One Piece 1159 Review: Origin Story

One Piece, Chapter 1159: The Island of Destiny

And so, Oda reminds us that One Piece's minimal-death rules only works in present-day stories. We kick off God Valley and for the most part, a bunch of the scenes in this chapter are ones we could kind of infer after reading the past couple of installments -- Shakky gets kidnapped and gets used as the prize in the God Valley culling games. Everyone gets wrapped in and pulled into God Valley for various reasons... but it's not all Shakky, which I think is what's a bit surprising to most. 

The chapter opens up with Don Marlon having been explicitly killed alongside some other pirates that were on guard duty. Shakky was kidnapped offscreen, everyone is raging, and in the midst of the reactions we get to see Wang Zhi smiling with a pile of money, none-too-subtly implying that he's the traitor of the group. Everyone in Pirate Island are angry or distraught, and half a world away Roger angry and blames Rocks... and Rayleigh is trembling in shock. 

And then we get a one-year timeskip (which explains the 'it's been a year!' line from Roger or someone during the parts of God Valley we've seen before) where Figarland Garling returns and talks to his nameless wife. Who we never see the face of, we just see her from the back with her red hair. It's an interesting choice that does make her feel a bit less... less of a person. Which is probably how Garling feels -- he clearly doesn't give a shit about Shanks' Mama. This woman was apparently under the impression that Garling would be back and they would live an ideal life happily ever after... and I don't get the impression that she even knows Garling is a Celestial Dragon?

Garling then goes super ominous, all with a smile on his face, talking about how the island's not going to be around for much longer, and besides, if he's going to settle down with a bride that he's "placed an order" for, provided he won in the upcoming tournament. Garling just stabs and kills his lover in cold blood, leaving her dead or dying. 

And then the Marines come for preparations, surrounding the island and begin shooting every single civilian with tranquilizer rounds. This bit, by the way, isn't fully explained in the chapters, but it was in the Kuma flashback -- the civilians will have targets and points painted on them for the Celestial Dragons' sick game. 

And in the midst of it all, a spiky-haired young Marine starts questioning orders, and all of his superior officers yell at him in the vein of 'shut up, upstart' and 'follow orders'! And there is an argument to be made about a military organization needing to not question every single order given to them. That is true! An army can't function with every single order being questioned. But there is a significant difference between a gunnery officer in a warship trusting the captain of the warship to make decisions, and someone being told to shoot up every single civilian in a country. We get some scenes of civilians running away and this young spiky-haired Marine with a backpack trying to follow orders but clearly hating every second of it. And we get the name box... Monkey D. Dragon, future Revolutionary leader!

So yeah, in addition to everything going on, we're likely to get some nice little snippets of Dragon's backstory. It doesn't have to be much; having him just witness the debauchery and brutality of God Valley would honestly be quite enough.

We then cut away to an extension of a scene we've seen in the aforementioned Kuma flashback to God Valley, showing Ginny and Ivankov sneaking around in the ship that is transporting slaves. There's a nice scene where Ivankov absolutely explodes at one of the other slaves for just giving up and just hoping for a miracle without trying to do anything about it. We also get a Kuma cameo!  

Speaking of cameos, we get a very young news-boy Morgans, hanging out with some Cipher Pol agents. Both Morgans and Cipher Pol have found out about  the information being leaked by Ginny, and Morgans is extorting the Cipher Pol to be quiet... but also has a thought bubble of him going to leak news to Pirate Island anyway. So yeah, Morgans is an interesting dude. He is slimy and not at all ethical, but his motivation is to make the most interesting news he can report on, and that sometimes leads to thing that benefit the 'good guys'. 

And information did leak to Pirate Island, galvanizing the entire island... except for Wang Zhi. Which honestly kind of tracks, since Wang is one of the few characters we didn't see in the earlier God Valley flashbacks. All the other pirates are raring to go to rescue Shakky, Whitebeard is utterly horrified at the realization that the Celestial Dragon hunts are true and not just rumours, and we get a nice little moment where Big Mom and Kaido discuss the Devil Fruits that were also prizes. 

Also, this news reaches the Roger Pirates, and we get a really locked-in Silvers Rayleigh ready to get his woman back. We also get a little call-back to a scene we saw in the previous God Valley flashback, with Garp also mobilizing to confront Rocks.  

Also heading out and blocking Rocks's pathway? Harald's ship. Harald and Rocks, despite their confrontation last chapter, actually decide to sit down and have a civil conversation. Harald did note that there is a government surveillance ship nearby, leading Rocks into a rant about how he's just going to continue being a government lapdog. Rocks and Harald then have what's basically a parlay, going up on Harald's ship and drinking some sake. This is explicitly a conversation away from the ears of either Harald or Rocks's crews. 

Rocks reveals to Harald that he's got a hidden name... and that his real name is "Davy D. Xebec". Which, by the way, is something that caught me off-guard because for a moment I thought that "D" stood for "Davy". And with how Rocks has been portrayed -- with him even reaching Imu's flower room -- I wouldn't put it past him to know a lot more about the long-term secrets that has been built up in the story. But no, it's just a secret family name that is hidden, somewhat similar to Gol D. Roger and Trafalgar D. Water Law... except unlike those two examples, it's not the "D" initial that's being hidden. 

