One Piece 1112 Review: Stars Align

 One Piece, Chapter 1112: Hard Aspect

It's been a while, huh? I've been super-duper busy, and I hope you guys have been enjoying or at least tolerating the stuff I have lined up for you for my own hiatus. I'll still be up here and there with a couple of articles that I write 'live', but I do hope you guys enjoyed the Palworld reviews, the random Infinite Fusion stuff, and some remastered old articles. 

But we're back with One Piece after a three-week long hiatus, and it's a fun banger to get back to. No sign of the Iron Giant, but I actually don't... I actually don't give a shit anymore, honestly. It's going to show up in the climax and it's honestly a bit telegraphed that it's going to be what helps the Straw Hats get away in the final final part of this arc, and we're just ramping up to the 'darkest hour' in this chapter with all the Gorosei having our heroes at figurative gunpoint. 

Ethanbaron has sliced down all of the Pacifista, and is basically grumbling about how Vegapunk's made a huge, huge mistake by giving the keys to an army of WMD's to a literal child. 

And then... I don't want to downplay this, even though it's a relatively small part of the chapter. But in-between everything that's going on, we get Red King with his mutant neck and his smoking steam gauntlet charging in and about to clash against Franky mid-air, and Franky just one-shots the Vice Admiral with a mighty Strong Right. That's a pretty damn cool panel, and honestly? A pretty damn cool moment in general. So many of the secondary Straw Hats got left in the wayside in terms of having development either in combat in character, and... Franky really got the short end of the stick ever since the timeskip happened. Shit, he doesn't even get anything to do in Egghead even though he's the scientist of the team, so at the very least he gets to take down a Vice Admiral. 

Which... yeah, in the grand scheme of things, Vice Admirals haven't been the most impressive. And by 'not the most impressive', I mean they've not been impressive at all. But it is really nice to see some of our supporting protagonists finally one-shot these guys!

Not to be outdone, Pomsky, the otter Zoan, jumps up to attack our heroes but Bonney just touches him in the face and turns him into a kid, before delivering the mother of all kicks onto his face. Again, that's also very cool! I really do hope that the anime does extend this just a bit so we get a bigger combat moments for characters not part of the Monster Trio. 

Meanwhile, Mars and York made their way to the broadcast room, but it's obviously empty since it's a pre-recorded message. Mars is super angry and just unleashes a gigantic energy beam that blows up a hole through the building, because... uh... apparently that demon bird can just do that. Just launch Hyper Beams, sure, all fully-evolved Pokemon can do that, why the fuck not?

York stops Mars from doing any more damage, however, babbling some reason about how certain floors are super-volatile and will blow up Punk Records. I think the implication is that York's going to die if Punk Records blows up? Or at least, she won't have access to Vegapunk's full database or something? I don't think York's going to redeem herself or anything. There is a strange line, however, that even Mars finds confusing, which is York saying that she "doesn't want to rack up any more sins". 

Interestingly, nearby, Stussy and Kaku are just... talking and noting about how Mars has gone. Kaku is still in a bubble, mocking Stussy for apparently being left behind by the Straw Hats. However, Stussy is apparently pulling a Mr. 2, where she decides to stay behind and carry out this one final mission. Which... okay, cool, I guess? Stussy and Kaku's been so out of the focus that I almost kind of forgot they existed if not for chapter 1111 where Lucci had that brief negotiations with Mars. Again, Lucci's performance as a narrative threat isn't the most impressive, but I do find it interesting sub-plot going around in the background. 

Speaking of characters that aren't the most impressive, we get a short scene where the assembled Straw Hats are discussing how to get the Thousand Sunny out without the help of the Vega-Force 1 that Kizaru blew up. And of course, the reason this will probably work out is probably the iron giant, but... Edison jumps off and blows himself up on the Frontier Dome with a 78% damage or something, so he's about to do something cool, to help our heroes escape. Man, everyone's pulling a Mr. 2 today. 

And finally, we cut back to the Gorosei fighting. Ju Peter is apparently pissed off that everyone's mocking his love of Dune, so he starts creating a huge sucking force that is able of even dragging Dorry and Brogy into his huge, yawning worm mouth. And Luffy just.. runs to a building, slices off a chunk of the tower, and rams it right into Ju Peter's giant worm mouth, leaving an honestly hilarious cartoony impression as his worm mouth gets squished out of shape. 

This, finally, knocks Luffy out of Gear Fifth, which means that this is where he stops fighting on part with the Gorosei. Again, I'm still very ambivalent on how this timer thing works, but I do appreciate that suddenly we're not fighting on par, we're on the back foot again. The giants give Luffy some emergency rations, Hakarl, and just like a Toriko character Luffy bounces back from being weakened straight back into being able to fight. Not Gear Fifth fighting, though. St. Warcury charges in and Luffy unleashes a Gear Third attack, slamming big piggy's head with a glorious Red Roc attack... and I don't think it does anything. It's an attack that stunned Kaido back in the rooftop battle, but while Warcury doesn't seem like he didn't feel it, it's clear that he's shrugging it off while Luffy's clutching his hand in pain. 

...and the rest of the Gorosei are starting to get back on their figurative feet, too. Where Team Usopp is guarding the ship, we get to see that the spider-legs of Saturn are starting to get up. I don't actually know if anyone in their party can stand up to Saturn? I guess if Jinbe and Zoro get back there in time?

Ethanbaron slices down Team Franky's escorts, and we get one of the most metal shots as samurai skeleton centaur Gandhi looms, fully silhouetted other than his glasses, over Bonney, Franky and Atlas while the giants fall around them. Sanji's here, just conveniently offscreen, so we might get that matchup. 

Meanwhile Mars has reverted back into his human form and is slowly walking towards the triangular,     gurgling video transponder snail... and I guess the cliffhanger is whether he'll succeed in stopping the transmission. I do think that there's too much built into this transmission narratively that it won't be just over with Mars crushing it without even encountering any of our heroes, though, so that's not the most exciting cliffhanger... but the rest of the chapter was pretty damn great as the Gorosei's threat starts to ramp up a fair bit more!

Random Notes:

• The cover story has Yamato get some kind of traveling funds from Kin'emon? It's one of those transitional parts of a cover story that isn't the most interesting, though, again, if we're being really honest I don't have much of an interest in this particular cover story. 
• "Hard Aspect" is the angles formed by planets in a horoscope wheel, or a fortune-telling birth chart.
• It is so weird having 'samurai Gandhi' be called a name so boring like Ethan. 
• Oimon and Kasshi had a brief couple of lines earlier in the chapter, but I can't tell if Ethanbaron one-shots them at the end. 
• Guillotine, the guy with a blade on his hat, comments on how 'cruel' Bonney kicking a kiddified Pomsky is, even though they were very willing to execute a young child themselves. We don't see Guillotine by the time Ethanbaron shows up on that side of the battlefield, but Franky, Bonney and a bunch of giants could pack him up easily. 
• Fermented shark, or Hakarl, is a real thing.