One Piece 1110 Review: Gustav Holst's The Planets

One Piece, Chapter 1110: Planetfall

Oh yeah. This chapter was on fire. 

I intentionally waited a couple of days before reviewing this because I wanted to give myself some time to process it. And after the last chapter mostly just being an extended teaser, this one was a fair bit more substantial. 

We start off with people -- giants, marines, even some Straw Hats -- reacting to the black lightning crackling all over the island. We get a brief shot of the Gorosei's meeting room in Mary Geoise, showing that the room is completely empty other than the Den Den Mushi, with a summoning circle and flames on the ground dissipating. This dispels any of the theories about the Gorosei sending astral projections or clones or parts of themselves or whatever, which I actually do appreciate. 

And we cut away finally to a ominous half-page spread of four more monstrous shadows rising up from the summoning circles around Luffy and Saturn. And Saturn was established to be pretty big, but I think all four of his fellow Gorosei are larger than Saturn. At the very least, Mars, Warcury and Ju Peter are. It does really feel like something out of a kaiju movie or a demon-themed story like Berserk or something with all these giant demons looming around the battlefield. 

And we get a shot of all five Gorosei -- the Five Elder Stars Planets -- with what their forms are supposed to be. Note that the writing only says the mythical creature that they are, not actually the name of the fruit model or whatever. This does lend some credence to the fact that these guys might just be demons and not actual Devil Fruit users? It's a bit ambiguous, and I don't want to speculate too much because I remember the whole "Kaido's a dragon that ate a human fruit" theories, but it does seem pretty likely, doesn't it? 

And... this is the big hype. We get to see all five of them, all five of their monstrous mythical beast forms, and what they're supposed to be. 

We've seen St. Jaygarcia Saturn for a while now, and he's specifically identified as the Gyuki; an alternate name for the ushi-oni. It's a yokai from Japanese mythology, basically a giant monstrous spider with the head of a demon bull. Notably, Gyuki is also the real name of the Eight-Tails from Naruto!

St. Marcus Mars turns into the Itsumade, a bird yokai featured in the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, the Japanese illustrated guide to yokai publiched in the 1700's. It's known as an eerie bird associated with disease, crying out "itsumade, itsumade", meaning "until when, until when?" The eerie bird is also described to have a serpentine body, which Mars here also displays. 

St. Topman Warcury turns into a Hoki. Known also as the Fengxi, the Hoki is a Chinese mythological creature this time around, being a two-headed demon bull associated with rain. I find it kinda funny that Warcury's impressive mustache got translated into boar tusks, but by the same token I also find him the least threatening-looking compared to the other four. 

St. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro (still simultaneously the most badass and silliest name) turns into the Bakotsu, which I admittedly can't really find much about online other than descriptions about it being a skeletal horse. I don't think it's what people expected from Ethan here, considering he had a more humanoid silhouette in that Sabo-vs-Gorosei chapter, but hey!

And St. Shepherd Ju Peter, finally, turns into... a Sand Wyrm? Ummm... huh? It's hilariously out of place. I do like my sand worms, yes, I like Dune and all the giant monster sand-worms that were birthed in inspiration of the Shai-Hulud. I like the sand worms from Tremors, Mass Effect, Star Wars, Beetlejuice, the Cthulhu mythos... but it's very much a 'modern day' monster. I wouldn't minded as much if the other Gorosei were not all based on yokai, or at least based on ancient East-Asian legends, but to have four be based on East Asian legendary beings and just one that's the outlier?

Admittedly, Ju Peter does look much younger than the other four Gorosei. It might be actually a thematic thing that the author did on purpose. But then you'd think that Saturn, by dint of being the furthest planet as well as the one in charge of science (which you'd think was established after the other four departments) would be the youngest? 

Or maybe Oda just watched Dune: Part 2 the week that he was drawing this and really, really liked it. LISAN AL-GAIB!

Ahem. Anyway, we get the very badass shot of all five Gorosei members roaring in the ruins of the destroyed future world, with a tiny Luffy in the foreground. I find Ethan, Saturn and Mars to look the most menacing! Topman is... okay? We've seen Oda draw boars or boar-like beasts a lot so I don't really think it's super impressive the way the others do. And I'm not sure if Ju Peter's giant worm lips and human teeth make him look cooler or more ridiculous. 

And out of the five, the one we get focus on first is Ethan, who neighs in his demonic, skeletal horse form. I love the fact that his horse-skull head has the flesh dripping off like it's half rotting... and then he just blitzes through the island, hunting down Pacifistas. We get a brief shot of his horse-head transforming as Ethan turns into his half-beast form, and this results in a fucking badass skeleton-centaur swordsman. That's a fucking badass panel as Ethanbaron just slices the shit out of a PX-III, and freezes him to boot!

