One Piece 1070 Review: Dawn Pistol

One Piece, Chapter 1070: The Strongest Form of Humanity

So this chapter came out a while back but I just got busy with Christmas stuff and real-life stuff and Pokemon that I didn't have the time to talk about it, and... it's kinda okay, I guess, because 1070 is a lot more action-y than the previous one, which was the ORIGIN OF ALL DEVIL FRUITS and that's a much more interesting chapter to review. Not to say that this one isn't fun to read, but it's not really one that gives me a lot to talk about. 

Sentomaru isn't dead, of course, and apparently he used the ability we now know as Ryu'o, the invisible Armament Haki, to block Lucci's strike. Nice to see Oda remembering that specific bit of power and the original introduction to Haki, and to show it to us again here. Luffy then goes all insane with Gear Fifth, which... honestly, at this point in the story, I kind of am glad Oda went this route with Gear Fifth. After all the rather 'Bazooka, but with Armament Haki', 'Pistol, but with Ryu'o', 'Pistol, but in Gear Fourth Boundman', it's starting to get a little boring -- in the same way that I would criticize Dragon Ball Z's attacks -- that it's mostly the same thing shaded a bit differently. Luffy's "Dawn Whip" has him spin himself around like a top, and gives us the ridiculous mental image of him going around like the goddamn Tasmanian Devil. 

We then cut away to see the Seraphim Shichibukai cut apart a bunch of generics, and... it's a bit unfair to call them generics because presumably as Cipher Pol agents they would be slightly lower in terms of power compared to pre-timeskip CP9, but it's a bit less impressive to see Seraphim Mihawk cut apart a bunch of no-name government suits as compared to seeing him clash with Blackbeard. 

Franky asked a question I asked a while back, about the Swim-Swim Fruit of Senor Pink. Franky goes for the obvious conclusion that Senor Pink died offscreen and had his fruit reincarnated, but turns out that, thankfully, Senor Pink is alive and good! Glorious! Vegapunk then reveals that only Zoans can be created artificially, Logias cannot be recreated, but Vegapunk notes that he can recreate the power of other Devil Fruits with the amount of resources he has. He can't confirm that they can or cannot awaken, though, which is interesting. Are we going to the criteria as to how awakenings happen?

Vegapunk also rules out Caesar Clown's SMILE aberrations, and I love the brief and consistent character moment from Nami about how Caesar is a horrible child-experimenting lunatic and deserves to die. 

Vegapunk then explains how duplicating the Paramecia types work -- just synthesize the bloodline elements (a.k.a. their DNA) and then literally turn them into sci-fi Green Blood and pump them into the Seraphim. It's something pointed out as part of gibberish jargon about S-Shark a couple of chapters ago, and we get to see S-Snake use Mero Mero Mellow and S-Bear use Ursus Shock. 

Lucci just keeps trying to get rid of Sentomaru and Luffy goes super-duper gigantic like Kirby and tries to eat Lucci, and then proceeds to spit out the rubble up at Lucci. He then rubberifies one of the tunnels and then does a Gomu Gomu Dawn Rocket, launching himself down at Lucci. More interestingly, he plucks off part of his Gear Fifth hair and turns them into goggles, which... yeah, the Toon Force powers is strong with this one. Lucci gets knocked out -- though he gets better afterwards, so yeah, that's where the power-scaling goes, I guess.

S-Snake helps Chopper and Jinbe, who are evacuating Bonney and Atlas, into the Vacuum Rocket, and S-Snake is the first Seraphim to show more than a robotic beep-boop personality, getting flustered when Jinbe compliments her. Luffy decides to go off and retreat, leaving Sentomaru to hold back Cipher Pol, because the current priority is getting Vegapunk off the island... and I guess Gear Fifth's biggest weakness is its time limit where it's near-invincible when it's up, but Luffy goes straight into old-man mode afterwards. 

We cut to the Labophase being separated from the rest of Egghead, and then back to Sentomaru, who was left on the battlefield all bloodied and defeated. I was a bit confused why Sentomaru didn't just retreat with the Straw Hats, but I guess if he did, the way the previous chapters' explanations were is that the Seraphims' controller would, by default, pass back to the CP-0 agents. Doesn't explain why Sentomaru doesn't just order the Seraphim to 'go as far as possible from this battlefield' or something, though. The chapter ends with the CP-0 and Seraphim all united together. 

And then Kizaru arrives and the end, mister lightspeed high on weed himself, mumbling about how Vegapunk has sided with the Straw Hats, and how escape won't be easy... and he's summoning all battleships. 

Now that's more like it for an opposing force in an arc!

Random Notes:

• The cover story shows the original incarnation of MADS, which... includes... uh... I don't even know what I'm looking at. We've got young Vegapunk with glasses where you don't think they would be? There is Caesar Clown with a much more fancier-looking outfit than we've ever seen him wear, and... there are three other people there that took a while to identify. The one on the right seems to Vinsmoke Judge, just with a less epic outfit and less of a mustache. The epic rockstar next to Caesar is QUEEN? Okay, I guess if he's skinny, he would be a bit too popular. And then there's a woman that I'm going to assume is... Stussy? It would make sense about how she said she had been to Egghead before, but I didn't expect her to be part of MADS itself!
• There is a recent Jump announcement from Oda that says he's not planning to end One Piece 'soon', which I think is a concern about how there was a statement about a 3-5 year timeline. We are definitely in the final arc, though!
• There's a translation note that 'Dawn' can also be read as 'Don!' in Japanese, which is the sound effect associated with Tom the shipwright and also a sound effect that this manga really likes to use. There's even a DON! effect in the final page where CP-0 stands around with the Seraphims!
• It is interesting how Vegapunk notes that he can't recreate the power of Logias, but we know that even the first-generation Pacifistas use Kizaru's Pika Pika no Mi. Is it just the laser beams that are replicatable, is the 'becoming immaterial' thing that's hard to replicate, or is it a 'I can't get the colour of the dragon right' kind of perfectionism going on?
• The Mero Mero no Mi acts on those who harbour lust on the user, so, uh... those random Cipher Pol agents... um... yeah, I guess it's best to have them petrified on the island. 
• Since we're in Devil Fruit explanation territory, I would be remiss to not point out how Luffy's Gear Fifth and Chopper's new Monster Point all end up with them reduced into a comical old-man weakened state. Are the Rumble Balls truly an artificial way to stimulate awakening? Especially with Vegapunk talking about how he hasn't been able to make the artificial devil fruits awaken? 
• There's also a funny panel with Nami going 'he's going to be a thorn in our side. Ice him!' The expression and pose she makes there is hilarious!