One Piece: The Meaning Behind Opening Wano's Borders, Explained

gamerant.com:

The Wano Country arc is quite possibly one of One Piece's most important story arcs so far. The entirety of the Straw Hats' time in the New World has slowly been building up to this arc and once it kick-started, Oda showed fans exactly why it was crucial to the story. Not only did this arc give Luffy his biggest challenge to date on his journey to becoming the Pirate King, but it also connected deeply to the One Piece itself, along with the secrets of the Void Century and the Ancient Weapons.

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Being the crafters of the Poneglyphs, the Kozuki, who are the leaders of the Wano Country, have always been deeply tied to the overarching plot of the story. As such, it is quite easy to see that those of Wano have always opposed the World Government and when it was mentioned that this country closed its borders to the outside world, it was evident that this was done to protect the nation or hide something from the outside world. Now, One Piece has finally delivered the answer to this question.

Wano's geography is rather strange. This was apparent as early as chapter 910 when the Straw Hat Pirates started making their way into the country. Nami mentioned that Kin'emon warned her about the barriers that protected the land of Wano from the outside world. As a country that follows the rule of isolation, it was no surprise that Wano had natural barriers protecting itself, however, the exact reason for their existence was unknown back then. What's even more surprising was the fact that to get to Wano country, the Straw Hat Pirates had to climb a waterfall. For the One Piece world, this was nothing too extraordinary, however, it certainly raised some questions as to why the land of Wano was