One Piece’s Next Arc, Total War, Promises Series’ Greatest Battle Ever

The creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, might have given his fans a huge spoiler regarding the next arc of the manga, and they have yet to realize it. In one of the SBS (Q&A) columns in volume 97 of the manga, Oda has teased that what’s coming next will be nothing short of “total war”.

In every published One Piece volume, between chapters, readers can find the “SBS corner”, where the author answers selected questions from the fans. In volume 97, answering a question regarding the announced end of One Piece 5 years from now, Oda revealed interesting details on what is waiting for Luffy and his crew after the end of the Wano arc. At the moment, the Straw Hats are locked in battle against two of the Four Emperors: Kaidou and Big Mom. These are the strongest enemies the crew has ever had to face, with victory still nowhere in sight. If they will be able to leave Wano safely, however, Oda has hinted at an even bigger threat looming next. Based on what has been shown until now, and on some clues that the author himself dropped, it is possible to make some predictions.

“There will be developments on a global scale,” Oda wrote. “a thrilling story the like of which no one has ever read before, I’ll draw the “greatest battle ever” in OP history.” There have been many “great battles” until now in One Piece. The most famous is certainly the “Summit War”, a massive conflict between the World Government and the Whitebeard Pirates, which was set in motion by the defeat of Portgas D. Ace at the hands of Marshall D. Teach, and led to Ace’s execution, the disbanding of the Whitebeard pirates, and the world power balance being upshifted with Blackbeard becoming the newest of the Four Emperors. Perhaps the greatest conflict took place 800 years before the events depicted in the manga and saw the Great Kingdom being defeated by the forces who would later create the World Government, at the end of a time period known as “the Void Century”, which holds the key to many of the mysteries in One Piece. Finally, the conflict going on in Wano is also on a significant scale, considering it will determine not only the future of a whole country but could also change the balance of world power forever if two of the Four Emperors will be defeated. Even more interesting, these events could all be connected to the upcoming “greatest battle”.

The wording used by Oda for “greatest battle ever”, in fact, uses the same kanji for “great” that the artist had already used on two occasions. The first is the “Great” Kingdom mentioned before; the second is a prediction made by Kozuki Oden, the legendary hero of Wano who was killed and dethroned by the pirate Kaidou and the treacherous usurper Kurozumi Orochi. In his diary, he left a prediction of a “great” war that would engulf the world in the future, involving a new generation of powerful pirates. So, “the greatest battle ever” could be connected to all of this, but there is more: Oda could have hinted at it at least 5 years ago. In chapter 801 of the manga, the pirate Donquixote Doflamingo is shown talking to a marine officer, and he makes an apocalyptic prediction for the future. With the number of pirates swelling, and the various powers of the world (the Four Emperors, the Shichibukai, the Marine, the Revolutionary Army) in turmoil, the Celestial Dragons (the nobles of the World Government) should be wary of what’s coming: the “Throne Wars”, the biggest war in all of history.

If the “throne wars” are the same conflict that Oda described as the “greatest battle ever”, then One Piece‘s author might have given a huge spoiler to his readers about what’s coming next in the manga.

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