One Piece 1143 Review: One Shot

One Piece, Chapter 1143: God's Knights

Right, a bit late on this one, but it is kind of a 'in-between' chapter, too. Which is nice; One Piece has been jumping around a bit too much from one big revelation to the next that it's nice to have some breathing room. 

We start off with Saul's group trying to stop the sleepwalking children. Saul identifies the weird white cloth from Gunko's powers, and as Saul tries to physically stop the children, an invisible aura of thorns pierces his hands. This was foreshadowed in the previous chapter when the gym teacher was heavily injured and gave an ominous warning to not touch the children. I guess this is why!

Anje tries to call the big party for backup, but all the giants and most of the Straw Hats are still quite drunk. Notably Brook still has his head attached to his crotch, the fool! Nami and Jinbe are the only Straw Hats that are still sober enough -- and we know from SBS and inference that those two are the ones that can hold their liquor the best. We get a nice bit of 'worf effect' as a flying ship of firefighters swoop in and try to put out the burning forest, only for the giant Draugr to rise up and slap the sky-ship out of the air. Very nicely cinematic and a neat buildup for these kaiju monsters. 

We get a bit more of a showcase on the God's Knights. Sommers gets to do the most this time around, and he's one of those anime villains who really likes his monologues. Specifically, he really likes to talk about love and thorns and how love hurts. I don't know if he's just being artistic or if it actually works alongside his powers, but he talks about how the more love takes hold, the deeper the thorns pierce. Or something along those lines. He is really anticipating when the parents show up, and they will be torn up in a 'loving murder' by his thorns. We learn his fruit is the Thorn-Thorn Fruit, so a Paramecia, then. I think most people caught on the thorn-style aesthetic around his sword two chapters ago, and most of the consensus seem to be around some kind of faerie (thanks the Pied Piper style effect), but we now know that hypnosis thing was all Killingham's fault. 

We get a bit of a geographical explanation of the route, and Killingham shows off how his dream powers work -- he hypnotizes Sommers to sleep momentarily to get him to dream of salt, then reaches into the bubble to pull out the salt. Killingham is identified as a Dragon-Dragon Fruit: Model Kirin, and specifically as a dream-manifesting man. His dream food are specifically zero calories! I haven't done enough research on Kirins and dreams to know how mythologically accurate this is. But they discuss a bit about their seemingly simple plan (which probably isn't helped by the fact that they're willing to let the kids walk into flame and just gather a second batch), but Gunko gives caution to her allies that Straw Hat Luffy's ship is docked in Elbaf.

We cut to the Loki confrontation, where he's facing off against the New Giant Pirates and the Straw Hat monster trio, wielding his massive thunder sledgehammer and boasting about how he's going to burn everything to the ground. It all turns out to be a big, fat bluff, though. Hajrudin is ready to fall for Loki's bluff, but Luffy zips in and notes that he claimed he would take responsibility. Loki unleashes a Gear Third attack, and Loki immediately collapses to the ground face-first.

It goes a bit understated thanks to Luffy charging in immediately, but I like that Zoro actually identifies that Loki is pulling a bluff on them. Of course, it probably helped that last chapter Zoro was going around impaling Loki to determine how wounded he is. Zoro seems quite indifferent on whether Luffy and company are going to let Loki die or not, he just feels obligated, I think, to point it out. Interestingly, it seems like Rodo is the first one to start putting things together between the mysterious assailants in the castle and Loki's attackers, though he's still keeping to himself. Luffy asks Hajrudin for help in at least treating Loki's wounds... and Hajrudin complies. It's a nice interesting dynamic where Hajrudin is technically Luffy's underling, but this is also a very personal giant-matter for Hajrudin. 

Gerd, who is the ship doctor, manages to stabilize Loki with bandages and a blood transfusion, although they are wise enough to at least put back some of Loki's chains. Luffy makes some comment about Loki's horns, which causes Hajrudin to have a flashback to King Harald. This was pre-ripping-off the horns, but he at least raised Hajrudin and Loki as siblings... although Loki constantly beats up Hajrudin, who is a 'runt' compared to him, and mocks Hajrudin's mom and bastard blood. 

This memory causes Hajrudin to get pissed off enough to stand up and pull out his axe, seemingly about to kill Loki in cold blood, ranting about how Loki killed his dad and insulted his mom. Loki, in an almost bored, resigned and maybe even disappointed tone, tells Hajrudin that he's "so drunk on personal drama" that he can't see the big picture, and asks Hajrudin if he's "really like all the rest", thinking that Loki killed Harald in cold blood. "You don't really buy it, do you?" 

So as everyone has probably guessed, yeah, the simple story of Loki being the irredeemable uber-villain who killed the good king isn't the whole story. Which parts are fabrications, which parts are Loki misunderstood and/or framed, and why Loki has kept the truth hidden? Those will be what's interesting to learn about. Neat to see some of this mystery slowly peeled back! 

Random Notes:

• I like this combination of Gunko, Killingham and Summers' powers, actually. It's a bit ridiculously powerful, but three Devil Fruits working together to cause these effects feels a lot more believable compared to one of the narratively-worst Devil Fruits in terms of power balance: Sugar's fruit, which does so many things at once that it would feel more at home with the power systems of Hunter x Hunter or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. 
• It goes a bit unmentioned throughout my review, but I like that as we see our heroes and villains converse, in the background the Dream Demons (or 'Muma', as some translations call it) are just lumbering around wreaking havoc. 
• Another island, another new variation of Den Den Mushi -- this time it's a giant one that's translated as a 'telediction snail'. 
• Jarul's great-great-great granddaughter is Ylva, one of the named children in the Walrus School. 
• Gunko being excited at the good food is actually quite adorable. I mean, for a classist, racist child-murderer, at least. 
• Notably, Kid Loki already has bandages over his eyes. So is he always been blind from birth, or if the eye-coverings has something to do with the super-mysterious devil fruit, did he eat those since he was young? Or maybe it's just a fashion statement?