One Piece 1115 Review: Cloudsplitter; Worldsplitter

One Piece, Chapter 1115: Continental Fragments

So this entire chapter is just Vegapunk continuing on about his message, with minimal progression in terms of the actual plot... and it really is quite interesting how the amount of excitement people seem to have about this chapter really depends on the amount of speculation they've been doing. I've been super busy these past couple of weeks, so my consumption of One Piece discussions and theories have been pretty much nihil. So a lot of the revelations I found out in this chapter had me going "oh, that makes sense! That's cool!" whereas it seems that my friends who's spent the entire week trying to dissect the manga (and there have been a lot of potential foreshadowings in the past 1110+ chapters) didn't quite have the same amount of hype that I had.

I still think this is a really fun chapter, though, even if the whole "the ancient world has sunk beneath the ocean a thousand years ago" thing wasn't a surprise to you. 

We start off with Wano, where Momonosuke and a bunch of his retainers are listening to Vegapunk. It is really interesting to note that Momonosuke, who read Oden's journal off-screen and knows way more about Joy Boy than 90% of the cast, has a rather unique perspective on what's going on... and notably, Momonosuke (and, by virtue, presumably Oden and Roger) is a bit surprised at the revelation that Joy Boy was a pirate, just like Luffy. 

Afterwards, we cut away to a scene that really proves that Eiichiro Oda is a gigantic troll to a certain aspect of the fandom. Without initially reading the dialogue first, I thought Oda very randomly gave Eustass "Captain" Kid the Avengers: Endgame Thor treatment... except that it's not actually Kid! It's actually Demalo Black, a.k.a. the Fake Luffy from the post-timeskip mini-arc. Demalo Black's going around impersonating Kid in jail, with a bunch of groupies impersonating Heat, Wire and Killer. Demalo Black talks shit about how he could beat Joy Toy, and... god bless the author for remembering that this utter nincompoop Demalo Black exists. 

After this bit of wackiness, Vegapunk delivers another huge bomb that really shook up the Marines. Which... honestly, I think a lot of the audience could probably guess? Vegapunk tells us that there was a gigantic war in the past, and that Joy Boy fought against the organization now known as the World Government. And back in the day, it was merely a 'temporary allied coalition' of 20 kingdoms. Again, revisionist history! To quote Doflamingo in one of the best lines in this manga, "because whoever wins will become justice"!

We get a shot of the Gorosei getting increasingly getting pissed off. Piggy pig pig Topman is still on fire and chasing Luffy and the two giants. Marcus Mars is just walking around in his human form, unleashing his Conqueror's Haki to murder like a dozen random Den Den Mushis that just happen to be around. I guess Vegapunk prepared like a whole cluster of snails as distraction? Poor mushis, at least they're dying for a good cause. 

Vegapunk then continues on his speech, speculating that the proto-WG was created in response to fight Joy Boy and his own organization. This is an in-universe theory, but I'm honestly quite inclined to believe Vegapunk. Vegapunk also notes that he can't judge the combatants since he can't pinpoint the cause, which... I will find it interesting if by some chance they actually go and make the proto-WG the good guys. I don't find it likely, but still. 

Interestingly, as we cut to Vegapunk talking about how Joy Boy was a child of an advanced civilization, we cut away to Zou -- or rather, to Zunesha, Joy Boy's old friend who just goes ". . .", if he can even understand the message. We see Carrot, who's now Duchess of Zou; and then a brief cutaway to Foxy... who has... uh... he's got a bunch of new facial hair. It looks like someone doodled on him with a felt pen or something. Okay, Foxy. 

We then cut away to the Labostratum, where Stussy has a conversation with the dying Edison. Edison tells Stussy to lower the barrier and get out of there and save herself. Edison notes how there really isn't much point about the barrier since there are Gorosei running around blowing stuff up. Edison talks about how they've done all they've can for the Straw Hats, and that he's sure that the Straw Hats can make it out somehow. We get a brief cut to Jinbe literally manhandling Zoro as they rush towards the Sunny, a shot of Nami organizing the evacuation while the giants' ships are blockading the coast. Stussy then gets a brief, somber line, asking Edison who she should live for with Stella gone.

All of these Stussy scenes are punctuated with Kaku just observing silently, looking morose and stuff. These guys are all minor characters in the grand scheme of things, but I really do like that Oda's still giving them some sort of a character arc. My guess is we're due for what's essentially a Kaku redemption arc, or at least Kaku trying to get his CP-0 friends out of the World Government's employment... but we'll see. 

And we cut to some action! Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro is just throwing people around, including Sanji, who gets tossed away rather unceremoniously in the first panel he shows up in. He's also manhandling Oimo and Kasshi, but that's to be expected. We get a very cool close-up of Ethan's face as he tries to 'sense the living voices', and very nearly cuts Bonney to death. Franky does a lariat clothesline to knock Bonney away from the slash (and she also shrinks in the process), and we see the... not-too-impressive-by-anime-standards result as Ethan slices off the figurehead of the giants' ship. 

