One Piece 1126 Review: Respect

One Piece, Chapter 1126: Settling the Score

I'm a little late to this party, mostly because I was traveling around a lot and I didn't realize the chapter was out. Oops! 

And... for the most part, the chapter is a pretty simple 'arc bridging' chapter. The chapter is bookended with the Straw Hats and the giants on the Red Erik, with the first bunch of pages having everyone involved partying hard, while the last bunch of pages having the typical 'oh noes, what wacky nonsense have our friends gotten themselves into this time'? Which... all things considered, Elbaf might be the last time we get this before we ratchet things up with plot-heavy storylines? I highly doubt that, but there's a non-zero chance. 

We get a quick brief recap of how Dorry and Brogy are now back sailing with the pirates. Basically, their fight isn't over yet, but Oimo and Kashi basically got them to put it on hold while they go back to Elbaf to get new weapons... and somehow, here they are. There's a fun little moment of Usopp and Nami's completely polar opposites on this aspect of giant culture, with just a random detail of one of the giants mentioning something about the giants' alcohol, absinthe, which can make you hallucinate. 

Oh, and in the middle of it all, there are three short panels of Bonney and the damaged Kuma just bonding, while Bonney notes that they can finally see the horizon. Is Kuma smiling? The art is ambiguous enough with all the smudges on Kuma's face. It's genuinely surprising to see that Kuma didn't do one final heroic sacrifice, but I am very happy that for all my bitching about the Vegapunk satellites surviving, that Kuma remained... well, not dead, but damaged. Damaged-with-some-vague-hope-of-being-repaired-in-the-future. That, I think, is how you do stakes without being depressing. 

And when we next check back with the Straw Hats and the Giants at the end of the chapter, part of the crew is missing! Everyone was apparently knocked out for a while, but the Thousand Sunny and some of the crew are MIA. And then we cut to Nami in a sexy viking outfit being woken up in what appears to be a Lego house. Which... okay, yeah, sure. There are a lot of theories running around, apparently, ranging from a giants' dollhouse to something super-ridiculous like moon abductions, but... I just think this is simply just the first weird thing we're going to see in Elbaf, just like the random octopus in the beginning of Wano or whatnot. Elbaf is here, and I'm quite excited!

Two other huge things happen in this chapter, too, and one big one ties to Shanks. Remember that cover story showing the random happenings of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet? One of the events that happened was Bartolomeo going around like the lunatic he is, hawking Straw Hat merchandise on a random Shanks-controlled island. He burned that flag, and we're all quite confused... until the end of the Wano arc, when Shanks and his crew discuss going down and confronting Bartolomeo about it. And now we get the follow-up to it, with a flashback to an event that happened a month ago. 

Bartolomeo is, rather understandably, beaten up by Shanks and his crew. And he's held in the town square with all the Red-Haired Pirates around him, noting how this blatant disrespect of the flag cannot go unpunished, for the sake of Shanks' other territories as well. This scene, I think, is really meant to be contrasted with that of Eustass Kid! They're both thugs, but Bartolomeo actually probably didn't harm too many people since we know he's ultimately a good guy. He bows his head deeply and apologizes for everything that he's done. 

And... Bartolomeo gets given a sadistic choice by Hongo, the Red-Haired crew's doctor, who gives a bottle of poison to Bartolomeo and tells him to give the deadly poison (which will cause 'heavy hemorrhaging and a painful death') to Luffy within the month. Now obviously this is fake. Even if the Red-Haired Crew is the type of losers that would resort to such trickery, they wouldn't be opposed to Luffy, at least not without reason. But Bartolomeo doesn't know that. Bartolomeo knows nothing about Luffy's relationship with Shanks. 

But without hesitation, Bartolomeo chomps down on the bottle of poison and gulps the whole thing. The absolute balls on this punk! We get a whole panel of a tear-soaked Bartolomeo crying and screaming about how he's okay with dying, because by god he's not going to involve Monkey D. Luffy in the mistakes of some loser like him. He's just 'some common thug that stands up to an Emperor and gets slaughtered for it', before lamenting about how he really would've like to see Luffy be the King of Pirates. 

...and then he burps, almost with comedic timing, because of course Shanks didn't give Bartolomeo actual poison. 

And things proceed almost gloriously simply -- everyone is a nakama, friendship is the mightiest, all that jazz, as Bartolomeo sails away from the island. And I do really love how the story manages to trick us into this nice sense of security, because after all the audience loves both Shanks and Bartolomeo! And we even get a nice shot of Shanks laughing in happiness that Luffy's grown to a degree that he's starting to inspire the people around him. 

