One Piece 1069 Review: On the Origins of Fruits

 One Piece, Chapter 1069: We Owe All There is to Desire

Okay, this was a huge chapter but also one that was a bit harder for me to review due to the huge revelations we've kind of been waiting for. And plus I kind of got distracted by Pokemon Violet, and I had to wait a bit until better and official translations were out before I'm comfortable talking about this chapter.

But yeah. I kinda expected just a punchy-punch chapter between Luffy and Lucci and that's it, but we got a fair bit more! There is apparently significant debate in the community on whether Luffy and Lucci's fight would lead to a one-shot in favour of Luffy, or at least a very one-sided fight. And... from a narrative standpoint, especially with the amount of hype Lucci has been getting in the story itself? No, it wouldn't be good pacing or buildup for the story to devote so much time building Lucci up post-timeskip and then disposing him offhandedly in this chapter. It'd be as terrible as what happened with the CP-0 agents in Wano, except Lucci is far more important than Guernica or whatever! At that point might as well as not bring him back. And I'm pleased that they gave Lucci a respectable fighting chance even if it's still clear that he's outgunned by Luffy ultimately. 

The face-off is pretty cool, with the pigeon Hattori flying off, seemingly sensing the tension between the two characters. Kaku and Stussy talk about how Monkey D. Luffy is considered an Emperor and engaging him in combat will just be a huge demerit for the World Government... but we all know that Rob lucci is someone who lives for battle, and, well, Luffy is right there. Meanwhile, Luffy sees the broken-down body of Atlas, and gets monumentally pissed off because Atlas gave them food. Ah, Luffy and his priorities. Never change. 

We get a brief scene of Akainu still on his desk... get off that desk, magma boy! He's pissed off that CP-0 and Vegapunk are all acting on their own... and Kizaru is already light-speeding off to Egghead. Nice! We get an Admiral involved in this, which would definitely fix one of the complaints that Rob Lucci alone wouldn't be too much of a challenge for the entire Straw Hat crew. 

And we cut back to Egghead, and Luffy is already straight in Gear Fifth, clashing with... Rob Lucci! Who has awakened his Leopard Devil Fruit! He's a lot slimmer now compared to his original hybrid mode, and most importantly, he's got that black fire wreath that Gear Fourth Luffy and Hybrid Form Yamato has. Shaka briefly notes that awakened Zoan fruits tend to overwhelm the user's mind (presumably what happened to those Demon Guards from Impel Down), but I guess anyone who doesn't get overwhelmed ends up manifesting... well, powers like this? 

The real Stella Vegapunk shows up with Shaka and the rest of the Punks and Straw Hats there and begins delivering a huge lore bomb. And... yeah, sure. I'll have to acknowledge that I'm a huge, huge fan of Lucci, and seeing Luffy and Lucci fight in the background, with Luffy pulling wacky Gear Fifth shenanigans with his 'Mole Cannon' and pulling his head around is pretty fun! Lucci actually matching up to Luffy is pretty fun! But all of it pales to the exposition being given by Vegapunk. 

Vegapunk finally does some in-story revelations to the Straw Hats, telling them that the Gum Gum Fruit doesn't exist in the ancient Devil Fruit Encyclopedias, and Vegapunk identifies the White Warrior as the Sun God Nika, which was wiped from history by the World Government. 

By the way, it is interesting that the two Straw Hats not in the Vegapunk room are Chopper -- who would have something to say about awakened Zoan Devil Fruits -- and Jinbei -- who would have something to say about Sun God Nika. Great character splitting up there!

Vegapunk then delivers the big origin story and nature of the Devil Fruits. That the Devil Fruits... are born out of desire. There are certain different translations of this. Desire, wishes, dreams... but Vegapunk continues to give us his theory about the origin of Devil Fruits. Apparently, they are the 'manifestations of how different paths of evolution can play out', with the example being given of wishes about humans wanting to do X or Y... and each Devil Fruit showcases a different possibility for the future of humanity. These deviations, being unnatural, apparently piss off Mother Sea, hence the rejection by the ocean. And more interestingly, one who has eaten the fruit lives a 'totally alien existence' or 'in another dimension' born out of imagination. 

Again, there's a lot to analyze there and it really depends on the translations... and I'm not sure how literal we are supposed to take Vegapunk's words here. And even then, there are so many questions. Is there a higher being giving out these Devil Fruits? Or at least setting up the system that causes these desires or dreams or whatever to coalescence into a Devil Fruit? And what's the connection with the whole 'other dimension'? Are Devil Fruits connected to dimensions where humanity has evolved into leopards, sun gods, magma, light, ice, barriers, flowering hands? Or is it just wholly magical and the wishes of someone who, oh, wants to run like a leopard or fly like a bird create those respective devil fruits? 

And the regeneration process into other nearby fruits. Or Mother Sea apparently being a being that can 'reject' these beings that... are from another dimension? Carry a spirit from another dimension? So different from normalcy that they seem to be from another dimension? God my head hurts. 

And that's just casually dropped in the mid-point of the chapter. 

Then we have Sentomaru showing up with S-Shark, S-Snake and S-Hawk. Sentomaru's pretty game to just fight the pirates, until Vegapunk... basically all but blackmails and twists Sentomaru's arm, talking about how he's taken Sentomaru in when he was young, and it's okaaaaay if he's going to leave Vegapunk to the Marines. Pretty funny, and it makes sense -- it has been established that Sentomaru's far more associated with Vegapunk than the Marines before. 

Stussy and Kaku sic their own Seraphim, S-Bear... and then Sentomaru basically orders the S-Bear around. Stussy talks about how there is a list of command hierarchy for the Seraphim -- where it goes Gorosei; dr. Vegapunk (all Vegapunks); Sentomaru; then anyone carrying a Command Chip. They can't take orders from Den Den Mushis, which is why the Gorosei can't order them around either. Luffy and Lucci are too busy fighting, and it does seem that with four Seraphims on the good guys' side, it's just going to be the three CP-0 agents and Kizaru fighting... 

Luffy then bounces over to Sentomaru and talks to him, and he's basically okay with letting Vegapunk come on board his ship and help him escape. But as they are talking, Rob Lucci zips in and unleashes a technique called 'Hand Gun', which I think he's used before? If not him, then one of the other CP-9 agents. Sentomaru falls, and this is how Rob Lucci basically takes out the 'commander' above him, since the Seraphim obeys him now. 

And... okay, yeah. Kizaru, Awakened Lucci, the Seraphim, Sentomaru... all fun shit, all great shit, but I really do feel that the main attraction of this chapter is by far the random insertion of the highly anticipated origin story of the Devil Fruits. And... it raises even more questions than it answers! In a good way, too! What the heck!

Random Notes:

• The cover story seems to be a flashback to the original MADS base, where it had a flag of 'pacifist' and it was presented by Lu Feld, the loan shark from the Whole Cake Island arc? There's so much to process in this chapter, normally I'd talk a bit more about this, but it's interesting that the MADS backstory is being delivered in the cover stories of this episode itself!
• The civilians running away have writings on their clothing that presumably indicate their spceialty, with ones that seem to correspond to 'macroeconomics' or 'macroecology' and 'statistics'.
• There's a fun little gag where Luffy tells Chopper to deal with the wounded Atlas, but Chopper's response is more along the lines of 'this is Franky's forte!'
• What kind of wish created the Jacket Jacket Fruit? 
• There's a fun and very important moment where Chopper and Jinbei realize that there's a Jinbei clone among the Seraphim and Jinbei is just so annoyed and disappointed.