Ethan gets more pissed off as Vegapunk continues to speak, and I do love the two ominous shots of the Iron Giant and Zunesha punctuated with the panel of '...with Joy Boy's defeat'. Ethan gets super pissed off at the idea of Vegapunk spilling even more... and he just SLICES THE SHIT out of the entire Labostratum or some shit. Whatever the big cloud is. I don't really know, it just look super cool. All the Cipher Pol agents fall out of the bifurcated cloud-structure, and we get particular focus on S-Snake, S-Shark, S-Bear and S-Hawk as they also tumble out of their prison in their little bubble-domes. 

As this happens, Vegapunk talks about how traveling between islands is a very difficult thing in the world of One Piece if you're not a pirate, marine or noble. It's the whole genesis of the train from the Water Seven arc, and honestly probably Oda's little commentary on the globalization of our Earth as a whole. As we get a brief shot of the dojo on Zoro's hometown, and a reaction shot by the Revolutionaries, Vegapunk talks about how this difficulty in traveling wasn't like that during the Void Century. During the Void Century, a cataclysm swallowed the ancient world, and the world of the One Piece as we know it are just the titular "continental remnants" of this ancient world. 

We're getting Wind Waker up in here!

Vegapunk continues to talk about how there used to be multiple vast continents back in the day as we cut to see Cocoyasi Village, and... Nojiko just doesn't give a shit about all of this. Which is honestly probably the attitude of most villagers and regular citizens in the One Piece world? Vegapunk reveals that this gigantic change in the world had caused the ocean levels to rise by 200 meters during the Void Century... which the subsequent panicking people proceed to illustrate by noting that a warship is 60 meters, and a whole-ass mountain is 200 meters. 

The Marines are alternating between panicking and realizing that they've still got a job to do, we get a shot of Sakura Kingdom with Dalton and Dr. Kureha reacting to it, and very interestingly, Whiskey Peak where we get to see, of all characters, Ms. Goldenweek! We also get to see another shot of Water Seven, another shot of Mock Town, and Vivi shutting Big News Morgans the fuck up on their news blimp.

Vegapunk then continues to confirm that this isn't some huge natural ecological disaster, but rather it was man-made. Which is hardly news to the average One Piece reader, but it's definitely Big News to the characters in-universe. Vegapunk notes how nothing in geology, meteorology, ecology and atmospheric studies have shown him anything remotely that indicates that such a huge natural incident happened or have built up over the past... and it's impossible for such a drastic change to have happened within 100 years anyway. 

And finally, Vegapunk drops the bombshell that it's his conclusion that the giant catastrophe of the Void Century... was caused by the Ancient Weapons. And that the Great War that ravaged the world is still ongoing, since it's still being used. And that's where the chapter ends, with a shot of the still-silhouetted Imu and his creepy eyes. 

And... yeah. Ultimately not a whole ton actually happened beyond Vegapunk's revelation, but I was super happy to read this chapter. The revelation itself was done well, cutting away to the different parts of the world is neat, and I did enjoy the little bits of action we got. It's probably nowhere as epic as the last couple of chapters, but you will inevitably have a couple of interconnective tissue like this. Good stuff, good stuff. 

Random Notes:

• Yes, out of all the Treasure Cruise artwork that I could've picked, I picked Demalo Black. Bite me. 
• The cover story stars Yamato getting a bento prepared by Hiyori and Otoko. Real gripping stuff here. It was a brief mind-screw when we went from the Wano cover story to actual real-time Wano, especially considering how it's just been such a disconnected side-story from the main Egghead arc. 
• I would assume the Yamato cover story takes place prior to the present-day Wano scene in 1115? Yamato isn't present there, which hopefully means she's on her way out to journey into the seas. 
• I also love the little detail about how Wano is able to get a Den-Den Mushi... it's just randomly among Orochi's possessions. It really does make sense that he would have one (and that, if nothing else, the Beast Pirates would have a lot) but I also love that Oda took the time to detail the logistics of Wano is also able to keep up to date with these breaking news. 
• The whole 'ancient city is left under the sea' is also something explored with Wano, albeit rather briefly. That's a neat bit of foreshadowing. 
• I thought Denjiro mutated in that panel where Momonosuke, Kin'emon, Shinobu and Tama are eating, but it's just a generic samurai. 
• One of the Five Elders of the world using an ability that marks the fate-granted disposition of a king to kill telephone snails has got to be the weirdest matchup I've seen in fiction. 
• I don't know if this is something covered in the fillers (I watched them, yes, but I don't remember what happened at the end of them) but instead of a big galleon, Foxy's now on a tiny dinky little sailboat with only his two minions. I guess his luck ran out at some point.
• Yeah, to all of the people who really want Dragon to do something... this chapter confirms that Dragon's still hanging out with the Revolutionaries in his base. Sorry, 'Dragon is en route' theorists.