...and then Yasopp kind of pushes Shanks aside, takes aim and BLOWS THE FUCK UP OUT OF BARTOLOMEO'S SHIP.

The narration says some nonsense about how the Barto Club has 'status unknown' (and earlier fan translations use the word of 'no survivors are known')... but we all know that just like Kid and Law, Bartolomeo has survived. 

But it's still a surprising swerve from Shanks being all-understanding to them going 'nah, gotta teach them a lesson'. I do wonder if this is a similar sequence of events as the famous Luffy/Zoro/Usopp conflict in Water Seven, with Luffy/Shanks wanting to let someone disrespectful off easy but Yasopp (paralleling Zoro in that arc) noting that some things can't be left unavenged, essentially. Again, it's going to really be kind of different whether Yasopp is doing this independently or if this is something Shanks explicitly or implicitly ordered, but I do find it interesting that we finally have a nice reason for the Straw Hats and Red-Haired Pirates to actually go to war for a conflict. It also nicely makes Shanks a somewhat more complex character than what everyone thought he would be, which I, again, delightfully appreciate -- his role as Emperor of the Sea and Luffy's mentor are not mutually exclusive, and one aspect of him sometimes takes over the other aspect. It happens.

And the shot of the Going Luffy's mast on fire and falling into the ocean is a nice shot of yet another sunken dream in the Grand Line, which... again, I really do like Bartolomeo, and I think he's chosen for this role specifically because he's probably the one Grand Fleet Member most readers cares about the most. I really don't think people would have the same reaction if Shanks ended the career of Jeet or Orlumbus.

We also get some scenes from the Blackbeard pirates, which... to be honest, feels to mostly be just recap (and the confirmation that Garp is alive and in chains, but it's not a huge surprise), but we also get to see the dynamic of the Blackbeard Pirates together which feels, again, Straw-Hat-esque by design. There's some goofiness going around, like Blackbeard arguing with Pizarro, or Sanjuan Wolf trying to fix the buildings of Hachinosu by moving them around like toys. We get a quick rundown of everything they've gotten in the past arc -- Blackbeard captured Pudding; Kuzan captured Garp; and we are getting caught up with Devon and Augur bringing Caribou in. 

A little more interesting is Marie Geoise, where Lafitte is stationed. He's watching the Umit Shipping Company (one of the underworld figures from the Big Mom Tea Party, which I had to look up!) and how they've constantly been foiled by the Revolutionaries, who keep blowing up the food supplies that are being sent up to Marie Geoise. Now this feels more like a siege, and we get a nice little diagram showing how the Revolutionaries not only cut off the supply chain from nearby islands, but also the transport mechanism up to Marie Geoise itself. 

Again, there are admittedly some questions about this situation... who's doing all this bondola-attacking? Like, it can't be Sabo, Karasu and the gang, right? We saw them in Kamabaka Island. But if it's not them, why hasn't Akainu gone down and lava-fisted the Revolutionaries? It's not like the Kuma situation where he can't pursue him in time. 

But... overall, a fun chapter. I like the check-in with Blackbeard and especially the Shanks/Bartolomeo thing. But I do feel like we're probably going to leave them behind for now and focus almost entirely on the Straw Hats in Elbaf at least for the next couple of chapters, and I'm actually kind of excited for that!

Random Notes:

• Cover Story: Yamato finds out that there's a string of kidnapping in Wano, but mostly women. Uh-huh? So I guess someone's kidnapped the carpenter alongside the women? 
• I've drank absinthe. I didn't hallucinate, but it is really strong and bitter. 
• I love the little detail of little Bonney, now allowed to actually act like a child, grabbing onto Jinbe's sleeve. I love that she just latches on to the most 'dad' of all the people around. 
• Again, this is going to be proven or disproven later on, but by process of elimination, the Straw Hats that are missing appear to be the first six Straw Hats -- Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Nami, Sanji and Chopper. Or, at the very least, we can confirm Luffy and Nami are MIA; the other four might be (though is unlikely to be) offscreen). 
• Some of the theories about why this happens range from the six of them being the youngest; the earliest to join; the six Straw Hats that would recognize Vivi (which is kinda suspect since Robin remained on the Great Erik)...
• Honestly, I think Oda just wants to have fun with his original set of characters after being involved so much with the One Piece Netflix live-action.
• The chronology is a bit confusing, but Shanks' journey goes like this: Shanks arrives at Wano and scares the shit out of Ryokugyu > Shanks bullies Bartolomeo > Shanks goes back to Elbaf and bullies Kid > Shanks leaves Elbaf. We just saw things out of order. 
• Yeah, Blackbeard holding Pudding is very uncomfortable-looking. He's not being perverted or anything, but really, someone get Pudding away from these dirty pirates. 
• I like the visual image of Avalo Pizarro's island form picking up the ship just to get it an express audience with Teach.
• We also find out that Moria escaped, which is kind of anticlimactic. I really would've liked to see a panel or two of this during the Sabo chapters if they're not going to do much about it. Presumably, they've joined Cross Guild since there really isn't anywhere else they could realistically go to. 

