until the rest of the crew returns and they rouse enough public support to overthrow the Shogun. Immediately after this, we see that Zoro has been arrested by a corrupt magistrate and is forced to fight his way out.
  • The magistrate smirks at Zoro's seppuku, thinking he could get clean after Zoro dies, as he was the true murderer in Wano. Well, Zoro not only frees himself, but also attacks the magistrate showing that he was being framed.
  • Hawkins declares it would be foolish to fight two fellow Supernovas fair and square, but the first card he draws happens to be an upside-down Fool, which magically causes his subordinates to attack each other.
  • The Alliance in Oden Castle makes a solid plan to take down Kaido and Orochi using layouts of Kaido's mansion, with Kin'emon optimistic that their operation will be a success. But Jack and Hawkins show up in Leftover Town soon afterwards, and then Kaido reveals his Dragon form, takes out both Speed and Tama in one blow, nukes Oden Castle entirely, and later soundly defeats and captures Luffy.
  • Big Mom arrives in Wano and announces that she's here and ready to take down Luffy and get Zeus back. Her whole ship promptly gets knocked off the waterfall by King.
• Tengu: One appears as Tama's master/caretaker, Tenguyama Hitetsu, complete with red skin and wings.
• Theme Naming: Continuing a trend that appeared in Zou, many of the Headliners or higher-ups working under Kaido or Jack are named after card games: Ginrummy and Sheepshead in Zou, and we also meet Holdem and Speed in Wano. Hawkins's name itself isn't one, but he fits the "cards" theme with his tarot card ability. And there's also King, Queen and Jack, following the theme by being named after the cards themselves, also allowing X (pronounced Diez, as in ten) Drake to join the club right below them in rank.
• Third Party Stops Attack: Happens two times in battles Kaido is having.
  • In the flashback to Oden and Kaido's duel, Oden was about to land a decisive blow when he was distracted Higurashi diguising herself as Momonosuke, giving Kaido an opening to defeat him. Unfortunately, Kaido didn't appreciate the unwanted assistance and killed her for it.
  • During the height of Luffy and Kaido's fight, Luffy, now burning on fumes, was about to put all the strength he had left into one final attack. Unfortunately, one of the CP0 agents, under orders by the Gouresei, inteferes by holding Luffy back from launching his attack, leading to him being knocked out by Kaido's club. Again having a fight he was enjoying ruined by outside interference, Kaido took out his anger on the agent.
• Third Time's The Charm: Normally it takes Luffy no more than three tries to beat the Big Bad of the arc (though for most of the 2nd half of the series, he can do it in less then two tries due to his training). But this arc had him defeated three times in his clashes with Kaido. Once in Wano and twice on Onigashima. The first time at least was justifiable, Luffy was acting rashly and didn't know the full extent of Kadio's abilities leading him to being knocked out in one hit, standard initial confrontation fare. The 2nd time he apparently ran out of energy despite learning the secret to Kaido's durability (coating himself in Conqueror's Haki) and being knocked off Onigashima, prompting a rescue, recovery and getting him back up to the island to resume the fight. The story seemed like it would follow in the usual final clash...except the World Government orders one of the CP0 to interfere by holding Luffy back before he could land the final blow, resulting in Kaido's victory. Though this seems to trigger something in Luffy after his knock out, which turns out to be his Devil Fruit's awakening which he dubs Gear Five. This new form manages to revive Luffy and allow him a 4th and final round with Kaido, with the newfound power being on par against Kaido's dragon form and Conquerer's Haki. Ultimately, Luffy finally emerges victorious against the pirate emperor after whittling down the last of Kaido's stamina in the final clash.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The head CP0 agent has this reaction upon receiving direct orders from the Five Elders to kill Luffy immediately, despite the fact that he's in a life-or-death fight with Kaido who will not appreciate their interference and will turn the full wrath of an Emperor upon those who desecrate their battle.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • When rescuing Tama, Luffy's and Zoro's original plan was simply to grab her and the food from the Paradise Farm, then flee Bakura Town without fighting any of the Headliners to avoid risking the wrath of Jack the Drought. But when Luffy learns that Holdem hurt Tama by yanking on her cheek with pliers, he decides enough is enough to the point that he immediately stops running away and curb-stomps Holdem in one hit.
  • Luffy does again later on to Kaido himself, delivering a furious Elephant Gun to the Emperor's head after he blasts the ruins of Oden Castle, where half the Straw Hats and a bunch of their allies were hiding.
  • Played for Laughs during Onigashima's invasion when Luffy is rightfully pissed off, seeing Kaido's men waste their food while the people in Wano are starving to death. He's called out by Zoro for ruining the sneaky infiltration but the latter is immediately swayed when Luffy tells him why he's angry. While their reason is justified from the reader perspective, Kaido's men are puzzled to why some spilled food seems to sends both of them berserk.
• This Means War!: Once the attack on Kaido fully commences, Luffy declares as much when Big Mom questions if he truly believes he can take down Kaido.
