One Piece’s Ancient Weapons and Their Significance
Delving deep into a series that has spanned more than two and a half decades and still counting is a tall ask, but it sure is an interesting one when the series is brimming with mysteries and filled with plot threads extending over hundreds of episodes. And One Piece is filled with all of that and much more.
One of the selling points of the series is the intrigue and mystery with which it keeps the readers at the edge of their seats. And today, we will be going over one of the most important mystery in One Piece. We will be discussing the Ancient weapons in the series and everything we know about them so far.
There are a total of three ancient weapons in the One Piece Universe. They are extremely powerful weapons capable of mass destruction with their origins dating as far back as The Void Century 800 years ago.
The World Government fears these weapons to the point that it has banned the research of the Void Century because of them. They have propagated the agenda that someone might use their powers to cause mayhem in the world. These weapons may be living or non and all of them have been named after deities from different mythologies: Pluton, Poseidon and Uranus. Let’s discuss each one in detail.
Pluton:
Pluton is the ancient weapon that we know about the most. Despite not appearing in the story up till now, there have been countless storylines revolving around this ancient weapon. It was first mentioned back in Alabasta Arc.
One of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Crocodile believed that he could conquer the Grandline if he had this weapon. He thought that the information regarding its location was written on the Poneglyph present in the Alabasta Kingdom and that is why he hired Nico Robin, an archaeologist who could read these Poneglyphs, to reach that weapon.
The information about its whereabouts was indeed written back there and it indicated the location of Wano Kingdom. It is currently present under a secret cavern right at the bottom of Mount Fuji in Wano, and can only be released to the world when the walls on both sides of Wano are brought down, which is also the true meaning of “Opening the Borders of the Wano Kingdom”, a phrase iterated by the Samurai countless times.
Regarding its form, it is said to be a battleship capable of absolute destruction. Just like most of the ships in the One Piece world, it was built on the Shipwrights’ island, Water 7. After it was completed, the blueprints were preserved and passed down over generations of shipwrights so that if it ever fell into the wrong hands, then a new Pluton could be built as a countermeasure.
The blueprints kept passing down and reached Tom, the shipwright who built Roger’s ship. He had two apprentices, Iceberg and Franky. He handed over the blueprints to Iceberg, who then passed them on to Franky for an extra layer of protection.
After getting captured by the World Government alongside Nico Robin, Franky saw Robin’s intentions of never seeking out the Ancient Weapons. Seeing how she was the only person who could possibly decipher the location of Pluton, Franky saw it fit to burn the blueprints down so that no one could get their hands on it.
In the Current Story, we still don’t have a concrete look at what Pluton looks like but it is definitely going to be one of the most shocking reveals in One Piece.
Poseidon:
Despite Pluton being more involved in the story, we have actually seen Poseidon in the current storyline of One Piece.
It’s a living being, and the Princess of Fishman Island, Shirahoshi. As for the origins, Poseidon was a mermaid far back in the past. Its power was to communicate with the Sea Kings. No other Merfolk were capable of that. The last Poseidon was a Princess who lived during the Void Century. The current one is Shirahoshi as she has “inherited” the title by activating her power.
Shirahoshi can communicate with the Sea Kings and can command them as well. The Poneglyph that refers to Poseidon lies way up in the sky, in the land of Skypiea.
It was prophesied in Roger’s time, that the next Mermaid Princess will be born with a great power, and someone who can guide her on how to use that power will also come. Together they will use this power for its intended purpose. It is speculated that the person this prophecy is talking about is Luffy, but there has been no confirmation of that yet.
Uranus:
To everyone’s surprise, despite being more than 1100 chapters deep in the story, we still have no idea what the 3rd ancient weapon looks like, works like or even if it currently exists.
Numerous speculations have been made and countless theories have been proven wrong with time, but there is still no information regarding Uranus, its origins, its nature or even the Poneglyph that may reveal its location. However, a recent event in the Egghead Island Arc may actually give us clues about Uranus.
The Lulusia Kingdom had disobeyed the World Government and gave rise to a rebellion. Since it lay close to the Holy Land of Mariejois, Imu, the self-proclaimed King of the World, decided to remove it from the map of the world. He crossed it out on the map, and numerous destructive lights fell from the sky on that island and completely decimated it, leaving not even a speck of dust. It felt like, the island never existed.
Many One Piece fans are speculating that this power is too much for an individual to have and it might be the Ancient Weapon Uranus. However, no concrete hypothesis can be given about the weapon as of yet, which just adds to the intrigue of following this amazing anime and gives us another reason to dive into the beautiful world created by Eiichiro Oda.