Gotta Review 'Em All - Shinies, Generation VI Families

Been a while since we had one of these! I had a lot of these drafts half-completed ever since I did Gen I-IV earlier this year; just never got around to posting them. 

The sixth generation of Pokemon games heralded the arrival of 3D sprites, and this is where the shiny colours have been selected rather purposefully and properly. It's no guarantee for good shinies, admittedly, but I do really like that at least for a majority of the Generation VI and VII shinies they seem to have put in a fair amount of effort into them.

Oh, because they are chestnuts, they now have chestnut colours! I like the more monochromatic-like colours for shiny Chespin. Not the biggest fan of the yellow ear and tail tips on shiny Quilladin, and I actually like the shiny Chesnaught's colours more than the regular one. Swapping the light cream for the horn pauldron-cape thing and the legs/tail really ends up making shiny Chesnaught look so cool and it's a nice contrast between the duller gray and the dark brown. 

Oh, very nice. Very beautiful. I really like the simple act of changing Fennekin from yellow to silver. He's a silver fox! The silver fur contrasts very well against the red accents. But the addition of purple to become the primary colour -- while still keeping silver and red -- in shiny Braixen and Delphox are really good. I actually think I like this colour scheme much more than the original. 

I kinda like that they just went with this wonderful shade of baby blue for both shiny Froakie and Frogadier. 

A bit more obvious for shiny Greninja, who just becomes a black ninja frog. It's a cool colour scheme, but I think I find this one to be a bit less special than something like shiny Charizard because regular Greninja is already somewhat dark-coloured. No denying that it's still a cool look, though. 

This is what I'm saying about really nice shinies. A lot of them really do feel like they're not just a palette swap, but actually picking colours that fit well together as a standalone design. In shiny Bunnelby and Diggersby's case, the gray main body isn't too far off from the regular colours, but just swapping the dirty brown highlights with snowy white really ends up making such a nice story and a strikingly different colour scheme compared to the original. Honestly, I find this so much more pleasant than the original.

Credit where it isn't due, I don't find shiny Fletchling or Fletchinder particularly impressive, just looking a bit more faded out. Shiny Talonflame, however, Talonflame's black parts turning into bright fiery red changes a small detail but makes him look so much more like a more traditional Fire-type. I like the effect that it gives, making Talonflame look like it's perpetually on fire or something.

All these shiny Vivillons don't really look different, since it's pretty hard to realize that the main body is white instead of black contrasted to the very bright colours of the butterfly wings. But both shiny Scatterbug and Spewpa are far more pretty with the whites and blacks swapped around. I particularly like shiny Spewpa's white head and black body-bag.

Okay, this is kind of interesting. Shiny Litleo just looks a bit more pale, but both versions of shiny Pyroar swap black fur on te main body for a yellowish-shade. They went from Scar to Simba, and... it's not the nicest look? It actually looks like one of the paler shinies from the earlier generations, and I'm not particularly enthused about it.

This is where the 'multi-colour variants' really hurt, huh? Just like Vivillon, the fact that the Flabebe line are holding differently-coloured flowers is the whole selling point of the variants. And since the flowers really do dominate their colour scheme, shiny Flabebe is near-indistinguishable. Shiny Floette and shiny Florges swapping the green of their primary bodies for lavender is nice. I do really like the contrast between Floette's yellow 'ears' and the lavender body accents. 

A nice and almost natural-looking change! Shiny Skiddo and Gogoat's fur become a nice shade of almost-white gray, and shiny Gogoat in particular gets a nice contrast with his black body highlights. The horns becoming yellow and the leaf-coat turning a bit lighter all end up making the line look so different and refreshing. 

Shiny Pancham and Pangoro, on first glance, just looks like they're a lazy palette-shifted colour swaps, but they're actually meant to be a reference to red pandas. Not convinced that it's a particularly good reference, and I still am not the biggest fan of it, but I really do like shiny Pangoro's fists looking like it's bloodied and like he's been in a huge brutal fight.

Another multi-form Pokemon, shiny Furfrou basically swaps his white outer coat to black, and his black inner coat to white -- and black fur is natural colour for poodles too! I actually think that the black fur makes for a much better highlight next to the tacky dyed poodle hair and the white main 'body'. 

