One Piece 1098 Review: Happy Father's Day

One Piece, Chapter 1098: The Birth of Bonney

This was almost a week late. I'm sorry... but at least it's a break week, right? Thing has been hectic for me, so it took me a while to finish this chapter review. And... it looks like Oda's got a bit of a hectic week, too, because this chapter's artwork is unfinished. It's not quite to the degree of some other rushed chapters in other series like My Hero Academia and Hunter x Hunter, but... in my opinion, it does kind of... work? In this chapter? Kuma's trauma conga just continues, and some of the less-complete artwork really does hammer home a sense of despair and muddledness that honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bit intentional. 

But we continue the Kuma story, and... it isn't immediately clear in my first readthrough, but the first scene takes place two years after Ginny's kidnapping by the Celestial Dragons. Kuma is just rampaging like a wild animal throughout revolution after revolution, wiping out enemies while constantly thinking back to the time that Ginny got kidnapped by the most depraved motherfuckers in the whole world. There's a panel in the bottom-middle of the first page that just exudes rage and anger. 

And there's such a great, melancholic comparison from the joyous triumph of an oppressed people waving the Revolutionaries' flag as they celebrate the best day of their lives, and Bartholomew Kuma, their liberator, simply can't... he just can't. He's just constantly flashing back to the conversations that he had with the other Revolutionaries about how Ginny is abducted by the Celestial Dragons to be his wife. That Kuma is able to just inflict so much damage, rescue so many people... but not the one person he cares about more than anyone else in the world, who, as every second goes by, is going through the same terrible fate that Kuma himself went through as a slave... and likely even worse, considering what 'being a bride' implies.

And obviously this being shonen jump, the word 'rape' is never even implied outright. But keeping everything offscreen leads to such a sickening feeling in my stomach, moreso than the graphic depictions of rape in something like Berserk or Akame ga Kill or something. The fact that we know Ginny, even if it's just for a short while, also makes this such a more hideous sequence than a character like that one random nurse in Sabaody. 

But Ginny was most definitely raped. And for two years, too. How do we know? Well, she was pregnant and gave birth to a child. 

And two years after the abduction, Ginny finally calls in to the Revolutionary base... and for a moment, things seem to lead to a happy ending. Ginny's gone through some shit, but she's at least free, she can return to her brother and her lover and her friends and... and these two pages are where the scribbly, unfinished artwork actually really reflects the tumult within Kuma's mind and soul at this point as it really starts to dawn on him that whatever is going on with Ginny is something that's not going to lead to a happy ending. Ginny starts talking cryptically about how she's dying, how it's not going to be long for her, and how she has always loved Kuma...

And Kuma teleports or Paw-Paw's away back to the church in Sorbet Kingdom, where he knows Ginny would've returned. 

And Ginny, of course... is dead. She's dead from some kind of fantasy sickness that turned her skin blue and hard as stone, and she mentioned that it's because she was exposed to natural light. Ginny has used all of her strength, braving the light and the sun to get a boat to return to Sorbet Kingdom with baby Bonney, before perishing because of the exposure to the light. We get another amazingly drawn and soul-crushing panel of Kuma crying right after he cradles Ginny's wrecked corpse, tears streaming down his face, hugging Ginny's corpse close to himself, just... just completely wrecked. 

And then after a shot of Ginny's tombstone, we get to see Kuma raising baby Bonney as his own child.

And that's why we didn't see Bonney being born in chapter 1097. It's not offscreen as I thought it was -- no, Bonney is younger than her stated age of the early 20's in the databooks, but she's actually really 12. Her birth wasn't offscreened for another chapter because it hasn't happened yet. Ginny never married Kuma because they never did, and Bonney doesn't have Buccaneer features because she's not Kuma's daughter biologically. 

But holy shit, look at the next three or four pages, and tell me if Kuma isn't Bonney's dad. 

Look at this big, burly bear-man trying to feed baby Bonney with a bottle of milk, surrounded by the elderly of the town. Look at that glorious smile, and compare it to all the faces of suffering Kuma's been making throughout the first half of that chapter. Look at Kuma's tears of joy as Bonney calls him 'daddy' for the first time. We get to see a montage of time passing, including some short scenes of Kuma fighting as part of the Revolutionaries... including a particularly cute scene where we see that Kuma's taken a joke from one of the elderly old people and actually put an iron cage around Bonney to sleep so he doesn't accidentally crush the baby. 

And because fate really fucking hates Bartholomew Kuma, we get to see that he's forced to shut all the windows and doors to his church. He has a conversation with Gyogyo and another unnamed member of what would become Bonney's pirate crew (they've been making sporadic cameos throughout Kuma's backstory) and Kuma points out that one of the same rocky blue growths has started growing under Bonney's right eye -- the same location that modern-day Bonney has her golden ring-piercing. 

This disease is something no doctor is able to figure out, and one of them even compares it as something rarer than Law's White Lead Disease. Kuma quits the Revolutionaries to take care of his daughter, though he still uses the Revolutionaries as a contact way to get information to find more doctors. Dragon is understanding of this. 

And... cut to several years later, with Bonney aged 5, and it's seven years prior to the story. A legend has spread through the Sorbet Kingdom about the weird boarded-up church and the creepy vampire child within, and Bonny is having the time of her life beating and scaring some random bratty kids who snuck into the castle to peek at the vampire. We get a glorious middle finger from Bonney, uncensored by the way. One of the kids pulls out a cross to ward off the vampire, which only earns him a glorious rider dropkick from Bonney who points out, matter-of-factly, that they're already in a church so that obviously wouldn't work. 

