One Piece 1150-1151 Review: Hell-baph

One Piece, Chapter 1150: Domi Reversi; Chapter 1151: I Get the Idea

So yeah, this review came a bit late as well, but thankfully we've got a break week. By the next chapter, I should be able to do One Piece in a reasonably timely manner. 

But chapter 1150,  'Domi Reverse', is... one hell of a chapter, huh? Pun fully intended. 

But after Imu possessed Gunko at the end of 1149, we get to see a group of giants finally arrive on the scene, trying to save the kids -- who are panicking and yelling about how Ya-san fell and the scary lady got even scarier... and Imu-Gunko (who I'll be calling Imu until further notice) just gets pissed and unleashes one hell of a blast of Conqueror's Haki. It doesn't just knock out a bunch of the giant pirates and the nearby kids, but the blast was wide enough to even get civilians all the way in the village where Jarul is. Which is an impressive showcase of long-range Haki for sure! Not to mention the badass artwork of her menacingly flying with massive devil wings, a devil tail and a devil trident. Really playing on the classical cartoon imagery! Except, y'know, a hot anime girl. 

Imu then creates a magical circle with two cannon tips poking out of it, and starts shooting some of the fodder giant. Which... yeah, I know a lot of genres where devilkind and guns exist in the same setting, but with Imu having been shown as a much more 'traditional' or magical being, it's so weird that all throughout this chapter she keeps summoning firearms. 

Imu then criticizes Killingham's Mumas (which Viz has translated cutely into 'Sleeptids'), and we get to learn a bit more on how Killingham's powers work. The Mumas/Sleeptids keep coming out of 'Nightmare Holes' -- resembling spawning points in a video game, and even the existing ones that have been taken out technically can just keep getting back up due to them 'coming from a realm where death is not a concept' -- which is such a metal thing to say. 

Team Robin, still bound, watch as Sommers starts getting up. Robin in particular is trying to tear the thorns apart irrespective of the damage being done to her person, because at this point she's not going to sit around doing nothing. We get to see Sommers' arm, slowly regenerating with holes all over, as he's kowtowing to Imu. 

And interestingly -- and this, I think, plays into Imu's role as 'King of the Empty Throne' -- because whatever her devil powers are, it seems that it ties into the concept of kingdoms and kings in general, something that is a bit rarer to see in One Piece. Imu and Sommers briefly discuss that Elbaph is a nation without kings and they needed someone to parlay... and Imu floats in front of Dorry and Brogy and 'appoint them as kings'. 

Which... you can do that? You can... just do that? Okay, sure. 

The giants really don't give two shits about the weird, cryptic stuff that Imu is saying. We get a badass shot of Brogy just lashing out and grabbing Imu and preparing to crush her like a doll. As Brogy rages, Imu is completely unbothered. She summons a book, a magical grimoire, out of her hand, before conjuring a knife and a gigantic fuck-off pirate double-barreled flintlock pistol. Imu continues to talk something that sounds like hypnosis or whatever, telling Brogy that he'll go and behead Jarul and declare that he and Dorry are the Kings of Elbaph. 

Ignoring Brogy's protests, Imu just stabs his arm, then uses the giant pistol to literally blast a giant hole in Brogy's arm. Like, the entirety of his wrist is gone! I was actually surprised to see this, which is a bit weird because we saw Sommers getting quite brutalized last chapter. But I guess Oda has been playing it so safe with even maiming his good guys that it's an actual surprise that Brogy is in actual pain. Imu continues to monologue, telling Brogy that she's going to give him the power of evil, and in exchange for 'some measure of thy lifespan', she's giving Brogy undying body, uncanny strength, but also unbound by logic and bound to her. 

