One Piece, Chapter 821: Understood
Can I just say this Japanese-artwork two-page mural that they made, with Gear Fourth Luffy as this crazy thunder god, and everyone else drawn in old-Japanese style, is probably the best cover page we've ever gotten? Hell, that insane-looking yokai-Brook alone is awesome as all hell! Anyway, this chapter is... pretty simple, yet pretty awesome.
A good chunk of the chapter is just showing off Jack's sadism as he just orders his crew to cripple the giant elephant and describes all kinds of gruesome ways to murder Zou (or, well, Zunisha, as the elephant is properly called). He keeps insulting the big elephant as they cannon-shot one of his legs. Meanwhile everyone on top of Zou is just panicking as Zunisha is moving around in pain, and, well, like the cliffhanger implies, both Luffy and Momonosuke are able to hear Zunisha's voice, where the giant immortal elephant literally talks to them. Zunisha even transfers what he is seeing directly to Momonosuke, and reveals that apparently Zunisha committed a grave crime, upon which it was sentenced to walk for all eternity.
What kind of crime did the poor elephant did to make it walk for all eternity with those sunken eyes? Man, this void century thing's getting more and more mysterious!
But Zunisha begs to be allowed to fight, and, well, Luffy tells Momo to say the orders. And Zunisha... stands. Man, the artwork is awesome, depicting Zunisha's scale and decrepit-ness with a great grainy quality that makes him stand in stark contrast to the sharper and more-defined lines of Jack's crew. The scene of Zunisha finally moving his trunk, casting a dark shadow over Jack's ship... I honestly expected Jack to be able to hold back the trunk because he was built up as a badass and all, but boom! One shot. He's done.
Kind of anticlimactic, sure, but holy shit, that was an awesome way to end Jack. I mean, as awesome as Jack is as a villain, we really need to be getting to the far more interesting plotlines with Sanji, Big Mom, Kaidou and Wanokuni, and in any case while Jack's fleet is sunk he's gonna be back. I guarantee you. It was freaking awesome. I mean, I would love for Luffy and Zoro to go berserk and wipe Jack out, but this is even better! And more likely to be plot relevant. What exactly is this 'voice hearing' ability? Is it an ability of Conqueror's Haki? Or something else?
Oh, and the last panel shows Apoo (that can't be anyone else but Apoo on the Den Den Mushi) contacting Kaidou himself that they've lost all contact with Jack. So Apoo's definitely became an underling of Kaidou, though whether Kidd and/or Hawkins have thrown their lot in with Kaidou since we last saw them remains to be seen.
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ReplyDeleteIt's the "Voice of All Things." It was introduced waaaaaay back in Sabaody by Rayleigh.
ReplyDeleteRoger had it.
Luffy used it back in Fishman Island to hear the Seakings Shirahoshi summoned.
And now we know that Momo and Oden have/had it too!
No, I mean, we know it's been foreshadowed for a while -- the Sea Kings being the most fresh in my mind, though I forgot about the Sabaody thing. But what, exactly is this 'Voice of All Things', whether it's part of Conqueror's Haki, or a different form of Haki, part of the whole D thing or a wholly different other ability entirely remains to be seen.
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