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<b>BACKGROUND:</b> One Piece takes place in a universe largely dominated by ocean, with one major continent (the Red Line) bisecting it. An infamous sea known as the Grand Line running perpendicular to the Red Line further bisects the world into four major seas: East Blue, West Blue, North Blue, and South Blue. Twenty-two years ago, a man by the name of Gol D. Roger had amassed “everything the world had to offer” and hidden it somewhere in the Grand Line. Upon the moment of his execution, he put out the challenge for someone to claim his treasure, the One Piece, for themselves, and become the new King of Pirates--thus launching the Great Pirate Era.

However, piracy is illegal, and the mere act of creating a Jolly Roger (aka a pirate flag) is punishable in the eyes of the World Government and its primary military force, the Marines (also called the Navy). Due to the extensive amount of piracy in this era, though, the Marines focus most of their resources on the Grand Line, often ignoring the plight of small towns in favor of bigger fish to fry. To bridge the gap to some extent, bounties are placed on the heads of all known pirates, and powerful fighters often make their living as bounty hunters.

Zoro begins the series as one of these hunters. Little is known about his very early life, but we do know that as a child, he attempted to take over a dojo in a neighboring village, but was defeated by the dojo head’s daughter, Kuina. He then remains in the dojo for training so that he can improve and eventually defeat her. Based on the fact that he seems to have arrived in the village alone, and appears to have moved in permanently, it can be inferred that he was either orphaned, ran away from home, or was abandoned. Unless shown otherwise, I’m tentatively going with the headcanon that he was orphaned.

After a year of training, Zoro is still unable to defeat Kuina, though he has improved significantly, being stronger than all of the other children in the dojo, as well as the adults. He challenges her one night to a fight with real swords, and Kuina fights him with her family’s sword, the Wado Ichimonji. She wins again, but she’s frustrated at how much he’s caught up, and the fact that as Zoro matures, he will become physically stronger than her, simply because he was born male. However, Zoro disagrees, claiming that she’s always been his goal, and that he’s been training to improve so if he defeated her, it would be because of his skill. He tells her to make a promise with him, that night, that one of them would become the greatest swordsman in the world.

But the next day, Kuina is tragically killed in an accident when she falls down the store-room steps trying to get a sharpening stone for her sword. Kuina’s father tells Zoro about how she had begun to get complacent at the dojo because she had never faced a real threat of defeat, until Zoro had come along, and then she began to work even harder, so she wouldn’t lose to a boy. Ultimately, after hearing this, Zoro asks her father if he can have the Wado Ichimonji in pursuit of fulfilling their shared dream of becoming the greatest swordsman in the world, and he agrees.

Zoro remains in the dojo for eight more years, honing his skills so he can go out to sea in search of Dracule Mihawk, the current world’s strongest, and challenge him. However, once he sets out on his journey, he ends up getting lost due to his terrible sense of direction, and has to start collecting bounties as means of supporting himself. In doing so, he begins to build a name for himself in the East Blue, and at one point the bounty hunter organization Baroque Works attempts to recruit him, but he refuses to join.

Ultimately, circumstances cause him to give up being a bounty hunter. He gets captured by the Navy after taking the punishment for a small child who had angered a captain’s son, and when it becomes apparent that their agreement is not going to be honored and the man intends to have him executed, he agrees to join Luffy’s pirate crew to avoid certain death. He becomes the first member of what comes to be called the Straw Hat Pirates and follows Luffy in his quest to obtain the One Piece.

Their first unofficial recruit is Nami, a thief who steals only from pirates, who Luffy decides he wants as their ship’s navigator almost immediately upon meeting her. Together, they manage to escape the Buggy Pirates together, who Nami had managed to steal a map of the Grand Line from, and they come upon a small sleepy village where they meet Usopp, son of a pirate and professional tall-tale spinner. One day, though, his tales turn out to not be so tall, but nobody will believe him, a la boy who cried wolf, and he decides he’ll somehow protect the village by himself. The Straw Hats are impressed, and decide to help him drive back the pirates that are to invade the following morning. Once all is said and done, Usopp ends up joining the crew to become a brave warrior of the sea like his father, and the girl they rescued, Kaya, provides them with a proper ship, the Going Merry.

