One Piece, Chapters 1036-1037
Been actually kind of busy in this month or so, which is why I haven't really been posting anywhere as much. I didn't realize One Piece 1036 was out! So you guys get a double chapter post from me, then. Thankfully, they are both action chapters, so it's good that I don't actually have too much to talk about here.
Chapter 1036, "Bushido is the Way of Death", is mostly just establishing the parallels between King and Zoro. I wouldn't say that I'm disappointed per se with how that fight turned out, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't expect more from the two. So it's nice to see a parallel between the two -- with a flashback to King saying how he'll make Kaido the King of Pirates, showing the kind of loyal second-in-command that he is. It is interesting that at this point in the flashback, Kaido's dialogue does seem to imply that he already doesn't believe that he is actually Joy Boy. We get this juxtaposed with Zoro's own declaration of never losing again after the first Mihawk battle, and we get a badass panel of Zoro declaring that he's going to be the 'King of Hell'.
There's a brief check-in of the CP0 guy looking at the chessboard and we jump into a couple of other battlefields like Big Mom vs. Law/Kid; Fukurokuju vs. Raizo; Orochi and Komurasaki... but the scene that we get a bit more of a focus on is Yamato and Fuga charging down towards the armory. And Fuga just centaur-charges and beats up another Number, Rokki. I think that's the last Number?
The more interesting scene in this chapter would be Usopp and company arriving to rescue Kin'emon and Kiku, and we get an interesting discussion of the 'bushido code'. Both Kin'emon and Kiku are all 'it's too late for me, save the other', and Usopp gives this huge speech about how surviving, even if you have to cry and be drenched in snot and tears, is far more preferable than dying in a blaze of glory. It's definitely an idea that someone like Usopp, who's been struggling with cowardice all his life, would understand intimately. And he gets supported by Izo of all people, who show up to shoot up some Beast Pirates, and we get a hilarious bit where Izo actually recognizes 'God' Usopp.
In a rather odd scene, we get to see Apoo and Inbi run away from the CP0 agents, who had, off-screen, beaten up Drake and Zanki. It's genuinely a bit bizarre that Drake -- after all his prominence in the early parts of the arc -- would be beaten off-screen. So I wonder if this would lead to something more for Drake down the line. As CP0 gives commentary on the battle as a whole, the final pages cut away to Luffy fighting Kaido on the rooftop, leading to a Gomu Gomu Roc pistol attack...
...which leads us to chapter 1037, 'Drunken Dragon Bagua'. It does end up reconciling some of the more inconsistent depictions of Kaido throughout the course of the series, and I guess this is the source of his 'waaah I wanna die' original first appearance? Almost the entire chapter is just a fight scene and... and I do find it a pretty choreographed One Piece fight scene. Kaido zips through his different modes of being a tipsy drunk, a happy drunk, an angry drunk and a sad drunk while he launches a lot of his previous attacks against Luffy -- Ragnaraku, Raimei Hakkei, Dragon Twister, Bolo Breath, all that. It culminates in what I can only describe as a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure barrage exchange with Luffy doing a 'Roc Gatling' against Kaido's Kundali Meteor Shower.
Without going in-depth into every single attack, I don't really think I actually have much to say about 1037 other than I really did enjoy it. We're slowing down a lot for these action chapters, and I do feel that it's most certainly needed.
1037 closes off, unexpectedly, with the Gorosei of all people discussing about how the Reverie and Wano are all being super-duper intense. I don't think they have any live updates from CP0, because they expected Nico Robin to be captured or killed, while they discuss a certain Devil Fruit whose existence has been hidden by the World Government -- or, well, rather, renamed. It's extremely cryptic and doesn't really give us any clues other than it hasn't 'awakened for centuries', which... could be anything, really.
The chapter wants us to believe it's Zunisha, though, because it's walking towards Wano and about to knock aside all the World Government ships that are sailing towards Wano. It could be Zunisha, but it could also as easily be something like the awakened form of the Kibi Kibi no Mi or Momonosuke's fruit? I don't know. It could just be a classic case of misdirection and Zunisha is completely unrelated to the Devil Fruit discussion. Still, Zunisha is here and it's something that a lot of people have speculated would happen at some point during the Wano arc (or near its conclusion).
Overall, a cool fighting chapter! I really don't have too many thoughts about what the mysterious Devil Fruit could be. We'll see, I guess.
Random Notes:
- Poor Rokki, though -- the other Numbers get beaten by members of the Straw Hats or Drake or CP0 or something, and this guy's just minding his own business, sleeping, and gets beaten up by Fuga.
- I gloss over it, but Raizo giving no shits about getting set on fire and declaring that he's a retainer of Oden is pretty badass.
- 1037 continues the Germa 66 cover story, but it's just Judge and his children hanging out brooding.
- The implication that the World Government hid the existence of the mysterious Devil Fruit does kind of confirm, in a roundabout way, that these five Gorosei aern't immortals. There's kind of been a running theory that the Gorosei have undergone the Immortality Surgery.
- Of course, there's still the idea that it's the Gomu Gomu no Mi that's super-special. It would tie into the Who's Who plot about how this fruit was stolen from the government. In which case... any thoughts on what the true name of the Gomu Gomu no Mi is?
- Zunisha couldn't be a Devil Fruit user, right? She is walking across the ocean. Even with her super-long legs, that would still sap her energy...
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