Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, is giving fans something new to look forward to! He announced on social media that a prequel to the manga series is on the way.
It’s called Zoro Josho Sasakaze, this prequel will explore the backstory of Roronoa Zoro, the tough former Pirate Hunter.
It’ll explore his early adventures before he became part of the Straw Hat Pirates. Fans are excited to learn more about Zoro’s past.
One Piece is a super popular manga series from Shueisha, with more than 1000 chapters out there. Now, why focus a whole novel on Zoro.
Well, it’s probably because he’s crazy popular! Fans just adore him. He’s right up there with the main guy, Luffy, in terms of love from the audience. So, it makes sense to give Zoro his own spotlight moment.
The Untold Tale of Roronoa Zoro in New Light Novel
Jun Esaka, a famous writer of short novels with exciting plots, will create the Zoro light novel. Nakamaru will provide illustrations for the book.
Esaka has written stories for Naruto before, like Naruto Shinden and Naruto Retsuden. He also crafted a One Piece novel called Heroine, focusing on female characters.
He’s working on turning One Piece into a Nintendo Switch game called One Piece Odyssey. Nakamaru will handle illustrations for the Zoro light novel too.
In ONE PIECE Magazine Vol. 18, there’s a special section dedicated to Zoro and Sanji called Wings. It includes a poster, details about the characters, and stickers.
Sanji, the charming chef of the Straw Hat Pirates, stars in his own manga spinoff called One Piece: Shokugeki no Sanji. You can read it in English thanks to Viz Media.
This manga dives into Sanji’s backstory, from his time at Baratie restaurant to his adventures as a pirate, including his experiences during the Arabasta Arc.
Before the Zoro light novel, One Piece delved into Zoro’s backstory through the anime adaptation of Monsters. Monsters is a short manga created by Oda, the mastermind behind One Piece.
It’s set in the One Piece universe many years prior to Luffy’s quest to become the Pirate King. The story revolves around the legendary samurai Shimotsuki Ryuma and his epic battle against a fearsome dragon.
In the modern timeline of One Piece, Ryuma, who’s been turned into a zombie by Gecko Moria, makes his appearance.
Zoro ends up facing and defeating Ryuma, gaining a powerful sword called Shusui, which is known as a Black Blade.
Oda later reveals that Zoro is actually a descendant of Ryuma and hails from the Shimotsuki clan in Wano Country.
This connection between the two characters is expanded upon in the Netflix anime series, narrated by Kazuya Nakai, who also voices Zoro in the Japanese version of the anime.
Inside the Journey of Zoro, One Piece’s Legendary Swordsman
Zoro is a big fighter in the Straw Hat Pirates crew. He’s one of the two sword fighters and also a top officer in the Straw Hat Grand Fleet.
People know him as the right-hand man of his captain, Monkey D. Luffy. Before, he used to be a bounty hunter. He’s the second person to join Luffy’s crew, and he did it in the Romance Dawn Arc.
Zoro was born in the East Blue. His parents are Tera and Roronoa Arashi. His grandparents are Shimotsuki Furiko and Roronoa Pinzoro.
He’s also the grandnephew of Shimotsuki Ushimaru. This makes him related to both the Shimotsuki Family from Wano Country and the famous samurai, Shimotsuki Ryuma.
Zoro is really good at using three swords at once. He came up with this style when he was training in Shimotsuki Village as a kid. In the Straw Hats crew, he’s one of the top three fighters, along with Luffy and Sanji.
They call them the Monster Trio. Zoro’s big dream is to be the best swordsman ever. He made a promise to his childhood friend and cousin, Kuina, who passed away, that he would achieve this dream.
Besides being famous as one of the Straw Hats and a past bounty hunter, Zoro got even more attention when he and Luffy arrived at the Sabaody Archipelago.
Their big bounties landed them among the eleven Super Rookies. These were pirates who reached the Red Line with bounties of over Beli100,000,000, just before the Summit War.
Zoro, along with the other ten Super Rookies and Marshall D. Teach, later got labeled as the Worst Generation.
Zoro is a big, strong guy with slightly tanned skin. He always has three swords with him, and one of them is called Wado Ichimonji.
He wears a green belt over his right hip, so he can easily grab his swords. His swords have changed over time because they’ve been broken and replaced with better ones.
Zoro can pull out his swords quickly with his right hand, even when he’s sitting down. He wears three gold earrings on his left ear and a black bandana around his left arm when he’s ready for serious fighting.
He often keeps his right hand resting on them. Zoro has lots of scars on his body from all the fights he’s been in.
One of the biggest scars goes from his left shoulder to his right hip. He got this scar when he lost a battle against Dracule Mihawk, who’s known as the world’s best swordsman, at Baratie.
Zoro has more scars that you can see, like the ones on his ankles. He got these scars when he tried to free himself from Mr. 3’s Tokudai Candle Service Set by cutting his feet off on Little Garden.
After the timeskip, he got another scar over his left eye, but nobody knows how he got it. Another thing that stands out about Zoro is his short green hair. Sanji likes to make fun of him by calling him marimo because his hair looks like one of those green moss balls.
