One Piece 1017-1018 Review: Who's Who's Who's Who's Who Who's Who Who?

One Piece, Chapters 1017-1018

Okay, for the past half-month real life's been a bit busier for me -- I still updated relatively regularly on this blog with monster reviews and the like that I did ages ago, but other than responding to comments I haven't actually typed much. So this is me playing a bit of a catch-up, and we'll do One Piece first since reading manga is a lot easier and faster than sitting down and watching episodes. It's kind of a good thing (?) that the manga is a bit on a break in July? I guess I'm not the only one who has a busy month. 

Chapter 1017:

Chapter 1017, "The Order", is kind of what I expected from what the previous chapters has been setting up. Re-experiencing the Wano arc in the anime, I'm still not really all that convinced that giving Tama such a powerful ability is something that's going to feel all that 'earned', so to speak. I like Tama, and her voice acting and her interactions with Luffy is pretty great, and if we're being realistic the Gifters switching sides really isn't going to matter in the long run, but... on the other hand, the idea that a little girl that just happened to have a particularly powerful Devil Fruit being able to turn the tide so vehemently does kind of feel somewhat cheap. I'm reserving any kind of strong language until the arc is well and truly finished, but so far the whole Tama subplot is something that I feel could be removed or replaced or reworked and the story as a whole would feel so much stronger for it. 

This chapter goes basically how I expect -- other combatants like Jinbe, Franky and Inuarashi are shown to be struggling because they keep getting interrupted by the goons, just to really emphasize how much Tama's help is instrumental. Tama gives her speech, all the named Gifters that we've seen throughout the arc turn sides, and the CP0 people playing the go board comment on that. It's done basically how you expect it to do -- nothing too special about it, but also until the arc is over, I don't think I have all that much to complain. 

On the other hand... Zoro is being healed. That is good, and that is what I expect -- the obvious formula here is for Zoro to fight King, since Sanji is fighting Queen. We get to see the bizarre 'baby geezer' Chopper, who literally gets shrunken to doll size because of his brand-new Rumble Balls. It's expected that someone -- either Chopper or Marco or Law -- is going to heal Zoro. And any one of those could happen and I wouldn't even comment. But the way they're healing Zoro is... some mystical ultra-regenerative pill from Zou no one mentioned before? It's kind of bizarrely out of place, and I felt like the explanation for a magical pill to get Zoro up could've been done better -- especially since during the Zou arc we've seen Chopper interacting with the Mink doctors. Couldn't this have been Chopper's creation or something, to make Zoro's revival at least feel earned? I don't know. I know Zoro needs to get back up, but this feels like a bit clunkily dropped on us. 

Other minor things in this chapter: we also see Momonosuke and Shinobu obviously surviving from the jump. I thought Momonosuke would turn into a dragon, but he's still in human form? So presumably Shinobu uses her ninja parachute thing to float down safely. Luffy gets a one-panel cameo, and he's in Law's submarine having water pumped out of his chest.

The second half of the chapter is a bit more interesting. Sanji attacks Queen, who shows off his half-beast form... and I love how Queen makes it sound like the fact that he's a cyborg is some huge revelation and Sanji just yells about how it's obvious. His giant cyborg left arm also seem to be the same design from Zephyr's in Film: Z, I wonder if it's just a cheeky visual nod or if this is meant to be the exact same technology. Queen also name-drops the science group "Mads", and how he used to be part of it with Judge. We've already got a bit of a hint that Queen and Judge have had some history, so it's neat to get some confirmation. 

Far more interesting, though, is Jinbe's fight against Who's Who! I have to admit that Who's Who is probably one of the least interesting members of the Tobiroppo, though I love how stupid his name is. And in two chapters, Oda basically gave us a reason to care for him. I love how gradual things are on the reveal of his powers, until the audience (and Jinbe) realizes that Who's Who is using a variation on CP9's Rokushiki techniques. Some really neat visuals in the battle, and just like CP9, Who's Who uses variations of the Rokushiki like 'Blade Pistol' and 'Fang Pistol'. The latter works pretty well with the whole saber-toothed tiger theme since, y'know, those animals are known for their massive fangs.

Unlike what Who's Who implied before, turns out that Jinbe and Who's Who doesn't have some sort of convoluted backstory. No, Who's Who just knows about Jinbe, and Jinbe vaguely remembers tale of an ex-CP9 agent that escaped from prison. Who's Who is apparently also very, very pissed at the Straw Hat crew, because the reason he went into prison was because of a failure -- that he lost the Gomu Gomu no Mi from the government ship he's supposed to be guarding. Which is a very, very cool nod to a throwaway line all the way back in chapter one about how the Red-Haired Pirates stole the fruit from an 'enemy ship'. That's neat! That association with CP9 and a surprise tie-in to the Gomu Gomu fruit does make Who's Who suddenly a lot more interesting.

