In the story of One Piece, there’s no greater mystery than what in the world happened to Zoro’s missing eye. It’s been mysteriously absent since the two-year time skip, but any time someone asks him, he won’t talk about it. So, how could Zoro have lost his eye, assuming it’s not just a bit where he keeps his eye closed for fun?
Warning that this article contains spoilers for One Piece through the Egghead Island Incident, currently in chapter 1092 of the manga. To catch up, the entire series is available online through Viz!
Zoro’s Return
The Straw Hats split up for the two-year time skip to train and grow stronger, with most of their time offscreen. When they come back though, they have all kinds of cool new moves and a few new looks that take everyone by surprise. Of course, the girls’ makeovers take most people’s attention (Robin’s especially) but when Zoro appears he’s missing something and everyone can see. Zoro is missing his eye and has a nice scar going straight down where it’s missing. That’s kind of the biggest clue there is to it, and that’s all we know.
Even when other Straw Hats mention it Zoro just casually moves the conversation along. He hasn’t answered anything about it, even to Chopper as far as anyone knows. There’s no clue as to how he lost it or where, and anything is up for speculation.
Did Mihawk Take Zoro’s Eye?
This is the most likely answer, as Zoro underwent a ton of harsh training with the Warlord of the Sea during the two years. Mihawk doesn’t go easy either, because he almost straight up murdered Zoro in their first encounter. No doubt he would have gone even harder if he was trying to train Zoro to challenge him for his title. During the training, it’s entirely possible that Mihawk went in for a killing blow and blinded Zoro. Whether he took the full force of the hit or just sacrificed his eye to deflect is a mystery though.
Zoro Lost His Eye
If Zoro has some secret Devil Fruit nobody knows about, it would be the Lost-Lost Fruit. The guy gets lost everywhere, and often can’t keep up with things he does have. Zoro has three things he tries to keep on him at all times, and they’re all his swords. Even then he loses them more often than not when he needs them most.
This whole situation with the missing eye is Zoro’s fault, and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it. He still could have lost it to Mihawk in battle but blames himself for a stupid mistake he made. Or he could have just sliced his eye on accident while not even training. Hell, maybe he just encountered Down D Stairs and lost his eye in a battle there.
A Hidden Power?
Look, knowing Zoro and how much he gets lost, it’s completely possible he ends up in the Naruto universe. During that time he may or may not have taken a Sharingan to use for himself, and that could be what he’s concealing under the scar. Think about it, there’s precedent in the story for transferring eyes, set up through the Kakashi-Obito transfer. There’s every possibility Eiichiro Oda is just planning to use it as a gag down the road, having Zoro open his eye to reveal some crazy new power much like Kakashi once did.
Then comes everyone’s favorite stupid theory- he just forgot to open it after he got the scar. Zoro simply kept it closed so long for the scar to heal that he forgot how to open it, so now he just lives with it. It’s an incredibly stupid theory, but also just silly enough for One Piece. However Zoro lost his eye, it’s probably going to remain a mystery for the years to come in One Piece.
