One Piece, Chapter 1045: Next Level
Yeah, this whole chapter is just Luffy versus Kaido, and I wager that we'll have that for the next couple of chapters until Wano ends. And... I've seen people severely defending and disparaging how Gear Fifth turned out, especially since it's really turning out to be something that's way wackier than what everyone expected. I feel like this really fits the soul of One Piece and Monkey D. Luffy, though. I mean, would I be pissed off if Gear Fifth or Awakening turned out to be some sort of badass Dragon-Man or Tiger-Man or the Wisdom King or whatever? No, not really. I think I'd be happy with it, just like how I was pretty happy with Boundman and Snakeman. And I did agree that 1045 in particular was rather... bizarre and over-the-top in the comedy. But I don't think Oda could get away with making Luffy's power be essentially Toon World from Yu-Gi-Oh without going over-the-top with it, you know what I'm saying? He needs to make it a bit more ridiculous than what we've seen Luffy do in the past, and if that means extending his limbs through Kaido's eyeballs or using Kaido as a skipping rope...
I'm not 100% sold about how much I like Gear Fifth, personally. In general, though, my feelings are positive, especially since we do get a lot of cool shots in this chapter like Gomu Gomu Gigant or the epic punching Kaido through his face scene. I think my biggest problem is that... the narrative foreshadows both Awakening and the comedic aspects of Luffy's power for sure, but I still really want the specifics of why Luffy awakened after Kaido beats him to near-death to be explained. I think that'll make or break how I feel about this fight as a whole. As for now, though, I'm just in it for the ride.
I also like that Kaido realizes that Luffy's awakening has the environment-altering properties of a Paramecia awakening, but also gains the transformation aspect of a Zoan. I absolutely love how Oda clearly takes reference from old rubber-hose (ha!) cartoons like Looney Tunes and especially Popeye in showing what's going on. I really don't want to describe every single scene since it's something that's best you read on your own, but man, Luffy contorting Kaido like an accordion before expanding and causing him to float like a balloon? And the thing with the eyeballs? My god, that's stupid and hilarious.
I also really loved the joke that Yamato is baffled and briefly thinks that it's a form of Kaido she hadn't seen before.
We get the very epic scene of Luffy descending from the heavens later as Gomu Gomu Gigant, and Luffy turning into a full-on giant is something that everyone has kind of been speculating would be a power Luffy gets eventually. A very epic two-page spread that we get... only instead of an epic punch or stomp or something that would be worthy of a dramatic finish in a Dragon Ball Z or Naruto Ninja Storm game, Luffy instead...
...plays jump rope with Kaido's serpentine body.
Yep. Yep, yep yep yep. Did anyone call that? Did anyone think Luffy's going to do that? Oh, the utter creativity and sheer balls on Oda to make this part of the fight. It's so audaciously bizarre that I can't even be mad and I'm just laughing along with the story, and I actually do love it that the whole 'Joy Boy' thing is intended to infect the audience as well.
Also, the absolute disrespect that Luffy is showing Kaido right now. It's one thing to one-shot the enemy after a power-up. It's one thing to Red Hawk or King Kong Gun or Jet Gatling your enemy to oblivion after a power-up. It's another to actually physically use your opponent's body as a goddamn toy.
I also like that Kaido isn't getting the... the post-Super-Saiyan-Freeza treatment, I guess, where he's actually still putting up a fight and Luffy's Gear Fifth form isn't completely overpowering him. A more One Piece-relevant example would be how Luffy utterly trounces Blueno after learning Gear Second, I guess. Kaido is still able to fight, and unleashes a massive Boro Breath at Luffy... and is this the first Boro Breath that actually damages someone? I made a joke in one of my anime reviews that any time Kaido uses Boro Breath, it only ever destroys the environment, gets cut, deflected, or otherwise dodged.
Luffy gets burnt to a crisp by Boro Breath... and just like a goddamn Bugs Bunny cartoon, explosions and fire just turns you black and covered in soot for a while, and Luffy just coughs it away, fucking RUNS IN THE AIR like Road Runner, and runs back to fight Kaido. We get Kaido breaking out Ragnaraku and bashing Luffy's still-gigant head down to the performance hall, and we get everyone having Looney Tunes pop-out eyes. I guess that's the manga's way of showing that Luffy's powers are probably an aura that affects people around him? That explains some of the goofier expressions Kaido made in 1044 for sure.
