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One Piece chapter 1141 review
Man, things are moving in this arc! I expected at least another chapter of transition and chapter before Luffy and Zoro even reached Loki, let alone freed him, but Oda’s wasting no time at all on this one. And we’re still in volume 112, with at least two chapters of it to go. This book is going to be stacked.
But despite the huge plot movements, this chapter finds time for fun and characterisation as well. I loved Nami’s exaggerated and insincere insisting that she was only there for the treasure and wasn’t involved in Luffy’s Loki plan, and then a totally wasted Usopp going crazy at the party a couple of pages later. This arc is a long time coming for Usopp, so I’m glad he gets a bit of fun before it puts him through his paces.
We get a little more Adam Tree lore as Franky learns about the fallen branch of Haugen. This feels like some big, important setup. Fire and lightning being Elbaph’s weakness has to be setup for the final act of the arc. It wouldn’t be One Piece without a ticking clock to the whole island getting destroyed, and an out-of-control fire bringing down the tree could be exactly that, especially if Loki’s big hammer is about to reveal some Thor-like powers. It’s not my favourite way for things to go, feeling repetitive so soon after Onigashima turned into an inferno and Egghead burned under the Marines’ bombardment, but we’ll see what twist Oda decides to put on it. If some bits of the tree have to be lopped to stop a fire, will that maybe give Franky material for a final upgrade to the Sunny though?
I’ve seen the idea float around that we’ve just learned an unexpected weakness for the Sunny, but I don’t think the threat is any greater than to any other wooden ship. Elbaph has a weakness because every part of it is interconnected on the tree, not because Adam Tree wood is particularly flammable or conductive. Not to mention that planks on a ship will be sealed and treated and constantly damp from the seawater, making them much harder to burn than a dry land tree.
Cut to the debate over freeing Loki. I’m not usually into the idea that Zoro is a substantially different character after the timeskip, let alone a worse one, but even for me he comes across way too harsh here. Anyone else remember his first big fight, where kicking a wounded man in the wound was a villainous act? Maybe if he had just prodded the wounds to test for a reaction, or he’d just been blase about Loki dying, or he’d just suggested eating the animals, it could have been a reasonable characterisation moment, but all three of them together just scans as a big much.
(Also did anyone else notice Loki’s wearing gloves now? He definitely wasn’t at first, but they show up around the time Shamrock attacks him. Wonder if the volume release will ink his hands in properly for the early chapters.)
Hadjrudin’s arrival on the scene definitely feels a little rushed, and a little contrived, but it at least manages to be funny. I wonder if it’ll be a factor that most of his group are now “severely injured” or if they’ll shake it off when the time comes to fight. Probably worth noting as well that Sanji and Gerd both escape being hurt and should be going into any future battles at their top capacity.
The final spread is a banger. I’ve said it a bunch of times through Elbaph already, but I love the sense of scale in the art lately. Look at those details!
Some have questioned why Loki was imprisoned with Ragnir in the first place if it’s so dangerous, but I don’t think we know enough about how he was locked up in the first place to say if they had a choice or not. Look at the size of this guy – I don’t think he was dragged down here; more likely he was knocked out against the tree and the chains hastily set up around him where he fell. It might have been too dangerous to try and get the hammer out from behind him first.
A lot of questions linger about what makes both Loki and Ragnir so dangerous. What Devil Fruit does Loki have? What makes the hammer such a big deal, and does it have an inherent power outside the DF/Haki power system? Does the timeline work out for Ragnir having a Devil Fruit (probably not)?
But hey! It’s another no-break week, so answers may be coming very soon. And with the volume so close to its end, they should be big ones.
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Gundam GQuuuuuux Beginning review
For the uninitiated, GQuuuuuux Beginning is the first fourish episodes of the upcoming Gundam series, made in collaboration with Studio Khara and plenty of staff of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame (including Hideaki Anno himself), recut into a short movie to preview the series in theatres. I had the chance to watch it this afternoon. This review has no major spoilers if you’ve been keeping up with the trailers and media leading into it.
I had a great time, but I can see the series being polarising. The pacing is frantic and the energy is super high with little to no downtime. You basically have a prologue section, then the start of the actual story, splitting the “movie” right down the middle. The first half is a flurry of nostalgic bodyblows, full of recreated shots from the original series, classic character designs and uniforms (despite the redesigned mobile suits), and parts of the OG soundtrack remastered for surround sound. Even the title card jingle from the old episodes made it in.
