One Piece 1095 Review: If I Didn't Want To Get Stabbed...

One Piece, Chapter 1095: A World Not Worth Living In

Okay, I don't think anyone expected that!

The chapter picks up right where it left off last week, with St. Jaygarcia Saturn arriving and casually murdering random low-ranking Marines that look at him. The Vice Admirals around Saturn all get ready to attack Bonney for the crime of stabbing St. Jaygarcia Saturn, and we get a horrifying shot of Saturn's eyes glowing and vibrating. He knocks Bonney away from him, with... with the Force or something, and I absolutely love that it's really just not explained at all what Saturn's power is. 

Saturn also makes the boast that if he 'did not wish to be stabbed, then [he] would have dodged'. Meaning that he took the stab head-on, and it really is just for dramatic effect and for cliffhanger's sake. Saturn then starts unleashing a bunch more powers and, again, just like Haki was back in the day, none of these are explained. Sanji zips in to attack and gets blown away almost immediately. Saturn pulls out Bonney's sword and he's clearly bleeding from his chest/chin, and the wound and blood all just vanishes. 

Saturn tells the other Marines to stay calm, and keep their weapons trained at the pirates, before admonishing Kizaru -- who's down on the ground. Both Kizaru and Luffy are wiped out, with Luffy shriveled up from the Gear Fifth, while Kizaru's mumbling about needing 'a bit more time' to get up. Saturn is at least a bit more polite to Kizaru, and we don't quite get the 'you failed me, now die' nonsense that I actually expected from someone like the Gorosei. 

Saturn then is about to stab Luffy with his big-ass spider leg, and we get probably the most hilarious action scene here where Franky unleashes STRONG RIGHT and... punches Luffy away from the giant spider-claw. Just like how he acted in Onigashima, I love that Franky's next words are basically laughing in mocking joy that even the biggest shots of the world are now after his captain's head. Gotta really love Franky's optimism!

Of course, Saturn starts talking about how desperate things are for our good guys, how Egghead is surrounded, and there's a pretty fun line of dialogue where Saturn tells Vegapunk that the government is thankful for everything he's done... and then basically forces Vegapunk to choose who dies first. "Tell me the cruelest order possible", because Saturn's a dick that way. Saturn then drops a line of dialogue where he admonishes humans in general about always doing things that are forbidden to them. There has been a lot of speculation that Saturn isn't using a Devil Fruit, but rather is a/the Devil itself. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I like that it builds hype for something different, but on the other hand we also went through this with Kaidou being a 'dragon that ate a human fruit' deal. 

Saturn then shows off yet another ability, pinning Franky, Sanji and Vegapunk down with some kind of invisible force. Vegapunk theorizes that the force pinning them down is a Devil Fruit ability... and your guess is as good as mine on whether this is confirmation or misdirection.

Saturn and Bonney have some dialogue, and Saturn very casually name-drops the fact that Bartholomew Kuma is 'born to be a slave', and the descendant of a people who committed a grave sin against the world... something that's called the 'Buccaneer Race'. And it's... okay, I actually do know what 'Buccaneer' means. It's a type of pirate in real life, and it's... rather bizarre that it's the name of a race? Eh. 

But as Saturn holds Bonney up and tells the Marines around him to aim at her head and shoot her dead, Bonney has a flashback about Kuma dancing and telling her about the Sun God Nika. Couldn't... couldn't use your head-exploding powers on her, Saturn? I'm not sure if Saturn really can only do it to weaklings (like a more psychotic version of Conqueror's Haki) or if he's just prolonging this to be cruel to Vegapunk and Bonney. 

...and then surprise Kuma flashback!

...which I kind of expected, really. Honestly, I kind of wanted the Kuma flashback so we can get it done and over with, but in a very shocking swerve, we've also got it mashed with... the GOD VALLEY FLASHBACK. Okay? Huh! But Kuma first. We get to see the birth of Kuma in the Sorbet Kingdom. Kuma's father Klap is basically hiding the existence of Kuma's bloodline... only for world government agents to find out about this, and arrest Kuma's entire family anyway. 

We still don't really know what the Buccaneer race entails, and I guess it's that they're bigger than normal, but not quite a giant? Whatever the case, Baby Kuma and his parents are taken in and turned into Celestial Dragon slaves. It adds an extra layer of tragedy that Kuma's literally a baby when he's being beaten up and berated like this, and he just looks like a big kid. We get a particularly tearjerking panel where Little Kuma just finished lying to his dad about how his master has 'treated him well', only to find out that his mother died and went to heaven and is in a better place now. 

And... my god that panel on top of the page with a crying Kuma. I tend to not really be moved by One Piece's crying faces, but that's particularly gutwrenching. 

