One Piece, Chapter 1072: The Weight of Memory
Bit of a shorter review. Been really busy, and I tried to upload a version of this review that I ended up screwing up the upload and it ate my review. But I do want to talk a bit about the ramifications of this chapter, so here's my truncated version of this chapter review, I guess.
So the first part of the chapter is just more Vegapunk and Bonney stuff, with some more showcase of Bonney's still-unnamed age-changing Devil Fruit. We get some more named attacks from Bonney, which is nice! One of the more interesting ones I think is the 'Distorted Future' attack, which seems to take a play on those SBS questions of what the Straw Hats will look in a 'good' and a 'bad' future. Apparently in a distorted future, Bonney becomes a strongman. Vegapunk got changed into a little kid when his 'age' falls out of him in weird little shapes, Bonney confirms that she can't change the ages of living things permanently, and while we're all evasive and shit, the chapter all but says that Kuma pushed out all his emotions and memories into a little floating Ursus Shock bubble thing. Vegapunk is also being super evasive because Kuma had made him swear not to involve Bonney in this.
There's also an interesting little conversation between Vegapunk and Kuma about how "a scientist once said a human body loses 21 grams when he dies, and that is the weight of the soul". My original review had a longer talk about the real-life 21 grams experiment, which has now been debunked as something attributed to like, evaporation or some shit. It's something that's been referenced in other manga before (Gantz was one some people pointed it out, which is a manga I read a long time ago) and... well, we've seen Brook and Big Mom's powers interact with souls, so maybe in the One Piece world, the 21 grams experiment is real? Kuma is also noted to be able to push out pain with his abilities, turning nervous signals into radio signals or some shit, and it's a cute little explanation of his Paw Paw Fruit's ability. Within their experimentation, Vegapunk and Kuma basically figured out how to do this with emotions.
Which... I wonder if this is the awakened ability of the Paw Paw Fruit, or if Vegapunk is just that smart that he can 'massage' other devil fruits to do things beyond their base abilities.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Seraphim and CP-0 have climbed up to the Labosphere and the Seraphims are starting to wreak havoc. We do get a bit of a fun wrinkle where the Seraphim have just enough mobility and independence to be able to make decisions in a battlefield... and since their objective is to 'crush the enemy', they are going to do it even if it puts them at risk of being basically put under the control of the satellite Vegapunks. Lilith and Edison go down to confront them, and both Sanji and Franky go with them. There's some fun comedy moments with Sanji here, too.
Zoro continues to fight Kaku, who is revealed to be awakened... which is honestly a bit of a no-brainer. I guess seeing Kaku with those flowing not-flames is an indication that it's a sign of Zoan awakenings, so... yeah, Yamato and Kaido's definitely awakened, then? Or at least Yamato. Zoro clearly is overpowering Kaku in their fight, though. I don't think it's really too much of a stretch to say that the CP-0 are going to be a threat the way the Yonko were.
...but then Kaku gets bitten and knocked out by Stussy... who sprouts vampire wings and we get the revelation that she is Stussy, "Clone of Miss Buckingham Stussy, Rocks Pirates" and "MADS clone experiment successful subject No. 1, Stussy". And... my god, this one was a fun plot twist. Admittedly the only foreshadowing to this was relatively recent -- that Stussy indicates that she's been in Egghead before, and that cover story where a woman looking like Stussy is shown among MADS. We've all easily guessed that Stussy is a member of MADS in some capacity, but the clone stuff? That was surprisingly well-hidden, especially since this chapter's monologue about a successful female subject seemed to indicate Bonney more than Stussy.
The other foreshadowing? A tongue-in-cheek 'women hide their ages' gag in the databooks where Stussy's date is listed to be 'classified'. Turns out it's a real government secret!
We also get the connection with Ms. Buckingham Stussy of the Rocks Pirates, which, of course, is Miss "Bakkin", self-claimed wife of Whitebeard and mother of Whitebeard Junior, Edward Weevil. I've always found Weevil to be a really strange addition to the story so late in the game, especially since there really wasn't a whole ton of buildup to anything relating to the Whitebeard Pirates beyond Marco and Izo in Wano... so I've always thought that it was a bit of a 'side-plot' that definitely made the world feel more alive, but felt a bit... disconnected. But it wasn't super hard to guess that Bakkin might've had some connection to the Whitebeard or Rocks Pirates, and this confirms that. It's interesting to add yet another character related to the oh-so-enigmatic Rocks Pirates, and I wonder if we'll get even more around that any time soon?
More interestingly is the revelation that Stussy is a clone, which really opens the floodgates of speculation on who else is a clone. I wouldn't like it if Luffy is a clone, let me say that as much, but a tie-in I would like would definitely be the Kuina/Tashigi stuff, though I wonder why someone would bother cloning some random swordsman kid from the East Blue? Unless both Kuina and Tashigi are clones? Is Weevil an unsuccessful clone instead of Whitebeard's son, actually?
I also wonder why Stussy attacked Kaku, which implies an alliance with Vegapunk? And those devil wings... Does she have some sort of vampire devil fruit, which is heavily implied by all the vampire imagery around her?
Fun chapter, fun chapter.
Random Notes:
- Cover story is Judge, Queen and Caesar fucking around with their scientific experiments and doing some mad scientist shit.
- Ah, yes, Vegapunk. The door with Kuma's pad symbol has nothing to do with Kuma.
- Always loved the pun on 'Kilimanjaro' with Kaku's attack. It's so far-reaching, I love it. It's Kiri-man-jairo, so a Kirin-man (giraffe-man) doing a gyro (a spinning attack) and it sounds like Mt. Kilimanjaro, located in Africa, where the giraffes are.
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