• Time Travel:
  • This happened to Momonosuke, Kin'emon, Kanjuro, Raizo, and Kiku. They come from the Wano of 20 years ago, when it was conquered by Kaido and Orochi, and were sent forward in time to the present day by Toki, Momonosuke's mother, via her Devil Fruit powers. Thus, to them, the deaths of Oden and his wife, the destruction of Oden Castle, and the conquering of Wano feels like it took place mere months ago rather than two decades.
  • Toki herself was originally born in the far-off distant past. Thanks to the Devil Fruit she ate, she was able to travel through time. Her powers though were only limited to sending people forward in time and not backwards.
• To Be Continued: Surprisingly the arc is structured like a Japanese play with "Acts" in between them.
  • The first act of the arc ends with Luffy captured, taken to the slave mines and thrown into a prison cell that's next to Eustass Kid with both declaring they'll get even with Kaido... right before noticing one another.
  • The second act ends with the rebels preparing for their assualt on Onigashimi and eventually reaching the day of the Fire Festival as it soon commences.
• Toilet Humor: Kin'emon's reintroduction into the story is him coming out after suffering a severe case of diarrhea.
• Training Montage: During flashback, the Akazaya Nine went through one that transform them from a bunch of delinquents to a Badass Crew.
• Tranquil Fury: Kaido, usually a very boisterous character, doesn't let out any emotion when confronting the CP0 agent who distracted Luffy in a decisive moment, chillingly asking the agent if he's prepared for what happens next before using Hassaikai on him.
• Trash the Set: As the war at Onigashima heats up the island gets sufficiently more and more trashed as each of the various fights rage on. The biggest sources of destruction come from Law impaling Big Mom through Onigashima and leaving a giant hole through the island, Big Mom accidentally setting off one of the powder bombs in the armory, and Kaido blasting Luffy through the island with his dragon breath.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Joy Boy makes a return this arc, as there are constant references to people "becoming" him, including Kaido. Later on, another mythological figure is mentioned called the Sun God Nika, a legendary liberator who slaves used to pray to in ancient times in hopes he would one day free them. It isn't until Chapter 1044 that these two figures are revealed to be the exact same person — "Joy Boy" is actually a nickname for an Awakened user of the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika, which is the real name of Luffy's Devil Fruit. By awakening his fruit, Luffy has become the inheritor of the original Joy Boy's will, and thus the new Joy Boy.
• Two Girls to a Team: Besides the obvious usual case of Nami and Robin for the Straw Hats, there are a couple of other examples:
  • Though Shinobu is not an official member of the Nine Red Scabbards, she, along with Hitetsu, is a close ally that could be considered an honorary member. Thus, the Scabbards and their close allies have two women in their ranks: Kiku and Shinobu.
  • In a more literal example of "girls", the Straw Hats befriend two little girls from Wano who also act as allies and give them assistance in different ways: eight-year-old Tama and six-year-old Toko.
  • Kaido's "Tobi Roppo" (Flying Six) has two female members: Ulti and Black Maria.
• Uncertain Doom: The Onigashima raid ends with Big Mom and Kaido thrust deep underground, all the way down into magma. Big Mom also had most of Onigashima's arsenal dropped down with her, creating a massive explosion. They're stripped of their ranks as Emperors by the end of the arc, but their fates are left unclear.
• Underestimating Badassery: Done twice in short order:
  • Yokozuna Urashima, even after his slap blocked, assumes Luffy will be easy fodder and has a match with him. Luffy proceeds to dodge all of Urashima's attacks, then sends him flying with a Giant Sumo Slap.
  • Holdem, whose house was destroyed by Urashima's body, still decides that Luffy must have won through luck and figures he's safe by holding Tama hostage. Luffy rips Tama out of the Belly Mouth so quickly that Holdem didn't notice until after the fact, and then crushed the Headliner with one blow. Which, of course, leads to...
  • Luffy, during his 'fight' with Kaido. He went against Law's fairly simple plan, and charged Kaido headfirst so that the plan to save Wano ends right there. He got whacked by a sober Kaido in his base form for his troubles, that too in Gear Four, after Luffy barely even scratched him.
  • When Queen forces Luffy to take part in a "Sumo Inferno" (Where he has fight a seemingly never-ending wave of armed opponents and if he gets knocked out the special collar he's wearing will chop off his head), most of the guards assume that Luffy, a guy who already proved he could beat someone while wearing Sea Prism Stone, will be easy fodder...and are stunned when Luffy steamrolls his attackers once the Sea Prism Stone comes off. Only Queen is apparently unsurprised by Luffy's fighting spirit, but is willing to let it go on so he can Pass the Popcorn.
  • When some of the Animal Kingdom Pirates confront the heroes after their planned revolution with the samurai army has seemingly failed. They think Luffy, Kid and Law are a bunch of small fries due to all of them getting captured at one point (Kid and Luffy by Kaido, Law by Hawkins) and easy enough to deal with. The three captains promptly board on one of the ships before they realize it and decimate it within seconds. Needless to say, that assessment gets thrown out the window quickly and the following ships scramble to shoot them.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Much to Kin'emon's surprise, his wife Tsuru didn't remarry in the twenty years he was gone, even to protect herself.
