One Piece 1093 Review: Army of Me

One Piece, Chapter 1093: Luffy vs. Kizaru

And we continue on with the Egghead arc. This chapter doesn't really give me much to talk about, though, since it's mostly just action scenes. We don't get any follow-up on the mysterious ancient kingdom giant robot from 1092, though we do get some devoted action scenes between Luffy and Kizaru, which is nice. 

And... there's just a special kind of bizarreness seeing that neither Luffy nor Kizaru seems to be taking the fight seriously. Luffy is in his typical euphoric Gear Fifth state, while Kizaru is perpetually high-on-drugs. Gigant Luffy just yeets Kizaru away from the island, which is kinda hilarious but also pretty badass on Kizaru's end. He just flies and realizes that 'oh, I'm about to hit the water' with the casualness of someone walking their dog... and just disintegrates into light and turns himself into a mass of scattering light. That's a very cool imagery. 

The hacking subplot is finished up by Vegapunk off-screen, and the Vegapunks do some planning. Atlas wants to steal the authority of the Pacifistas away from the Marines, while Stella Vegapunk wants to go and save Bonney... and in doing so, he's next in line of a bunch of characters that have been calling Bonney a 'little girl'. Is the theory about Bonney being actually a small child that aged herself up to adulthood actually true? We did find her in kid form when Luffy rescued her from that weird seawater phenomenon. That would make the times that Bonney is drawn in sexualized angles much, much more disturbing, though, from a real-world POV.

Anyway, Stella Vegapunk calls Franky out on failing to protect Bonney; while Sanji has a radar for damsels in distress, so the three of them will form the Bonney Retrieval Team. 

Bonney, meanwhile, is causing havoc with her still-unnamed age-changing Devil Fruit, and is just hiding after being rescued by Sentomaru. Apparently it's not Gear Fifth Luffy or age powers or anything, Bonney just straight-up survived being tossed into the laser grid! Okay, maybe I am underestimating her a bit. I guess she is a Supernova, and even if she's not Luffy/Law/Kid level, she's still counted among the ranks of people like Apoo, Drake and Bege, right? I can see them surviving being thrown into a laser grid. Oh, also Sentomaru catches her before she slams onto the ground. It's... it's neat? Sentomaru just refuses to fall down and while I can't say I really care all that much about him as a character, it's nice that he's getting a pretty good showing for himself. 

And then we cut to Zoro fighting Rob Lucci in his awakened leopard form! They're fighting evenly and there's a bit of a debate on whether Zoro is actually using Enma Santoryu or if it's just regular Armament Infusion. Whatever the case, though, Lucci is clearly this arc's biggest loser. Remember a couple of chapters ago when he's like "I refuse to acknowledge Straw Hat Luffy as a Yonko!" and now he's settling on "killing the second-in-command of an Emperor." I do still really think Zoro stands more than a fair chance of taking down Lucci, though I am happy to see that it's not a simple one-shot. 

We then continue the rest of the fight between Kizaru and Luffy. The dispersed-apart Kizaru uses Yasakani-no-Magatama to basically turn all of the light-blobs he's currently split apart as into clones of Kizaru. Some of them summon Ama-no-Murakumo, the light sword, and Luffy just starts attacking with Gear Fifth techniques, destroying some with Gomu Gomu Dawn Whip before leading them on a merry chase through the sky (Looney Tunes sky-running powers FTW) and then dragging all the Kizaru Clones in a conga line before unleashing a haki-infused Dawn Stamp. 

Luffy is giggling, thinking that he took out the 'real one'... only for his vision to see that Kizaru's arrived in the main laboratory. That's the speed of light for you! Even if it's not as fast as real light, it does mean that it's very much believable for the space of time that Luffy's dicking around with Kizaru's clones that the real guy zipped all the way to find the main objective... Stella Vegapunk. 

Absolutely hilariously, while the panel does show Brook and Nami holding their respective weapons threateningly, Kizaru is straight-up choking Usopp. Clearly, Kizaru knows the sheer threat level of God himself. 

Stella and Atlas Vegapunks take this time to rush out on a bizarre-ass Vegatank, a weird spherical thing with wheels, while Sanji hangs on for dear life. Luffy gets shocked at this, since 'Old Man Apple' will get himself killed exposing himself like this. Kizaru immediately bombards it with a laser blast. Luffy eats the laser blast, and starts vomiting light out of his eyes and mouth. And as this distraction is going on, the Bonney Retrieval Squad (Franky hops on mid-way) zip out a temporary hole in the Frontier Dome, and Atlas gives the order to turn the Pacifistas onto their side. 

The final shot, however, is an ominous one of St. Jaygarcia Saturn, who, according to the previous hierarchy lineup, would put him above the Vegapunks. That said, I still don't find the Pacifistas to be particularly a threat (the Seraphims, on the other hand) but I do find it very, very exciting if a Gorosei actually finally decides to take this time to reveal himself and maybe his powers. 

Random Notes:

• Netflix's One Piece reviews will be on hiatus, and I'll probably start doing them in November or something. I have a lot of things to sort out IRL, and while the manga chapter reviews and Bleach anime episodes are relatively easy for me to do, I really just don't have the time to sit down and watch (and rewatch) the remaining 6 episodes. (JoJo reviews and the upcoming Pokemon DLC playthrough will still continue to release until it's over, because the reviews are mostly done and just need to be proofread.)
• I am sure she's okay because otherwise the other Straw Hats would be panicking something fierce, but this is like the third chapter in a row where Robin's been MIA ever since the Egghead timeskip.
• Franky leaves behind the Franky Shogun to Lilith and tells her to use it to carry the Thousand Sunny. So not only is the Shogun repaired after its destruction in Wano, but other people can pilot it! We've seen Usopp and Chopper pilot the 'Brachio-Tank' part, but unless I'm missing something Franky's the only character that's ever been shown to be able to pilot the full, proper robot.