One Piece, Chapter 1064: Egghead Labophase
Oh, what an interesting chapter! I didn't manage to get this chapter out in time for the early translations' release, but I remain blissfully unspoiled until I got my hands on it. And... it opens in perhaps the first time in a very, very long time that a Cover Story actually properly ties into the main story. We get to see Aokiji and Van Augur kidnapping Pudding in the cover story, confirming and putting in words what some people are apparently still debating about... but I think this puts to rest any arguments on whether it's Aokiji or not who attacked Whole Cake Island. But Pudding actually appears later on in the chapter itself, making this cover story a great tie-in despite the disparity in the chronology of events.
But, to the shock of many people including myself... we don't actually cut away from the Law vs. Blackbeard fight! And it's not just Blackbeard massacring Law like Aizen massacred all those captains in Bleach, no! I still think that narrative demands that Law loses in order to preserve Blackbeard's threat level, but by god he's going to make Blackbeard work for his final villain status. Hell, even Law's crew get to do something, and after spending the entirety of the Wano arc being handwaved as complete and utter deadweights! Law just sends his crew out to do their thing before going all-in with awakening unleashing a R-Room: Amputate that slices poor Stronger in half! I'm sure the horse is ultimately okay, this isn't JoJo after all, but I really do still wonder what makes R-Room different from a regular Room since Blackbeard expresses disbelief that Law's powers could 'do that', identifying it as an awakened technique. I guess Law cuts Stronger in half without making the usual Room dome first?
Blackbeard unleashes his own attack, the 'Tremor Crush', which knocks down many of the other Heart Pirates, but then Doc Q lobs his basket of exploding apples from Jaya. Use your Sick-Sick Fruit, Doctor! But then... Shachi, swimming in the ocean, gulps down a fuck-ton of water and... I think the best description of it is Pokemon's Hydro Pump? He just Hydro Pumps the shit out of the apple basket, which explodes mid-air? Holy hell! The only explanation that Shachi gives is that 'don't mess with people raised in the frigid North Blue', but that hardly explains how he suddenly became like a Water-type Pokemon or some shit. Apparently, the Heart Pirates are experts in aquatic battles, and... having a submarine and everything, that makes sense, huh?
Bepo also uses his ears to basically be a radar, redirecting Jean Bart to jump in the way of bullets to protect Law. And... it's just taking a bunch of bullet shots, but Jean Bart literally just blocks a bunch of bullets from Van Augur! Again, I highly doubt that any of these guys will stand up to Blackbeard and his double-Devil-Fruit nonsense, but being able to basically control the crowd of other Devil Fruit users Blackbeard has under his employ is most certainly useful.
Law unleashes a K-Room: Shock Wille, the attack that took down Big Mom, and... holy hell, it looked like it hurt Blackbeard. the giant sword jabbing onto his sternum and unleashing the mother of all bloody explosions as the shockwaves tear through his body. First blood to Law!
And, well, Van Augur just warps Blackbeard away from the attack, and even offers a retreat while disparagingly calling out Blackbeard for jumping in without a plan. Which honestly has a strong 'Nami and Usopp talks shit about Luffy charging in' vibe to it, no? But Blackbeard's pretty civil with Augur, going back to face off against Law. The two talk smack about each other's crew's disadvantages, and about the risk-vs-benefits of Devil Fruits. But the final shot we get of the two fighting is Law and Blackbeard clashing, before Blackbeard activates Black Vortex... and we cut away.
And interposed within this scene we get the aforementioned Pudding tie-in, where the Polar Tang is bombarding the Sabre of Xebec from below. A couple of random Blackbeard goons talk smack to Pudding, who's in a jail cell and having the most confidently defiant expression on her face.
So... yeah. It's a great moment for Law and his Heart Pirates. Now I don't think Law's going to be killed off-screen necessarily -- narratively, he's grown too much as part of the main cast for him to die off-screen. But the Ace parallels are pretty obvious, and by sheer dint of us needing Blackbeard around for a confrontation with the Straw Hats does meant that Law's probably not going to walk out of this victorious. A very unexpected confrontation, and... while at the end of the day it's one of those tropes common in anime where two badasses walk into a room, and the one that's going to be the insurmountable threat for our hero walk out alive... but I really do love that they're at least letting Law show his due.