Kuma continues to be a good dad, being protective of Bonney, and little Bonney continues to be a sweet girl. Bonney is all depressed about her face growth, and Kuma ends up, again, being a wonderful dad by going 'what, your jewels?' and tells Bonney that those jewels make her look beautiful. This is the genesis of her 'Jewelry' Bonney alias, and it's... it's honestly just all sorts of heartwarming. Kuma is a damn good dad. 

We also get a little nod to something that Kuma would say/do in the present day timeline, with him asking Bonney where she'd like to go for her holiday, something that Kuma asked most of the Straw Hats during his meeting with them in Thriller Bark and Sabaody. We get them talking about which islands they would like to go for Bonney's 20th and 19th birthday and so on and so on, with Bonney listing Fishman Island and the Sky Islands... it's very nice and cute, something to give the little girl hope about her recovery in the future while they dance the Nika dance and read about all the fantastical islands that Bonney will visit in the future. 

...and, of course, fate fucks Kuma again. Kuma finally gets a doctor that knows what the disease is. It's called Sapphire-Scales, and it's incurable, it's spread by all natural light (both sun and moon), and even if contact with light is completely negated, it'll still be fatal anyway, because life's a bitch. The doctor gives Bonney five more years, with the specific line that she can't live beyond the age of ten, and that just... destroys Kuma. 

And Bonney, little Bonney, god bless her, eavesdrops on the conversation like little children do, and what she overheard is that 'everything will be over once Bonney reaches age ten' or something along those lines. Which... which Kuma and the doctor means death, but little Bonney and her very optimistic, childlike worldview thinks that she'll be cured at age ten. Kuma's babbling in confusion because he just can't break the news to Bonney makes Bonney even more excited, because she thinks she can get better and finally go outside the house once she's ten. Again, another excellent expression on Kuma's face as he realizes in despair what the meaning of the words he just said are.

And... of course, Kuma did finally get the cure. Present-day Bonney has grown past her 'expiry' year, she no longer has a chunk of rock under her eye, and it's clear that either the World Government or Vegapunk twisted Kuma's arm to get him to cooperate and it seems like Bonney's recovery is it. Whether it's related to some Vegapunk technology, the Age-Age Fruit itself or cloning... 

Well, another crisis lands on poor Kuma's lap because evil King Becori is back and he seems to have a rage-boner against old people. This seems to be leading to the 'Tyrant King' epithet for Kuma, if he's going to depose Becori and rule Sorbet on his own. 

But... who cares about Becori, honestly? This is easily one of the most heartbreaking flashbacks for any One Piece character. Poor Kuma's just been through so much, and the sad thing is that this is the kind of trauma-upon-trauma, tragedy-upon-tragedy that... that honestly feels even more real due to some reality subtext with the rape and dealing with a child with a terminal illness... yeah, this is one hell of a gut-punch of a chapter for sure. 

Random Notes:

• Kuma's Paw Paw Fruit is shown to have hard limits, as we all could guess, as one of the scenes showing him throwing himself wholeheartedly into the Revolutionary war has him say that he has hit his limit and needs to take a boat home. 
• The Goa Kingdom rebellion is shown in parts of Kuma's flashback, and little amnesiac Sabo gets a cameo as one of the kids Kuma is training. I really can't muster any particular enthusiasm other than the 'neat, continuity nod'. 
• Also, holy shit, Monkey D. Dragon, do something. I'm getting less and less interested in you the more you show up, because you're not doing anything. 
• This isn't the last time we'll see the Celestial Dragons dump wives that no longer amuse them, since Saint Charlos casually handwaves 'wives one through six' as being disposable and telling his goons to make arrangements to dispose of them back to the lower realms. 
• I have so many questions as to how these 'half-commoner' Tenryubito children are viewed. Do they view them as bastard children? Or do they view these Tenryubito children as fellow Tenryubito, but their mothers are trash? Does the fact that they're half-Celestial-Dragon 'purge' the 'dirty' blood of their mothers? Or are 'true' Celestial Dragons just entirely inbred?
• Just to add to the Kuma conga line? The Paw-Paw Fruit doesn't teleport you. It transports you over time. How long did Kuma have to agonize while he's in transit? 
• And did he even get to hear the "I'll always love you" line from Ginny? Kuma isn't stupid, he knows, but the way the scene was framed, with that one last sentence in a thought bubble, makes it feel like Kuma missed hearing that one last line because he was rushing to Paw-Paw himself to Sorbet. 
• I have so many questions about the stone petrification disease. Is it some kind of Celestial Dragon STD? Is that why the Celestial Dragon wear those astronaut suits, and will they suffer from something similar when exposed to natural light or atmosphere? Does it have anything to do with the sun god Nika? 
• So yeah, all those theories about Bonney's natural form being the child that Luffy and company rescued from that freak weather phenomenon... that is sounding mighty likely!
• One of the quack doctors that Kuma initially consults basically goes "oh, it's a disease exacerbated by sunlight? This calls for experimentation! Let's put her under the light!" What a cunt. I hope Kuma Ursus Shock's him to atoms.
• Thanks to real life getting in the way, I think my reviews for the last 3 episodes of both Netflix's One Piece and Loki's season 2 is going to be delayed for a fair bit. Sorry.