One Piece 1166 Review: Mourning

One Piece, Chapter 1166 Review: New Tales

And so, God Valley ends. Kind of! We start with the conclusion to the previous clash, with Roger, Garp and Rocks all lying fallen and near unconscious. Notably, Rocks has been cleared of the Domi Reversi... so it is a nice confirmation, for present day as well, that a strong enough Conqueror's Haki punch can clear Domi Reversi. 

Unfortunately, the God's Knights arrive to a dying Rocks. Garling, Summers, and Maffy. Garling kill-steals and stabs Rocks to death, and the 'camera' goes dark. I really do want to think that this is a nice end for Rocks, but if there's one thing I can and will complain about One Piece is that it's really, really bad at showing and 'confirming' death for me. So Rocks is dead until further notice. If it is, I do kind of like the thematic, somewhat-pathetic and wretched death that he got... and notable that he is the first D. to not die with a smile on his face, if he did die. 

We cut back immediately to Rayleigh and Gaban grabbing Roger and Garp and in the process of running away. Notable, as well, that we don't see the connective tissue here, so the Gaban/Summers fight alluded to in the present day may have happened in-between scenes. Rayleigh tells Roger and Garp that Rocks was killed... and as all the other major players escape, God Valley, or what's left of it, collapses under storm and thunder. Whether this is just because of the stresses from the battle with Saturnimu and Evil Rocks, or if there's something more to it... also is a bit ambiguous.

We then cut away to Roger waking up. I like that his crew is kind of dismissive of his injuries. Shakky and Rayleigh are reunited, they find the massive pile of treasure... and we get a recreation of a scene we've seen in One Piece Film: Red of Roger and company finding a baby Shanks inside a treasure chest. As with anything that debuts in the canon-adjacent movies, there are some notable differences in the scene -- Shanks's clothes, the number of Roger crewmates that crowded around the chest, and most notably Roger's lack of mustache in this version of the scene. It's all right, though, it's still really cool that people who watched Film Red two years ago now has already known this specific scene of God Valley but also not the context of what leads up to it. 

We get the rise of the fake news delivered by a young Big News Morgans, and we get my favourite scene in this chapter of Garp and Sengoku arguing about the presentation of the news. It's somewhat similar to the Alabasta incident with Smoker's reaction, I feel, but everyone is so excited about Rocks dying and Garp being the new hero of the Marines. Garp and Sengoku -- two good people in the Marines who understands to varying degrees the level of corruption and shadiness in the government, argue about each other. Sengoku is a lot more morally gray, straight-up noting that he would turn a blind eye to the higher-ups' sins if he could use the Marines to protect the whole world, talking about the scale and whatnot.

The two of them actually get into a fight, and Garp growls at Sengoku that if he ever actually gets corrupted by the power he's chasing, Garp will kill him off himself. Garp also makes his stance clear -- "a guard dog has things he has to protect at the bottom of the mountain", or something along those lines. It's something that I feel is a great balance between framing them as staying within the marines, while also making the Marines as a whole a corrupt organization. This, by the way, is true of 99% of all police force and military in the real world at the present day if we're being honest... but I'm not in a state of mind or have the energy to debate or discuss this. I just really like the writing here. 

We cut to Elbaph, finally, to see Loki reacting to news of Rocks's death and he's crying and mourning. We get another flashback-within-a-flashback of a conversation between him and Rocks. He thinks Rocks is Nika, and notably Rocks, who knows all about Davy Jones and Joy Boy, does not know who Nika is. Rocks then gives a bit of a hint as to why he wants Harald, apparently he wants to hunt down the Galliera, the ancient giant shipmen, and the only one that can rally them is Harald? No further elaboration about that plan is noted, other than Rocks bemoaning that Harald and he can't team up because of reasons. 

And we get my second favourite scene of Harald himself, the alleged main character of these flashbacks, going ham as he processes the grief in his own way. While Loki is just crying and punching the Elbaph Tree, Harald is... beating the shit out of another giant. "DON'T BE EVIL! DON'T BE EVIL! DON'T BE EVIL!" He essentially has gone full-on Punisher, not caring that his fight with the evil giant raider is actually crushing even more of the humans' buildings. But Harald is raging because the whole point that he didn't help his friend and indirectly led to Rocks's death by inaction is for Elbaph to have peace with humanity, with the World Government, and it is people like the evil pirate raider that is preventing this.

I really love this scene. I mean, it is tragic, I feel sorry for Harald, but there is a very darkly-shaded panel of Harald that was really done well, and it's just such an emotional moment as you really do feel bad about Harald. (The fact that his main goal -- allying with the very corrupt World Government -- is the wrong thing to do, adds more salt to this wound). 

We get a brief scene of Garp and Dragon's meeting. Dragon is held in a cell, ranting at Garp that he hates the Marines, he's going to quit it, and he hates his dad... and like any emotionally-stunted parent, Garp just goes "K" but also leaves the key behind for Dragon to escape. An interesting dynamic, for sure. 

We get a scene of Harald talking to Ida, Jarul, Hajrudin and Loki... a scene that we briefly see in flashbacks as Harald tells his two sons to get along. And then he sails off to Marineford and rips off his horns in a metal way in front of the Marines to atone for the sins of the giants... even if it means being a slave. Again, it's something we know was going to happen but seeing the buildup to it was well-done, and I am happy to see that we're going back to Harald again. I'm not sure how long we have for Elbaph... my guess would be 2-3 more chapters? It is really interesting to see Harald's motivations, and I wait to see just how Harald's dedication -- even if the dedication might be for something off, is going to lead to the current state of Elbaph.

Random Notes:

• Apologies for the lower-energy review this week. Not much in the mood for writing anything extensive due to some scheduling issues -- Pokemon and D&D content are pre-written last week, so it's a bit easier to publish them. 
• Rocks did think something about 'this island is...' but whether it's just him wanting to protect his hometown, wanting to escape, or if there's something more sinister is up to debate.
• Among the faces of the survivors of God Valley, we do see Kuma/Ivankov/Ginny's group and young Blackbeard, but there's no indication whether they arrived at the same place or not.