One Piece 1099 Review: The King Just Won't Die

One Piece, Chapter 1099: Pacifist

This is going to be a short review from me because I wrote half of this review, my computer lost the document when it ran out of battery. And then I lost a second copy of it trying to upload it to Blogger, so... yeah. Not having a bad week in general, and this is probably the only review I have to write from scratch and I just don't have the energy at this point. Lots of real-life shit in the way, and while the blog will continue to update with posts (many of which I wrote a week ago) expect 'live' posts like this to be a bit more... muted. 

Anyway... it's a pretty good chapter, and I'm honestly kind of sad I'm a bit salty. It's not as bombastic or tragic as the previous couple of chapters for Kuma, but it's definitely a nice connective tissue between the tragedy conga of 1098 and presumably the big revelation in 1100 -- and we can already infer what Bartholomew Kuma's ultimate fate is. As Saturn put it several chapters ago, in his eyes, a Buccaneer like Kuma only has the fates to be dead or a slave, and the motherfucker somehow managed to turn Kuma into both. It's absolutely interesting how One Piece has given us the ending of Kuma's story, which was already tragic in and of its own for damn close to a decade at this point... but it's just so sad to see everything just tumble down for him. 

The first couple of pages basically has Kuma see the towns burning as King Becori returns and starts setting fire to everything, apparently (in a nice continuity nod, of which this chapter has a lot) inspired by the burning of Goa Kingdom. There is an amazing panel of Kuma on the bottom left of the first two-page spread as he failed, once again, to save everyone... and you just see the face of a man that snapped. 

He clearly didn't snap hard enough, because against all odds he's still a pacifist (that's going to be a theme) in that he still refuses to murder Becori, the latest in many fuckers in the One Piece world that deserves a slow, painful death.

I'm not really sure how Becori survives that gigantic-ass Ursus Shock that blew apart the top tower in his castle, though. That seems pretty powerful. 

This 'One-Man Revolution', however, attracted the attention of St. Saturn. We get a bunch of explanations about the status of kingship. Kuma didn't exactly reign, but everyone treated him as a king. Instead, the technical day-to-day operations fell to some dude called Bulldog, the previous-previous king before Becori. And while it's a small detail, the true identity of 'Connie' is finally revealed as being Bulldog's mother... so she's queen dowager, but to a different king than Kuma. It explains Bonney's disguise in the Reverie, even if I personally do think that it's a bit... weird, I guess? I don't think Connie matters enough for me to really put up that much of a fuss, but it really does make sense if she's an actual person and an actual queen dowager. 

And then... Bonney just eats the Toshi-Toshi no Mi ("Age Age" or "Year Year"; the name of this fruit was revealed in a recent SBS) offscreen and rather randomly, sprouting all the way to the age similar to Ginny and giving poor Kuma a heart attack. Some guy who conveniently has the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia identifies it.

Oh, and also, thanks to the World Government's propaganda, every single aspect of Becori's evil reign as a despot and a psychopath gets attributed to Kuma instead, which explains his 'Tyrant' epithet. It's basically what everyone was guessing, and... it's not that much of a surprise? Morgans is a real piece of work, and I really did wish that we've learned a bit more about the supposed 'Tyrant' part of Kuma's reputation other than maybe one or two lines by random people. 

Anyway, Becori arrives with a fleet, and... he gets blown back again, but not before Kuma has a long talk with Bulldog, Connie, Gyogyo and a young and very confused Bonney about how he's going to be really wanted this time around for attacking Marine vessels. This earns Kuma his first (presumably large) bounty. And then Kuma goes off around the world to look for a cure for Bonney... while Bonney resolves to set off to sea at 10... which would be her age during the pre-timeskip year, where, like Luffy, she would've set out to sea. 