Another absolutely excellent series of shinies. Shiny pink Espurr is one of the nicest pink shinies out there, and the end result is such a wonderful design to look at. Meanwhile, both versions of shiny Meowstic employ a wonderful white-and-pale-yellow colour scheme that looks just so pleasant on its own. In addition to contrasting very well with the dark blue coat of regular Meowstic, the pale yellow also highlights the bright green/red eyes of the Meowstics very well. 

Amazing. Yeah, Espurr onwards we'll get win after win after win. I feel like these three are all great. Shiny Honedge is probably my favourite of the three. Both shiny Honedge and Double swap the scabbards for a gold or bronze-looking one, but shiny Honedge's red blade and 'eyes', coupled with an amazing red/purple tassel, makes for such a spooky colouration for a haunted sword. 

Shiny Doublade and shiny Aegislash share the same black-yellow tassel, but they're both nice-looking ones regardless. And shiny Aegislash is a supremely badass sword, being black with red edges... it's like the edges are stained with blood! Shiny Aegislash has a black-and-gold shield to boot, making him look extra-regal. 

Another winner! Shiny Spritzee looks positively charming with purple, and I love the shade of darker pink on his tippy-toes. I am also positive that I like shiny Aromatisse's colours more, with the dark-pink main body and the big puffy purple flamenco skirt. 

Oh! A cutie! They become chocolate-flavoured! This is what the Vanillite line should've been. Shiny Swirlix is pleasant enough, but it's shiny Slurpuff with the great contrast between his dark brown and raspberry-red that really screams that this is a 'sundae' dessert. 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think they just flipped the colours and took the negative of regular Inkay and Malamar to make the shinies, which I feel is a very meta way to do it. Minus the glowing fluorescent lights, which they left intact. I really like shiny Inkay's light-pink shade, and the golden tentacles. I find shiny Malamar's green squid body to look nowhere as pleasing as his non-shiny couterpart, but the golden locks and the blood red on the beak and arm tentacles work well. 

Okay, finally a bit of a miss. It's kind of obvious what they changed here, making the barnacle heads green on both shiny Binacle and Barbaracle, but the combination of that with the dark-orange rings just isn't the most flattering. 

Oh! Oh oh oh oh! Yeah, shiny Skrelp and Dragalge are another line of winners in this generation. I do think that the dull dead-leaf brown of the default colour scheme is already suitable for the design. Changing the brown to a traditional poison-type purple is neat enough, and the dull purple is a neat one... but then the pale blue they selected for the majority of Skrelp and Dragalge's bodies really sells the 'toxic' vibe without going for the obvious purple-and-green route, doesn't it? It looks pale, almost like a corpse? 

Shiny Dragalge does have his 'hair' be coloured green with yellow highlights, which look very nice, too, and seem to be referring to actual leaves more than anything. In the original design, the head-leaf was coloured a maroon red and blends in rather well with the main brown body. I always appreciate it when shinies end up giving us a colour palette that highlights a feature that otherwise blends into the rest of the design.

Another glorious-looking pair. Shiny Clauncher and Clawitzer goes for a much more common colour that we associate with prawns, lobsters and crustaceans in general... hot red. As in, the colour of a cooked crustacean, which is how most of humanity interacts with crustaceans unless you're a cook, a fishmonger, a diver or live near the ocean. The bright red contrasted with the light blue is very striking, and the white highlights really make this an unconventional but very nice-looking shiny. 

Hmmmm, an interesting way to take this direction in that they change some of Helioptile and Heliolisk's yellow into bright red. A respectable enough choice of an alternate colour... but it's not all the yellow, with some patches being left still there. The result is a shiny that retains part of the original version's colours, which makes for a rather interesting look!

...that said, I don't quite like the red/black/yellow palette quite as much, but it's the thought that counts. 

Not my top choice of colours for either shiny Tyrunt or Tyrantrum, but both are very nice shades of blue. Particularly the light blue on Tyrunt. It's a very 'anime' colour scheme, isn't it, picking blue or purple for a dinosaur? Before 'realism' got in the way and made all dinosaurs dull brown or green?

A majestic one, and probably the other 'obvious' colour palette for an ice-type. I own one in Go, and I love how this looks like it could have been the regular colour for the Amaura line. It's kind of an obvious colouration for a snow/ice-themed dinosaur Pokemon, right?

Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's not nice, though -- the bright snowy white works amazingly on both Amaura and Aurorus, and I actually would say that I like this a fair bit more than the regular dark blue. It's a nice colour that pairs well with the yellow sails. 