And right after that we get Klap telling Kuma that he shouldn't wish for death, because the warrior of liberation, Sun God Nika, will come. It's something passed down through Buccaneer folklore, and Klap starts to dance and make the dondo-to-to drums of liberation sounds. We get an adorable panel on the bottom-middle of Little Kuma finally smiling again... right as blood splatters on his face. 

Because a fucking Celestial Dragon just walks in with a musket rifle and shoots Klap in the face right in front of his son because he's being a bit too noisy.

Wow the Celestial Dragons are dipshits. If you needed a reminder as to why these guys are total fuckmunchers that need to die before the series is over, here you go. 

And then... 38 years ago. The Celestial Dragons are doing a 'Native Cleaning Festival', which they used to do every 3 years (the fact that we've never heard of this implies that the practice has probably been abolished since this particular game) where they... cleanse out non-government affiliated countries. Man, not being registered with the World Government apparently used to mean this. Not only are you not protected from pirates, but sometimes some inbred rich people come and use your entire country to re-enact Hunger Games or PUBG or something. 

And turns out that this year, they picked GOD VALLEY. Turns out that all of our theories about God Valley being some great Celestial Dragon stronghold is exactly the opposite -- God Valley is a random kingdom that the Celestial Dragons took umbrage against because they dared call themselves 'God' Valley. The King of God Valley is obviously very angry that his kingdom is being used as a playground and his people's lives are going to be slaughtered for nothing but entertainment, but some jackass with terrible hair cut slashed his throat open. 

This is a young St. Figarland Garling, and back in the day he only has the stupid moon hair. He looks a bit less dumb with the facial hair, at least. The other Celestial Dragons are more concerned that Garling went and killed the king before the buzzer began, and that Garling gets a -10K points because of it... to which Garling just shrugs and says that it's an acceptable handicap. St. Jaygarcia Saturn is also there, looking exactly the same as he does in the present day, which lends some proper credence to the fact that these guys either don't age, or age very slowly. Oda has normally been pretty great at showing at least people's hair change over time with characters like Garp, Sengoku, Whitebeard or Kaidou, so yeah. 

This is also a bit of an explanation of showing little Kuma escaping from his slavers which we saw forever ago. There are some slaves that are released into God Valley for bonus points. The slaves are released in groups of 10, for collective punishment. And as the other nameless slave kick Kuma down, we get a familiar heeeee-haw as a young Emporio Ivankov introduces himself, and recognizes Kuma as a Buccaneer. He's got a little 'sister' called Ginny who's eating a shank of mutton. Since Ginny never shows up in the present day, things are probably not going to end well for her, and... between the 'big eater' part, meeting Kuma here and having a similar name (particularly in Japanese) for Conny/Ginny/Bonney, she's 100% Bonney's mom, huh? 

Anyway, I definitely didn't expect God Valley to be connected to Kuma at all, and to have this be dropped onto us in the middle of a 'Gorosei is flexing his power' chapter is pretty damn badass! Pretty great chapter, lots of amazing revelations, and this is going to be theorizing fodder to come!

Random Notes:

• People have pointed out that Bonney spent her time in Sabaody warning Zoro not to cut up a Celestial Dragon, and in 1094 she not only stabs a Celestial Dragon, but one of the highest-ranking ones at that!
• Apparently, people do know what the Gorosei look like, it's just that very few people 's seen them face-to-face. One of the random Marines notes that he's only ever "seen them in portraits".
• Saturn is also unleashing black lightning, which could really be anything from Haki to just the magic from the unexplained summoning circle. 
• One of the Marines standing next to Doberman is like holding his hands up to his hair, which is shaped like a bizarre crescent-shaped mohawk? Presumably he's going to launch that blade? This reminds me of Bebop from the excellent 2012 TMNT cartoon, where he makes energy-projectiles created out of his mohawk. 
• Saturn being angry that humans always look for things that are 'explicitly forbidden' is a nice  contrast against the pirates and their constant exploration, for sure. And, obviously, to Robin's whole archaeology theme.
• So is Klap the king of Sorbet? The flashback in this chapter doesn't really lean either way, but it's equally possible that Kuma became king afterwards or something. 
• God Valley is also located in the West Blue! One of the things that caused people to be a bit confused is that Shanks claims that his hometown is in the West Blue when he brought that bottle of sake to Whitebeard; but we now know that Roger picked him up in God Valley... which everyone assumed is in the New World. Now we know!
• Ginny may or may not be Ivankov's biological sister, because of the wording used in how she refers to Ivankov as a 'big bro'. 
• Some people immediately jump on Ginny as being Luffy's mom, but... I really don't think so? The fact that this is a Kuma flashback, and the fact that Dragon hasn't shown up (yet), and the whole Ginny/Bonney thing sounding so similar in katakana really didn't make me think of Luffy's mom at all.
• So Saturn and Garling just don't go around wearing the astronaut helmets? Is there a reason for that, or are their respective hairdos just too big for the helmets?