Second half, a switch is flipped and it seems determined to contrast the first as hard as possible. Instead of appealing to nostalgia, the shot selection and animation embrace the new blood of the Eva/FLCL staff – cameras in creative places and battles shot from low angles with silhouetted powerlines crisscrossing the scene, and humans running and jumping with a manic, cartoon fluidity. The soundtrack ditches the old standbys for energetic, synthesised J-pop, a decent amount of it with vocals. This is where the new cast with the Pokemon trainer-looking designs come in, their vibrancy standing out from the familiar uniforms of the old group.
The one thing not dichotomised by the first and second halves is the relentlessness of the pacing. Neither one slows down to explain or relax for a second. I imagine Gundam newbies are going to feel lost in the first half without the lore knowledge needed to fill in the gaps between that section’s forward time jumps. The second half also demands you do some thinking to fill in the spaces between its rapid shot and scene changes, but at least puts old and new fans on even footing for their understanding of the general shape of the story.
And to be clear, I came out of it feeling wired. I was head-bobbing to the music in the second half, feeling smart tying together offhand comments to lore I remembered on the fly. I was surprised to look up the runtime and see just 80 minutes because that machinegun pace meant they fit so much story in.
The only place I felt it was let down by its speed is Machu’s thin-feeling characterisation. There’s a vague wistfulness for freedom set up early on, but she swings between recklessness impulsiveness and flighty panic on a dime, making her real goals and drives hard to pin down. But I’m hoping the full series will be able to give her a few more layers.
This is the perspective of a relatively new and passionate fan though. The background info needed to keep up is still fresh in my mind. I might have come too late to the party to be nostalgic about Gundam, but Evagelion’s directing and FLCL’s loony tunes energy were big influences in my formative years. If you don’t know your OYW and Char Aznable lore, on the other hand, and if you haven’t previously learned to roll with that kind of rapid fire storytelling, I can see this one being tough to stomach. But then, the enforced breaks with a week to simmer between episodes might help reign it in for the unprepared.
I’m feeling super hyped up to see the full series, and more curious than ever to see what the wider fandom reaction is going to be when it arrives.
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One Piece chapter 1140 review and analysis
Oda is such a tease. Let there be no fear that the series is wrapping up anytime soon. Despite a hugely memorable entrance Shamrock seems to be ducking out to save his boss status for later, and even Scopper hints that he plans to sit things out and not reveal anything he has to say to Luffy until after things with Loki wrap up. Although, it seems reasonably likely the abduction of his son will pull him into the mix anyway. And Shamrock hasn’t actually left yet, so maybe I’m jumping the gun on character departures.
I guess the cover story is going to lead to some kind of Ulti and Page One redemption. Sure, why not. Maybe the Beast Pirates officers who were endearingly evil rather than wholly, cruelly evil are going to end up as Yamato’s crew. Although, 26 installments in, there’s not going to be a lot of time to go track down Sasaki and whoever else. And what happened between Ulti and Who’s Who that he’s happy to just torture her anyway?
I’m not surprised the Scopper fight turned out to be a low stakes test rather than a proper showdown, but I’m pleased to see him using the key to fight at least for a little while. It stands out a lot more visually than the axes (though the spread where he cuts up the tower is a banger), and gives us some fun physical comedy when he jams it in Luffy’s mouth. I’m searching desperately for subtext in the dialogue about the straw hat, some hint about its relevance or purpose that Scopper knows from the old days, but there’s not really much to see besides Scops trying to wind Luffy up.
Two new villains make a great entrance this week with fascinating designs and a great comedic bit when they’re summoned in the process of receiving their orders. I’m going to headcanon that being pulled through without getting fully dressed yet is what happened to Gunko. Also Sommers has medals all the way down to his boots after he’s dressed. It’s a fun detail.
But the real interest here is the new summoning circle lore. People can’t go without a “mark,” but some inanimate objects can be pulled in. It makes this mysterious mark a double-edged sword – giving the freedom of fast travel, but but also vulnerability of being pulled in against your will any moment after you’ve been branded. Hey, I wonder if we’ll see the good guys exploit that at some point to eject a particularly dangerous WG enemy? And what would have happened if the guys Brook went to for the timeskip had actually stumbled onto the number for a Holy Knight or even an Elder?
We also learn a little bit about the structure of the Holy Knights. Shamrock sends a request up the chain for backup, it gets relayed by his superiors to the other Knights, evidenced by Sommers and Killingham arriving while in conversation with someone else, and with new orders for Shamrock. It’s an opaque system for the Knights, and must put some frustrating limits on their autonomy that the plan can be changed so suddenly. Curious about the summoning circle being called an Abyss too. Does the word they use for that in Japanese reveal any connection to the “void” or “emptiness” that come up in the Harley text?
