One Piece 1167 Review: Doppelganger

One Piece, Chapter 1167: Ida's Sons

A bit late to this review -- real life's been quite tight in terms of giving me time to write, but I think I would've waited for the official translations to come out because this chapter features quite a bit of terminologies being tossed around. 

We start off 5 years after God Valley, with a bunch of people reacting about enormous figures bursting out of the ocean and sinking pirate ships. This news spread far and wide, and the mysterious being was briefly compared to the Florian Triangle... which is a nice nod to the fact that ships do go missing in the Florian Triangle even before Gekko Moria started kidnapping pirates and shadows. I would absolutely love for the Florian Triangle to return and be relevant in the mainline continuity!

This mysterious figure is actually Harald, moving with the aid of fog and one-shotting ships with single swings of his sword. He had sworn an 'oath of atonement', and assisted the Marines' effort to uphold order. I do like the little mention that people outside of the Grand Line have never actually ever seen a Giant, which fits with how so much of the world's weirdness happens in the Grand Line, bringing back the epic feeling of the giants when we first met Brogy and Dorry in pre-timeskip era. 

We get a brief description of the era after God Valley. Great pirates would grow in power until they became the 'faces of the era'. Shiki being counted among the number of the future Yonko (Whitebeard, Kaido, Big Mom) isn't surprising, but Wang Zhi gets a cameo there too. It's also at this point that the crew of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger (or 'Gold Roger', as the narrator calls him) has succeeded in circumnavigating the world. We get a nice showing of the first scene of the manga, too, with the subsequent execution of Roger. 

We learn that at this point, with the era of piracy exploding post-Roger's-execution, with the recruitment of giants into the Marines. That's a nice tie-in to the Elbaph storyline for sure. But more importantly is a scene in Mary Geoise, Harald is facing the Gorosei... and on his left arm is the same tattoo that we observe Shanks having at one point. This is the 'Shallows Covenant', and Warcury names him a 'Devoted Blade', the same title that Gunko had during God Valley. Turns out that the Devoted Blades of God are like, the lowest ranks, the squires, if you will, to the Knights of God.

Unlike One Piece's habit of name-dropping something and never explaining it, we actually do get an explanation this time around. Saturn tells us that there are three levels of covenants, going from the Shallows Covenant to the Depths Covenant and the Abyssal Covenant -- named, unmistakably, after the depths of the ocean. Very thematic to the sea theme of One Piece, but also quite ominous with the whole 'abyss' thing! 

The Gorosei are talking ominously about 'god', talking about how only those with the Abyssal Covenant can enter into a contract with the 'true god'. Only thirteen have done that. No clue if this is just the number of the Knights of God, if that number can be increased or are capped at 13, or if the Gorosei are counted in that number. Very cool!

Harald, of course... is not the smartest fellow, ignoring all of this ominous devil-worship talk. Or rather, he is a bit hyper-focused on one thing and one thing only, which is when Elbaph be allowed to join the World Government. It is a bit sad, honestly, to see just how easily the Gorosei is stringing this man along. We get a brief cameo from Garling, Shamrock and Summers, who aren't particularly happy about Harald being around but lets him go around to the lower world until they call him. 

We cut away some years later to Ryugu Kingdom, or Fishman Island, where Harald and Neptune are having a kingly old time drinking in the palace. They talk about typical kingly stuff, including the betrothal of royal children. Neptune notes that there is a prophecy (Madam Shyarly, of course) that he would have a daughter in four years. Neptune even knows that Shirahoshi is going to be born with some atypical powers. Harald brushes it off, making the same joke that Roger did in the Oden flashback about Neptune's "shaggy daughter". 

It's a cute little call-back, of course, if only for the fact that 'shaggy', or 'mosa' in the original Japanese, is the name of Loki's mysterious ally that he has been in contact with. And while the logistics of Loki meeting Shirahoshi (or Neptune, if we're being fair) is a bit odd and needs some explaining, we do know that 'shaggy/mosa' is a lot meeker than Loki...  but also worryingly is in a place that seems to be under attack. I like this tie-in to the present day, even if Shirahoshi being Loki's ally and friend is a bit... odd. I'm all for it, though. 

We also get Saul arriving at Elbaph, and being welcomed by Harald. Harald recruits Saul to open a school for the young giants there. Pretty nice little scene.

