One Piece 1097 Review: Viva la Revolucion

One Piece, Chapter 1097: Ginny

A bit of a calmer chapter, but also one that I didn't expect. To be fair, I don't know what I expected, other than... well, being Kuma is suffering, and Kuma's life is full of suffering, and while it's obvious that last chapter's final moments of peace won't last... it's still kind of sucky to see Kuma actually go through and have to suffer like this, y'know? Except... the suffering, at least the world-inflicted ones, didn't really pile up this chapter. That is to say, I'm surprised to see that Ginny still survives all the way to the end of this chapter. It seems like Oda really wants Kuma's suffering to really marinate. 

We get to see 8 years after God Valley, where Kuma is just living as a pastor in the church, apparently not a king or a tyrant yet, and he's just using his Paw Paw powers to cause old people's pain to pop out of their bodies. It's something he did to the two random bullies last chapter, but apparently every Sunday, Pastor Kuma goes around and opens this instant-healing service to all the people that toil hard in Sorbet Kingdom. Ginny has grown into a typical hot One Piece woman with legs that go for days, and the way she's framed is that she's a prissy jackass who's angry that all these random old people are asking Kuma for free. 

We get a lot more emphasis on the Celestial Tribute (which I don't think has really been emphasized before until the recent post-Wano Sabo scenes) with King Begori of Sorbet Kingdom being very, very strong in taxing the civilians, even the elderly. This is the source of griping of the civilians of Sorbet Kingdom...

...and then nightfall comes, and we get a heartbreaking series of panels of Kuma looking at the gigantic ball of pain in a Paw-Paw ball, before shoving his hands in to take all the pain for himself and bleeding out of his nose and mouth. The artwork does a great job at contrasting young Kuma's smooth, handsome face on the right, and the horribly-in-pain one on the left. Also some great shots of Ginny's face of someone who's suffering that her boyfriend is basically putting himself through hell, but also knowing the necessity of it all. Obviously a nice callback to the 'nothing happened' scene in Thriller Bark, and it kind of gives a bit more weight to Kuma's challenge considering he has been doing this every week.

Also, he can't just have the bubbles hanging around -- someone has to shoulder all the pain, or it'll go back to its owner. That explains that little tidbit, I guess! 

A couple of years later, Ginny wants to get married to Kuma, but Kuma is unwilling. He's also not willing to tell Ginny the real reason -- that he carries Buccaneer blood, and he doesn't want the fate that befell his family to hit Ginny as well. 

Kuma also points out this 'Monkey D. Dragon' fellow that's been wandering the seas as part of a group called the Freedom Fighters (proto-Revolutionaries). Kuma uses this as a distraction to get away from the uncomfortable questions about marriage. And 3 years later... Father Kuma gets to see the townspeople being rounded up by the country. Apparently the Sorbet Kingdom's royal army are basically trying to enslave the old people from the Southern part of Sorbet... causing Kuma to finally snap and unleash a Paw Paw attack -- basically an Ursus Shock. 

We get a couple of interesting information dump panels... and as much as this takes up space, I do like the little bits of worldbuilding going on here. King Begori is splitting the country into two halves, basically forcing the smaller towns on the South (including the old people's village and Kuma's church) to basically be exempted from the Sorbet Kingdom. This is just an excuse to reduce the kingdom's technical population, since the Celestial Tribute is decided proportional to a country's population, and by redrawing the lines and making the Southern province into not Sorbet, King Begori cuts off a bunch of old people who aren't contributing much taxes while also reducing the amount of taxes they have to pay. 

...which is all well and good without the whole, y'know, 'slavery' thing that his troops tried to do. 

Kuma gets himself arrested, but Ginny and a bunch of the locals also got themselves arrested trying to free Kuma. Kuma starts to get more and more frustrated with the jackass king running their country, but then Dragon, Ivankov and the Revolutionaries come and blow up the royal castle, and proceed to free Kuma and Ginny. Oh, and liberate the rest of Sorbet, too. At this point, Kuma and Ginny formally join the Revolutionary army, and we get Dragon, Ivankov and Kuma as the 'three pillars' of the Revolutionary Army. 

And I've always wanted to see more of the Revolutionaries, so it's fun to see their genesis. Dragon says that they're forced to act a bit more like mercenaries in order to gather funds and manpower, as well as to spread influence. In a casual line dropped in a conversation between the two, Dragon notes that he used to be part of the Marines, but 'found no justice' there. It's something that I think the entire fandom has already assumed thanks to Garp's dynamic with Luffy, but it's very welcome to get some confirmation. 

And then the rest of the chapter is kind of focused on Ginny, who grew into the commander of the East Armies of the Revolutionaries, still eating giant chunks of meat even then. There's a couple of scenes showing just how adorably excited she is that she's about to meet up with Kumacchi's squadron, breaking the hearts of basically all the men in her unit. And then... jump cut to what's probably going to be much more suffering as we get the revelation that... Ginny's been captured right before this reunion!

So yeah, next chapter's not going to end pretty for Ginny and Kuma. I'm frankly surprised that we get a bit more flashback but I'm very much happy to see so much of this! I really do feel like this might go a bit longer than the Oden flashback. And I like Oden as much as the next guy, but Oden is a character that we only really meet in the flashback, whereas this involves Kuma -- a rather long-standing character! The fact that we're getting so much -- Dragon, Revolutionaries, Ivankov, Rocks and Roger and Garp last chapter... yeah, I am so happy they skipped through that whole 'who's the traitor' nonsense in-between Reverie and the buildup to this flashback.  

Random Notes:

• Out of the characters that are the most "ooo, they are going to do something, anticipate their big role in about a decade" alongside Shanks and Garp, I've always been the least interested in Dragon. I'm interested in the Revolution as an idea, but I really didn't care about Monkey D. Dragon at all. Even now, I can't say I can muster that much interest about the man, and I just really want Oda to make me care about this man. 
• Even the old people ship Kuma x Ginny, though it's already pretty obvious that the flashback's going to end up with the two together. 
• I don't actually realize it until it's pointed out, but just like Zoro -- who doesn't want anyone to know about his sacrifice -- Kuma also pretends that the pain-removing abilities doesn't have a cost to him, with only him and Ginny knowing about the little ritual they do every week. God bless you, Kuma. 
• Among the Revolutionaries is a woman with a hat just like Sabo's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sabo had that hat even since he was a kid, right? Before he met Dragon? 
  
• No confirmation either way if Dragon killed or spared King Begori, but no huge loss either way. 
• It's so weird to see Kuma and especially Ivankov in those rev uniforms. 
• Ginny would be succeeded in her role as East Army Commander by Belo Betty. Not sure if that's significant or not.