One Piece, Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream
I thought this was going to be a bit more of a simpler chapter, especially after the huge revelations in the past couple of chapters. We go back to the Straw Hats and I thought that we're going to be decompressing a bit as they travel to another part of the world. I mean, shit, we've finished the 'from the decks of the world' segment, surely?
But it is nice regardless to see the Straw Hats' reactions to the news that we, the audience, also find out simultaneously. Luffy is 100% against the idea that Sabo might do something like kill King Cobra. Admittedly it's a bit questionable to fully trust your brother who you really haven't met for decades (we, the audience, know Sabo's an okay dude), but I guess Luffy saw that Sabo was basically the same nice guy that he was in the past, and he's standing by it.
There's a neat bit where we see characters like Sanji, Usopp and Chopper panicking over Vivi and Cobra; Nami going from pragmatic to joining the others in ugly-crying; and most interestingly the conversation between Zoro and Luffy. Luffy advocates going straight to Alabasta or Mary Geoise to hunt down Vivi, but Zoro basically puts his foot down. He compares this to how they reacted to Ace's vivre card in the past... a bad example, because Ace fucking died. But the rest of Zoro's point is solid. Unlike when Ace was about to be executed in Marineford, or when Robin was taken away to Enies' Lobby, or Sanji gallivanted away to Whole Cake Island... they had no idea where Vivi or Sabo might be.
After some of the Straw Hats' reaction to that, Robin recaps the Cross Guild events to Luffy... and it actually is kind of interesting to realize that none of the Straw Hats that joined after Sanji would have ever met Buggy. And even then, Sanji and Usopp would've had only a brief glance of Buggy in Loguetown. Robin also notes that there are 'other' developments that he didn't want to overload Luffy with. Which might just be the whole Coby/Blackbeard/Hancock thing, or it could be something even more.
And then in a massive two-page spread, Luffy once more talks about the dream he shared with Sabo and Ace... which has always cut away. When Ace told it to Yamato; when Roger told his dream to Whitebeard and Oden... it's something that a small portion of the fandom seemed to think is just the pirate king dream, but it's been subtly built up over the course of the series, and particularly prevalent in Wano, and we finally get to see all the Straw Hats' reaction to Luffy.
Now one of the main prevailing theories is that Luffy wants to, like, make a whole party or have a feast with everyone in the world. And... and I think so far the reactions of the Straw Hats, which involve from confusion (Zoro, Jinbe, Nami) to laughter (Brook, Sanji, Franky) to just plain being stunned (Usopp, Robin) is pretty telling. Luffy also notes that being the King of Pirates is something that will make this dream a lot easier, whatever it means, and... well, while Usopp is still going on about how it's 'impossible', the rest of the crew eventually went into just laughing and going 'well, shit, let's find the last Lode Poneglyph and make you the King of Pirates ASAP'.
...and then we get some huge revelations.
I really wasn't too interested in the whole 'Sabo contacts Dragon' storyline, to be honest, but we get to see the Marines all panicking as they are trying to trace the whereabouts of Sabo. A nice nod to a little bit of world-building that was established a while back about jamming transponder snails, so Sabo probably didn't have access to one or maybe even wanted the Marines to overhear?
The Gorosei are listening in to this as well, realizing that Sabo is in the Lulusia Kingdom, one of the eight nations that rebelled a few days ago. The Gorosei mutter among themselves about how 'unlucky' Sabo is, while another one note that this is fate. We also see Im in silhouette listening to this as well in his weird-ass flower room.
Sabo is reporting to the Revolutionaries that he wasn't the one that killed Cobra (again, kind of obvious) but that he saw something unbelievable -- the Empty Throne wasn't actually empty. Sabo's transmission got cut off just before he said that, but...
...as all of this is going on, something dark looms above the Lulusia Kingdom.
We get to see the vampiric King Seki and his daughter Princess Komane (who's the noblewoman Koby rescued in the beginning of the Reverie arc) being imprisoned, and the guards are pretty chill with them.
Im takes out a paintbrush and draws an 'X' over Lulusia.
As the people of Lulusia panic in confusion, the Marine Surveillance Division gets a chilling message delivered to them. "No one detected anything abnormal today." Yep, some information suppression there... and then... "As for Lulusia, that kingdom... never existed."
As sixteen giant laser beams straight out of the Death Star rain down upon the island-kingdom of Lulusia and blow it the fuck up.
The final shot is a single panel of a bunch of waves, of the Revolutionaries being confused and trying to contact Sabo, while the Marine broadcast goes into a weather report about abnormal sea-quakes. God, that's actually pretty fucking chilling. The idea that Im has a whole island-destroying weapon (it's Uranus, isn't it?) isn't too out of the blue. But the way it's executed? The brush crossing the island, the sudden cutting off of the Marine surveillance, the information suppression... and especially the line of 'Lulusia never existed'? Damn. Damn!
(I don't think we're getting a Bleach or Hunter-x-Hunter style levels of power with the brush stroke causing the devastation to rain down on the island, unless that it's a very specific power with some drawbacks)
(Also, Sabo's a logia, so I don't buy him dying at all)
And then we cut to some wacky hijinks. Oh, haha, the Straw Hats are braving wacky New World weather. How quaint! Jinbe is being a helmsman, Chopper plays around with a kasa hat and nearly gets blown away, and our heroes see a giant swirling water orb. Luffy sees someone in the water, Sanji identifies it as a woman, Zoro cuts up the water orb... and Jewelry Bonney of all people drops out of it.
What? Why? Okay??? Yeah, I guess we're going down the line of the Supernovas all being relevant in some way, and now it's Bonney's turn. She would be a great way to tell our heroes about what really happened in Mary Geoise, I suppose, although... I honestly didn't expect her of all people to join our heroes at this point in time!
Man, One Piece is really on fire, huh? The end of Wano is pretty questionable, and I stand by it, but I really do love just how much we're ratcheting up the tension to the endgame.
Random Notes:
- It wasn't super clear, but Caribou's stuffed in a barrel with chains, so the implication was that the Straw Hats found out that he was a stowaway and stuffed him there. Could've been a lot more clearer, for sure.
- Also, it's not Carrot but another character that stowed away on a barrel, I guess!
- It is interesting that Brook, whose idea of the world was like 90+ years ago, tells us that no one has ever had any problem with how (ancient) Alabasta is ruled.
- There's a small funny moment when we get a homage to when some of the original Straw Hats all go 'bweee Zoro you're a dick', the same thing that they did to Zoro when they were crying over Vivi being left behind. "You're an oni! No, an Onigashima!" is the funniest remark, and of course Zoro shuts Sanji down by going "shut up, fourth".
- The Thousand Sunny's heel is included in the panels that show the Straw Hats reacting to Luffy. Now it could just be there to indicate time passing, but I am all for including this damn ship as a member of the crew!
- Is that one giant-ass moon that sucked up Capone's ship pre-timekip related to this maybe-Uranus? Is Enel's Ark Maxim related to it? Is Doflamingo's 16 Holy Bullets attack related to the 16 beams of Armageddon that Im unleashed upon the Lulusia Kingdom?
- Yeah, Brook, I don't think that warm eddy thing looks like an afro at all.
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