The internet exploded with theories over this one final line, and I don't subscribe to the theories that the Gomu Gomu no Mi is some sort of 'ultimate' fruit that the World Government really wants, or that the fruit is Roger's fruit or Rocks's fruit or Joy Boy's fruit or whatever. I feel like someone would've mentioned it before, or would've sent CP9 or CP0 after the Straw Hats a lot earlier to reclaim the fruit. On the other hand, this is a Shonen manga, so it really wouldn't be realistically out of the norm if something like that turned out to be the case. I just feel like One Piece and Luffy are extra-special for not being some sort of ultimate saviour of prophecy the way some other shonen mangas portray their heroes as. We'll see -- if nothing else, this would be a clever narrative way to sneak in a 'power up' for Luffy before the Kaido rematch.  

______________________________________________

Chapter 1018:

"Jinbe vs. Who's Who" is our first dedicated battle chapter that doesn't involve the Yonko for a long, long while. And it involves someone that's not Luffy! Man, I remember the older arcs like Alabasta and Dressrosa where the secondary Straw Hats would each get a chapter or two showing them fighting a sub-boss. I miss those chapters. This one isn't entirely a battle chapter, but it's close enough to the feel of those older fighty-fight chapters of old. 

We get a couple of pages showing the aftermath of the previous chapter, where rather understandably, all the other mooks and goons still loyal to Kaido are hunting down Tama as ordered by Queen. Nami, Usopp and the return of Speed is presumably going to spend the rest of the arc protecting Tama, and we get a neat little moment for Zeus as well, who has been promoted from slave to 'sidekick'. We also get the CP0 agents talking over their little game board, and they cryptically note that Who's Who's death needs to be confirmed, and it'd be nice if Jinbe could take him out for them. 

Who's Who is rampaging with his Fang Pistols and attacking Jinbe while ranting about how since Luffy has inherited Shanks's straw hat and the Gomu Gomu fruit, he's turned the target of his vengeance to Luffy. Jinbe, for his part, seems to be mostly on the defensive in both the previous chapter and this one. Without going panel-by-panel and talking about each specific move done by the combatants, it's pretty cool and neat to see the fight. Until the end, Jinbe is mostly just reacting, judo-throwing Who's Who around or just blocking powerful blows with his Armament Haki. 

Until Who's Who's rants begins to, as Jinbe puts it, show some 'casual racism' against the Fishmen. At first it's just disparaging comments about how a fish can move so fast on land. But then, Who's Who recalls the Sun God Nika, a story told to him by a guard in prison, and apparently the Sun God is someone that slaves in the past worshipped Nika and believed he would free them. Now lore-wise, this is a huge bomb. I remembered the Sun God being casually noted in Big Mom's Elbaf flashback, but the internet has also quickly realized that mentions of the Sun God was also made in Skypiea -- and I don't think it's a coincidence that Who's Who's mental image of the Sun God seemed to be in the same pose as Luffy during the Skypiea party. 

Jinbe seems to continue being on the defensive, until Who's Who yells at Jinbe about how as the leader of the Sun Pirates, which had former slaves, Jinbe totally would know about the Sun God because "the history of fish-men is a history of slavery". Which... yeah, that's some insensitive nonsense, and I absolutely love how Who's Who's finger pistol barrage is suddenly interrupted by both his index fingers breaking in a very painful-looking panel. Jinbe also shows off a full-body Armament Haki, marking him as the first and only time someone busts out that move and actually doesn't get defeated  immediately afterwards. Jinbe absolutely overpowers Who's Who afterwards, tanking every single one of his subsequent attacks before unleashing a 'secret art' and unleashing the Demon Brick Fist straight onto Who's Who's face because he ran his mouth a bit too much about a culture he didn't even try to research first. 

Pretty cool. From an action scene standpoint I actually really like how much this chapter focuses on the actual battle. A lot of my frustrations of the Wano arc in the manga has been how abrupt all the action scenes were, if they are even shown. Fights get interrupted very quickly, or they just play out in the background without the audience getting to see them. This is pretty neat, and seeing Who's Who spam Rokushiki moves is a neat callback. I'm not sure if we're going to get much more out of this confrontation -- I'm assuming that we'll probably get a bit of a conclusion in 1019 to wrap up Jinbe and Who's Who's confrontation? It's a bit of a sudden exposition dump about Who's Who's casual racism and the Sun God that the slaves worshipped, but I'm actually kind of intrigued. Anyway, I felt kind of good reading the sudden surprise extended action scene.