One Piece 1121 Review: Ora Ora Ora

One Piece, Chapter 1121: The Upheaval of the Era

Apologies for the slightly late review --  I was hospitalized and pretty sick, and so I didn't really have much of a chance to do blog posts. I'll probably be taking things easy for the next couple of weeks/months. 

We are wrapping up Egghead, though. I reread this chapter and I don't think there's a whole ton in Vegapunk's speech that's particularly significant? To us, at least. It reveals a bunch of stuff to the main populace, and there's a nice shot with the whole 'decks of the world' when Vegapunk talks about prosecuted, rare races like the buccaneers, three-eyed tribe or the lunarians; and another segment where he talks about Ancient Weapons and it flashes to Shirahoshi and Vivi. It's then a bunch of more or less generic stuff until he talks about how the person who claims the One Piece might not be the person Joy Boy envisions, leading to the epic final two-page spread of presumably the major final players in One Piece.

Saturn is just continuing to barrage the lesser Giant Pirates with his noodle-poison spider legs. Saturn keeps trying to get Bonney, who goes Nika-mode and jumps into the air. She's still struggling a lot more than Luffy did, and I guess this is going to be common for both of them (presuming the two of them are the only Gear Fifth users, and please god let just the two of them be it) where they can keep going in and out of Gear Fifth. 

Vegapunk's message plays out at this point, which I covered above, but then we get back to the action scene. Saturn notes that Bonney's form is a 'pale mimicry', which, again, is fair -- I'm not in the camp of having Bonney anywhere as powerful as Luffy's final form -- and we get to see Luffy kicking away Saturn's giant spider legs while Bonney flashes back to Kuma's memories. "Your only options are slavery and death". This feels like a nod to how Luffy wants a lot of his friends to try and fight for themselves -- which is a running theme in post-timeskip Luffy, where he prominently tries to get Shirahoshi and Momonosuke to stand up and stop being crybabies and fight. They can't beat the enemy, but I do appreciate this idea a lot more. 

Bonney gives a speech about gods and heroes; and about her dad, yells that she's going to live because she's alive. We get to see brief bits of Kizaru and Sentomaru, and a shot of a 'what if' scenario that will never happen with Kuma and Ginny being parents to baby Bonney... and she unleashes a single giant Gear-Third-esque punch to Saturn.... while Luffy unleashes a barrage of punches all around him. "Liberating Nika Punch", Bonney calls it.

And Saturn gets fucked. He gets riddled with holes, he gets tossed overboard (and into the ocean, which will, I guess, finally confirm the true nature of Gorosei and their Devil Fruit user status). This is the big 'takedown of the arc villain' moment, and I appreciate that Bonney gets to join in this moment. Power-scaling wise I genuinely don't think Bonney did much damage to Saturn, but it's the principle of the matter -- that this child of two decent human beings that just wanted to survive in this world and got royally, Berserk-level fucked-up by Saturn and his cronies, ends up not just being a scared person to rescue, but gains a power-up that defies everything Saturn stands for and even participates in the ora-ora-ora barrage that beats Saturn down. 

And we see a panel of Kuma maybe-kinda-sorta smiling. That's nice. 

And let me use this time to talk about Saturn... I really do think that, rather disappointingly, we don't get much out of him. He's a rather generic 'mwahaha I'm evil, humans are worms, I am a noble so I'm better than you' villain. I kept looking for anything beyond that. Not necessarily redeeming qualities, but honestly, anything (like Hody Jones' blind racism or Caesar Clown's inferiority complex) to give his brand of evil more depth. Anything at all, or at least some kind of personality trait. The Gorosei might just be mindless 'heavies' for the rest of our crew to fight in whatever final battle is going to happen and that's fine, I suppose, but I really wished they had something more, y'know? 

All of this takes place in the time that the Thousand Sunny is falling down, but we don't quite get much of an update on that. Vegapunk's message continues, and he brings up Gol D. Roger's speech that set off this series in the first place. We cut to the other Yonko and the Marines... Blackbeard is still not back at Hachinosu; Shanks is piss-off drunk; Crocodile and Mihawk can only watch as Buggy's legend continues to grow; and the Marines are actually discussing about finding the One Piece first.

And then we get this epic two-page spread of portraits of all the major players for the One Piece. Which, ah, hell, let's go through it one by one: 

