One Piece, Chapter 1074: Mark III
So of course we don't pick up from the Gorosei reveal. Of course. That'll probably take like the entire rest of the arc before that's followed up upon.
The first part of the chapter is a bit interesting, showing the titular "PX-III" attacking a bunch of generic Cipher Pol soldiers with some... bubble powers? I'm not actually sure if this bubble power shield thing is part of the Paw Paw Fruit ability, or if it's another devil fruit entirely. I don't think anyone's used bubbles before, but I am a bit tired as I'm writing this. The Cipher Pols are quaking in their feet at the sight of PX Mk. III and they're basically surrendering. Really love that panel with the PX-III demanding them to surrender, too. This is basicalyl Sentomaru, who's wounded but not dead (of course) and he's just basically throwing his lot in with being a rebel, activating all fifty of the PX-III robots and unleashing them on the Cipher Pol with the express purpose of getting Vegapunk off the island.
Meanwhile, our heroes on Labostratum now realize that Vegapunk is not with them, and Luffy ran himself ragged running around the laboratory looking for Vegapunk. Yeah, I guess the stamina drawback from Gear Fifth is really hitting home. Shaka says that he can still see where Bonney is from the monitor... but I do wonder if this means that Shaka is lying, or if Vegapunk disappeared so quickly (Caribou? Blueno? Shiryu?) that no one realized.
Zoro, Brook and Stussy regroup with the others with their brand-new Egghead suits, and we get a full panel of the entire cast. Nami is kicking and about to stomp on Rob Lucci's little leopards while Robin is trying to calm her down. Atlas apparently got fixed off-screeen with some spare parts, and I was confused about the giant woman that Sanji is ogling until I realize it's actually York. York's a giant, I guess. Also, the weird enigma of the Frontier Dome being activated is something that's finally plot-relevant, because they've lost control of it and can't escape. So yeah, it's not Stussy that activated it.
Shaka also admits that the Seraphim rampaging did cause some of the security camera snails to be destroyed, so there are a couple of blind spots, so it really might just be Shaka not seeing when Bonney and Vegapunk separated? We don't know at what point Shaka allegedly saw Bonney alone on the camera, after all.
All the Straw Hats and Vegapunks split up, and I absolutely love that the entire Straw Hat crew basically grabs Zoro and stops him from going off to 'lend a hand'. Sanji gets some amazing facial expressions, Chopper yells at Zoro too, and even Robin gets in on the action, saying 'just wait, okay?' with the most innocent smile on her face. Zoro and Luffy standing there over the knocked-out Kaku and Lucci is pretty sensible, though, and I do foresee this leading to a proper rematch when these two guys wake up. I guess Luffy being tired from Gear Fifth is a potential 'nerf' to bring him down to Lucci's level?
We also get a bit of a flashback to Bonney touching the huge Kuma Memory Bubble, and she enters the memory and basically walks around in the memory world, seeing a young big bald kid. That's young Kuma, which we saw in an SBS forever ago. We get to see him being beaten the shit up by some shadowy people, who beat him up because if Kuma gets away, the rest of them will be killed. Kuma cries to be killed instead of being dragged back, and then we see shadows of Marie Geoise and the Tenryubito... yeah. Kuma was enslaved before, and it's a pretty horrifying scene. Bonney gest ejected out of the memory when she gets emotional and cries, although can you really blame her? This scene is interposed with the real Bartholomew Kuma body climbing up the Red Line to reach Marie Geoise, and... I don't really know what's going on here! Is Kuma about to exact vengeance with his zombie cyborg body and go exterminate-exterminate? And Bonney is about to steel her resolve and try again.
Again, the rather ambiguous timeline really does make it hard to know just how long before Shaka sees the security videos the Bonney scene is!
Meanwhile Pythagoras is walking around looking for the Stella, there's a figure walking behind him and as he turns around BOOM there's a huge explosion that tears the building apart! So yeah, take your pick. Blackbeard Pirates (Shiryu of the Rain, maybe), a renegade Vegapunk clone, Stealth-Mode Kizaru, Caribou, Jay-Garcia Saturn, Blueno and the other former CP-9 agents, Hattori activating his true pigeon god powers? You decide! You speculate!
We then cut to the floating base of the World Economic Journal, with Big News Morgans getting the news (from somewhere? I didn't even realize that Morgans must have gotten the information from someone in Egghead) that the World Government is trying to assassinate Vegapunk. Morgans spins the news as 'Emperor Straw Hat Luffy Takes Vegapunk Hostage', and... yeah, Morgans really isn't an ally, unlike what was speculated before by some people when he gave Luffy some gas or when he refused to censor things for the World Government. No, he just leans towards the Government one day and the Pirates the next just for SENSATIONALISM! BIG NEWS!
Bug speaking of Big News, we've got two completely unexpected addition to this arc. Neferari Vivi, who's hanging out with... WAPOL? I'm not sure why Wapol is there. I guess for comedic relief? Vivi is pissed off at Morgans for badmouthing Luffy, Wapol is panicking about the potential presence of a wiretap snail, and Morgans is just doing his whole 'my words can shake the world, news is entertainment' spiel. Very surprising twist. I really do want Vivi to come back into the story and rejoin the Straw Hats, and I really do wonder after the whole Marco/Weevil stuff last chapter, how all this is going to tie together!
Random Notes:
- The cover story has Queen, Judge and Caesar fighting each other for the position of number two. I see Queen has bulked up a bit after the previous segments. It is interesting that Caesar is basically treated as an equal with Queen and Judge now, huh? Previously I've always felt like Caesar is a notch below the other members of MADS, like a psychotic intern or something.
- Yeah, if you can't tell, I think I'm the most suspicious about Shaka right now .I think it's because he doesn't show his face.
- Luffy also broke his hoverboots. "Don't snitch, I can't pay them back!"
- There is a glorious background event when Shaka is doing some exposition when Sanji spots Stussy and goes 'heart-heart'.
- There are a couple of random female Morgans employees that are fawning over Vivi borrowing their clothes to wear. That's funny.
No comments:
Post a Comment