  • The Head CP0 agent has this to the World Government. Upon receiving direct orders from the Five Elders to kill Luffy immediately, despite the fact that he's mid-fight with Kaido, who will likely kill them for their interference, he's understandably reluctant to do it, but still prepares to see the task through. Even when Drake impales him from behind with a sword before he can react, he still powers through it, puts Drake down with an Impromptu Tracheotomy and rushes to the battlefield despite his severe injuries just to follow the orders through, knowing full well it'll likely spell his death. His brief dialogue with Drake indicates he's not a mindless drone of the World Government, but still follows their orders through for personal reasons despite his misgivings.
  CP0 Agent: (coughing up blood from Drake's surprise attack) Explain yourself... Drake!
  X Drake: This is what...my justice tells me to do!!
  CP0 Agent: Then I am envious of you...
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even after Momonosuke brings Onigashima safely to the ground, the remaining members of the Animal Kingdom Pirates attempt to keep fighting. Yamato calls them out on this and stops them from attacking, least they suffer his wrath.
• Unreliable Narrator: During Oden's flashback, he remarks there were no tears among the Roger Pirates when their captain departed, for that wouldn't look good on men like them. In reality, only Rayleigh was at least covering his face while bidding farewell to Roger. Oden and the other crewmates were reduced to Inelegant Blubbering.
• The Un-Reveal:
  • During the end of the Reverie, something major happened with Sabo and the Alabasta kingdom, but is not revealed as the disbandment of the Warlords ends up taking all the attention.
  • A flashback reveals that the legendary One Piece is Joy Boy's legacy and it made Roger and his crew laugh to the point of tears, leading to Roger naming the island "Laugh Tale". Once more, however, the context of both One Piece and Laugh Tale is something for another time.
  • Queen reveals that both he and Judge, Sanji's father, used to work for Dr. Vegapunk.
  • Who's-Who, a member of the Tobi Roppo, turns out to be a rogue CP9 agent and rival of Rob Lucci, who got in trouble due to failing to protect the Gum-Gum Fruit from being stolen by Shanks and the Red Hair Pirates 12 years ago.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Sanji's eyebrows have always been unusual, but in chapter 1031, they actually reverse their spiral shape, now swirling to the left like his siblings. Since this comes on the heels of Sanji's body starting to manifest the same traits his brothers have thanks to his raid suit, as well as Sanji apparently unconsciously attacking a woman without remembering it, it shows how he's becoming as heartless as his siblings as his body manifests more inhuman traits.
• Unwanted Assistance: Twice, Kaido won a fight that was tainted by outside interference: first with Oden when he was distracted by Higurashi disguised as Momonosuke, and again against Luffy who was held back from delivering his final blow by a CP0 agent. Both times, he wasn't happy about it, both for it being an insult to his strength, and because he was enjoying the fight because he had finally found a Worthy Opponent, and made sure the interfering party paid dearly.
• Vagueness Is Coming: After knocking the Big Mom Pirates off the waterfall, Marco notes that the next time they make it up, the era won't be the same.
• Verbal Backspace:
  • A rather hilarious instance during Luffy's and Zoro's confrontation with Basil Hawkins:
    Hawkins: Do you know who actually controls this country from the shadows?
    Zoro: No, I don't!
    Luffy: It's Kaido, right?! I came here to kick that Emperor's ass!
    Zoro: Hey, Luffy! Kin'emon told us not to say that.
    Luffy: I was lying! I actually don't know, either!
  • Sanji does this while testing out the Raid Suit against Page One.
    Sanji: But this power will indeed be useful for the women's ba- I mean, helping my friends!
• Victory Pose On Person: Episode 1011 shows one of Black Maria's subordinates posing on Sanji with her foot on his upper body following Sanji's capture.
• Villain Has a Point: In the aftermath of Aramaki's attack, Momonsuke concedes that the Admiral had a valid point about Kaido's presence in Wano being a good deterrent against invaders.
• Villain Takes an Interest:
  • Kaido towards Luffy. Even though the former defeats the latter effortlessly in one hit, Luffy manages to use Supreme King's Haki—while unconscious—to knock out some of his men. Kaido is impressed by Luffy's strong willpower, and decides to have him thrown in prison (instead of a worse possible fate) to break Luffy's spirit so he'll eventually work for the Beast Pirates.
  • Kaido seems to have had similar thoughts towards Eustass Kid (who also has King's Haki) after defeating him, too.
  • This is applied to just about anyone he fights that bears Supreme King's Haki. He barely even notices Zoro until the swordsman unconsciously uses his Supreme King's Haki during his last attack on Kaido.
• Villain Team-Up: After briefly clashing, Kaido and Big Mom form a pirate alliance to Take Over the World.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Big Mom and Kaido end up as this after rekindling their friendship. Yeah, they're still going to try and kill each other after everyone else is dead, but that's no reason they can't get along merrily for the time being.
