One Piece 1129 Review: Who?

One Piece, Chapter 1129: Livedolls

Sometimes a plot twist happens, and... it's not entirely un-foreshadowed, but there's so little foreshadowing that there might as well as not be, y'know? Like the identity of this "Sun God". It's the same thing with York being the killer in the Egghead arc. York was introduced but we barely get any personality about her other than the one-note gag, of course it 'makes sense' that she turned out to be evil and that the one-note gag personality is actually a facade. 

Which is why when the 'big reveal' happened in this chapter, and that the "Sun God" turned out to be Road of the New Giant Pirates, my reaction is a "who?" and then a huge shrug. I'm not going to say that it's not foreshadowed, since people have somehow figured out that it was Road by comparing the boot design with all the known giants. And the New Giant Pirates have only so far been shown in cover pages. And Road happened to be a stereotypically emo-goth looking giant who wears high heels. But... Road literally had no personality before this, so it's really hard to go and say 'oh, that's a nice twist right there'.

That said, it really wasn't meant to be a huge, earth-shattering reveal, and the chapter works just as well if you read it as Road being a newly-introduced character who's affiliated with Hajrudin off-screen. The dialogue is exposition-y enough for it to work, but it's just a bit... weird? 

The chapter itself is mostly just fun stuff. The "Sun God" Road is walking around almost breaking character a couple of times, and Luffy finds things to be quite fun but also respects the work put into building Legoland enough to not want to break everything. I don't like Road, but I can respect the work that goes into maintaining a Lego hobby room. 

Anyway, they continue running on the giant cat, almost reaching the end of the room. Road pulls off a giant net, but Zoro and Sanji just bust through the net. Road gets continually bamboozled when he realizes that the carnivorous 'Ear God' was killed. Road instead goes on a huge monologue, talking about how cool it is that his 'Livedolls' has taken, well, real life and is running around creating a whole new plot in his scenario and how the story of people fighting against fate and yadda yadda yadda is super-duper his thing. He's just really a crazy lunatic. Seeing their chance, a lot of the other prisoners (who apparently have just been playing along with Road's nonsense) decide to get out. 

Road continues to rant about how Hajrudin has accepted the humans, but not him. What can the humans do, anyway? This comment is punctuated by God Usopp launching a skull blast-grass nuke, which was last seen all the way back in Fishman Island. Luffy then goes into a 'Mini Gear Fourth', transforming only his hand into Boundman -- which is a cute combination of his Gear Third and Fourth. 

Nami, meanwhile, is clearly more than a bit pissed. As Road rants about the Straw Hats with 'Ultrarare' (or a honorific that otaku fans use towards their 'most beloved' fictional characters in the original Japanese) Nami gives a little talk about how no one could be blamed for natural disasters. Sanji reminds he audience that Road totally stripped and changed Nami's clothes.

It's at this point that we get Road's flashback to the giant crow Muginn dropping the Thousand Sunny onto his clutches. Apparently they sailed thorugh the 'Sleeping Mists', which is kind of a bit of a weird retcon. Road then gets another flashback and gives a motive rant about how he hated the idea of Hajrudin bowing down to humans and becoming a mere 'henchman'. It's a nice little nod to a lot of the implied hatred between giants and humans that we've been seen brewing since the Big Mom arc, and a nice little setup to potential allies and enemies for the Straw Hats.

Smash-cut to the present day and Nami unleashes a Zeus attack, Raitei, that presumably defeats Road. And then Luffy unleashes his Kong Gun, breaking the wall, and they are outside and presumably in real Elbaf? Overall, presuming the Road stuff will be over next chapter, it's a nice little diversion, even if I'm not totally sold on Road as the big 'reveal'. It's not meant to be one, I guess, but still. 

Random Notes:

• Apologies for the slow posting schedule. I'm traveling and got a bit of a minor neck injury, so it's a bit hard for me to sit down and type. Most of the posts you'll see in the next week or so are pre-written. 
• Yamato Cover Story: Yamato stumbles upon Tama learning to be a kunoichi from Shinobu. Notably, Shinobu has reverted to her 'original' design, so that Aramaki slim-down moment is just temporary.
• The rest of the non-Hajrudin New Giant Pirates actually had a cameo in the Egghead Island flashbacks, being the giants that were evacuating the books in Ohara post-bombardment. Road not being among them kind of makes sense now in retrospect, since he's a xenophobe. 
• The cat is called Iscat. I don't think this one is a reference to anything. 
• It's a small moment, but Nami tossing away the map because she's perfectly memorized everything is such an unnecessary but badass flex. 
• I do wonder if Luffy suddenly is able to do 'Mini Gear Fourth' because of the whole debate about him using a Gear Fourth technique without transforming, which became incorporated into his power set. 
• Luffy talking about how he doesn't want to break the whole room on the way out might be a nod to Road actually being 'merely' misguided instead of actively malicious, since Luffy tends to be great at reading accidentally-hostile people and discerning their true intentions... but Road's racist rant is honestly pretty bad.