Warning: contains spoilers of One Piece chapter 1055
With the latest One Piece chapter, Wano’s secret history and relevance to the overall story has finally been revealed. The idea of opening Wano’s borders has never been more pertinent and chapter 1055 reveals a massive secret about the Ancient Weapons. Additionally, this chapter gives much more credence to the idea that Kaido actually had a good reason for seizing control of Wano for decades.
In One Piece chapter 1055, readers learn that Sukiyaki, the father of Kozuki Oden, has been hiding a massive secret from everyone this entire time. Sukiyaki leads Nico Robin and Trafalgar Law down an old and moldy staircase as he explains just why Kaido wanted Wano for himself. He reveals that the three of them are already below sea level, and tells Robin and Law to look through a glass window hidden at the end of a crawl space. What they see is absolutely mindblowing- a completely sunken ancient city, the first Wano Country. Sukiyaki then reveals that this original Wano is about 800 years old at this point, from the time before the Void Century.
This lore reveal about Wano is already an insane development, but somehow things manage to get even crazier. Sukiyaki goes on to explain that the original Wano was built prior to 800 years ago, but for some mysterious reason, walls were built all around the island that caused rainwater to collect. This water eventually filled the land of Wano completely, forcing Wano’s people to relocate their country much higher on Mt. Fuji. This rainwater collection is what’s responsible for the massive waterfalls Luffy and Big Mom had to climb up just to get inside of Wano to begin with. The lore doesn’t stop there, however, as Sukiyaki shows Robin and Law the Road Poneglyph. He then reveals just why Wano’s borders were so important to begin with — opening the borders would unleash the Ancient Weapon, Pluton. The act of opening Wano’s borders is something that has been repeated like a mantra throughout the Wano Country Arc and this reveal shows readers exactly why Kaido was so obsessed with Wano in the first place.
Long ago, Kaido was one of the rookies in the pirate world who easily could have been Pirate King, had things worked out for the best. It seems that at some point in his life, Kaido’s journey began to parallel that of Joyboy’s, with his meeting of King being very much reminiscent of Luffy’s meeting Zoro. This is also shown in Kaido’s ordering and manufacturing of SMILE fruits, which function as a literal replacement for the smiles Joyboy is said to inspire all around the world. At this point in One Piece, there is still plenty of information Kaido has about the world and its history that he never gave up. One such piece of information could have been the importance of Wano’s borders, as chapter 1055 of One Piece confirms that one of his crewmates, Jack, found the Road Poneglyph, and perhaps even Pluton underneath the basin of rainwater collected over Old Wano.
While it’s currently unknown why Oden wanted to open the borders of Wano, or what it has to do with the One Piece, it will surely be interesting to see Momonosuke’s reaction to all of this information considering he now has the power to decide what to do with Wano. Hopefully Kaido’s knowledge about the true history of the world is explained at some point in the future but One Piece chapter 1055’s reveal about Wano proves that he surely knew something the other Yonko didn’t.