One Piece 1139 Review: Sanji, If He Got Old

One Piece, Chapter 1139: Mountain Eater

This is a much more simpler chapter compared to 1138. No joke, if I had the time and energy and bandwidth, I could've written up several additional articles for 1138's huge mural. We don't, unfortunately, pick up on anything that has anything to do with the mural, we instead focus the entire chapter on Luffy's group and their encounter with the Mysterious Hat Figure. 

Turns out that it's not Shiki, it's Scopper Gaban. Which... okay, that was the other big guess, and made rather obvious with the foreshadowing in 1138. I personally would've really liked Shiki for the rather selfish reason that I would like to see the 'canon versions' of the movie villains, but also because I really didn't care for Gaban. Now that he's an actual character in the story and not just a recurring background decoration, hopefully I'll get to like him, though. 

What little we see of Gaban's personality is definitely promising! So far he looks like a fun, devil-may-care lunatic, and he seems to be a bit of a hammy pervert. A lawfully wedded pervert whose perversions mostly revolves around "hey, I'm the Missionary of Love and I got it on with a giant!", which makes him way less problematic to a modern audience than a character like Master Roshi. 

The chapter starts off with Luffy, Zoro, Nami and Rodo entering the throne room in their search for the key to Loki's shackles. They discuss the gigantic magic circle mark, and Nami recognizes it as something she's seen once in a book as something that people in certain countries use in dark rituals to summon demons. Subverting ALL of everyone's expectations, it is Monkey D. Luffy himself that realizes that he's seen the magic circle recently... as in, in Egghead! Good on you, Luffy! That is a feat of observation and critical thinking that I did not expect from our lovable protagonist. 

On another level, since we now confirm that these magic circles are known in other places and not just to the Gorosei, it does solve the little speculation that Kuma sent Brook to Hungaria Island explicitly for the reason that it's a location where such magic circles are common and Brook could have maybe learned a thing or two about their ultimate antagonists, the Gorosei. 

...except Brook got kidnapped by some slave traders and kickstarted his career as a rock star. Not all of Kuma's gambits worked out, sadly. 

Rodo panics at the sound of a voice, tries to escape and gets interrupted by an axe that's flung in his way. The mysterious hat figure -- who we've glimpsed in the chapters leading up to Elbaf and we saw all the way back in the cover stories of the 'From the Decks of the World' series sharing a drink with Crocus -- sits there in all his glory. Rodo identifies him as 'Ya-san', but his sunglasses and his axe make his identity quite obvious to anyone who's in the speculation game. 

Gaban shows up to look for the mysterious surge of Haki that came from the castle. Tellingly, I don't think even Luffy and company made any note of it. With the Sanji parallels we have in this chapter, this might mean Gaban's specialty lies in Observation Haki. We get a reminder and some exposition about Gaban's marriage to the giant Ripley. Gaban hams it up, continually emphasizing that 'love knows no bounds', that more 'flexible' people have been interbreeding with races outside of their won in every era.

Luffy blurts out that they want to free Loki, and Gaban finds this interesting as a sign of his troublemaking. Luffy's response to the question of what will happen if Loki is evil? "Beat him into a pulp and lock him back up again". Regardless of the fact that Loki was only previously subdued with the might of someone like Red-Haired Shanks. Luffy is a bit cocky now; I like it. Also like the comedy moment where Luffy and Zoro were fully willing to leave Gaban behind as he yaps because "he's going to take some time, let's go elsewhere". 

We get a flashback on Gaban's part of him and Rayleigh trying to stop Roger and his impulsive tendencies, while in the village Oimo, Kasshi and the rest of the crew talk about the badass Left Hand of the Pirate King, someone as strong as Rayleigh. During a moment where Roger was bed-bound due to being sick, Scopper Gaban fought off against hundreds of pirates to protect him, armed with two axes. So powerful was he that the entire forested mountain had every single tree slashed down and destroyed, earning him the nickname 'Mountain Eater'.

...which I don't know if Japanese has the same innuendo, but he is certainly a 'Mountain Eater' in more ways than one. 

And in the castle, Gaban reveals a secret room to Luffy and the gang. It's the treasure chest room, but to Nami's disappointment it has been left empty due to looters... except for the key. But then Gaban zips in and jumps in front of the key, telling Luffy that if he really wants the key, he'll have to make it through him... Scopper Gaban.

So next chapter we'll have Luffy, Zoro and maybe Nami fighting against Gaban. Which is interesting, since I guess this will mean that Luffy gets some instruction from both of the wings of the previous Pirate King. We'll see how Gaban will be in subsequent chapters. Elbaf is getting busier and busier. Interested to see how it'll continue building up!

Random Notes:

• Yamato and the Holy Inari Pilgrimage Cover Story: Who's Who gloats over two horned silhouettes that are seemingly tied up and tossed in front of him. I thought Yamato and maybe one of Yamato's allies have infiltrated and gotten caught, but the fact that both of the silhouettes had horns was weird. The general consensus is now that these are Ulti and Page One. 
  
• Gaban initially disguises himself as 'Ya-san', because the technical katakana used for Gaban's name transliterates to 'Gyaban'. Unless it's actually relevant for anything beyond this nickname, though, I will continue to call him Gaban. 
• Luffy briefly discusses asking Elder Jarl about the key, which gets instantly shot down by Rodo. One of the theories about the mystery of King Harald is that Jarl might be the villain of the story, assassinating Harald and framing Loki for it. I don't think that's quite a One Piece style twist, but I would definitely welcome it. 
• I like the continual Rodo disrespect as he freaks the shit out at the sound of Gaban's voice, and even drops the humans! 
• Gaban did show awareness that Kaido is in Wano, leading some people to ask why he hasn't gone to try and liberate it for the sake of his ex-crewmate Oden. But it's also a combination, I think, of respecting Oden's wishes, not knowing if anyone related to Oden has survived, and the fact that a lot of these people aren't exactly superheroes. Luffy is a bit different, but as Shanks has shown us recently... 'good' and 'nice' and 'always does the right thing' aren't the same. 
• Ripley is identified as being 80 years old, putting her in the age category of Hajrudin's generation of warriors instead of Dorry and Brogy. 
• I like the little detail that it's Oimo and Kasshi that gives the huge story about Roger and Gaban -- Brogy and Dorry wouldn't know, since they're stuck on Little Garden without news during the time that Roger was active. 
• Gaban rattles off a bunch of other mixed-races, like Buccaneers (we know they have giant heritage), Wotans (half-fishman, half-giants, like Big Pan! Anyone remember Big Pan? I do!), Long-Limbed (we saw a long-arm/long-leg hybrid in Big Mom's collection) and an enigmatic one called 'Dosundada'.
• Man, those guards were useless, huh? Didn't clean up the corpses, didn't guard the treasure room, and the castle's even supposed to be completely locked down? Why even station guards there?