Then we cut back to Egghead. Bonney has swapped everyone's ages around, which fools the Pacifista, and... a lot of their discussion about Bartholomew Kuma are stuff that the fandom already know about for a while now. Jinbe summarizes a lot of the reputation that Kuma had, notably the whole bit about him being the 'Tyrant King'. Apparently, after being a pirate and revolutionary, he got captured, but Vegapunk got interested in his... muscle and abilities? Which led to the whole cyborg stuff? Bonney understands the Shichibukai deal, but doesn't understand why her father would sign himself off to become a mindless cyborg. Bonney, while playing around with a lightsaber/beam sword, also rants about how Kuma wasn't a tyrant but was a good king, and hated the World Government. Again, not something that takes a lot of genius to figure out from context clues. Bonney then mentions offhandedly that Kuma was part of a 'special people'... and whether this means that Kuma was a secret Lunarian all along (he is shaded to be rather tanned in the anime) as she airs her grievances against Vegapunk.
Speaking of Vegapunk, or rather Vegapunk #2, she's bringing the rest of the crew to meet Shaka. We finally get to see Egghead Island from a top view. Team Luffy is in the Fabriophase, the factories on ground level, whereas Lilith is taking the rest of the Straw Hats to Labophase, which is above the clouds. Zoro and Brook are staying behind on the ship to watch, and I wonder how this is going to tie into things? But the rest of the crew have fun on the Sky Island clouds, and they dress up in local Egghead outfits. Sanji gets a Hawaiian shirt too? And Robin's basically looking very... um... yeah, 'tough' isn't quite the word I'm going to use here, but yeah.
And then we cut to Shaka, Vegapunk #01, talking to another person over the line and noting how his intelligence has caused him to be able to predict enough of the future to know that his death is imminent. And he's talking to Dragon, really hammering home the Revolutionary ties that Vegapunk has with Kuma and Dragon. It does lead me to wonder what kind of 'death' Shaka forsees though. Is it death in the form of World Government assassins who figures out that he's buddy-buddy with the Revolutionaries? Natural death of the Vegapunk old man body? Or something else?
Anyway, pretty great chapter all around!
Random Notes:
- One thing to really think about... Shachi means 'Killer Whale' and Penguin is, well, penguin. Which does tie in a lot to a theory that they might have partial Fishman heritage thanks to that, especially since we haven't seen them without their very obscuring hats.
- Other than Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and Jean Bart, Law also name-drops Hakugan -- he's the masked dude that normally pilots the Polar Tang.
- Oh yeah, there's a moment with Akainu bitching about being unable to move freely as the Fleet Admiral as he waits for Law and Blackbeard to finish their fight before moving in. Do something, you magma bitch.
- A little easter egg with the extraneous materials is that Luffy's old-man form is the 'bad ending' Luffy from the SPS!
- I love that Jinbe of all people has a comically angry Kuma with a crown as a 'MENTAL IMAGE'.
- Vegapunk's giant mecha very casually has anti-gravity. Localized anti-gravity that only works in Egghead, sure... but still! Anti-Fujitora tech, then, to complement the anti-Kizaru tech we had earlier?
- Love the little detail of Franky offhandedly noting that he's never been to a Sky Island, and Lilith name-dropping Pyrobloin -- which is from the world-building segment of Skypiea.
This chapter is so fun! Nice to see Law vs. Blackbeard isn't a curbstomp. Also now that I think about it, what makes Law's awakening so special is that it isn't centered around himself. Usually his room forms around him, but thanks to his awakening it's a remote room! I also think k-room is something he channels through his sword. After all it is Kikoku's room!
ReplyDeleteAlso Blackbeard's ship is Sabre of Xebec huh? Maybe he inherited a certain someone else's will...
Finally, so happy we finally get to clear up the relationship between Bonney and Kuma. Honestly, when we saw old Bonney, I admit I thought she might have been his mother.
Finally going to learn more about Vegapunk! Maybe now we can learn about some of the more abstract mysteries of the world!
I have no doubt in my mind that the narrative would have Blackbeard beat Law. But I do really like that we're not doing an instant curbstomp... nor is it "Law seemingly has the upper hand early on, but it's obvious that Blackbeard isn't serious yet" trope that Bleach and Dragon Ball like so much. The fact that this is happening elsewhere and there's no way in hell we get a main character intervention makes the fight a lot more exciting.
DeleteI've kind of figured out that R-Room is 'Remote Room', and it was just confusing because the previous time he used R-Room was to activate the Corazon silence ability. But I never realized that K-Room was Kikoku's Room!
Oda randomly revealed the name of Blackbeard's ship as the Sabre of Xebec very sneakily in like, an SBS or a databook or somewhere like years before we ever get to know who Rocks is. That is probably one of the coolest moments of 'shit, my geeky memory into obscure shit in this manga paid off'.
There were so many theories about Bonney! I think I thought she was Kuma's mother too, mostly because the idea of an older, more experienced character using the Age-Age Fruit to regain her youth and hide her tre age is interesting... but canon Bonney's fine too!