One Piece, Chapter 1153: Promise
We start off with an interesting, if slightly gross, fused Saturn-Imu form. I think easily the most disturbing thing is that we see Saturn's regular old-man-head still attached to the spider body while Imu's goopy ghost-face grows out of his back like a tumour. Imu starts attacking everyone around him with a weird combination of shadows and spider legs, killing Marines and pirates alike.
Notably, some members of Roger's crew are hurt by Imu. None of Roger's crew are particularly interesting other than the 'big three', of course, but rather interestingly, the wounded members note that it felt 'fascinating'. Roger apparently feels it's worth being cautious, and tells Gaban to take some treasure and escape with the wounded, while he goes off to fight Imu.
And of course, Rocks faces off against Imu. Imu mistakes Rocks as Davy Jones, which Rocks corrects Imu. Now, Imu mistaking someone in the present as someone from his age isn't noteworthy, since he's compared Luffy to Joy Boy or Nika, but rather interestingly, earlier in the timeline Rocks has already met face-to-face with Imu. So for Imu to mis-identify Rocks now is... a bit odd, for sure. Rather interestingly, Rocks gives a line that is something to the flavour of "promises are meant to be kept!"... Which enrages Imu, declaring that 'Mu's/my world' is still incomplete, and that Rocks's kind needs to be erased from history. This feels like a set of lines that's going to mean a lot once we get a bit more context.
Garp is also heading towards Imu, asking the Marines just what that monster is. Garp takes a look at Imu's monster form, is told that it's one of the Gorosei... and decides to go and look what a 'leader of the maggots' is like. So it is quite nice that Garp isn't actually on the Gorosei or Celestial Dragons' side -- as you could probably extrapolate from the character, y'know? I love the line where Garp tells his subordinates to move aside, since he's about to 'help'... and with a madman's look on his face, the other Marines start yelling at Garp, asking which side he is planning to help.
And then we cut away to a lot of nonsense, a lot of fun continuity-laden action nonsense I love. We already know that at some point, Captain John is going to betray his crew for treasure. It just didn't click in my mind that the crew that John's going to betray is the Rocks Pirates itself. As everyone is trying to escape... John starts activating his powers, drawing everything metal towards him. So yes, that giant metal arm we saw last chapter is the Jiki Jiki no Mi, a.k.a. Kid's Magnet-Magnet Fruit. This includes causing even warriors like Gaban to have to hold on to his weapons, but also Monkey D. Dragon's gun from getting pulled up. This abuse of poor Dragon is what's going to separate him from Baby Shanks!
John dragons all the treasure to him in an attack called 'Big Eater'... but he gets interrupted by Ganzui, who does a pose and launches a Sky-Snake Red Cannon, causing a gigantic explosion from his arms. This, by the way, was something I thought was more akin to Don Krieg's abilities if it was a call-forward... but turns out that a closer inspection of the previous panel reveals that Ganzui is flicking a little black dot. A booger, in fact, because Ganzui is the previous bearer of Mr. 5's Bomu Bomu no Mi, the Bomb Bomb Fruit. Meaning that despite there being a lot of speculation that Mr. 5 has a great ability that he just wastes by using it in the grossest and stupidest way... turns out that apparently explosive flicked boogers is how you use the Bomb Bomb Fruit.
John is at the epicenter of that explosion and I don't know if this is exactly his death, but he's either going to die here or soon afterwards. Shiki confronts Ganzui about this, but Ganzui monologues that each of these chests are worth a billion berries (a whole Jack!) and it's worth betraying someone over. Ganzui then prepares to attack Shiki from behind...
...which is not going to end well for Ganzui. We know John and Ganzui both show up as corpses in Thriller Bark, that Shiki survives long enough in-canon to be imprisoned and escape from Impel Down, and that Ganzui's devil fruit needs to reincarnate somewhere. Sorry, Ganzui.
We then cut away to the chaos around Imu. Garp charges in, being held back by Marines. Kaido and Whitebeard both slowly walk up to support Rocks... but Big Mom shows up all angry over the betrayal. Rocks has beef with Imu. Roger and Garp both seemingly want to fight.