• Web Comic Time: The arc, which took place in the span of 2 weeks, took four years in real time to complete.
  • Extended even further in Act 3, which took place in a hundred chapters (and 3 years), but only covered events occurring in a single night.
• Weredragon: There are a number of characters in this arc that can turn into dragons via the Devil Fruits they've eaten. Momonosuke and Kaido are capable of turning into Eastern dragons. X Drake, Page One, Queen, Ulti, and Sasaki are capable of turning into dinosaurs while King is capable of turning into a pteranodon however, as their Devil Fruits are identified as being different ancient type models of the Dragon Dragon Fruit line, they also qualify as weredragons.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: In the bathhouse, while putting her hands up in front of Hawkins, Nami's towel falls down. Cue Sanji's massive nosebleed.
• We Will Meet Again: Luffy extending an open invitation for Momonosuke, Kin'emon, Tama, and Yamato to join his crew in the future implies that the Straw Hats will see them all again someday.
• Wham Episode: This arc is one of the biggest contenders in One Piece, causing some of the biggest events and reveals for now.
  • Only the third chapter into the arc, we get this when we learn Ace was supposed to come back to Wano to uphold a promise made to young Tama.
  • In Chapter 919, we find that Momonosuke and all his retainers are actually from the Land of Wano of 20 years ago.
  • Chapter 923 sees Kaido demonstrating his status as "The Worlds Strongest Creature" by taking Luffy out in a single strike.
  • Chapter 930: Big Mom arrives to the island to enact her revenge against Luffy much to Kaido's annoyance. King manages to knock her ship back before it can get up the waterfall to the island, causing Big Mom to fall into the ocean. But that's no guarantee that that stopped her or her family. On the other hand, Sanji finally reveals his Raid Suit that Niji gave him in the previous arc, after previously having serious hang-ups about using Germa technology.
  • Chapter 954: Zoro agrees to return Shusui to Wano in return for Hiyori giving him Enma, one of the swords that used to belong to her father and the only one to ever scar Kaido. Law turns the tables on Hawkins and escapes with help from an unknown person, but not before Hawkins reveals that Scratchmen Apoo was working for Kaido the whole time and his alliance with Hawkins and Kid was a setup. Apoo returns and is revealed to be one of the high-ranked "Numbers" of Kaido's crew, and several of the other Numbers are giant monster-looking creatures. To top it off, Kaido and Big Mom have stopped fighting and decided to join together in a pirate alliance to take over the world.
  • Chapter 956-957 hits one with all kinds of shocking revelations:
    • The Reverie ends without a hitch, with Garp having a peaceful talk with the Ryugu Royal family, only for it to turn out that Sabo and the revolutionary commanders he was with have either been captured or killed. What's more, something has happened to Alabasta.
    • Koby calls Drake, who is revealed to not be a pirate at all, but a Marine secret agent who leads a covert unit called "Sword" that Koby is part of. Drake has realized as well the World Government's dealings with Orochi and Kaido, though this is cut off by the big twist...
    • After years of buildup, the shoe drops as it's confirmed what the big result of this year's Reverie was; The Warlord System is abolished. After being on the Three Great Powers since the very beginning of the series, the remaining members of Buggy, Mihawk, Weevil and Hancock have been stripped of their protection, with the Marines having come to capture them.
    • Continuing with the shocking twists, a huge exposition dump is made about the Rocks Pirates, the enigmatic crew mentioned back at the Reverie. The crew was an organisation formed by a member of the D. Clan named Rocks D. Xebec with the intent to Take Over the World, and had Kaido, Big Mom, Shiki, and Whitebeard all among its ranks. In order to defeat them, Garp and Roger were forced into an Enemy Mine during a battle in "God Valley" that saw the crew defeated. However, it is heavily implied there is much more to the incident that it seems, as the entire battle, the Rocks Pirates and God Valley itself had their existence covered up in the aftermath for some unknown reason.
    • Additionally, you know how impressive Luffy and Blackbeard's Emperor bounties of 1.5 and 2.2 billion were? Turns out it's nothing compared to the other emperors, with Shanks, Big Mom and Kaido sporting 4, 4.3 and 4.6 billion, or Whitebeard and Roger, who sported 5 and 5.5 BILLION.
  • 974: Kanjuro reveals himself as the traitor within the Red Scabbards, throwing a lot of his earlier actions and bad misfortune Kin'emon, Raizo, and Momonosuke had into a darker light.
  • Chapter 985: Kaido reveals his main plan: He and Big Mom will join in alliance and turn Wano into the "New Onigashima", i.e into a lawless region for pirates with Yamato as the new ruler and make more factories to eventually become a superpower and then seek out the ancient weapons and go after One Piece. When Orochi objects, Kaido beheads him without a second thought and gives Orochi's followers the ultimatum to either follow him or die.
  • Chapter 1037: Not only does Zunesha suddenly show up at Wano to the shock of the World Government, it's implied he's a devil fruit user!