And 15 years ago... we get the escape of Fisher Tiger, running away and facing off against a Knight of God. Very clearly a highly silhouetted Shamrock/Shanks. Tiger attacks the Knight of God, grabbing a bandage off of his face... but the Knight of God instead tells him quickly where the armory and keys are before leaving. This lets Fisher Tiger cause some explosions and break free all the slaves, and we get to see the cameos of the three Boa sisters and Koala, escaping alongside Fisher Tiger. 

The aftermath of this has the Knights of God assemble (where were you when Mary Geoise burned, punks) with Summers noting that there is a manhunt for whoever the 'rat' that helped the rebels were. And... and Garling introduces Shanks to Harald, saying that Shanks is Shamrocks's twin, separated after birth, and will soon take the Depths Covenant... but currently is a mere 'Devoted Blade' like Harald. 

Harald briefly wonders if he has met Shanks before, but Shanks -- whose eyes are bandaged up, presumably from an unseen encounter with Blackbeard that gave him his eye scars -- starts acting his heart and soul out, going through the whole Celestial Dragon routine.  'You peon! How dare you speak to me as if we are equals! Filthy Lower Realm creature! I have the blood of Figarland in my veins!' All that stuff. He does not break character at all in front of the other God Knights, but it is important to note that this is still the Shanks that grew up with Roger, and by the timeline, he already has a crew at this point.

So yeah, Shanks is acting his heart out being an evil man, totally so evil and such a high-and-mighty noble and he wasted the 24 years of his life being surrounded by filthy lower-realm mongrels and all that jazz. I like this. 

And finally, we have the last scene of the chapter, where Ida is sick. Of course, she is a mother in a flashback. Ida refuses to burden Harald with searching for a doctor, and keeps telling Mato (who is the current proprietor of the bar) to run the bar for her. Loki shows up, all tsundere-like, yelling at the 'hag' to eat some fresh beef that he hunted for her so she can reopen the bar and totally not because he cares for the 'outsider hag', b-b-b-baka. Meanwhile, Hajrudin and his new crew is going out to search for a doctor for Ida, and one of the other giants tells Ida that 'her boys' are taking good care of her. 

Which, of course, is a nice little subplot happening in the background of Ida always being nice to Loki despite everything. And Loki, of course, ends up liking Ida. But as Loki goes to Brewers' Village, the village where his birth mother Estrid comes from, he is confronted with these 'elders' that have been constantly stopping Harald from marrying Ida all the while. The village elders of Brewers Village start talking about how they don't want the 'outsider' to become queen, and that they want to protect their fortune and status... and an old man reveals that they have poisoned Ida with an incurable poison.  

As Mato and the unnamed local doctor frets over Ida, she makes a claim that she considers Loki her son, just like Hajrudin. Meanwhile, we smash-cut to the Brewers Village... which is on fire. Deservedly. Loki is holding a hammer, choking out the ringleader, and he is yelling about how his real mother threw him off of a cliff into the underworld, and Ida is the only woman that he considers a mother, yelling into the night. A really powerful scene, which is really punctuated by the fact that poor Ida's likely going to die regardless. But with how much of a little shit Loki has been... it's really powerful.

A lot of major world-building revelations in this chapter, and I don't want to take away from that. But it is also a very strong final scene here with Loki, I feel, and I'm happy to be coming back to building up Loki as a character.

Random Notes:

• A young Big News Morgans (Small News Morgans?) makes a brief cameo interviewing people who were reacting and yelling about Harald. Impel Down also makes a cameo appearance. 
• When the random pirates were all panicking and reacting over Harald's assaults, I thought we were going to learn that the epic explosion/destruction of God Valley actually did unleash something. Turns out it's not. 
• Harald is essentially acting as a prototype version of the Shichibukai. I don't think we've got any canon timeline of when the Shichibukai were first established/founded, but some quasi-canon anime OVA specials did establish it as happening 30 years pre-the-present-day, while Harald was doing this 33 years ago. 
• Big Mom's shot in this chapter is a nice segue between her younger self and the massive, monstrous mouth of her present-day self. 
• Notably, the giants that were recruited into the Marines were noted to be taken from other regions, and not all (if any) come from Elbaph. 
• Of course as Harald is meeting the Gorosei,  we get random Celestial Dragons yelling outside wanting to get Harald as a slave. 
• Shangara seems to be a nod to Shandora, all the way in the Skypiea arc? I can't even begin to start the speculation on how this is probably some tie-in to the ancient sky people being descended from the moon, and, and, the Lunarians, and the Enel cover story, and, and, and-
• Harald likes Neptune, but I find it nicely and subtly heartwarming that his instant response to the arranged marriage is "barahahaha, forget it!". While the focus of the scene ends up distracting most readers with the 'mosa/shaggy' nickname and conspiracy stuff, I find it adorable that Harald, despite his strained relationship with Loki, doesn't want to put Loki through the same hell he went through with his own arranged marriage. 
• Queen Otohime has a cameo in this, having just given birth to a young Prince Manboshi. Got to love these little timeline-relevant cameos. 
• There have been people discussing how Fisher Tiger's epic feat of climbing the Red Line on his own to free the slaves was 'erased', but there was a scene at the end of Fisher Tiger's life where he tells us that everything was a fabrication, that he was a slave that was lucky enough to escape, and that it was more important that he's a symbol. It's an interesting showcase of One Piece's continued theme of 'history remembers events differently', but this one shows that the truth actually paints a likable protagonist in a 'worse' or less heroic light than the epic stories instead of the other way around.
• I do think that the chapter is smart to remove any ambiguity that Shanks is still good all along by showcasing him helping Fisher Tiger's escape with the bandage marking his identity; preventing any more 'is Shanks secretly evil zomg' questioning. The plot twist is Shamrock, not evil Shanks. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 15: ¡Mucha Lucha!

Last among our Rogue Mega Evolutions is a Mega Hawlucha, which I face with Lida. As I climb up the rooftop of the buildings, a woman is actually looking for the missing Hawlucha -- it's not exactly her Pokemon, but it's a wild hawlucha that has developed a bit of a bond with her and she's been feeding it all this time. Again, with this second batch, the game wants to really emphasize that the Rogue Mega Evos are going a bit out of control and members of the public are starting to wise up to it. 

Hawlucha's Mega form is... it's perfect, actually. It's basically everything you would want from an epic Hawlucha evolutionary form, just more luchador stuff, more muscles, and a lot more bling. Unlike some of the other Megas that try to change too much of the design, I feel like Mega Hawlucha keeps the core of what made the original design so memorable. This feels something like Mega Pinsir, Mega Charizard Y or Mega Absol -- some of my favourite Megas that just changes a couple of details that are obvious enough to be a significant change, but doesn't go over-the-top, you know? 

The fight against Mega Hawlucha itself isn't... the most exciting, I am afraid to say, especially when compared to Mega Banette and Mega Beedrill -- which were very hectic for me. Mega Hawlucha is just a 'regular' Mega Raid, and its little gimmick is just jumping up to the sky, disappearing for once... before FLYING PRESS THE HELL DOWN ON YOU, WHO'S THERE JUMPING UP IN THE SKY????

That's cute, although admittedly there wasn't a whole ton beyond that. Having both my regular Megas -- the Fairy-type Meganium and the Psychic-type Slowbro -- being super-effective against Mega Hawlucha and both of them being super defensive probably was what made this feel like an easy sequence as well, though. 

I return to the Hotel Z and get into a discussion with team MZ. All of them agree that it's important to get to the root cause of the Rogue Mega Evolutions, but since we have absolutely no information, we're kind of shit out of luck. It's time for another Z-A Royale promotion, though, and this time we're up against Ivor, the big over-the-top martial arts guy we met quite early in the game. I... I genuinely forgot he existed. 

Anyway, I take a bit of a break from the main story and go around completing all the side-quests available to me. First up is the contact lenses lady, who has a bit of a twist on the fetch quests... she doesn't just want to see the Mega Evolution, she wants to fight with them! Which is a bit of a problem because my Camerupt is very much freshly evolved, but it does lead to a cute moment where I have to not kill her party to gather up the Mega Energy, while also keeping my Camerupt alive. She next asks for Mega Sableye, which probably makes the most sense for getting inspiration for contact lenses... Sableye's eyes are gemstones! As Arden notes... Sableye's Mega EYEvolution is inspirational. Eh? Eh?