One more time it’s hinted that Harald wasn’t as good as he seemed. I can’t think of a single good reason it would even be on the cards for Shamrock to visit his grave if he wasn’t in cahoots with some of the world’s worst people.
Shamrock suggesting a game before he departs is curious. The hunting game from God Valley is the first thing that comes to mind, but how does that work for an abduction mission? Or a nation you plan to subjugate rather than exterminate. Hunting giants for sport will not result in an army of giants for the WG. Hunting giant children for sport will make the adults only marginally more cooperative than if they were dead. There must be something else on the cards.
As setup chapters go, this was a fun one. Looking forward to seeing where Oda’s taking it all next week.
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One Piece chapter 1139 review and analysis
It’s definitely not the blockbuster that the last two chapters were, but the rollercoaster had to peak somewhere, and I don’t think there’s many who’d complain about getting a Scopper Gaban reveal. Even with a shorter pagecount and break week to really make things feel like old times.
I’m on record somewhere on the internet saying I didn’t see where the fanbase’s obsession with Scopper Gaban comes from. Like yeah, any member of the Roger Pirates who shows up is automatically going to be a big deal, but a lot of the discussions on the topic treated the character like he has some kind of established personality and role to fill despite his having maybe two or three lines in total. Yes, he was most likely, being one of the few recognisable in Buggy’s flashback from way back when, but the material before now was thin enough that you could elevate any member of the crew. But it’s Scopper! And now that he’s here he can start being built into an actual character.
The early pages put a big spotlight on the summoning circle, but they don’t really tell us much we didn’t already know. Rodo’s never been in the castle, so he couldn’t say if it predates the current day or not (although Scopper implies he’s been through here before and doesn’t make any remark on it). There’s no debris on top of it, but I’d say it’s fairly likely the plumes of smoke and fire we see when they activate could push obstructions aside to let the user through. Or it’s just an aesthetic choice from Oda to ensure the design sticks out. All of the Elders’ circles remained totally clear despite Egghead Island literally falling apart around them. We’ll have to keep waiting for any real info on how these things work.
My first impression of Scopper is that he seems fun. A little similar to Rayleigh, but I can live with that. The flying axe that precedes him is proportioned to Rodo, not the humans, and he easily picks up the giant-scale key at the end of the chapter, so I’m wondering if he’ll have a fighting style centred around oversize weapons. The training regiment could involve using a giant’s weapon until you can swing it as easily as you would a human one. The scar on his head is certainly an attention grabber – and we know from that cover story that he’s known to leave Elbaph and travel the seas, so it’s feeling pretty reasonable this is the burn scar man with the last Poneglyph. And as exciting as that is, it substantially raises the odds that Elbaph is the last regular arc before things get very final war-y. I didn’t mind the idea of one final voyage to track down the last piece of the map, but I’m sure it’s all part of the plan.
Scopper drops some interesting lore as well. Mainly that Buccaneers are a mixed blood race. But of what? Partly human, obviously, but aside from being fairly bulky and tough they don’t have physical characteristics to align them with anything we’ve seen so far. Sticking a pin in that.
Also it’s interesting that Collun seemingly got the full giant lifespan. That must make a very interesting father-son dynamic. I wonder if Luffy’ll try telling him to step up because he’s older than he is later on. And on the topic of family dynamics, it threw me for a loop that Rodo calls Scopper Ripley’s husband and he talks about marrying a giant like he’s done it, rather than it being something he would or wouldn’t do. I had to look back a few chapters to double check Ripley identifying herself as his “common law wife.” And I understand that term, I do, but we use a different phrase for that kind of partnership where I live, and the people under it wouldn’t describe themselves directly as husband and wife like that.
I’m not expecting much more than a skirmish from Luffy fighting Scopper over the key, just enough to prove he’s on the level and get Scopper to internally make the obvious comparisons to Roger and Rayleigh, and maybe identify a final area of weakness or absent technique to mentor Luffy through. Still, that should be pretty damn exciting just on its own, even if it’s only a chapter. What’s the bet the arrival of the third Holy Knight interrupts the bout though?
It’s crazy to think we’re only reaching the halfway point of volume 112 in this chapter. That book is going to end up being one of the most absolutely stacked tones in the whole series even if nothing else happens for the next five chapters (which I seriously doubt). And there’s almost no one important to these chapters you could put on the cover without someone crying foul about spoilers. But the possibilities there make good thought fodder as we go into the break.
