Early on in the One Piece series, the Land of Wano is a peaceful and thriving kingdom, but this is brought to an end by Orochi. Fueled by vengeance and hatred, Kurozumi Orochi antagonized the Land of Wano and made it his goal to make the residents suffer. Why so much hate? You may ask.
Most extrajudicial citizens of the Wano Kingdom sought to wipe out the Kurozumi Clan because the Head of the Kurozumi Clan poisoned and killed other Daimyos to become the Shogun. Orochi survived with help from Higurashi, becoming the illegitimate Shogun of the Wano Kingdom and exercising his revenge on the people of Wano for more than two decades. His reign of terror continued until the combined force of Luffy and the Samurai of Wano stopped him.
The Kurozumi Clan
The Kurozumi Clan was part of the Ruling Families of the Wano Kingdom. They lost this power due to their failed attempt to seize the title of Shogun. From that moment, they became hated by the people of Wano because of the atrocities Orochi’s Grandfather committed. Orochi first appeared as Kurozumi; as a child, his family was poor due to their loss of power. While the land of Wano wiped out his family, he escaped and would later meet two other Kurozumi’s who survived the onslaught.
Higurashi and Semimaru of the Kurozumi Clan
After Kurozumi Orochi escaped death, he encountered some of his clan members, Kurozumi Higurashi and Kurozumi Semimaru. Higurashi told him about the history of the Kurozumi clan and what his grandfather did, and also told him his grandfather was forced to commit suicide. She also told him the Kurozumi name became taboo in the Wano Kingdom because of their crimes. Higurashi offered Orochi a devil fruit that would help him take the title of Shogun, and he accepted it. With an ulterior motive to usurp the Shogun, he starts working as a servant for one of the daimyos of Wano, Shimotsukie Yasuie.
Orochi’s Rise To Power
Yasuie was a lovely man; he didn’t know Orochi’s true identity and always treated him kindly. When Yasuie’s home was a mess, Orochi blamed Oden for this and said he was responsible for stealing the money in Yasuie’s house, but it was Orochi who did all this. Orochi later stopped serving under Yasuie, and Oden supported him with money. After that, he started working under Kozuki Sukiyaki, who was the Shogun and also Oden’s father. This was possible because Higurashi disguised herself as Oden to help Orochi serve under the Shogun. While working for the Shogun, Orochi poisons him gradually. The poison doesn’t work immediately but weakens his health. And once he dies, Higurashi disguises herself as him and proclaims Orochi as the new Shogun. All this was possible because Oden was on pirate voyages with the Roger Pirates.
Is The Hebi Hebi Devil Fruit a Mismatch for Orochi?
Kurozumi Orochi was short with an unimaginably big head, almost as big as his body, if not bigger. He wasn’t a man with an intimidating appearance or an appearance to be feared. Instead, he looked more like a man who couldn’t defend himself in combat. However, his devil fruit was a mythical Zoan type, the Hebi Hebi No Mi: Yamata no Orochi, which allows the user to transform into a multi-headed dragon. The fruit grants Orochi separate heads of snakes; each head has an extremely long neck.
Each could speak by itself, but there’s a limit to the number of heads that can come out once, which is 8. Some extra information about this fruit is that only one of the 8th heads possesses Orochi’s normal human form features. For example, his mustache and crown only appear on one of his heads when he’s a snake. Also, the head is darker than the remaining seven heads. The power of this fruit enabled him to attack multiple people at once. Although he doesn’t engage in battle much, we see that he wields a powerful Devil Fruit.
The Ravaging of Wano
Kurozumi Orochi starved the people of the Land of Wano, keeping all the food for himself and the flower capital. Hence, villagers had nothing to eat, and most died of starvation. Also, he instructed the factories to dump their wastes in the pipelines, which made the water poisonous. Anyone who drank from the rivers fell sick and might later end up dying. During some early episodes of the Wano arc, we see the water poison Otama after drinking from the stream. And this made Luffy promise to liberate the people of Wano. The people couldn’t plant either because the lands were dead.
The Smile Smile Fruit
The Smile Smile fruits are artificial devil fruits to enhance the power of their consumers. Ceaser, the scientist, produces these fruits for Kaido to increase the strength of the Beast Pirates. However, some of them don’t grant powers, but they take away the consumer’s ability to swim and also make them unable to express their emotion. These are the failed versions of the Smile Smile fruit. Orochi fed these failed versions of the smile fruit to the hungry villagers.
With no food to eat, the villagers consumed these failed smile fruits and started laughing uncontrollably. Even though they were in pain, they laughed. When Kid loses to Kaido, and Killer agrees to eat the fruit to save his captain, we can see Killer laugh uncontrollably. Even to the point that he cries while laughing to show his pain, Eustass Kid can’t help but keep asking what happened to Killer. This was how bad Orochi was a pain in the ass.
Denjiros Disguise and Orochi’s Fall
After Oden’s passing, Denjiro assumed the identity of ‘Kyoshiro,’ the head of the Kyoshiro Family, and appeared to be Orochi’s ally. He was lauded by Orochi during his feast for using force against opponents, demonstrating how highly he thought of him and his connections. Denjiro was able to gain Orochi’s trust after showing him how loyal he was. Denjiro killed Komuraski, who was Kozuki Hiyori, Oden’s daughter, in the guise. Orochi was mad at him for doing this, but at the same time, he trusted him because of this. On the other side, Denjiro had nothing but the utmost loathing for Orochi because of his part in Oden’s passing.
He was highly repulsed by the fact that he had bowed to Orochi in the role of Kyoshiro. Without hesitation, Kyoshiro disparaged Orochi behind his back, labeling him a coward. Orochi left Kyoshiro in command of the capital because of his blind faith in him, which turned out to be a grave mistake because it allowed Kyoshiro to rescue the rebels who were held captive in the Flower Capital. Orochi acknowledged that he was surprised when he discovered Kyoshiro’s true identity. Later, Denjiro hacked off the last head of Orochi’s Yamata no Orochi to prevent him from killing Hiyori in the Treasure Room of Onigashima. This act came after Denjiro had already removed his other heads, further weakening him.