  • Chapter 1040: After a long arduous fight Law and Kidd manage to finally defeat Big Mom by blowing her through a hole they made in Onigashima, inadvertently setting off one of the powder bombs, blowing up huge chunks of Onigashima to bits, but seemingly dissipating Kanjuro's fire spirit. With those threats neutralized Momonosuke tells Yamato that he needs to help Zunesha and reveals that he was a companion of Joyboy from eight hundred years ago.
  • Chapter 1043-44: Through his brush with certain death, Luffy has awakened his fruit. Furthermore, we learn (through a flashback with the Five Elder Stars and the CP0 agent that nearly got Luffy killed) that his fruit isn't the Paramecia type Gum-Gum fruit. In reality, his fruit is the Mythical Zoan Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika, holding the powers of an in-universe sun god who's also known as Joy Boy, The Warrior of Liberation, and Freedom Incarnate. With this reveal also comes the realization that Luffy's stretchy powers are and always have been a form of Toon Physics which encompass Nika's sphere of "Freedom", which now awakened he can not only control to absurd extents on himself, but also project onto the environment and others, becoming a Reality Warper who quickly turns the fight with Kaido into a goofy, toony one-sided battle as if Shonen met a 1940's era rubberhose cartoon.
  • Chapter 1054: It's revealed what happened at the Reverie that shook the rest of the world; the Revolutionaries attacked the living quarters of the Celestial Dragons and destroyed the hoof of the Celestial Dragons openly declaring war upon the nobles. Nefeltari Cobra was then assassinated and Vivi disappeared, with both events being attributed to Sabo who has been declared as the hero of the world. The Revolutionaries were also able to rescue Kuma and escape, while Saint Charlos was almost murdered by an assassin who escaped. All these events, combined with an Eight-Nation Revolution, has caused the seeds of unrest around the world to be spread. And if that wasn't enough, Shanks returns in this chapter and declares that it's time for the Red Haired Pirates to capture the One Piece.
• Wham Line:
  • Just when you think you know everything about Momonosuke and his retainers, Kin'emon drops this bombshell in Chapter 919:
    Kin'emon: The truth is we came from the Wano County from 20 years ago, by traveling forward in time.
  • A surprising one delivered by Big Mom.
    Big Mom: Who am I?
  • At the end of Chapter 954...
    Kaido: The Animal Kingdom Pirates...
    Big Mom: ..and the Big Mom Pirates...
    Both: ...are going to be forming a pirate alliance!
  • Koby has this bombshell to deliver in the Wham Episode that was Chapter 956.
    Koby: I'm on my way to the Island of Women, to capture the Pirate Empress, Boa Hancock!
  • This line from chapter 957 completely changes the meaning of being a Pirate King.
    Brannew: Captain of the Roger Pirates, King of the Pirates, Gold Roger!! 5,564,800,000 Berries!!!
  • In Chapter 974, the Red Scabbards start to suspect a mole in their group as their every move seems to have been anticipated. The group argue about the possibility of it openly. Kiku tries to tell Kin'emon that can't be right, but Kin states the traitor won't just reveal himself to them. And then one of them pipes in with this line.
    Kanjuro: Kiku is right, Kin!! Let us clear it all up now!!! By acknowledging... that it was me!!!
  • The man who opens the door to the room that the Akazaya Nine are in has one thing to say:
    Oden: You guys look like you've taken a beating!! I was hoping that our paths would cross again!! You've all aged quite a bit!! Wahahahaha!!
  • In Chapter 1017, Who's-Who delivered one of the most shocking lines in the manga:
    Who's-Who: Twelve years ago, a Devil Fruit was stolen from a government ship. And when Straw Hat Luffy appeared two years ago, I was shocked to learn the truth. That Straw Hat had eaten the very Gum-Gum Fruit that was stolen from the ship!!!
  • In Chapter 1040 Momonosuke reveals some pretty shocking news about the secret of Zunesha:
    Momonosuke: Zunesha is very close by!!!
    Yamato: What...? The elephant from Oden's journal?!
    Momonosuke: Indeed!! A companion of Joyboy who committed a crime 800 years ago!!!
  • In Chapter 1043, just as Luffy is feared dead, Zunesha tells Momonosuke that he can hear the Drums of Liberation for the first time in eight centuries, right as Luffy becomes covered in a strange white substance and smiles.
    Zunesha: I hear the drums of liberation. For the first time in 800 years... he is here!!!
    Momonosuke: Who is?!
    Zunesha: Joy Boy... has returned!!
  • Chapter 1053, we get a two-fer.
    • When Tenguyama finds Robin in the basement of Oden's Castle and reveals he knows her name despite never having met up to this point
      Tenguyama: I was imprisoned [in the castle basment] for several years you see.
      Robin: Imprisoned? Who are you? I thought you were a blacksmith.
      Tenguyama: I had some skills at forging katana but it was just for fun. Ruling a kingdom can be so tiring. (He takes off his mask)
      Robin: Huh?!
