One Piece 1044 Review: FIVE

One Piece, Chapter 1044: Warrior of Liberation

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't read 1044 yet!

And... and you really do need to realize the sheer amount of theories being thrown around over the past couple of weeks. I don't think I've watched this many One Piece theories in such a short period amount of time in my life. What a time to be a One Piece reader! I think two of the more prevalent theories that I read on what the cliffhanger of 1043 meant was either the fact that Luffy's fruit was the Resin Resin Fruit (with a lot of very convincing arguments) and the idea that Joy Boy was going to possess Luffy via some reincarnation bullcrap (which I would loathe if that happened).

But nope! One of my biggest worries was that Luffy wouldn't be Luffy, and that was allayed pretty quickly. He does seem to be... high, for a lack of a better term. Or maybe it's just all that laughing is giving me the impression that he's super-duper high. He's just laughing and talking about how he's 'having a blast', and we get to see a lot of people reacting to Luffy's literal awakening. Zunesha, Momonosuke, Yamato, Kid, Law, Marco, Hyo... even Sanji wakes up! 

We cut to the Gorosei discussing Luffy's fruit, and it seems like all the hints about a Devil Fruit that they had to rename, as well as Who's Who being sent to guard the Gomu Gomu no Mi and the insanely severe punishment he got, were all foreshadowing this moment. The Gorosei think it's a very much good set of priorities to sacrifice Bowlerhat McCP0 to kill Luffy, because they've been hunting down the Gomu Gomu no Mi for 800 years. Apparently, the fruit itself has been 'evading' the Gorosei because Zoan fruits have a will of their own. 

...yes, the Gomu Gomu no Mi is actually a Zoan fruit. The Mythical Zoan fruit. The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Sun God Nika. 

(One big plot hole is, admittedly, if the Gorosei knew about the importance of the Gomu Gomu no Mi -- and putting Who's Who in charge of it seems to imply that -- why didn't they send more people to hunt down Luffy pre-timeskip? Even if Luffy isn't super well-known at the time, you'd think at the time of Marineford hunting down Luffy would be a super-huge priority.)

It's... it's a bit surprising but not wholly unexpected. I think I honestly would prefer the 'resin' fruit as the true form of Luffy's devil fruit, all things considered, but it being the Sun God Nika fruit would explain the importance the Gorosei places on it. The Gorosei further notes how the Sun God Nika does grant its user the properties of rubber, so that's that explanation right out the gate. Apparently it's a fruit that is only 'limited by imagination' and is the embodiment of the warrior of liberation. Okay, then. Basically, it's the freedom fruit and stuff... and this raises so many questions. And so much foreshadowing! Both Doflamingo and Kaido have recently commented how Luffy's 'rubber' shouldn't be able to do the things he's doing with them. 

One that I'm proud to figure out on my own is something that's a bit of a personal joke for me and a couple of friends that read One Piece -- a joke about how Chopper, at one point, panicked at the idea that Blackbeard was hunting down Devil Fruits, and someone had to calm Chopper down because the Hito Hito no Mi is useless to Blackbeard.

...now that Luffy has a god version of the Hito Hito no Mi, and it's been well-accepted that Blackbeard would hunt down the strongest Zoan to complete his trifecta of strongest Logia and strongest Paramecia... we all thought he'd go for Kaido, but he might very well be going for Luffy!

I am not super in-love with this revelation just yet, but I will acknowledge that it's a pretty damn interesting one, and something that I felt not a lot of people expected. 

...and then a good chunk of the chapter goes to Hiyori and Orochi. And... and I am kind of going to breeze through this. Not that it's badly written or anything. Hell, not that I don't care about their story either, because I actually find myself surprisingly invested in the story of Hiyori specifically killing Orochi. This scene isn't truncated and is actually well-paced too! It's just... it's just in all this Nika and Kaido and Luffy and Gorosei madness, the Hiyori/Orochi scene going just as expected really doesn't grab my attention all that well. Orochi tries to bullshit, we get a very powerful dressing down from Hiyori, and we get this extremely cool panel of Hiyori taking off her mask and giving a very detailed and contorted expression of anger and grief. Again, though... it's something that's kind of a distraction since it more or less happens as we expect it. 

We don't even quite get a conclusion -- Hiyori doesn't cut Orochi to death yet, Kyoshirou doesn't show up, and instead we get... Kanjurou's weird-ass tiny ghost showing up and accidentally burning Orochi? Okay whatever SUN GOD VERSUS DRAGON GOD TIME.

Luffy calls his awakening his "Gear Fifth", something that I've always thought was going to happen but some parts of the fandom are super-against for some reason. Luffy unleashes waves and waves of Conqueror's Haki and we get a particularly cool shot of dragon Kaidou being baffled at the transformation that's going on. 

