One Piece: Why Did Zoro See the Grim Reaper? Here’s What Happened!

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. But, the swordsmen of One Piece are not the only interesting aspect – the swords are as well. In Wano Country, specifically in Chapter 1038, Zoro is seen fighting a large figure that looks like a Grim Reaper. Now, this is a very strange thing for Oda, as something like that had never happened before, so we have decided to write this article and explain why Zoro saw the Grim Reaper in Wano Country.

An official explanation about why Zoro saw and fought the Grim Reaper was never given, but given that he was heavily injured, the Grim Reaper was probably just a symbol of the gravity of his injuries and the fact that Zoro was very close to dying at this moment. Some theories offer a different explanation, but because Zoro was heavily injured, the near-death experience interpretation seems to be the most plausible.

The rest of this article will focus on the character of Zoro and his near-death experience in Wano Country, during which he saw the Grim Reaper. We will tell you about Zoro’s experience in Wano and also reveal why he saw the Grim Reaper and what the whole scene actually meant. This article might contain a smaller number of spoilers, so do be careful while you’re reading.

Zoro was on the verge of death, hence the Grim Reaper

The origins of this story actually begin with Zoro’s fight against King. Since this was a long battle, we will just recap its ending because the ending is what matters in this case. So, when King stripped off the remains of his mask and exposed his face to his nearby subordinates, they immediately recognized his features as those of a Lunarian. Zoro attacked King with his Rengoku Oni Firi but immediately realized that the attack had once again caused no damage due to King’s fire returning.

At that moment, King launched a fire dragon at Zoro, who dodged it, and they collided with his swords. Just like before, King tried to use his Swordbreaker to take Zoro’s swords away, but Zoro sent King flying with his Haki. Afterward, noticing King speeding up again, Zoro reacted quickly by using his Yakkodori technique to slice through King’s now vulnerable body instantly, just as the latter kicked him in the face.

When Zoro pointed out how King had begun to block his attacks and no longer seemed so invincible, King proclaimed that a human could never stand against his kind, and if anything, King would simply remember Zoro as a decent swordsman. Zoro denied this and said that he would make sure that King would remember him if he managed to survive.

King then created an even larger flame dragon and headed toward Zoro. The latter unhesitatingly jumped on the attack and, using a powerful attack with his Santoryu, split the dragon apart while sending a concentrated slashing wave towards King, damaging him squarely in the chest, severing part of his right-wing and destroying his sword. Zoro won the battle at this moment.

But, while King was finally defeated, Zoro’s battle was not over as he was heavily injured after the fight and seemingly on the verge of death. His friends and crewmates, Chopper and Franky, rushed to help him, but it took them a while before they actually reached their heavily-injured friend.

While he was waiting, Zoro observed a large figure over him. The figure in question was the Grim Reaper, who seemed to be preparing to slice Zoro with its scythe, with Zoro observing how he could not move to avoid the attack. We actually did not see the conclusion of this scene, but we know that Zoro later lost consciousness, as Franky reached and rescued him while he was in that state. Zoro would later wake up and heal, but we know how exhausting the fight against King was and how it cost Zoro a lot of energy.

Ultimately, we need to answer why Zoro saw the Grim Reaper. Namely, the appearance of the Grim Reaper was quite strange for One Piece, as Oda had not used this motif earlier in the story; the Grim Reaper would not be strange in some other popular series, but in One Piece, it simply felt like the odd man out.

So, why did Oda put that scene here? Well, we know that the Grim Reaper embodies death and that it comes for those who are about to die, cutting them with its scythe before taking them to the afterlife. Since we know that Zoro was heavily injured, it could be said that the Grim Reaper simply appeared because Zoro was on the verge of death (his friends even called out to him not to die before they reached him) and that Oda wanted to show that Zoro’s injuries were severe. Based on what we know, this seems to be the simplest and most precise explanation.

Other theories don’t seem to be plausible

If you look online, you’ll probably find other interpretations of this scene. One theory states that the Grim Reaper is related to Enma, Zoro’s blade and that Enma is actually a black blade, so the Grim Reaper was just a foreshadowing of this fact; knowing that Enma has a will of its own, this interpretation of the Grim Reaper is not that far-fetched.

Another theory states that the Grim Reaper might be connected to Hiyori and her song, which has a lot of references to both dreams and death, but this seems to be a very liberal approach to this fact, so we are not really sure that this theory makes a lot of sense. A simple explanation states that it was just Brook whom Zoro mistook for the Grim Reaper (since Brook is technically dead). Later events showed that this theory was not correct. There is also a theory that suggests that Zoro might just have been experiencing the side effects of the drug he had taken, but since the Minks did not experience any similar symptoms, this theory also doesn’t make much sense, like the one that this is just a manifestation of Hawkins’ Devil Fruit.

One additional theory is that the Grim Reaper was actually a manifestation of Zoro’s symbolic role in the story; namely, as time passed, each of the Straw Hats seems to be growing into and accepting their role in the story (e.g., Luffy becoming Joy Boy, or Sanji accepting his heritage), and in Zoro’s case, it could be a manifestation of his connection to death, with Zoro becoming something of a “King of Hell” or “King of Death.”

This theory makes some sense, and it doesn’t really present a completely ridiculous theory, but as we have stated: the Grim Reaper is a manifestation of death, and since Zoro was heavily injured at that moment, the fact that he saw the Grim Reaper attacking him probably meant that he was on the verge of death and nothing more.