One of the sidequests involves a sailor in one of the canals, who is faced with a quintet of Binacles around his boat. The sailor asks me to help him get rid of the Binacles, leading to a fight with five of them. This brings back memories of the horde battles from Pokemon XY, where five Pokemon would jump you at once! 

...I one shot all five with Slowbro unleashing Surf, which I felt was appropriate for these aquatic parasites. It was hella satisfying to see, though. 

Turns out these Binacles aren't there to break the boat or anything! They're sentient beings, and they just want to ride on the boat! The ending has all five sitting on the boat with the sailor being excited about it. This one was very, very cute. 

Another side-quest involves a gardener whose garden is being menaced by Weedles. He begs me to help him get rid of a giant Alpha Weedle, which looks glorious with its glowing eyes. I end up giving him the Alpha Weedle at the end of the fight, however, because he ended up becoming sad and realizing that he bonded with the Alpha Weedle that appreciates his berries? And that he can feed the Alpha Weedle sustainably, and the Alpha Weedle will keep out the other Weedles? But you said at the beginning of the quest that the Alpha Weedle was leading the other Weedles? Hmm, sir? Well, whatever. He's got a big worm, and he's happy. 

A fun little quest involves a lady with a Meditite who can't keep focus in meditation, and asks me to go look for the 'Legendary Yoga Master'. Which takes the form of a riddle. More of quests like these, please, Legends team, and not just 'I want to fight you with status moves hurr durr'. The riddle here involves the position of a clock, and the location closest to the sky. It's fun enough deciphering it -- the clock face position obviously refers to Lumiose City's design as a whole, so 12 on the clock must mean it's on the straight line up from Prism Tower to the northern end of the city... but 'closest to the sky' had me running around the different nearby rooftops looking for her until I realized that I had to go for a building within the Wild Zone. 

The Legendary Yoga Master and her Medicham is located in Wild Zone 2, the one with the 'shiny hunt' building if you know it. She takes a look at the quest-giver, and admonishes her for not properly understanding a Meditite's diet. Meditites aren't supposed to eat until they are full, the nature of their bodies means that they must subsist on minimal nutrition. I like this; this happens a lot in real life where a lot of irresponsible pet owners project what humans would like and do and end up causing their pets to have supremely unhealthy diets and lifestyles. 

A short sidequest includes encountering a courier who boasts about his love of Flying-type Pokemon, showing off Pidgey, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot and the move Fly. Like Dig, Fly in this move is a lot more fun because the Pokemon actually disappears from the battlefield for a brief period, before flying down. The dude's delivery company actually has a Talonflame mascot instead of anyone from the Pidgey line, which gave me a bit of a chuckle. 

There is a rather cute sequence where a Goomy appears to give me a quest! ...which isn't anywhere that funny, because all it leads to is an angry policewoman who asks me questions about the Goomy, thinking that I'm the irresponsible owner that is leaving the Goomy oozing up public property. After a battle, turns out that the owner is a little kid that comes and runs off. That is profiling, lady police, I have half a mind to report you to the police chief!

Another sidequest involves Mirte, a woman who sets up a Substitute Doll and asks me to help demonstrate the move Slash to her specifically, just so that her Scyther can learn Slash. I mean, it's just a minor inconvenience in a game that lets you swap moves at any time, so Malamar just slashes the tiny little substitute doll. Turns out that Mirte wants to open a salon for Furfrou, and this is how you get the option to change the hair for your Furfrou. A bit... odd, honestly, but okay. I honestly find the Furfrou gimmick to be quite forgettable. They really should've done a bit more to differentiate the different forms, although I suppose that's the whole point; it's just cosmetic. 

And one of the last side quests I did was a funny one, where I find a gigantic ball of spiderweb with someone inside yelling for help. Did Spider-Man visit France or something? The guy inside yells that I need to hit him with a strong move, and refuses to let me attack if I use regular moves. Turns out that he wants base power, so I have Meganium charge up and unleash the mother of all Solar Beams, breaking him free. 

Turns out that the guy was webbed up by his own three Spinaraks, who were angry at him for destroying their webs. Mighty strong webbing your Spinarak can make, but it's also worrying that you don't discipline your partner Pokemon, sir. This particular side-quest is quite cute; the guy runs away as the three Spinarak hop after him trying to punish him for wanting to sell the Spinaraks' thread for profit. 