Which sounds like the terms of a regular demonic contract, except Brogy agreed to nothing and Imu is quite literally forcing this on him. The process is quite nasty, too. It's nothing graphic, but a giant magical circle appears below Brogy and this... flips him around. This is the titular "Domi Reversi", with Brogy sinking into the magical circle, it being flipped around to show his shadowy legs, and then Brogy rises up as a super-giant with demonic horns, fangs, wings, and even a new badass axe. Most cool is the fact that his left hand is just hovering there in place, with the wounds of Imu's gunshot still being there... but the arm's just hovering as if it's connected by invisible flesh. That's really nice. 

And let's not get into the fact that horns have been highlighted earlier in this arc by the connections to Ancient Giants! And Brogy grew into a size that dwarfs the other giants; coincidentally the same size gap that someone like Loki or Oars would be in. 

But Brogy just rampages, knocking aside three of his giant minions with ease. Imu also 'gets' Dorry mostly off-screen. Rather terrifyingly, neither Brogy nor Dorry are entirely mindless beasts or clearly noncompliant like the Dressrosa King Riku had been. No, Dorry and Brogy are completely under Imu's thrall, repeating her orders to kill Jarul. They also transform anyone caught between them into demonic giants as well -- which is a nod to the board game reversi (othello is the name I know this game by) that the next chapter explains a lot better. 

1150 ends with a massive nightmare scape with Demon Dorry, Demon Brogy, a bunch of demonized giants, the revived Mumas, and Imu declaring that this is the power of Elbaph as regular giants run away from the utter titans stomping around trees like they are shrubbery. Imu notes that she will rule over Elbaph and utilize it well. In the village, Jarul refuses to run, noting that true warriors never run away from war. 

It's such a huge twist, isn't it? Every single page there's something new and unexpected as Imu really plays into what the fandom has more or less guessed about her powers from context clues and familiarity with fantasy tropes. She's demon-themed! But the possession, the casual forced 'devil deals', summoning giant pistols out of a magical book, and the whole reversal giants thing? It's a very fun twist to the situation that feels a lot  more impactful than 'oh, Gunko took out Gaban'. Which is already cool, but this is cooler -- you get the feeling that this is just a fraction of what Imu can do, and this also really shows off just how much she's turned the side of the board, what with there being so many named good guys fighting against like three God's Knights in previous chapters. 

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We continue with 1151, which is a bit less interesting to me... but hardly anything can top 1150, yeah? We start off with Oimo and Kashii, the other named members of the Giant Warrior Pirates, trying to stop Brogy and Dorry. And we see that whatever Imu did to them has really twisted their minds to give their own justifications to whatever they're saying. Kashii tries to appeal to logic, but Brogy and Dorry roar about how they're going to force the now-feeble Jarul into retirement; and how the two of them will be Kings of Elbaph and bring on the age of war. 

We then get to see the 'reversi' gimmick in place, complete with an illustration of a reversi board. Thormann, one of the other pirates, push Kashii out of the way. But as this places him in a diagonal line in-between Brogy and Dorry, this turns Thormann into a demon as well. Again, absolutely unhinged and creative way to incorporate demons rising from hell, with the flipping to get evil counterparts being evocative of a game piece being flipped. And we have seen Cipher Pol agents playing with board games before to represent a battlefield, haven't they? 

There is a short scene of Ripley, Bent's mom (Bent's the kid afraid of his own mom) and a bunch of other mothers coming in to do something. Meanwhile, cartoon devils start pouring out of Killingham's Nightmare Rifts as the children start dreaming of 'oh no, scary devil' after all the exposure to Imu. Some more of the defeated nightmares start waking back up as Killingham continues to rant and rave. We've apparently been previously seeing his full beast mode, which is the serpentine, draconic one. But this chapter gives us Killingham's hybrid design, which gives him a centaur lower body and a very badass 'bad boy' face. He went from looking like the friendliest of the God's Knights, like a little goober, into the most psychotic looking one of them! Killingham is all excited now that his boss is here, and he's definitely rounding up these Nightmares to fight. 

There is a nice short scene later when Killingham notes that the board is all on their favour, but Imu just wants to break Elbaph's heart, noting that they would've been able to control Elbaph if not for Harald's failure. Again, more hints that Harald has been working with the World Government... but with the realization that Imu is able to non-consensually turn people evil, I do wonder just how much of that is involved here. 

