One Piece 1106 Review: Jötnar

One Piece, Chapter 1106: On Your Side

This is an interesting chapter. As a reviewer, there are some things in this chapter that I really liked, and some that I didn't really care for... and a good chunk of the latter are problems that, I think, are rather endemic in the DNA of the Egghead arc itself. So it isn't really this chapter's fault specifically, but rather the somewhat experimental nature of Egghead in balancing characters. 

And one huge problem, I think, is Luffy's portrayal as just being... tossed around rather offhandedly. It's not even as a joke (which was what they did with the Big Mom Pirates in the Wano arc) but it honestly just feels, at times, that Oda doesn't know what to do with Luffy so he just handwaves it aside with 'oh, he's knocked out', and handwaves some vague half-baked mystery about who fed him. It would admittedly be interesting if there was a mystery here, but it just feels like it's something that just happened and I honestly would rather have had Luffy be actually trapped or knocked out the way he was in other arcs. I don't know. It's just something that really rankles me. I think even not showing Luffy and having him try and get back to the action would've worked better in my opinion. 

But anyway, he's finally recovered, digested his food, and goes into Gear Fifth at the beginning of the chapter. 

Bonney and company are falling out of the sky, Sanji's jumping up to reach them, and the Pacifistas are trying to do a reverse-aerial-bombardment. And the way this is resolved is... I wouldn't say that this specific thing isn't super not-foreshadowed, but I felt like the resolution wasn't as good as it could've been. I think it's the manner on just how many gambit pileups compared to what was already established before -- Saturn is super-smart and can figure out if Vegapunk's lying, then there was the bomb, then there wasn't a bomb, then there was some Buccaneer property, then now, apparently, Vegapunk's installed a backdoor into the hierarchy chip that the Pacifistas will listen to Bonney above all else. 

And... I don't know. At this point, I'd rather have the 'Power of Love' explanation? And I hate 'Power of Love' explanations.

It just really felt like we really could've had some kind of buildup to Vegapunk doing something to the Pacifistas or something. One could argue that, yes, Vegapunk did manage to program a whole-ass mission to get Kuma to guard the Thousand Sunny during the timeskip, but then it's just shifting the confusion to Saturn's competence. Whether he's actually incompetent or not, the story has been trying to give us the impression that he is, with all the talks about Saturn being also a man of science and being able to catch Vegapunk if he slips up. Now all of this 'competent Saturn' could be a complete lie and he's just an arrogant dumbass villain, but then at this point you rob Saturn of being something more than just a creepy anime-overlord-of-doomy-doom.

Also, wouldn't you think that Vegapunk telling Bonney about the fact that the Pacifistas will listen to her orders be something that would've been useful around a dozen chapters ago? This feels very underbaked, and, again, I honestly would've liked it more if we just built up on the 'Vegapunk couldn't purge the core instincts of living creatures in robots' that Lilith was talking about with the sea beasts. 

That said... there's no denying how cool the artwork was for that half-two-page-spread of the Pacifistas opening fire and blowing the shit out of the Marine ships. 

Vegapunk gives a mental monologue about how he couldn't bear to have Bonney die to someone with Kuma's face, and he briefly thinks about how this betrayal will have grave consequences. And he gets stabbed by Saturn's giant spiky spider leg! And it's... this is what makes you go and kill Vegapunk? Not literally everything else that Vegapunk has done? I mean, I guess Saturn wasn't planning to let Vegapunk survive and wants him to suffer seeing all of Egghead get wiped out, but I don't know. This feels like rather arbitrary for Saturn to start attempting to attack Vegapunk 'for reals'. 

Kizaru unleashes a bombardment of his own, striking all of the falling characters with a barrage of laser beams. Notably, Sanji manages to kick a laser beam with his leg, and it's not even Diable Jambe'd. After some ambiguity, we're back to 'evil Kizaru' mode with him summoning a light blade and making it clear his intent to slice both Bonney and Kuma with a single slash so 'they can be together'. 