Rocks tells Harald that the World Government has been trying to erase this name because it's connected to the ancient pirate Davy Jones. Or, rather, Davy D. Jones. So yeah, Davy Jones is a D, and also an ancestor of Rocks and Blackbeard! It's kind of fun since we've heard smatterings of Davy Jones and whatnot over the course of the stories, and for him to actually be important is an interesting development. I'm more interested for Rock's sake than any speculation about Davy Jones himself, but that really does feel like a plot hook for some future development. 

More importantly, Rocks tells his wife and kid (a.k.a. the future Blackbeard) to go back to his hometown, and to count on the Davy clan. Said hometown? God Valley. 

So where everyone else in his crew are fighting for either Shakky or Devil Fruits, Rocks has a hidden agenda -- he is there to get his wife and kids back. Sure, he's motivated to save Shakky too, but he makes it clear to Harald what his priorities are. He's also pessimistic about the whole ordeal in general, which is a contrast to how we've seen the boisterous Rocks all the while. 

What happens next is very fast, with Rocks asking Harald for help, Harald yelling that he's going to stop him here and now... but also insists it being a 1v1. There is some room for interpretation that this might just be Harald taking a stand; or Harald putting a show for the aforementioned government surveillance ship. We next see the giants' ship on fire and the Rocks crew sailing on -- and we do know that Rocks reaches God Valley, so. 

The final two-page spread shows off the kick-off of the God Valley competition, with Shakky in a kuja dress showed off in front of the crowd. There are also nine treasure chests (instead of six, by the way,  a subtle retcon). There is the note that she has been 'kept spotless and pristine' which does thankfully mean that she remained mostly untouched during her one-year stay. She is being sold off as 'a bride or a slave' and all the Celestial Dragons are lusting after her. 

Now that we know a bit more about the Celestial Dragon families, too, we get some more cameos. Someone from the Shepherd family yells at Summers to win to get her 'for the family' (with everything that implies), while Summers refuses to share if he wins. Garling tells Summers off because he's going to be the one who wins, and the unnamed Meynmeyer family member we saw in the previous flashback walks up with Gunko, intent on taking Shakky for their trophy. 

A couple of scenes happen afterwards, which might be a bit confusing since they seem to lead to each other. But we see Dragon coming across a bloodied woman asking Dragon to get her kids to safety and 'don't let him take them'. Presumably this is Shanks and Shamrock's mother. Also in a different scene, a young Blackbeard in chains is being comforted by his own mother, with the two of them presumably having been turned into the 'rabbits' for the hunt.... but then the episode closes off with the Celestial Dragon announcer noting that in addition to a Buccaneer (Kuma), there are also some more rare rabbits to hunt, being members of the Davy Clan.

A lot of revelations, a lot of connections here and there... and admittedly, I wasn't the most hyped about Rocks being a 'Davy' since we don't really know anything about that. But I do anticipate that all the buildup here is going to lead to something explosive down the line. A lot of the buildup in the past couple of chapters are really leading up to an explosive God Valley experience, and I'm all for it! 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Yamato's Holy Inari Apple Shrine Journey: With absolutely no fucking elaboration about the Kozuki Moria bit from last chapter, Yamato just continues back on her little journey with Ulti, Page One and Onimaru. When did Onimaru join them? I guess that's a weird hanging plot thread from the Wano arc?
  
• 'Gekko' has always been written in katakana (the language system used for foreign words), but apparently if you reverse the kanji for Kozuki (光月) into 月光, it's read as 'Gekko'. 
• Gloriosa really doesn't get too much focus in any of these chapters, mostly reduced to her rivalry over Roger's attention, but she was the one showing sobbing the most in the montage. Gloriosa and Shakuyaku came from the same island and crew, and it's nice to see that they essentially behave like sisters. 
• In one of One Piece's narrator hyperbole, apparently the kidnapping of Shakky caused the entire global economy to halt for several weeks. Which is honestly crazy, but the kind of crazy I expect from One Piece.
• It is a cute, if morbid, little detail that when we get a close-up to the baby Figarland twins that Shamrock is raising two hands and Shanks is only raising one! 
• Of course Dragon doesn't get any special treatment among the Marines. He's Garp's son, after all, and nepotism isn't how Garp rolls. 
• Respect to Kuma, his flashback episodes are hitting the anime as this is going on. I don't think I'll do a episode-review batch like I did for Wano, but I do think I'll have to watch the episodes at some point. 
• There's an interesting bit where Big Mom considers if some of the Devil Fruits would suit her kids, and her crew did have a lot of Devil Fruit users. That does explain why she's going out to hunt Devil Fruits specifically since she herself already has the Soul Soul Fruit. 
• I love how Shiki is the one that's the most emotionally agitated in all of these scenes. I'm just happy to see Shiki being a presence in the story at all. 
• Rocks having an urgent, separate goal to save his wife and kid actually, amazingly, explains why he was absent in the Rocks Pirates group-shot in the Kuma flashback. In that scene, it's revealed that Rocks 'went on ahead'. And if he's got a separate goal while the rest of the Rocks Crew and Roger Pirates are trying to rescue the prizes, that makes sense. 
• Gunko's presence here probably means that if she and Brook were tied to a kingdom subjected to a previous cleansing, it wasn't God Valley. She also, again, noticeably hasn't aged. And at this point in history, Brook would've already been in the Florian Triangle as a skeleton.