      Tenguyama: My name is Kozuki Sukiyaki, the father of Kozuki Oden.
    • And after he explains what happened, Robin interrupts him.
      Robin: Wait...Mr. Tengu. I'm certain that somewhere in this country is the ancient weapon Pluton. The Ponegliff in Alabasta said it was here.
      Sukiyaki:(Drops his mask in surprise) ...It is.
  • In Chapter 1054, Shanks puts the newspaper down and with ominous ambition in his eyes finally decides to take part in the Throne Wars.
    Shanks: Hey, Beck... Isn't it about time to go and claim it? ...The One Piece.
• Wham Shot:
  • When Luffy heads out to find someone to treat Tama's illness, he arrives at a completely barren wasteland with factories in the distance. As it turns out, the sheer poverty and pollution outside of Wano's capital is so bad that the land is mostly unable to support living. Given the series' propensity for Scenery Porn, the result is unsettling to say the least.
  • The final panel of Chapter 918 features grave-markers for Momonosuke and his retainers.
  • The last spread of Chapter 921 reveals that Kaido's Devil Fruit power enables him to become a dragon.
  • Chapter 922 gives us Kaido shooting a giant beam of heat energy from his mouth to obliterate the ruins of Oden Castle; to Luffy and Law's horror as the Straw Hats and allies were still there. Luffy decides he's had enough and goes on to punch Kaido.
  • Chapter 923 has Kaido one-shot Gear Four Luffy just to show how outclassed Luffy was by the strongest creature in the world.
  • Chapter 925 has an unexpected appearance by the Blackbeard Pirates, and none other than Blackbeard himself, whose bounty has shot up from nothing to the highest known in the series at the time. However, the real shocker is when Shilliew appears using Absalom's Devil Fruit ability and Catarina Devon reveals to Gekko Moria that his cohort has been slain.
  • Chapter 930: Big Mom arrives to the island to enact her revenge against Luffy, much to Kaido's annoyance. King knocking her and her crew into the sea as well. Also, Sanji pulling out the Raid Suit belt as he prepares to fight Page-One.
  • Chapter 938: A Wham Line along with a map at the end of the chapter, which shows where everyone is at the time, reveals that Hiyori, Momonosuke's little sister, is Komurasaki.
  • Chapter 953: The final page shows that Gyukimaru the monk bandit is really a fox named Onimaru.
  • Chapter 973: A rage and despair-induced Denjiro undergoes a massive transformation, and as he exits the cabin several months later, he looks extremely familiar to a certain ally of Orochi we saw earlier - Kyoshiro.
  • Chapter 974: Kanjuro reveals himself as the mole within the Red Scabbards and was working for Orochi and Kaido all along, feeding them information about the rebels' plans.
  • Chapter 981: Marco showing up and knocking the Big Mom Pirates back down the waterfall to prevent them from getting into Wano. Significant as he had stated earlier he couldn't make the trip due to wanting to protect Whitebeard's hometown.
  • Chapter 984: Luffy finally meets Kaido's son Yamato... who is formally, temporarily, introduced as Kaido's daughter.
  • Chapter 985: Kaido beheads Orochi after he makes his intent to take over the Flower Capital for himself known.
  • Chapter 997: The end of the chapter sees Onigashima being floated up by Kaido's power which he starts to move toward Wano.
  • Chapter 1000: Luffy punches Kaido in the face, and unlike the last time they met, he manages to actually hurt him and draw blood. Showing that Luffy's training in the mines has brought him one step closer to matching the greatest powers in the sea.
  • Chapter 1003: CP0 is revealed to be on Onigashima. They don't get involved in things...yet. But are observing how things are proceeding, secertly hoping that either side will take the other out. Meawnwhile Kaido has decided to go to his hybrid form, a sign he deems Luffy, Zoro, Law, Kidd and Killer worthy of his time and is about to go all out.
  • Chapter 1010: Zoro has Supreme King's Haki. This is then overshadowed by Luffy figuring out how to imbue his own Supreme King's Haki into his attacks, allowing him to finally go toe-to-toe with Kaido one-on-one.
  • Chapter 1011: Big Mom punching out Page One after learning Okobore Town was destroyed with Ulti witnessing the scene.
  • Chapter 1013: Luffy falling from Onigashima, having lost to Kaido once more.
  • Chapter 1015: While fleeing from Big Mom, Nami finds that Zeus's face on her Sorcery Clima-Tact.
  • Chapter 1023: Momo has been aged up via a facet of Shinobu's Ripe Ripe powers and is now not only 28 years old with a striking resemblance to his father Oden but also capable of transforming into a dragon form on par with Kaido himself, albeit pink.
  • Chapter 1026: Luffy's second rematch with Kaido begins with a Haki-infused attack collision between club and fist that splits the heavens, cementing once and for all that Luffy has reached the power level of a true Emperor.
  • Chapter 1037: Zunesha suddenly shows up at Wano!