And then we get a NIKA PUNCH! 

One hell of a giant punch slams onto Kizaru, coated in Haki and shit, and he gets sent flying into a building. Everyone starts reacting to the insane drums of liberation and Luffy's manic cackling, and just like all the Gomu Gomu Awakening theories from way back in Dressrosa, Luffy's powers turns Egghead into a rubber house and causes Bonney, Kuma, Atlas, Sanji and Franky to boing-boing safely onto the ground. 

Oh, and the robot lights up again. Hi, ancient robot! Hope you get relevant some time this year!

Vegapunk tells Bonney and finally lays it out to her that Monkey D. Luffy is the man that Kuma all but worshipped, the glorious Sun God Nika. That was a very cool shot of Bonney looking up as Luffy is dancing in the sky doing the Nika pose... and for a brief moment, we do get a shot of Kuma's robotic head sparkling. Is this how Kuma's going to have his freedom, even if it's for one brief moment? Regardless, at the sight of Nika, Vegapunk also notes what the fandom has been thinking about. A Buster Call isn't jack shit for a being like the Sun God. 

And the final two pages? We get the identity of the mysterious attacker from the previous chapter.

And it's fucking DORRY AND BROGY. 

The Straw Hats are not going to Elbaf, Elbaf is coming to the Straw Hats. 

That's so fucking badass, too. The Marines are freaking out why two beings that they thought were dead for 100 years are there, and they try their best to stop the giants... but Dorry and Brogy do another badass announcement. "Why? They're asking why, Dorry?" "Don't they know some things in the world can't be stopped?"

And how fucking cool is it to see these two towering titans looming over entire battleships, filling up the entire panel as they just slash through masts and wade through the ocean? It's just such a badass, fantastical image of two giant Viking warriors just wading through an entire fleet with impunity. And this? This, I like. This, I felt, was foreshadowed well. We saw Dorry and Brogy earlier in the arc, we saw that Shanks' people are starting to move, and we know the Elbaf giants would have a vested interest in talking to Vegapunk via Saul. It's not super obvious, but I do feel like the threads connected much better for this revelation compared to the Bonney/Pacifista one. 

Anyway, while this one was a bit rocky, I really am looking forward to see what's going on next chapter!

Random Notes:

• I really like the visual pun of Robin hanging out not with Crocodile, but with a crocodile. The crocodile's even wearing a lawyer-friendly version of a La Coste shirt, which has a crocodile logo!
• I felt it wasn't worth mentioning in the main review, but the Buster Call is still going on and some Marines got hit with the bombardment. 
• Franky is the only Straw Hat to have a reaction towards Vegapunk being stabbed. Man, Franky just doesn't get a lot to do in an arc that really should've been his, yeah? Shit, he doesn't even get a full-face reaction shot, we see Franky's panel with him from the back. 
• Between the Buster Call and the Pacifistas going rogue, there's a lot of dead Marines. 
• No, seriously, does York -- who's allied with the World Government -- not know about the whole 'Pacifistas will obey Bonney' thing? You'd think she would've sold this information to the Gorosei. It couldn't be a only-the-Stella-knows, since Atlas knows about it. And with how surprised Stellapunk and Shaka were at York's betrayal, I don't think segmenting thoughts had been anywhere in Vegapunk's mind until the events of this arc, so... I dunno. 
• I didn't really feel too much about it when we were talking about Carrot, or Kin'emon, or Momonosuke... maybe Yamato a bit. But is anyone else getting some really strong 'this is going to be a Straw Hat' vibes from Bonney? 
• Man, RIP Dragon. I was expecting him to really do something with all the Revolutionary buildup in Vegapunk and Kuma's backstory. I thought he'd be the boring-but-obvious answer as to the mysterious arrival, but I guess he's still chilling in his base. 
• GA BA BA BA BA! GE GYA GYA GYA GYA!