• The YONKO! Starting with Red-Haired Shanks, one of the strongest beings in the world, finally doing something other than stand and look cool after 27 years, the golden boy successor to Roger's ambitions and knows way too much. Whatever his ambitions are with the One Piece, context clues tell us that it's likely different enough from what Luffy wants. 
• "Straw-Hat" Monkey D. Luffy, our main character, owner of a Grand Fleet he doesn't want, the bearer of a destiny he doesn't give a shit about, and just hunting for the One Piece because he's the man who's going to be the King of Pirates.
• "Blackbeard" Marshall D. Teach. The man with two Devil Fruits, the anti-Luffy, the Whitebeard-killer, Commodore of Pirate Island, probably one of the worst people who can get the One Piece because he's going to plunge the world into anarchy and violence. 
• Buggy the Clown, the man who keeps falling upwards, former contemporary to Shanks to became a washed-out bum clown in the boondocks of the One Piece world, who somehow rose up to become a saviour, a warlord, and an Emperor.
• Admiral "Akainu" Sakazuki, current leader of the Marines and master at making deep-fried donuts. A hardcase and a fanatic for justice even among Marines, likely to want the One Piece to deliver his idea of justice to the world. Has the potential to fight against the World Government. 
• Monkey D. Dragon, the leader of the Revolutionaries, father of our main character, master of ellipses, and... conceptually very significant, but honestly he could die next chapter and Sabo or Ivankov could take his role and I wouldn't care less. I really do want the story to make me care for him, though. 
• SOME SHADOWY GUY WITH A SWORD!!!! Put your bets on who this is, ladies and gentlemen. That sword maybe looks like Roger's sword? Is this a God's Knight? Shanks' twin brother/sister? Scopper Gaban? Man Marked By Flames? Someone from Elbaf? Rocks? Joy Boy? Shiki after a shave? Canon Uta? Who the fuck knows? 
• Imu, Shadow Ruler of the Entire World, still in silhouette, still shaped like a blob, still full of mystery, and the world is waiting with bated breath to hear his voice in the anime so we can assign a gender, at least, to him or her. Built up to be the final villain of the story, the biggest big bad, and the person or entity that is the cause of so much of the world's bullshit right now. 
• Koby, future of the Marines, rising star of SWORD, formerly with a head shaped like a literal potato. Very significant that he has honestly grown to have such an ambition that contrasts heavily with the likes of Akainu, and it's a shoo-in that a clash of ideals between Koby and Akainu is in the works. 
• "Aokiji" Kuzan. Former Admiral, defector from the Marines, moral-conflicted ice man now currently serving Blackbeard. Rather interesting that he actually makes his appearance here, but considering that Aokiji is clearly having his own agenda even among the Blackbeard Pirates, it's not hard to tell that he's going to do something against Blackbeard in the future. Whether that 'something' is going to benefit the Marines or the rest of the world, or where Aokiji's lazy justice will lead him, who knows? 
• Sir Figarland Garling, likely father of Shanks, presumed leader of the God's Knights, and responsible for 90% of Mariegeoise's hair gel consumption. Probably will be relevant in the future when Shanks and/or Imu becomes relevant. 
• Sabo... second-in-command of the Revolutionaries, Brother of Luffy, Hero of the Revolutionaries, and frankly the Revolutionary that I, as a reader, am more invested about. Interestingly, Sabo and Dragon aren't... opposed to each other? The other organizations with two members shown here (Blackbeard/Kuzan and Akainu/Koby) have clear ideological differences or independent agendas going on that make the second-in-commands showing up a bit more understandable. But I am interested just how much more relevant Sabo is going to be and whether there will be any conflict between the Flame Emperor and Dragon.

Pretty neat chapter. All in all I really would've liked something more significant with Saturn, character wise... but with how hectic Egghead has been I do think that it's not strictly a bad decision for us to cut away at this point. 

Random Notes:

• There's a nice reminder that Luffy's just an airhead, not a complete idiot, when he was the first to remind the other giants that, hey, Saturn's got poison tipped spider legs.
• No robot this week? Huh. Apparently this chapter came out at some anniversary or other, so having Bonney and Luffy beat up the main arc villain; as well as ending on a mugshot of all the major players for the final arc, is much more appropriate than Emet. Sorry, Emet. 
• According to official translations, it's "Emet" and "Clou D. Clover". Okay, like Cloud, I get the joke. 
• Interestingly, when Vegapunk brings up ancient weapons, we cut to Shirahoshi (who is an ancient weapon) and... Vivi. And ever since we discovered that people can be ancient weapons, there has been a theory that Vivi might be Pluton. Which... I would find to be an insane retcon considering how much the Alabasta and Water Seven/Enies Lobby arcs have hammered home so much about Pluton being a battleship. Her or her bloodline being somehow relevant to the activation or usage of Pluton, though? That, I can believe. 
• Less seriously, there are some conspiracy theories on whether Marco is a member of a rare tribe since he shows up right before King and Pudding when Vegapunk is giving his speech, but unless Pineapple-Head Tribe is going to be something relevant in the future, I highly doubt that it's anything more than a flashback to how Marco was the only other person in Wano who knows what a 'Lunarian' is. 
• We also finally see Skypiea, with Wyper and his generals, Aisha, Conis and the big snake hanging out. I know I say it each chapter, but I think that's the one big missing thing gone? Of course we haven't seen certain major characters... most notable and understandable MIA characters include Gekko Moriah and Perona. 
• Shanks drunk is... interesting, since that's what Rayleigh is also doing. Just what happened in Laughtale that just kinda induces alcoholism among all of the Pirate King's crew whenever it's mentioned? 
• It goes without saying... Big Mom, Kaido, Law and especially Kid are just out of the running now. I see Law and the remnants of his crew eventually joining the Straw Hat Grand Fleet or something, allowing him to be relevant and to have a tie-off to his story, but honestly, the more I think about it, I don't mind Kid's story ending like this. I just wished that Oda spend a bit more highlighting why Kid's way is the wrong way for a 'real' Pirate.