...and we get a badass double-page spread. Like, a full one, not a 75%-spread that One Piece really likes to do. We get a combination of attacks. Garp unleashes Galaxy Impact! Roger unleashes Divine Departutre! Rocks unleashes an attack called Pandemonium! Big Mom unleashes Ikoku Sovereignty! Whitebeard, who is noted as the only major character who never yells his attack names, does his 'punch the sky so hard it cracks' in an attack called 'Chalk Hakua'!
...Kaido unleashes a Boro Breath/Blast Breath, but since he just had this fruit for maybe ten minutes, the fucking dork doesn't actually name his moves and just yells "DRAGOOOOOONNNNNN!" which is just the cherry on the top of this moment of awesomeness.
Because holy shit! Discussions about whether these are 'prime' versions of these characters or not be damned. Imu just tanked attacks from Whitebeard, Garp, Kaido, Big Mom, Roger and Rocks.
All legends.
I honestly spent some time just typing descriptions of the six characters that unleashed attacks, and realized that... no, I don't need to. They are just six legends, and if you got this far in your One Piece journey to read this chapter and read a review of this chapter, you know what that means.
And it does nothing. There's not even an excuse of no Haki being applied, because Imu just gloops together, and unleashes a Haki explosion that knocks out all nearby Marines. We get scenes of the Roger Pirates escaping, with special lines noted to them picking up all the treasure. Dragon wakes up, separated from Baby Shanks... and Baby Shanks just crawls into a chest, because clearly his pirating instinct started early.
As Imu reforms, the other characters yell around in the background. Big Mom demands Kaido at least pay her back for the fruit. Garp and Roger yell at whose blow deals the most damage. And Imu... starts taunting Rocks about how there are new Davys -- a woman and a child running through the forest. And that's a pestilence that needs to be eradicated. Rocks charges in and slashes Imu's head into pieces... and from those tendrils come tentacles that pierce Rocks, as Imu unleashes 'Domi Reversi', and commands Rocks to eradicate his own bloodline.
And that's the cliffhanger! Some people guessed this pretty spot-on, that Domi Reversi is involved in both Harald and Rocks's deaths. Especially after Rocks was made out to be a good guy! Again, it feels like we're in for a great, tragic story for Rocks. I do feel like I can hazard a nice guess as to what happens next, but I prefer not to. It seems like something that I genuinely want to be on for the ride. Regardless... big badass scene. That whole sequence with the combo attack and the infighting among the Rocks Pirates was a treat!
Random Notes:
- Cover story's really over. It really is kind of a disappointing one, isn't it? I didn't have particularly high expectations, nothing even along the lines of 'Yamato's totally going to sail out', but even as a conclusion chapter to Wano it kinda is quite a load of nothing, isn't it?
- The names of the wounded Roger crewmates are Rowing and Mugren. They all have names!
- This is the first time that the Jiki Jiki no Mi is actually named in the proper manga itself, I believe? I knew there was a whole point about Oda admitting in the SBS thinking that he's already name-dropped the fruit before.
- Even as Shanks crawls into the treasure chest, the panel cuts away the left side of his body, making his left arm not visible. Funny, Oda.
- RE: Domi Reversi...
- There has to be a limit to Domi Reversi, otherwise there's no stopping Imu from Reversi-ing the six most powerful beings in the world instead of just one. So the question is, why only Rocks?
- Some people have theorized that Imu's ability works on 'leaders', so Rocks (as either the leader of the Rocks Pirates or the Davy clan on God Valley) and Dorry/Brogy (as major respected figures that are kings-in-practice of Elbaph), which tracks with magic.
- But we also saw the random Davy clan villagers already been Domi Reversi'd. While the giants in the present day are caused by the Othello/Reversi of Dorry and Brogy, the Davy clan villagers are a bit suspect.
- Also another theory people have been positing is that this has to do with being tied to the homeland, which in turn is tied even more to how flooding the world (thus creating many different 'homelands') is a tie-in to denying Imu one of her most powerful abilities?
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