And in an amazing sequence, we get a montage of Kuma going to all the islands that he sent the Straw Hats to during the timeskip. I don't know how much of it is serendipity (and some of it must be, Mihawk's island probably didn't have much to do with medicine) but I do like that the first island that Kuma goes to is the island of the primitive-looking-but-very-medically-smart people that Chopper trained under. Going to Vegapunk's old island of Balgimore (where Franky was sent), Weatheria with its scientists (where Nami was sent) and even the Boin Archipelago with its herbs (where Usopp was sent) makes sense too in Kuma's journey, and this adds a nice layer of extra meaning when we realize that Kuma doesn't just know these places, he knows the people. 

...well, except for where he sent Brook, I guess, because that really just felt so random and doesn't necessarily benefit Brook. 

And at some point, Kuma comes into contact with Dragon and the others. At this point, Ivankov is already in Impel Down, and there is a cute moment where Belo Betty asks permission from Kuma to be the new head of the Eastern Army, because the Revolutionaries have been keeping that position vacant in memory of Ginny. That's a very cute gesture, and I do like Kuma's rather adorable line of 'eh, you guys are going from one sharp-tongued woman to the next, sure'. 

Dragon directs Kuma to the island that would be Egghead, and talks about the "winds of fate"... yeah, he's all but stated to be someone with wind powers, huh? I mean, I guess the nature of his powers is confirmed, all we have to do is to figure out if it's Logia or Paramecia. 

Kuma arrives on Egghead with Bonney (stashed in a little carry-pack!) and I guess this is what Bonney meant when "I visited Egghead as a child", which was one of the reasons I thought that she wasn't actually a kid that aged herself up. Just me misreading the phrasing of that line, I suppose! I like the little continuity nods of Vegapunk still having a gigantic head, so this is before Punk Records and the Satellites. The fact that people have also pointed out that the female satellites seem to draw elements of Bonney (Lilith shares Bonney's appearance, and York shares her gluttony) seems to lend some credence to this. I also really like Bonney playing around with Sentomaru's giant battle axe in the background while the adults are talking. 

Vegapunk basically wants to do a stem cell transplant for Bonney, which is, I guess, how, he replaces all of Bonney's cells with healthy ones. But we do see the still-kinda-immoral Vegapunk that we saw in Vegapunk's own flashback of meeting with Dragon, which I appreciate. Vegapunk basically gaslights Kuma into realizing that there is a hope of curing his daughter. It's just very, very expensive, and while I wouldn't say that Vegapunk's a character that's as sneaky as, oh, Doflamingo or Arlong or even Nami, he also none-too-subtly notes that his interest in science also means that he's not unwilling to keep Kuma's Buccaneer blood a secret. He just really wants to make science, and is just so utterly dumb at realizing how corrupt the World Government is and how they'll turn all of his inventions into what's basically weaponry. 

And we do get to see that Vegapunk isn't really evil. He has the ideas of making a clone army out of Kuma's immensely powerful body, and Vegapunk actually has the idea of combining Buccaneer blood and cyborg tech to make an indestructible, bulletproof clone army. It's Attack of the Clones! And Vegapunk paints a picture of these guys as being peacekeepers, like cyborg superheroes or robo-cops or something, and he doesn't even mention anything about turning Kuma into a cyborg. Kuma even likes this, noting that it's a nice reason for 'being born'...

...except, of course, we all know how this story ends. Saturn is eavesdropping on every conversation in Egghead, and I love that Saturn also being featured earlier in God Valley and even in this chapter as he realizes something is fishy in Sorbet Kingdom makes him such a personal vendetta target for Bonney and Kuma. And it's pretty clear that it's Saturn that's going to make the whole inhumane deal of Kuma being turned into a mindless cyborg and to surrender all of his individuality. 

And the final scene closes on Kuma and Vegapunk discussing the name of these cyborgs... 'Pacifista', because Kuma is a pacifist, meaning that it was intended to not be an ironic name. It's meant to be an intimidating pacifist's weapon instead of an army sent to pacify pirates. 

Anyway, a great chapter all around. I'm just kind of sorry I couldn't muster much energy for this one.