En route to the Grand Line, the crew assists a pair of name by the name of Johnny and Yosaku, who Zoro recognizes from his time as a bounty hunter. When they hear that the crew is looking for a cook, they lead them to the floating restaurant, Baratie. Unfortunately, a Navy ship docks at the Baratie at around the same time, and the Lieutenant onboard decides to sink the Going Merry. Luffy manages to redirect the cannonball, but instead of firing back at the Navy ship, the errant ball flies into the roof of the Baratie, damaging it and minorly injuring the owner, Zeff. Luffy is told he can pay off the damage via a year of chores, which he argues vehemently to get reduced. In the meantime, he witnesses the sous chef, Sanji, offering food to a starving pirate who is kicked out of the restaurant for not having money, and decides that he wants the man to be his ship’s cook. Sanji refuses, but before Luffy can make him change his mind, trouble arrives in the form of Don Krieg, the pirate considered to be the Ruler of the East Blue. He insists he comes in peace, just wanting to be fed, and while the other cooks refuse, Sanji feeds him anyway, and rejuvenated, Krieg proceeds to lay claim to the ship.

In the midst of all this, Johnny and Yosaku return, bearing terrible news: Nami has run off with the Going Merry and all of their accumulated treasure. Luffy tells Usopp and Zoro to go fetch her while he fights off the Krieg pirates as a means of paying his debt to Zeff. However, the chase is interrupted by the arrival of Mihawk, who had apparently chased the Krieg pirates all the way from the Grand Line. Zoro challenges him immediately to a fight, seeing a chance to fulfill the dream he’s held since he was a child, and although he loses, he earns Mihawk’s respect in the process, the latter telling him to get stronger and come back to challenge him again someday. Zoro swears that until his rematch with Mihawk, he will never lose a fight again, and with that, he, Johnny, and Usopp go off in search of Nami.

They follow the Going Merry to Arlong Park, and Zoro intends to simply storm the place and retrieve Nami as per Luffy’s orders, but Johnny is terrified by the idea, as Arlong is affiliated with one of the Shichibukai, the seven powerful pirates who, in exchange for compensating the government with a portion of their plunder, are allowed to exist undisturbed as a force for intimidating other pirates and deterring people from becoming pirates. They (along with Usopp) decide to tie Zoro up so he can’t do something reckless that will get them all killed. Right about then, however, one of the Fishmen from Arlong Park notices their boat, and the duo jump ship in order to avoid them, accidentally leaving Zoro tied up on board. Zoro’s taken back to Arlong Park by the Fishmen, where he’s greeted by <i>Nami</i> of all people, claiming she worked for Arlong all along and she was only ever using them for their treasure. Zoro doesn’t buy it, though, and he throws himself into the pool of Arlong Park while still tied up as a test. Sure enough, Nami dives into the pool to rescue him, and later visits him in Arlong’s dungeon to cut him free and tell him to leave the island.

While Arlong is off on some business in the nearby Cocoyashi Village, Zoro defeats most of the Fishmen at Arlong Park and waits for Usopp to come meet up with him, but eventually gets bored waiting and hitches a ride to Cocoyashi Village on the Fishman Hatchan. However, just as he arrives, he hears that Usopp got caught by Fishmen and rushes back to Arlong Park to save him. Before he can find him, though, Luffy and Yosaku return with Sanji in tow, and Johnny comes to warn Zoro and the others that Nami killed Usopp. However, Usopp himself returns to tell everyone that Nami only pretended to kill him so that he could escape, and soon afterward, the Straw Hats go together to take down Arlong. During this fight, Luffy gets trapped underwater, forcing Zoro and Sanji to fight off the remaining Fishmen before Luffy can drown. They successfully rescue him before being thoroughly trounced by Arlong himself, but Luffy regains consciousness and ultimately defeats Arlong, destroying the park in the process. The villagers celebrate as the Straw Hats recover, and then they set sail once more for the Grand Line, the entrance to which is at Loguetown.