Hmm, a skeleton-themed being, that can run really fast, and can unleash ice with sword slashes? Chill of the underworld? Is Ethan actually a counterpart to Brook instead of Zoro? I would be pleasantly surprised! It's yet another layer to the fuel of the whole "these guys might be the real devils" theme that's been going on for a while, but to have Brook and his underworld experiences be relevant? A lot of the secondary Straw Hats have been pushed aside in favour of guest stars (like poor Franky in this arc) but I've low-key considered Brook to be one of my favourites, and I would really love him to have a bigger role. 

Anyway, the Marines are all confused at the sight of the PX-III's all just being sliced up and frozen, and I think it's a bit of a clever thing for Ethan to do in order to preserve a significant fighting force for the World Government. 

We then get the ominous shot of the serpent-bird that is Marcus Mars just coiling up to the Labostratum or whatever it's called, and that's a very cool panel of this demon bird just hovering menacingly next to the Frontier Dome... and, uh... Mars just does the Leeroy Jenkins tactic and divebombs straight into the Frontier Dome, leading to a giant explosion. I 100% am sure that Mars has just broken through. If Luffy and Bonney can survive the Frontier Dome, a giant demon bird with regenerative abilities can do so, too. 

Luffy, meanwhile, is fighting against the remaining three Gorosei. Or, uh... two of them? Topman just sits there thinking pig thoughts. Saturn continues lashing out with his noodle spider-limbs and Ju Peter just does monstrous Shai-Hulud things as he burrows into the ground and stuff. And...

We check in with other people. Usopp, off-screen, has created a Bamboo Javelin to stop the Thousand Sunny, which is kind of a weird end to that whole subplot. We get Lilith getting pissed off at Brook, but otherwise I think this batch of Straw Hats are also ready to evacuate. 

And then we get to Zoro and Lucci. And... to say that I have zero investment in this fight would be an understatement, I think. And I wouldn't thought I would say then when it's Zoro against one of the major antagonists and perhaps one of the few most memorable ones. But Zoro vs. Lucci has literally lost all of its hype when we barely see any of it, and when so much more interesting things are happening elsewhere. 

And I really don't know if this will lead anywhere with Lucci as a character. With Kizaru, at least his flipflopping throughout this arc actually does feel intentionally frustrating, like we're going to go somewhere with him. But Lucci? He's just shit-talking Zoro, and apparently Zoro's just... kinda there. He overheads Jinbe conversing with Sanji over the phone, and Sanji shit-talking Zoro and calling him a burden causes him to have a surge where he finally does a Santoryu technique that one-shots the shit out of Rob Lucci. 

And... yeah, get out of here, Lucci. You've definitely overstayed your welcome. This could've been somewhat interesting, but it's a bit of a way-too-obvious way to keep Zoro occupied until the other Gorosei arrive, but it's just... eh. Whatever. 

Luffy, meanwhile, gets chomped down by Ju Peter's giant Sand Wyrm monster form, but then Dorry and Brogy finally show up, yell about how nostalgic it is, and just decapitate the shit out of a giant sand-worm. Now, again, with the Gorosei's regenerative capabilities I'm sure Ju Peter is going to be fine, and this is just a way to have Dorry and Brogy have a big, dynamic entry. It's a pretty cool entry if nothing else, though I am a bit worried about the two old giants and whether they'll survive this arc. Looking forward to the next chapter for sure!

Random Notes:

• Cover Story: Yamato tells Momonosuke that she's about to go around Wano and relive Oden's footsteps. I mean... okay? Still pissed off about the blueballing in terms of Yamato joining the crew, but hopefully this will lead to something interesting? If it's just Yamato going around seeing Wano being rebuilt and checking in on the Scabbards, I doubt it'd be particularly engaging. 
• During the opening pages, there's one panel that's just an arrow. It's an arrow shot by a giant that blew up a ship, yes, but I really wonder why it couldn't just be one big panel, or show something else. This is nitpicking on my part to the absolute degree, but it was a distracting arrow panel. 
• While all of this is going on, the comedic part of Vegapunk's recorded message has him create one of the best invention for mankind -- instant powdered coffee. God bless you, Vegapunk, for instant productivity magic potions. 
• I thought it was slightly ambiguous before, but this chapter really showcases Saturn in a full spider-with-a-human-head form, making it particularly apparent that this is his full-beast form, instead of his spider-centaur (or Drider for D&D fans) half-beast form. 
• Sanji, my man, Vegapunk's dead. I appreciate your dedication, but drop the dead body somewhere and do something productive! 
• I consistently refer to Saturn, Mars, Ju Peter and Ethan by those designations... but I can't decide whether "Topman" or "Warcury" is easier to keep track in my head. I suppose I should be consistent by referring to them by their planet names, but then I find "V. Nusjuro" to be such a bother to write, and calling the Gandhi Gorosei as "Ethan" is just a bit too funny. I think I'll switch to calling Topman by his first name too in the future. 
• Yes, Topman Warcury, Godhead of Justice, this big pig, just hanging out in the background. He's a pig doing pig stuff. You piggy pig pig running the government, you pig, Topman Warcury, you lazy pig.