One Piece 1164 Review: Nemesis Rocks

One Piece, Chapter 1164: Davy's Blood

Another relatively simple, action-packed chapter... but one that I feel will lead to a lot of speculation and discussion once we get a lot more context about what is going on. 

Essentially, the entire chapter is just Rocks getting Domi Reversi'd, and us clearing the stage for the upcoming hyped-up battle between Rocks, Garp and Roger, essentially clearing off the secondary players. 

We start off with some discussion between Rocks and Imu. Rocks claims that 'Davy D. Jones' is the name of the previous king of the world. Imu gets angry and denies this, and rants that Rocks has 'no place in the fate that binds Mu/me and Davy'. Rocks then goes on a rant about how Imu has been scared for a long time, that someone will inherit the Will of Davy and fulfill the promise, and mocks Imu, asking if he's more scared of Joy Boy or Davy Jones. I guess that confirms that the two of them are different people, then. 

Imu continues to mock Rocks while stabbing him, gloating that he's found a nation of easily-manipulated giant soldiers and mocking that Harald is 'pliable' and compares Rocks' current state to Harald's. It's an interesting tie-in to Elbaph, although we do know that Imu didn't succeed, at least not this time, in conquering Elbaph... so what happened? The 'pliability' stuff, I feel, is going to be interesting when we eventually learn more about the specific limits and conditions to Imu's powers. 

Imu then drops Rocks, who starts transforming into his demon form. His coat turns into bat wings, and he gets bigger, which is cool. And as the rest of his allies gather around him, Rocks starts fighting. He is ranting about purging the blood of the Davy from the annals of history, before attacking his crew. The first one he goes for is Kaido, grabbing him by the face and bashing him into the mountain. He then goes straight to Big Mom, knocking her aside with a kick.

I guess this is why Kaido has a bit of a betrayal problem, then? Hmm. It could be just from this, I suppose, although I really do want a proper, more fleshed-out Kaido backstory still. 

Whitebeard seems to be the only one who seems to have a bit of an inkling what's going on, questioning Rocks a bit before clashing. The clash of Quake Quake Fruit and Haki unleashes a gigantic explosion that I think people wanted from last chapter -- mass destruction. One of the two halves of the mountain in God Valley explodes and we get a cool panel of it collapsing down on everyone on ground level. 

There's a bit of a montage of everything going on. The Marines are panicking, the Celestial Dragons are being cunts as usual, Rayleigh and the rest of Roger's crew are evacuating with treasure chests (Shanks' zzz being in one of them), Dragon is bemoaning his inability to save a baby, while Kuma's group prepares to escape. 

We get to see the aftermath of last chapter's fight between the secondary Rocks pirates. John survives and is limping away (and I suppose this does mean that 'Captain John's treasure' is something he makes later in life), Ganzui is left defeated, while Shiki flies away with a couple of treasure chests. 

And Rocks bursts out of the jungle to cut down his wife and child. Eris cries something about 'not being ready', so clearly she knows a bit of Rocks's plan. Eris prepares to jump to the ocean and swim away... but fucking Marine battleships fire at her. Trapped between two walls of death, KUMA, motherfucking Bartholomew Kuma, jumps in, 'pops' Eris and Teach away, and then 'pops' himself away before Rocks or the cannonballs hit. 

I am sorry, as if Kuma isn't badass enough already! I mean, yes, sure, he saves the man that will be the future Blackbeard, but can we get an appreciation that after surviving years of slavery, after surviving the horrifying games, after saving so many people in this island where gods are fighting... Kuma sees another figure and his instinct is just "oh, that's one more I can save". 

Garp and Roger both independently argue with their own crews that they're fine, and that they're basically waiting for their crews to safely evacuate. Both Garp and Roger then challenges Rocks with a wild roar... and interestingly, Imu seemingly mistakes it for 'Davy'? Both Roger and Garp prepare to fight Rocks, but with what appears to be the Voice of All Things, they appear to be able to hear Rocks's inner thoughts, begging to be killed as tears stream down his face while he charges the two. 

So yeah, here we have the fabled 'Roger and Garp team up to defeat Rocks' story! Again, not a whole ton to say this chapter -- a lot of stuff progress the way we kind of expect them to, but it is absolutely still badass to see. 

Random Notes:

• It should be noted that to most of the characters around, 'Imu' is just a growth coming off of St. Saturn's spidery body. I don't think it's a plot hole to say that none of them know Imu exists; all they saw was that the Gorosei has a powerful transformation, but everyone already knows the Gorosei exist. 
• Imu's form when piercing Rocks really does look like a D&D Roper. I'm sorry. 
• We don't actually know what happened to Whitebeard after the big clash with Rocks, since next we see him, Rocks is alone and chasing down Eris and Teach. 
• It really does feel like the Will of D. is the Will of Davy. Which... while I don't mind the meaning, I feel like the way it's revealed in the story is a bit muted.