  • Chapter 1043: Luffy, who had just been knocked out by Kaido, is seen grinning as a strange rubbery substance is seen coming off his body. As this is happening, Zunesha insists to Momonosuke that Joy Boy has returned.
  • Chapter 1044: Not only has Luffy Awakened his Devil Fruit, but it's revealed that he's not a Paramecia, but a Mythical Zoan, with his fruit's true name being the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika.
  • Chapter 1053: Hang onto your butts, this one's a whopper:
    • Unsurprsingly, Luffy, along with Kidd and Law's, bounties shoot up to 3 Billion Berries after they topple the former Pirate Emperors.
    • Oden's father, Sukiyaki, is revealed to be alive having been Tenguyama the entire time (though doesn't have the courage to tell Momo or Hiyori).
    • Robin finds out that the ancient weapon Pluton, is indeed in Wano as she had found out from Alabasta.
    • Admiral Aramaki finally reveals himself and has arrived on the island. Showing himself a threat by taking out all the remaining Animal Kingdom Pirates.
    • And finally we're shown the new status of the Pirate Emperors: Shanks, Blackbeard, Luffy and...Buggy?!
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • A comedic non-verbal example. When the Sunny is caught in a whirlpool as they enter the island, Luffy bounces everyone off the ship and is about to jump off himself, telling the Sunny he promises to find it. The figurehead actually gives out an expression that screams this trope.
  • Hitetsu points out to Luffy that point-blank reporting Ace's death to Tama is a bad idea. He's also furious when he learns that Tama gave Luffy her meager rations, which led to her drinking tainted water and poisoning herself.
  • Buggy calls out the Marines intent to recapture him about them outliving their usefulness, in wake of the abolishment of the Seven Warlords.
• Whole-Plot Reference: As of chapter 920, the arc is one to Momotarō. The Peach Boy (Momonosuke) and his band of companions which included a Monkey (D Luffy) and a Dog (Inuarashi) storming the lair of the evil overlord. Oda even named that lair Onigashima. Given the thread of the retainers of a daimyo getting revenge on his killer in a decisive raid, there's also some elements of The 47 Ronin mixed in as well.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Turns out the entire reason Wano is extremely impoverished outside the Flower Country (where forces loyal to Orochi live), because the citizens ensured the Kurozumi Family will never live a dignified life due to being branded dishonorable traitors, and Orochi used his 25 years to pettily avenge the mistreatment done to his clan.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In addition to not killing Luffy after defeating him and just throwing him in prison, Kaido and Orochi have apparently imprisoned thousands of other dissenters against their rule rather than just having them executed. While it could be argued that they want as many workers as possible in their prisoner mines, this sets the stage for a rebellion from these prisoners once the remnants of the Kozuki clan return after 20 years. Hawkins later explains to Law that Kaido never kills strong people right away, and tries to break their spirits to get them to work for him first, only killing them once it becomes clear that nothing will ever make them submit.
• Wild Card: Big Mom. The amount of times she changes sides over the course of this arc is absolutely staggering. After attempting to enter the country to kill Luffy, despite knowing damn well it would start a war with Kaido, King flips over her ship, dropping her into the sea and causing her to lose her memory after she washes ashore. She then befriends Chopper, Tama, Momo, and Kiku, who then use her to break Luffy out of prison by saying there was o-shiruko there. After attacking Queen, she then turns against Luffy after learning he ate all the o-shiruko there. Then Queen (mostly by dumb luck) manages to knock her out and capture her, bringing her to Kaido, where by that point she regains her memories and gets into a fight with her fellow Emperor. Then she decides to team up with Kaido to conquer the world and find One Piece (and kill Luffy in the process). And then, during the Final Battle, she turns against Kaido's forces after learning they destroyed Okobore Town, which showed her hospitality while she was amnesiac.
• Wild Take:
  • Franky, Robin, and Usopp all have one when they read whatever's in the "special edition" newspaper about Luffy. Special mention has to go to Robin's, which is completely unlike any face she's ever made in the manga and is by far her strangest one.
  • The anime extends this scene with Zoro making his own funny face in reaction to... eating overly spicy wasabi. Once he notices the news about Luffy he spits on Yasu's face in shock and gets angry instead.
  • Later, after Luffy awakens his Devil Fruit, he and shortly afterwards Kaido display a variation unlike any previous examples, complete with eye pops of the "extra pairs of eyes appear in front the original pair" variation, akin to classic cartoons or comic strips.
• The Worf Effect: A rare instance where the protagonist is subject to this: During their first encounter, a fully-rested Luffy goes all out from the start, only to be defeated by Kaido in a single blow to establish just how much of a threat the latter is.
• World of Technicolor Hair: We see tons of technicolor hair among Wano's citizens. Tonoyasu/Yasuie and Hyogoro actually do have deep blue hair, Komurasaki/Hiyori's hair is turquoise, Toko's is pink, and Tama's is light purple.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: As Marco explains, Edward Weevil and his mother are after Whitebeard's fortune as one of the pirate emperors. However Whitebeard didn't have a fortune to inherit. He used every berry he had to look after his hidden hometown. This is also the reason Marco opts to stay rather than immediately go with Cat Viper to Wano and join the Alliance in their fight against Kaido because he knows if Weevil and his mother find the place, they'll raze it to the ground trying to find where they think the "real treasure" is.
