One Piece, Chapter 1071: A Hero's Offensive
Huh. It's one of those chapters that seem to be a bit more common in the Egghead arc where we continually check in with characters all over the world, and... let me just quickly go through the actual Egghead story first, because I feel like it's kinda a bit... I don't want to say 'less interesting', but 'more predictable', perhaps is the right term.
There is a brief discussion between the CP-0 agents about Luffy and Lucci's fight, and Lucci's excuse of fighting is... he refuses to acknowledge Luffy as an Emperor? Okay, sore about his previous defeat, then. Gotcha. We get the full lineup of Vegapunk and all of his satellite bodies minus, obviously, Atlas. I absolutely love the visual image of Vegapunk with a big-ass backpack like he's going to go camping, while Lilith, Shaka, Pythagoras, Edison and York are hanging out around him. Only Shaka and Lilith really have any kind of meaningful dialogue, with Lilith wanting to go all-in and fight the CP-0 agents while Shaka insists that Stella Vegapunk's survival is the most important thing.
The other Vegapunks talk about how they have another 'ally' on the island, that would be put at risk if they help out, but Stella-Vegapunk just calls this mysterious ally without much preamble, and all we get is a generic message on the vein of "I'm always prepared for this order". With that dealt with, Vegapunk notes how all seven of him/them are going on board the Thousand Sunny, which... I'm not sure why everyone (myself included) is assuming that we're just going to take either regular Vegapunk or one of the satellite bodies? Hmm.
The Frontier Dome preventing the CP-0 agents from going up gets taken down by a currently-mysterious person, and apparently none of the Vegapunks or CP-0 are responsible for it, with Lucci and Stussy being confused. No one is also in the control room (and definitely not Lilith, who's the obvious red herring suspect). The CP-0 agents Geppo up and Kaku does a gigantic Rankyaku to attack the Thousand Sunny... and Zoro casually wakes up, unsheathes his sword and blocks the Rankyaku. And... okay, that was a very badass moment as Zoro and Kaku regard each other, and the two begin to clash almost immediately!
Also, while all of this is going on (it's a bit of a chapter that jumps around). We continue the misunderstanding last chapter where Bonney is still pissed off at Vegapunk, and later on we get to see her about to beat the shit out of Vegapunk with a pipe, while Vegapunk confirms that Kuma can't be turned back to normal... though whether this is the actual yruth, or one of those 'Vegapunk is such a perfectionist' gag, I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, other than Bonney chasing Vegapunk around, all our guys have regrouped together.
All around the world are other things happening. The chapter itself opens up with the 'real' Kuma, who slams onto the Red Port? We've been on the impression that he's heading to Egghead, but either the Paw-Paw Fruit transportation got interrupted halfway through by him slamming to the Red Port, or he actually intended to go there. We don't actually know what Kuma intends to do, but he sure is rampaging and the people there are sure panicking!
We check in with Kid and Killer, who pass an island with giant fishes... and we get a little nod of the similarities between Kid and Luffy about how Kid always explores every single island he gets to. And the island Killer asks Kid about? Elbaf, homeland of the giants! DUN DUNNN DUNNNN!
Oh yeah, just like how Rob Lucci is supposed to contact the government for permission to fight a Yonko, another guy technically in employ of the government is about to do the same, as Garp calls Doll for reinforcements, and he refuses to clear it with top brass. Garp arrives and Helmeppo, in tears, gets on the ship with Hibari. Garp then declares his decision to... storm Hachinosu, beat the shit out of Blackbeard, and get Coby back! DUN DUNNN DUNNNN!
Can he beat Blackbeard, though? We haven't really gotten a conclusion to the Blackbeard/Law thing yet, and we're about to move into another major character fighting Blackbeard... is Marshall D. Teach just going to beat the hell out of every secondary character before Luffy shows up?
A surprising amount of setup, and perhaps jumps around a fair bit -- I'm not the biggest fan of hysteria Bonney for sure -- but it's an okay chapter to close out last year!
Random Notes:
- No cover story for this chapter.
- One of the crack theories I've seen floating out there is that Vegapunk can't "turn Kuma back to normal" because maybe PX-0 isn't actually Kuma, but a prototype clone? But then he does bleed red blood, and we've seen him use the Paw-Paw Fruit multiple times, so.
- We get the revelation that Vega Force 01 can only fly around the island, which I'm going to assume is something to do with the anti-gravity field or whatever we've been mentioning.
- It's kind of hilariously dark and completely lacking of self-awareness of Vegapunk to go 'oh, jeeze, sorry, Sentomaru' despite him practically twisting the poor dude's arm last chapter.
- Sanji doesn't care which Vegapunk joins, as long as Lilith comes with them. Doesn't like York, huh.
Who do you think the mysterious ally of Vegapunk is? I kinda want to guess it's a revolutionary since Shaka talked with Dragon, or maybe a satellite that Vegapunk never told the W.G. about
ReplyDeleteI really got nothing this time around... there's so many names being thrown out around. The 'real' Kuma (his brain?) might be it, but then by all indications it does seem like Vegapunk is ready to leave Egghead behind without bringing that ally with him, so it should be someone who could make his way out on his own?
DeleteI don't know if a new character would necessarily have the same 'oomph', but on the same vein I don't think there's any pre-existing character who would work in this scenario.