Clearly, rubberhose animations don't exist in Wano, but Kaido does compare Luffy's powers to that of a 'picture book'. We get an interesting brief bit where Luffy's transformation is undone and he actually melts into the face of a tired old man. Kind of obvious from previous chapters that Gear Fifth is going to actually have some severe drawbacks. Luffy basically 'restarts his heartbeat' to the sound of the drums to re-enter Gear Fifth, but I do like that this chapter really emphasizes the toll that Gear Fifth is having on Luffy.
Some really great (if brief) character moment for Kaido and Luffy in this scene, too. Kaido, all obsessed about finding the 'perfect death' and obsessed with the deaths of Oden and Roger and the samurai and all that... talks to Luffy about how 'after you die, someone will record the tale of your great battle'. But Luffy doesn't give a shit about his legacy, and I love that. I love him quoting Bink's Sake's line about how the only thing left after death is just bones (yohohoho), and all of this really ties to the constant arguments about giving your life as a sacrifice for the greater good, or to struggle in pain for the next day. It works well with Ace's story as a whole, with Usopp's line to Kin'emon, with the Scabbards' Sunacchi mentality, and with Kaido's many badass lines on the rooftop battle against the samurai.
In a very cool moment, Luffy reactivates Gear Fifth, remembering Momo, Tama and Kin'emon -- the three people he's had the most ties to in Wano... and also Pedro for some reason? It's cool, and I do feel like Pedro's honestly pretty badass death has been marred in the fandom by everyone joking and dreading the idea of Pedro turning out to be alive again. But if he's actually dead? If this moment and Carrot's earlier moment reminiscing about Pedro before attacking Perospero really confirms Pedro's death? Yeah, this is a neat little sequence, then. It's just such a shame that the 'death is cheap' trope also kind of cheapens this moment.
We get more slapstick sequences of Luffy molding his body to fit the spikes on Kaido's kanabo, then him bouncing off the ground after Kaido bashes him, before rocketing back to do essentially that wacky Gomu Gomu no UFO attack on Kaido. This really does bring me back to that moment in Punk Hazard which, I feel, really describes Oda's philosophy regarding Luffy. Zoro tells Luffy to get serious in the New World, and Luffy's response is to dork out and do that UFO attack. I feel like that plays into us, as a fandom, and our perception of how the power ups are going to get. Something more badass, perhaps, something more 'edgy' and traditionally serious. And edgy power-ups are great! I loved Boundman and Asura and all that jazz, but I also love that Oda's essentially really going back to the core competencies of Luffy as a character, and how he's, at his core, a goober. And I feel like this power-up does really work for him very well in a way that something like a Hollowified Ichigo style edgy power-up wouldn't.
(Oh, and if you really care about the specifics of Gear Fifth, Kaido has a random line that says that Gear Fifth essentially mixes Armament and Conqueror Haki, which sort-of justifies the focus on Ryu'o and Advanced Conqueror's training that Luffy had earlier this arc.)
...and, well, the chapter ends with Luffy punching Kaido through the head (except not really), and we're still on for 1046 to bring us more goofiness. I really am pleasantly surprised, I think, is the best way that I can describe how I feel with Gear Fifth. It's not what I was expecting, but it's something that I have to admit really fits the character. Very much enjoying this chapter a lot.
Random Notes:
- Again, sorry for being so infrequent recently. Real life's really taking up a lot of my spare time! I'm trying to catch up with Kamen Rider Revice reviews in the near future, as well as probably do semi-regular updates for Moon Knight. Probably not going to catch up to CW/DC shows for the near future? I do have drafts for MCU's Phase Four movies, but I'm kind of burned out on making movie reviews. Oh well, we'll see how things get as we go.
- I really do hope we get a Kaido flashback, but where I see a lot of people expecting it to be as long as the Oden flashback, I wager it'd be around a chapter or half a chapter like how Big Mom's flashback with Mother Caramel was.
- It'll probably be a bit more clear in the anime, but with Kaido's eyeballs and later on his face, Luffy's not punching through them, he's punching and extending Kaido's body like rubber, and Kaido's flesh is enveloping Luffy's extended fist.
- So since Kaido says body transformations are a trademark of a Zoan awakening, does he have an additional form we're not privy to? Or is that just his hybrid form?
- Some people pointed out that the bizarre cartoon physics of King, Queen and Sasaki's dinosaur Zoan forms does help to kind of prepare the audience for some bizarreness with the Luffy Toon Force. I agree!
- It's one thing to see Chopper and Nami have bug-out eyes. It's another to see Kid and Law doing the same.
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