The main event is here. This chapter takes the time to revel in the brutality of it and the weight of the crews who have shown up to fight. It turns out light on plot progression, which is something I’d normally be hard on. But with all the hype, lingering here gives the scene appropriate gravitas. All that to say, I’m satisfied, even without much plot-wise to talk about.

I’m curious about how Garling found out Blackbeard was part of the Davy clan. Were hospital records leaked to him, like how Kuma’s lineage was discovered? But then, everyone seems convinced that both mother and child carry the bloodline, when it would probably should be only the kid. Well, however it happened, you can see the kind of impression being left on a poor, young Blackbeard. I wonder if we’ll see any more formative events between this and his begging to be taken in by Whitebeard that helped turn this trauma into dark ambitions. Actually, will he get to witness his father in action before getting saved from the island?

The start of the games brings a truly uncharacteristic amount of carnage and cruelty to the pages of One Piece. It’s a genuinely horrifying and harrowing sequence. We know there are systems of suffering in place, but unless it’s for tragic backstory reasons this kind of wide-scale slaughter would normally be inferred (contrast the genocides of Ohara and Flevance). Sommers’ scene is particularly horrible. I can’t wait to see what punishment is waiting for him in the present. Also hey, Gunko’s wearing a skirt. We can put to rest the theories that she goes pantsless in memory of Brook. A bare-legged look can just be a bare-legged look, even if it is still a weird design choice. Why are they calling her a pet though?

I think brutality is often self-sabotaging. The death of an entire platoon for the actions of one soldier is an iron-fisted way to run an army, and seems like a strong disinsentive for disobedience. But what are the others going to do when one goes rogue, knowing they can’t be saved? They’re going to lie. They need to have as little to do with him as possible and hope he turns up having done no harm, rather than drawing attention to his absence. Maybe Dragon could have been stopped before he attacked a noble or stole a noble’s children if his absence was reported. But no one’s going to learn that a single Marine is loose on the island, witnessing the elites’ top secret human hunting game. And in this way, the World Government creates its greatest enemy.

It’s really interesting putting this chapter side by side with our previous glimpse of God Valley and looking at all the snippets of dialogue between the Roger and Rocks pirates with a whole new context. There are some really telling lines in there that show Oda’s been cooking this one for a while. It’s actually amazing Kuma’s version was so coherent considering how much was left out. Is there anything more hiding between the cracks even of this version? Say, how Dragon got his hands on those kids when they would presumably be safely tucked away at the hunting game’s headquarters, or how he got separated from his platoon in the first place?

So “Knights of God” is coming out as the seemingly official romanisation for the Holy Knights’ name via the raws for this one. I’d like to temper that with the knowledge that word order and the need for that connecting ‘of’ in Japanese can result in weirdness when translated so directly. Remember when Law’s crew were introduced as the ‘Pirates of Heart’ in Zou? That’s because these signs are written for a Japanese-speaking audience using conventions that would make sense for them, not as a direct guide for the English speaking world. In English, Law’s crew can remain the Heart Pirates because the ‘of’ is inferred by the words existing together as a proper noun, and because we put the descriptive word first. Following logically, I would choose God Knights as the name for our ‘Knights of God’ based on the info we have now. The scanlations’ ‘God’s Knights’ lands close at a glance, but misses the mark with the possessive. Firstly, why they made ‘god’ singular when we know there’s a 19 families worth of people who are self-proclaimed gods is beyond me. And secondly, the possessive implies ownership or subordination. But these aren’t knights who are in service to the gods of Marie Geoise, these are gods of Marie Geoise who are also knights. So the God Knights. Viz’s original ‘Holy Knights’ actually leaves itself more open to the correct interpretation despite feeling like a bigger leap in word choice. Their new ‘Holy Knights of God’ is both redundant and a tad awkward, but I assume they’ll be shortening back to what they originally had for most usecases going forward.

Splitting of hairs done, these guys have some really cool designs. I hope more of them show up in the present. But how many will be able to? Garling and Sommers have aged, but Gunko hasn’t. What decides who gets the agelessness treatment to go with the immortality?

It’s never not a bad time for a break week, but this is a particularly bad one. We haven’t seen this many world-shaking players come head to head since Marineford, and even in a flashback with a foregone outcome it’s impossible not to be excited. I’m here as much for the clash as for how Oda could portray it. Remember back at Marineford where we got two chapters in a row where every possible pair of pages was a spread? That would be an awesome trick to repeat.