• Worthy Opponent: At the end of Chapter 1035, with his battle against Luffy continuing, to the point that he's actually starting to tire, Kaido finally sees the Straw Hat captain as this, and actually grins, stating he was starting to enjoy the fight.
• Wrecked Weapon: In Chapter 1031, Sanji crushes his Raid Suit underfoot for good due to its effects of awakening his dormant augmentations, which apparently also cause him to start developing Lack of Empathy like his siblings.
• Written by the Winners: The Kozuki clan are made out to be villains of the land with schools teaching their students that them trying to open the gates to foreigners was a heinous action and that Orochi is considered a "hero" for stopping them.
• Wutai: The titular setting of the arc, the Land of Wano. Wano is just one giant love letter to traditional Japanese culture and heritage. The country is heavily styled after feudal Japan, complete with samurai, ninjas, geishas, and the like. What natural beauty untouched by the ravages of Kaidou resemble the Ukiyo-e genre of Japanese art with gorgeous locations looking like they came straight out of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings. This aesthetic also is prevalent in varying degrees in Wano's people such as Kin'emon and the country's fauna. Additionally, many of the country's native creatures come straight out of traditional Japanese Mythology such as komainu, tanuki, and qilin to just name a few.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: After Kaido nukes Oden Castle, Luffy launches an attack on him. When Law protests, Luffy claims as long as Kaido is beaten, then the plan for the rebels is successful either way. So he goes on a massive onslaught against Kaido, actually managing to knock him out of his dragon form and landing some solid hits on his human form as well. But none of his attacks really do any damage and Kaido ends the fight in one hit once he retaliates.
• You Have Failed Me: After Kamazo (actually Killer) fails to kill Toko as he was assigned to do by Orochi, and is defeated by Zoro, he is taken to Udon prison as punishment.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: It is shown that the moment after the Reverie abolished the Seven Warlords, the Marines have assembled to take all of the remaining Warlords down.
• You Remind Me of X: After Luffy uses his Red Hawk on Holdem, Tama remarks that it was just like Ace.
• You're Not My Father: After Yamato realizes that Kaido really did rig his handcuffs to explode, the former disowns Kaido and turns down his goading to become Wano's shogun.
• You Wake Up on a Beach: After the Thousand Sunny is dragged into a whirpool, Luffy wakes up on a beach with the Thousand Sunny laying on the shore and the rest of the crew nowhere to be seen. The following chapter explains why that happened, though Luffy's still left on his own.

Story Impact

• Zoro gains Oden's sword Enma, replacing Shusui, which is later reinstated to its rightful place.
• Big Mom and Kaido make a pirate alliance to Take Over the World.
• The Seven Warlords System is abolished by the World Government.
• The existence of Rocks D. Xebec, Gol D. Roger's enemy who fought him decades before the beginning of the story, is revealed, as is the fact he was the captain under which three of the original Four Emperors served.
• It's revealed that the final island's name is "Laugh Tale" and was named by Gol D. Roger himself.
• Jimbei properly joins the Straw Hat Pirates.
• Big Mom is defeated by Law and Kid.
• The Gum-Gum fruit is actually the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika, a Mythical Zoan fruit with the power of the Sun God Nika.
• Zoan fruits have wills of their own.
• Luffy is confirmed as the modern incarnation of Joy Boy, inheriting the will of the legendary historical one, and wields the same Devil Fruit.
• Luffy awakens his fruit and achieves Gear Five.
• Kaido is defeated by Luffy.
• Luffy, Law and Kidd's bounties are updated to 3 Billion Berries after news breaks of Big Mom and Kaido's defeats. What's more Luffy's mystical form is shown on his poster to the anger of the Five Elders who didn't want that information getting out.
• Pluton is indeed revealed to be on Wano. At the same time, Wano used to be a larger empire that got submerged by the rising sea level.
• Kaido and Big Mom had been kicked out from their status of Pirate Emperors. And their replacements are Luffy, offically named a Pirate Emperor, and Buggy.
• The Rebels actually managed to escape Fujitora and Ryokyogu at the Reverie, and managed to capture Kuma to (hopefully) restore his humanity. Also, their brazen assault and getting away with it inspired multiple kingdoms to join the Rebellion. Unfortunately, the reports also state that Vivi's father Cobra was slain by Sabo and Vivi herself is missing.
• With Kaido defeated, the Straw Hat Pirates and the Heart Pirates dissolve their alliance.
• Nekomamushi and Inuarashi stay in Wano to help Momonosuke rebuild Wano after Orochi and Kaido devastated it, as they select Carrot as the next leader due to her experience with the outside world.
• Luffy gives Momonosuke a Straw Hat flag as a parting gift, officially marking Wano as Straw Hat territory.

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