One Piece: Where Was Zoro During the Whole Cake Island Arc?
Roronoa Zoro is undoubtedly one of the best-known One Piece characters. Like Luffy, Zoro wants to be the best in his own category, i.e., he wants to become the best swordsman in the world, surpassing his idol and rival, Dracule Mihawk, who is said to be the best swordsman in the world. People have been talking about Zoro for years, as he is one of the most popular One Piece characters in history. In this article, we are going to focus on a specific part of the story as you are going to find out where Zoro was and what happened to him during the Whole Cake Island Arc.
The Whole Cake Island Arc is the official name of the unofficially titled Big Mom Arc, which is divided into three smaller sections. After the first one, the Zou Arc, the group decided to split into two, with one group consisting of Luffy, Nami, Chopper, Brook, Carrot, and Pedro, while the other consisted of Zoro, Nico Robin, Franky, Law. While the first group went to save Sanji, the second went straight to Wano Country, where they would later regroup.
The rest of this article will focus on the character of Zoro and the Whole Cake Island Arc of One Piece. We are going to tell you the story of the Whole Cake Island Arc and what happened to Zoro, i.e., where he was during the events of this important narrative arc. This article might contain a smaller number of spoilers, so do be careful while you’re reading.
Where was Zoro during the Whole Cake Island Arc?
After the Zou Arc, the group decided to split. Namely, one group had to go save Sanji, while it was decided that the others would ultimately head to Wano Country right away, where it was necessary for them to go anyway. The group that went to save Sanji from Big Mom consisted of Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Tony Chopper Chopper, Brook, Carrot, and Pedro. In contrast, the remaining members – i.e., Zoro, Nico Robin, Franky, and Trafalgar D. Water Law – went straight to Wano Country.
In the Country of Wa, Kin’emon explains the situation of the country to the pirates and asks them to infiltrate the population without attracting attention until they are ready to act. Zoro later reaches the destroyed remains of Oden Castle, amazed by what he finds there. Zoro plays the role of the ronin “Zorojuro” in the Flower Capital, who, however, is accused of having killed three people and of having stolen the Shusui, who disappeared twenty-three years earlier together with Ryuma’s corpse and therefore must commit seppuku.
When he realizes that the real culprit of the murders is the magistrate, he stabs him with the tantō, also destroying the building behind it. He then reaches a wasteland, where he feeds on some animals and eliminates two of Kaido’s subordinates who were chasing a woman to rob her in order to drink their sake. Here he unexpectedly meets his captain, but the two are immediately joined by Basil Hawkins with some of his men and prepare for battle.
Hawkins asks the two pirates if they know who has control of the country, and Luffy responds positively, also revealing that he wants to defeat Kaido, retracting as soon as Zoro reminds him that Kin’emon had asked them not to tell. Hawkins predicts the pair’s chances of surviving a month at nineteen percent, then has his men attack them. Although Zoro asks him to see his sword advising him not to handle it, Luffy draws it and fights to hold it, hitting the opponents as usual; when one of the enemy mounts also attacks him, the pirate throws it at Hawkins, who stabs her.
Zoro strikes the enemy captain, who, however, deflects the attack to one of his subordinates and therefore reveals the power of his fruit, to use then tarot cards capable of changing the behavior of those around him. Komachiyo, frightened, grabs Zoro and Luffy and hurries to flee as Tama’s fever rises. Hawkins has his giant straw monster chase them but is shot down by the swordsman. As Komachiyo continues running, Tsurujo, the woman Zoro saved earlier, comes out of her tail and asks to take Tama to her home to cure her of the poisoning of the polluted river.
Reaching the town of Okobore, Tsuru shouts to the maid Kiku to prepare the necessary to cure the child. As she finishes blindfolding Zoro, Kiku introduces himself to him and Luffy. Tama feels better and, while eating heartily the meal prepared for her by the owner of the inn, she answers a question from Luffy by revealing that the food she created cannot actually quench hunger. Then, Tsuru admits that he understood that the two are foreigners and shows them the mountain on which the castle of Kozuki Oden stood up to about twenty years before, which ruled over the entire nation, with an immense farm at its foot that fed the people of Kuri, now under the control of shogun Kurozumi Orochi.
While she talks about how Okobore was born and fed by the waste of the city inhabited by government officials, the woman is shot at by an arrow, stopped in time by Zoro’s sword. It was shot by one of the Gifters, who recognizes the ronin after he blocks all of his arrows; meanwhile, another Gifter kidnaps Tama. To chase the enemy and recover the child, Kiku grabs a katana and climbs on the back of Komachiyo, joined by Luffy and Zoro, to whom he reveals that he is a samurai and shows a notebook in which he has marked various useful information on the district inhabited by officers and pirates they go into.
Entering Bakura, Luffy yells their goal to save Tama, being stopped by Kiku; having alerted the guards at the main gate, Luffy knocks them out, and then the group continues, with Kiku explaining how the shogun’s underlings have occupied the city for the past twenty years. Suddenly, something flies towards them, and Luffy grabs it: he is a sumo wrestler, hurled by the champion Urashima. The latter spots Kiku and orders other fighters to bring it to him; the latter kidnaps the woman because Zoro does not want to hurt unarmed men. The story continues later on during the Wano Country Arc, but this is what happened to Zoro during the initial phase of the arc and while the others were rescuing Sanji.