And then we get the absolutely comical scene of a giant arm dragging Kaidou out like a goddamn worm out of the Festival Hall back to the rooftop, with Kaidou's eyes bulging out and trailing behind like he's a Looney Tunes cartoon or some shit. Luffy's Gear Fifth form is shown to us in full detail and he's... he's got the flaming/cloud-like wreath of Gear Fourth, except his hair's on fire and he can freely flex his muscles into... into something that really reminds me of Yu-Gi-Oh's Toon World. He just spins Kaido around and bashes him to the ground, with, again, more cartoony eyes for Kaido.

...the weird googly eyes is a bit bizarre for me, but you know what? I actually like Gear Fifth. I think a lot of people are expecting something a bit more Dragon Ball-y, but save the cool traditional anime forms for Zoro and Sanji. Luffy gets to be just a bit ridiculous with his final form, and I appreciate that. 

Kaido retaliates with a Boro Breath, Luffy gets a giant eye-popping scene of his own, before he grabs the ground, and I think he rubberifies it before lifting up the ground as a shield to reflect Boro Breath back at Kaido. The chapter ends with a full shot of Luffy at Gear Five giggling to himself. Kaido apologizes for the CP0 guy, Luffy goes 'don't sweat it', before going all ready for a beatdown. Some really unsettling way that Oda draws Luffy's eyes in that last panel. After so many comical eye-popping shots of Luffy and Kaido, it's actually kind of unsettling to see how... how intense those eyes look. They look almost like... they're vibrating in place, in a way? 

Anyway, this does admittedly seem like it's going to follow the typical shonen trope we've seen a lot of times -- in One Piece as well -- where Luffy unveils a new power to win against an opponent that's beaten him before. Same thing that happened against Crocodile, Lucci, Doflamingo and Katakuri. Only I think this one feels bizarre because the awakening seemed to happen without a reason the audience is privy too, and I bet the discussions about destiny and reincarnation and all that jazz will continue. I really do think that the next couple of chapters will conclude the rooftop raid and... and while it will end like most arc structures in One Piece, I do really feel like the hype generated by the 1043 cliffhanger has been absolutely momentous. All the foreshadowings, all the different ways the story could go... I feel like that alone has been pretty much worth the admission in and of itself. Pretty cool stuff all over. I have so many questions. I have so many questions! I really hope Ryu'o and advanced Conqueror's Haki play into this! But hey, let's just enjoy the incoming beatdown!

Random Notes:

• Cover story -- a bunch of random Big Mom children, including one that's got an octopus lower body and that one pumpkin guy who fought Pedro, is about to operate on Niji and Yonji. Okay!
• A lot of people have called that the 'drums of liberation' sound effect from Luffy's heart might be the drum tiddy that closes off every episode of the One Piece anime. I would love it. 
• I have admittedly seen people make theories about Luffy's fruit being actually a mythical fruit, usually revolving around the idea that he's a Myo'o/Wisdom King thanks to a line from Hyo early in the Onigashima raid; or that he's Sun Wukong or Hanuman or some other monkey-based deity. He's a sun god, though, not a monkey god! Another fun idea I saw was this being the Giant Giant fruit due to Gear Third as well as all the references to gigantification in the Punk Hazard and Whole Cake arcs. 
• So is Gear Fifth Luffy's... hybrid form? How does a human eating a human fruit even work anyway in terms of the regular human/beast/hybrid form? 
• It is worth mentioning that Chopper has been doing his 'Point' transformations since forever ago, and Chopper's transformations originally were shown to be him emphasizing certain aspects of either a human or a reindeer. Luffy's Gear transformations... also emphasize certain aspects of the human anatomy (blood vessels, bones, muscles). It could just be a coincidence, but it's also worth noting that Chopper and Luffy are two of the only characters to show off so many transformation forms in this manga...
• If he's a sun god, it does really explain the whole Red Hawk thing. We've always assumed it's just rubber friction homaging Ace, plus some typical protagonist power stuff, but if the Sun God stuff does work off of imagination....
• To be fair, by 'imagination', some people are freaking out and calling Luffy a reality warper or something. I feel like it's more like it's bending reality (heh) in the confines of his rubber body more than actually being able to do something akin to a Bleach villain or something. 
• I am a little miffed that this is some 'fruit of destiny' when I loved the appeal of Luffy achieving so much with merely just a random rubber fruit. This reveal does take away from that. But... we'll see. I'll reserve judgment as we know more about the fruit. 
• Someone pointed out to me that in chapter 440 or something when Ace fights Blackbeard, he did mention specifically that the power of the sun would fight the power of darkness...
• Also, all this talk about Joy Boy, Nika and smiles... and Kaido and Doflamingo trying to create SMILE fruits... hmm...
• Okay, let's be real -- who the hell expected (or wanted) Kanjurou's weird blob-spirit to come back? Just let the man die already.
• ..so is Kaidou going to awaken as well?
• Sorry about the lack of consistent updates recently. Real life plus a bit of a writer's block has been really making things super-slow for me lately.