One Piece 1067 Review: The Iron Giant

One Piece, Chapter 1067: Punk Records

This is going to be a shorter chapter, mostly because... well, a lot of it is just confirmation and exploration of things that the fandom have been speculating and guessing from the previous chapters. We get an explanation of the nature of Vegapunk and his satellites, as well as why his brain/head is ginormously huge. Vegapunk ate the gloriously punny Nomi Nomi no Mi, the Brain-Brain Fruit, which allows him perfect recall and storage of knowledge to complement his already intelligent mentality. 

There is a brief discussion about Vegapunk wanting to make some sort of terrifying Neon Genesis Evangelion 'all minds as one' mentality with his Punk Records -- which houses his now hangar-sized brain -- and how all the satellite bodies and even this current body are all connected to the true brain with antenna signals. There's a brief discussion of a very common topic in science-related manga, with Vegapunk wanting the progression of science with his mind-fusion hivemind idea just to gain and share information, while Jinbe points out that forcing everyone to share the same mindspace will lead to trouble with all the different ideologies in the world. Unregulated internet, after all, just leads to a lot of trolling and hate speech instead of this uber-idealized sharing of information Vegapunk proposes.

Bonney pulls out her lightsaber and tries to murder Vegapunk, but we get the revelation that it's defective... because it attracts insects, which causes Bonney to faint. We also get the confirmation to the years-long brick joke that Vegapunk considers Momonosuke's artificial devil fruit to be a failure solely because of the colour, 

Much more interesting is the talk about the ancient robot, which apparently attacked Mary Geoise not 900 years ago (which is the Void Century, and also when the robot was built), but rather... 200 years ago. A lot more recent! Apparently, it reached up to Mary Geoise and allegedly ran out of power before it could cause too much damage. But obviously that sound like a bit of a fabrication. The giant robot was taken and hidden by scientists of the time to Egghead, and passed down from scientist to scientist without the World Government's knowledge. 

Interestingly, 200 years ago... as Robin pointed out, the event that happened there was the World Government accepting the Fishman Island into their ranks, finally considering fishmen as sentient beings instead of fishes. It's always a bit of an oddity why the jackass World Government would do this, and whether the Fishmen sicced the Iron Giant and intimidated the World Government, or if the Fishmen saved the World Government... it's going to be an interesting story. Climbing the Red Line, of course, is also reminiscent of what Fischer Tiger did. Shaka points out to Team Robin that he couldn't replicate the power source of the Iron Giant, which ties to the power source discussion from the previous chapter. 

The real Vegapunk talks about how he's done a terrible thing to Bonney, then asks Luffy if he could bring him away from Egghead. CP-0 has killed one of the Sea Beasts cyborgs, and is asking for permission to dock... something that Shaka denies with full knowledge that this would lead to a battle. Interestingly, Lilith was ready to hand over the Straw Hats, and I wonder if this will lead to Lilith siding with the World Government? I also like the brief acknowledgement that a lot of the Straw Hats do remember Rob Lucci and have strong opinions against him.

In Kamabakka, the original Kuma starts moving. Lindbergh is apparently working on Kuma and we get to see just how much of a cyborg he is, with metal pipes and shit connected to his heart. And he's moving. I wonder what the trigger for this is. Is Vegapunk recalling him? Or did he hear Lucci's offhanded remark about eliminating Bonney on sight from the Seraphim-Kuma? Are all the Kumas connected? 

Mostly setup chapter, but a neat, fun one. 

Random Notes:

• The cover story is still continuing! I thought it's over! Judge doesn't remember Caesar Clown at all and prepares to fight him. 
• So Vegapunk's giant head is thanks to the Nomi Nomi no Mi. RIP Long-Head race theories, I guess. 
• A very funny joke with Vegapunk talking about 'clones' and Luffy immediately goes "holy shit, you're a ninja!?"
• The giant robot chamber was actually hidden. Luffy and co. just stumbled onto it because they are idiots. 
• The Kuma Seraphim now has the right white hair, when in its first appearance it was miscoloured as black.