In a nice little continuity nod, Vivace, the lady who asked me to show her the five different Flabebe variants, has actually caught all five Flabebes and evolved all five of them into Floettes. She challenges me with all five Floettes at once, leading to a five-on-one battle... that I trivialize with my Scolipede Poison Jabbing every one of them out. Vicace finds poisoned fairies inspirational enough to still upgrade the salon services, giving a fresh set of pastel colours among her offerings. Okay! That... that kind of makes sense, actually.   

In Wild Area 12, as I wander around trying to catch those damn elusive Delibirds, I run across a block of ice with a Numel frozen inside. Oh no! Poor Numel! Its trainer Gelli bemoans the event, because apparently they were just walking around when they got caught out in the crossfire of Ice-type Pokemon fighting each other. Apparently her Numel got hit by '10 Ice Beams'. I end up shooting a fire move to melt the Numel's ice. Poor Numel! It isn't really bothered, though, and is actually snacking on some berries when I free it. 

And finally, I explore Wild Area 13, which is a tiny wild area sequestered to the North-Western part of the city. I love the way this was done! The forest has been infested with giant bugs, and we see that huge chunks of trees have been cut down by Pinsirs and Scythers. Heracrosses are there, too. Meanwhile, on the other end are little swarms of Phantumps and a giant Alpha Trevenant. I like the story being told here, as the Bug-type Pokemon have come to make this area their own, and the Trevenant seem to be guarding its side of the forest. 

Phantump normally evolves by trading, but I like that just like in XY, Trevenants are still able to be caught in the wild. Now, I would really have preferred a full 'haunted forest' (or 'haunted park', I suppose) area, but this was a nice alternate solution, I feel. Always had a soft spot for Trevenant, if I didn't already run around with a Meganium and Aegislash in my party, I would totally run Trevenant. 

Anyway, next up we'll figure out what nonsense the Fists of Justice are up to, I guess!

Random Notes:

• Random NPC: "If the Pokemon really wanted to, they could destroy Lumiose in no time."
• Some of the sidequests described here are technically unlocked at varying points as I progress through the Ivor/Gwynn storyline, but I was essentially working on both parts of the article at the same time to separate the story-heavy parts from the sidequests.
• Two more lackluster quests are 'tutorial' battles, of which we've had a couple of at this point. I fight a lady with Clefairy and Lopunny that teaches me about Pokemon friendliness; a lady that teaches me about HP-draining moves; and a pair of joggers that teach me about buffing and debuffing moves. I get that it's a tutorial for newer players, but surely there are better ways to do this? Or at least ways to make the quests a lot more interesting? You could still teach me about Pokemon friendliness while spotlighting a specific Pokemon, you know? 
  
• Another sidequest that unlocks a holovator up the side of a building just involves me giving a worker a drink. It's... I guess one might be generous and say it's a reference to the Saffron City guards? It's such a boring sequence that I'd rather have a repeat of the 'thundershock a holovator' again. Maybe actually, y'know, feature a Pokemon or something in the quest?
• This sidequest did lead to a rooftop sequence that led to a Larvitar randomly chilling in the center of the building complex. It really is something that bothers me a fair bit with the fully urban setting, because... this really doesn't make sense, right? 
• I did a bunch of evolutions as I was running around, most importantly with my Alpha Pokemon -- like Talonflame. My favourite is to get an Alpha Mega Gyarados that looks properly impressive with the additional size boost. 
• I have never, ever realized that Mega Sableye's model actually has a black empty slot where the giant gemstone exploded out from. That is a cool little detail! With Legends Z-A giving you more opportunities to run around with your Pokemon, I feel that these details with the Mega-Evolved models jumps out a bit more to me. 
• I also love how Mega Sableye runs around with his big gemstone, which of course is not something you'll ever see the model do in the original Gen VI-VII games.  
• Wow, the Mega Evolutions are really under-represented in the TCG, huh? Mega Pinsir didn't have art until the mobile game TCG Pocket, Mega Sableye's only card is shared with Tyranitar, and Mega Medicham doesn't have a card at all. And yet they had space to design the ugly, gaudy 'break' cards? 
• More random easter eggs from passers-by include references to Diantha's movies, which remain popular as ever... and the revelation that Tierno is going on a tour in Unova! You go, boy! Another less-pleasant easter egg is a sweets saleswoman who reminisces about Mr. Bonding. No! No Mr. Bonding!