Docking at Loguetown, the Straw Hats split up for their own purposes, Zoro looking to purchase swords to replace the ones broken in his fight with Mihawk. In the process, he meets Tashigi, a female swordsman who looks and acts eerily reminiscent of Kuina. Later, she turns out to be a Sergeant in the Marines who hates both pirates and bounty hunters, and upon finding out Zoro’s identity, immediately challenges him to a fight, which he promptly wins before running off to save Luffy from Buggy, a pirate they’d previously defeated and who had chased them to Loguetown, seeking revenge. They manage to escape both the other pirates and the Marines, and finally enter the Grand Line via its treacherous Reverse Mountain entrance past Loguetown.

However, they soon learn that the Grand Line cannot be navigated like a normal sea, and that a Log Pose is required for travel. They receive one from a man they meet on the way, and set their first location toward Whiskey Peak, the hometown of Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, a pair of individuals who lost their Log Pose in a scuffle with them. Whiskey Peak appears to be a town that welcomes pirates, and throws them a grand welcoming party, but in reality they are an entire town of bounty hunters working for the crime syndicate, Baroque Works. Zoro realizes this trap and after everyone has fallen asleep, goes outside to fight the 100 bounty hunters of Whiskey Peak planning to capture the Straw Hats and hand them over to the Navy.

However, the fighting is interrupted by the arrival of Officer Agents Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine, sent to eliminate Miss Wednesday, secretly Nefertari Vivi, the princess of Alabasta, for the crime of discovering the identity of Baroque Works’ boss. In the ensuing struggle, the supposed town mayor reveals himself to be the captain of Alabasta’s royal guard, and asks Nami to protect the princess. She ropes Zoro into doing this despite his initial objections by reminding him of a previous debt. Later, Vivi explains the state of her country and her reasons for joining Baroque Works, and the crew agrees to take her to Alabasta to defeat Crocodile, the leader of Baroque Works who has been inciting a civil war for the purpose of seizing the country himself. However, in so doing, she accidentally puts targets on Luffy, Nami, and Zoro’s backs as well, due to revealing the Baroque Works boss’ identity to them. They escape to the next island on the Grand Line, Little Garden, as Igaram’s decoy ship is sunk.

However, various kinds of trouble lurk in Little Garden. Baroque Works Officer Agents Mr. 3 and Miss Golden Week are assigned to eliminate the Straw Hats on Little Garden, assisted by Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine, and Zoro is captured after getting lost during a hunting competition on the island with Sanji. Mr. 3 intends to turn him (as well as Nami and Vivi) into wax figurines, and although Zoro struggles valiantly to escape (including hacking into his own legs to free himself), he is unable to cut either the hard wax nor through his legs from his position, and chooses to pose dramatically in the event of his solidification before Luffy can save them, because he is an utterly ridiculous person, okay.

Usopp manages to save the day with his quick wits, and the freed Straw Hats easily defeat Mr. 3 and Miss Golden Week. Meanwhile, Sanji returns to the main group with an Eternal Pose pointing to Alabasta stolen from Baroque Works, conveniently solving the problem of being trapped on the island for a year waiting for their Log Pose to store enough magnetism.

On the way there, however, Nami takes ill, and Zoro temporarily takes over as navigator (why did anyone allow him to do this, we just don’t know) while the crew searches for an island with a doctor. They arrive at the winter Drum Island, but aside from getting lost in a freezing river and beating up some minions of the arc’s antagonist, Wapol, he doesn’t do anything important. At the end of it, though, the reindeer-human Chopper joins the crew as its doctor.

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