Another all-time favourite. Wrestlers are loud, vibrant and colourful, and regular Hawlucha's colours are already great. But shiny Hawlucha goes for the 'heel' vibe and while we'd get an actual heel Pokemon in the next generation, the pale purple and dull red, with neon-green accents, really do make for a good 'nega-Hawlucha' colour palette.

A simple but pleasant one. Shiny Dedenne swaps his regular orange for a nice chocolate, which makes him look like a chocolate bunny or something. I like this one. 

I can see what they changed, making the 'beard' blue and the 'head' into the same shade of dark gray as the rock body. It's one of those shinies that are evidently different, but we're grading these post-3D designs on a different metric!

Regular Kalosian Goomy, Sliggoo and Goodra have a majestic shiny that mixes yellow and cream, with dark purple blotches. One colour away, and they could cosplay as Japanese puddings! Or 'Flans', for all of you Final Fantasy fans! Very nice colouration, and another favourite shiny from this generation. 

I get what they're doing with shiny Hisuian Sliggoo and Goodra, where it's just the shell that they change from silver to a dull gold... but I really don't think it's enough. I really would've much preferred they mirrored the Kalosian shiny forms, or picked another colour palette like a slug-like green or something.

I am actually disappointed that the keys aren't changed in colour, but I guess shiny Klefki's main body is the one that changes colour instead of the accessories? I like the change of colour from silver-and-pink to gold-and-blue. 

Both of the spooky Grass-types get absolutely amazing shinies. I think shiny Phantump and Trevenant are easily my favourites, with the cool, desiccated white tree with red autumnal leaves replacing the regular brown-and-green of the regular Phantump and Trevenant. I absolutely think this is great, and both are equally badass colourations for ghost tree Pokemon. Regular Trevenant represents a haunted forests, with the creepy monster trees... but shiny Trevenant represents a ghost-tree itself, which I thought is great!

And this is a fun one! Shiny Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist swap the oranges for a deep witchy purple, a very appropriate Halloween pumpkin colour. The eyes turn neon green, which is another gloriously spooky colouration. I like the shiny Trevenant one because it's a more 'obvious' spooky colour, but shiny Gourgeist is another one of my all-time favourites.

Mmm, not my favourite shiny. They can't all be winners. I think they did a great change, swapping the non-ice-encrusted parts with yellow is an interesting idea. It's not the most falttering switch, though, and not the most noticeable on shiny Avalugg. 

Shiny Hisuian Avalugg tries to change a more prominent part of the design, with the icebreaker jaws turning a rusty orange. It's... it's all right.

Amazing. The shade of neon-teal they picked for shiny Noivern and especially Noibat looks great. I'm a bit miffed that they swapped it for a more regular neon green in Noivern... but both bats really rock the look. I've always felt that Noivern actually had too many colours going on, and eliminating the purple and swapping the green, red and black around makes for a really striking shiny. Another amazing one in this generation.

All three of the XYZ legendaries have a white-dominated shiny form... and I actually do think that the white-deer with a sky-blue upper body works better for Xerneas as a 'god of life' kind of deal. The light blue also works well and blends to the rainbow horns a bit better, and this is from someone who likes how regular Xerneas looks.

Now I've always been of the opinion that white is as valid of a colour of death as black is -- perhaps due to my own Asian upbringing. And on first glance, swapping Yveltal's black colouration with a ghostly, ethereal white makes for a creepy death-bird in the sky. 

Until you realize the white streaks on the red underside of Yveltal's body resembles bacon. Mmm, bacon.

Oh yeah. I actually do like the black-and-green verdant colours on regular Zygarde, but the white and teal-ish green on shiny Zygarde works amazingly. The snake version looks particularly striking, but I like that 100% Gundam Zygarde looks amazing. I think the red and blue highlights on 100% Zygarde's wings get highlighted a lot more with this colour scheme.

Mmm... I feel they could've changed enough. Both shiny Diancie and shiny Mega Diancie swap their white dresses for a pink dress, and the pale-gray rock gets turned into a darker, almost black shade. It really is basically the same palette at a glance, and I really wish they had done something more different. 

Mmm... no. I think they were trying for a golden shade with shiny Hoopa to match the golden rings, but for both versions of Hoopa he just looks kind of like piss. Like, I'm sorry. Particularly Hoopa Unbound. Being so monochromatic doesn't help either. 

Shiny Volcanion's a bit more pleasant. Mostly, I like just how much this feels like an over-the-top 80's neon action figure toy with bright yellow, eye-searing neon blue and pink as the highlights. None of the colours work together and that is why they work together. I kind of like this one.