One Piece 1158 Review: Love Notes and Mysterious Resources

One Piece, Chapter 1158: Rocks vs. Harald

So we continue on with the flashbacks, as the Roger Pirates get into a bit of a tizzy over the fact that Shakky has set up shop on Pirate Island. All of the crew members are excited, but Roger is a bit of a morose. We get a bit of a mini-cutaway conversation that Roger and Rayleigh had a bit earlier, where Rayleigh tells Roger an important fact... right before the Kuja Pirates quit, Shakuyaku gave Rayleigh a secretive item. Roger yells that it can 'only be described as a love letter', and it is basically a letter from Shakky telling Rayleigh to 'come and make me yours'. Roger yells at Rayleigh for being obtuse. Rayleigh does note that he isn't uninterested, but he doesn't want to be tied down. Considering their more unofficial-marriage deal of living together in the present day, it does kind of track?

I guess the implication from little shots of Rayleigh smiling when Roger perks up at the idea of not giving up again; and later on when Roger has a bit of a monologue in Pirate Island of why Rayleigh refused to get off the ship, is that the two buddies are trying to play wingman for each other? 

Almost seemingly in response to the part of the fandom who went all 'rUiNeD ForEVARRR' in the previous chapter over God Valley being fought over a woman, Garling shows up and talks to the Gorosei about God Valley, which had refused to bend the knee to the World Government. Apparently he has been investigating God Valley, and mentions a certain 'outrageous discovery' in the island that 'the Great One' will be pleased with. He basically is the one that instigates the setting of the next culling/hunt on God Valley. There's no real indication as to what this discovery is, but there's something more to the God Valley incident other than Shakky being there and causing everyone important in the era to come. 

The next couple of pages show off a bit more of Shakky's rip-off bar, which is as exaggerated as you expect from it. It's like one of those 'rude bars', and Shakky just flip-flops from thanking her customers and then being rude to them, like serving the cheap rum as top-quality whiskey but not even bothering to hide it. 

Interestingly, Rocks actually has found love and is expecting a kid, because the triple 'women's intuition' from Shakky, Big Mom and Stussy managed to figure it out separately. It is interesting that we don't see Blackbeard's mother, but presumably we'll meet her at some point in this flashback. The Roger Pirates arrive at this point, and Rocks and Roger butt heads for a bit... but then Roger notes that fighting at Shakky's bar is forbidden. He also took care of the long line outside rather violently.

Shakky gets a bit excited when Roger comes, but it's also clear that she's only excited because she knows Rayleigh should be around. However, Rayleigh had elected to stay on Roger's ship singing Bink's Sake, causing Shakky to pout off. Roger and Gloriosa have a bit of their anime-comedy dynamic, but in-between this Roger seems to realize that Shakky is missing Rayleigh.

We get a very cool line from the narrator, noting that while there's fun and games and neutrality in Shakky's bar... the rest of the world is still a figurative wild wild west. After last chapter's cliffhanger notes that the World Government is giving King Harald an ultimatum, the flashback wastes no time in immediately paying it off. We don't spend any time with Harald agonizing about it (although we can assume it happens offscreen) as we cut away to Rocks and Harald clashing against each other in a series of really badass panels. That is a really neat buildup, and a reminder that, yes, while One Piece is a goofy manga, it still has serious moments. 

Little kid Hajrudin and Loki are trying to see the battle but they are blown away as Harald and Rocks are just fighting each other. Rocks is yelling about Harald for being an idiot for kowtowing to the World Government so easily, and being made into tools and soldiers. But Harald also yells that the only way for Elbaph to shake off their history of violence and always being remembered as warmongers, they need to take steps and making allliances with the only people powerful enough to bring Elbaph into the loop. The battle ends at a draw and a destruction of their friendship, with Rocks yelling that he won't invite Harald ever again; while Harald notes that Elbpah will never follow a villain into a losing battle. 

We then get a couple of panels about little kid Loki, which I found adorable. He's just reading any news about Rocks, sitting on the side of the cliffside of Ida's Bar. Loki continues being horrible to Ida, but with the patience of a saint, Ida just pauses and asks Loki if he wants some juice. To which Loki replies after a beat of his own and says 'yes'. That has to be one of the most adorable panels I've seen, and a nice showcase that as much as Loki's relationship with his half-brother and father might not been the healthiest, at least he's got someone there for him. 

And then we've got the final page. The two massive mountain-halves of God Valley. A woman has recently given birth, and the villagers note that the entire village will pitch in to help because their father is away... and this, of course, is the mother of the Figarland twins, Shanks and Shamrock! The baby red-haired twins! 

So yeah. It seems like we are heading to at least exploring some aspect of God Valley after all in this flashback, and it is interesting to see that Shanks and Shamrock were not born on Marie Geoise, or that their mother wasn't taken and enslaved by Garling. I wonder what the resource in God Valley is that would interest Imu so much, and what Garling found and did during his infiltration in addition to procreating. 

Good stuff, good stuff. I am still cognizant that this is a flashback and that time and space in a flashback arc is a premium. It is interesting that we're blazing through some of the developments (like the Rocks/Harald initial conflict) while building up some of the emotional beats for what I assume will be the emotional lynchpins of the Elbaph Arc as a whole -- like Loki's complex childhood traumas; Rocks's interesting view of the world; and the whole relationship and dynamic of Shakky and the rest of the pirating world at the time. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato's Holy Shrine Pilgrimage: We learn that the mysterious grave that Yamato is visiting, a hero of Wano known as the Pirate of Justice... is... not Ryouma, but... KOZUKI Moria? It being related to Moria is something that a small group of people have somehow managed to guess based on the fact that Moria fought against Kaidou and it's easily misinterpreted (or perhaps there's a grain of truth to it) as Moria fighting for Wano. But for Moria to be called a 'Kozuki'? Huh? I... I just... I just don't know? What? 
  
• I suppose Moria could have gotten the title posthumously as being adopted into the family, but it raises a lot of questions why this never happened to no one else. 
• It raises even more questions, as Oden being born as the sole heir was a huge plot point of his backstory, so there really shouldn't be any spare Kozukis laying around. 
• If Moria actually did originate from Wano and buggered off, it would add another layer as to why he was so traumatized by his failure in the new world, because he not only lost his entire crew, but also failed to liberate his maybe-homeland. That would mean that Thriller Bark is as much as sad substitute of what he lost, just like the zombies. 
• All of the background members of Roger's crew have names and functions, something that was revealed in a Vivre Card databook or something, and Oda has been consistent at showing designs only from those revealed ones. Other than Sunbell the fishman (which may be related to Barbell the fishman in the Rocks pirates) and the interrogator of the Roger Pirates, the cute fantasy-dwarf-like guy called Millet Pine, none of them really stood out to me.
• One of the crew members got named in this chapter, Marx. Or as the Vivre Cards gives his name, MAD Marx. The capitalization is there in the original Japanese too.  
• People has pointed out the scene where Whitebeard brushes off the 'put it on Newgate's tab' and forces it onto Rocks as him just being petty, but it also is a nice little detail because at this point he'd be saving money and sending it to Sphinx Island. 
• Presumably the interaction at the bar rules out Shakky, Linlin, Stussy and Gloriosa as Blackbeard's mom. Not that any of them are a serious candidate in my opinion. 
• In the fight, we see more of Rocks's attack where his sword strikes manifest as gigantic force-blows that has previously been compared to a hammer. 
• Blog Note: I will be extremely busy in the month of September. Some articles, like D&D and Elden Ring ones, will still show up regularly, but figures that I'm busy when One Piece isn't, heh.