We also get a nice, short scene of Usopp yelling at Brogy and Dorry, asking them where their warrior's pride went. Usopp! I hope you get something cool to do in this arc. 

The second half of the chapter flashes back to events that happen concurrently with the start of 1150. Chopper leaps down to rescue Gaban, panics a bit, before Looney-Tunes runs down the air and turning into Guard Point to catch the falling Gaban. As they fall down safely, Loki and Luffy realize the new arrival. Rather interestingly, Luffy is able to instantly recognize that it's Chopper, pointing to some form of development in his Observation Haki or the still-ever-nebulous Voice of All Things. 

We also get a short scene of 'Mosa/Shaggy' calling Loki, and I really don't know what to make of this scene other than it just being more setup. Mosa treats this call as a goodbye to Loki, saying that this is going to be probably his last call and thanks Loki for everything. Mosa seems to be in danger, and Loki actually panics at this. Both of them are really opaque, though, yelling about 'that place' and 'this' and 'that' and not giving any specifics, so all we have really are theories. It is cute to see Gerd finding it somewhat heartwarming to know that Loki has a friend even in this icy hell. 

Off-screen, Luffy gets the explanation that Gaban is a member of the Roger Pirates, which shocks the hell out of Luffy... and we get an absolute comedic peak as they discuss about the position of Gaban as the third-strongest of the crew,  only for Gaban to lift two fingers even though he's half-unconscious. It's at this point that Luffy and gang notice the explosion of Haki at the beginning of 1150 when Imu was knocking out the giants... and we get a badass shot of Hajrudin, Luffy and Loki as they prepare to battle. 

Now it's more like it! More threats, more situations that are a bit more tense, and something for the monster trio and the giant royal brothers to do something. I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the Mosa story (it's either Jarul or a new character, neither of which are super appealing to me) but the potential of the Loki/Harald backstory does seem like it's really going to be fun. 

Anyway, I'm caught up in reviews now. It's not my best work, I know, but we're here and we can continue once 1152 comes out!

Random Notes:

• Yamato Pilgrimage Cover Story: Yamato places Yasuie's sword on the shrine in 1150, and then continues on her journey and beats up some sumo champion in 1151. Apparently people thought the cover story was going to be over in 1150 with the wording and the image shown, and I can't really blame them. I'm not sure if the other regions are going to give us substantial interesting content, but here we are. 
• I think there has been some theory when the Gorosei were mucking around that the potential difference between the strange 'devil powers' is that they might not be able to use Haki. I think Imu's little display put the final nail on the coffin on that; and the God's Knights have definitely been shown using Armament here and there.
  
• People are calling out Black Clover comparisons, but honestly sorcerers and wizards have been shown using books to summon items since forever. I see more Chrollo Lulcifer from Hunter x Hunter myself, honestly. 
• The spell of Imu's Diabolical  Covenant is originally 'akuwaru' in Japanese, which is a combination of 'aku' and 'waru', both words that mean 'evil' in different contexts. Hilariously,  some scans decided that this was a spell called 'A-Querl' or something along those lines. 
• Kirins are really kind of weird, sometimes being depicted on a spectrum of equine and draconic features, so I really do find it interesting how Oda decides to interpret this for Killingham's two beast modes. 
• Killingham notably does have sharp teeth, making people think that he might be part-Fishman... but with the Celestial Dragons being so racist I really don't think they would stand for that. 
• Chopper is based on Rudolph, so of course he can run in the air. Less comedically, people have theorized if this is him unlocking some variation of Geppo. 
• Hajrudin and Loki were arguing about their dad when Chopper's fall interrupted them. Interestingly, under all his brusque confrontationist attitude, Loki never denies that he killed his dad, but gets angry when they think he did it in cold blood. "He was my dad too!" So this argument happening around the time Domi Reversi was established is really interesting.