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One Piece chapter 1138 review and mural analysis
I’m going to put it out there. This is the best One Piece chapter since the Reverie kicked off in mid-2018. The Emperors’ bounties and Roger laughing in Wano came close, but this is the first thing to truly make me feel like I did back at that last big reveal. While I don’t think that the post-arc lore dump of Wano and Vegapunk’s broadcast are quite the failures some sections of the fanbase make them out to be, this is definitely puts in perspective the kind of blow-it-wide-open reveal the naysayers wanted them to be. But would this reveal really have been as big as it is without the little push of extra anticipation and context we got from waiting another couple of arcs?
We open by tying up some lingering questions about last week’s big finale. Twins, not clones or anything crazy like that, and Shamrock is the elder. I’m curious about Shanks’s return to Marie Geoise – would bet anything it happened right after the Roger Pirates disbanded, after learning about the One Piece. Seems a safe guess the scene where he asks a bunch of questions of Roger and cries about the answers was a precursor.
It’s also really, really apparent now that Loki can see despite the blindfold. Sensing attacks coming is one thing, but picking out facial features is another entirely. A big point was made in Dressrosa of Issho not being able to know what Luffy’s face looked like, and him being a literally blind admiral would probably be top of the list for Observation Haki, so there may be some kind of special trick to Loki’s ability to see. And on the topic of Observation, Shamrock tells Gunko to extinguish her presence. We’ve long suspected there was a way to hide from powers of Observation, but I think is the first time anyone’s actually talked about using it.
Happy to see another Devil Fruit-fused weapon show up as well. I was starting to think Oda had forgotten his SBS promise to get Vegapunk to explain that, but this makes it feel like it’s still on the cards. Shamrock’s Cerberus behaves a little differently from ones we’ve seen previously though: it’s able to manifest the animal fully separate from the sword. Could this have to do with the wreath of black smoke that suggests an Awakening for the power? There’s a lot about Zoan Awakenings that are still mysterious, given that Luffy’s still acts more like a Paramecia. Still, I really enjoy the three heads flying around on spiked collar propellers; it’s a very creative visual. Alongside Gunko’s arrows, I’m feeling pretty good about this arc’s fights.
Shamrock plans to take Elbaph’s children hostage as he departs, and I think that’s where we’re getting our main plot for the arc. There’s a random three panel scene of the Walrus School used as a scene transition later in the chapter, seemingly just to show the kids are apart from the adults and vulnerable. This would give Oda the chance to elaborate on the ideas of the new generation being “soft” that he’s been building up, and to give Collun his hero moment. And on the topic of kids, I think we get a little more on the reason the next generation is being raised peaceful and where Oda wants to take that toward the end of the chapter. Ripley says the image of racial cooperation in the mural seems like a “child’s dream.” Kids may be chaotic and raise hell at the best of times, but there is an optimism in them, and an ability to dream of the impossible in a way adults can’t. Elbaph is nurturing their kids’ ability to hope and giving them the tools to make social ties with outsiders so that the plainly childlike dream of a world that works together can be realised. And there’s no way that’s going to end up being a bad thing.
It’s nice that Luffy kinda knows who Belle-mere is now, similar to his deference to Saul. He’s not the type to ask about tragic backstories, and we know he struggles to listen to a long-winded tale, but once he’s heard about someone important to someone important to him, he’s not going to forget it.
And man, the mysterious hat guy is on his way up too so we can have another bombshell reveal next week. I’ve been waiting for this guy since the cover story. It’s nice attention to detail that he talks up the slope beside the main path – of course the giants’ stairs wouldn’t really work for anyone human-sized.
The rest of the chapter builds into the text of the Harley and the reveal of the Harley and its accompanying mural. And man, this is huge. It looks like everything we’ve been waiting to find out put on display at once, but in a vague enough form that we can’t be totally sure of what part of it is which big, exciting thing. I can’t wait to spend years looking back at these last two pages as the details finally unravel. it’s crazy. And it gives me arcs I want to reread over the coming weeks to look for clues in the details. Anything with giants – Little Garden and Ennies Lobby, maybe Thriller Bark for Oars – and all the ancient mythology of Skypiea seem like good starting points.
The Harley text presents three worlds separated by apocalyptic events, none of which truly end the world, but instead reorder and remake it, much like the Norse Ragnarok. It provides a prophecy – the end of the Third World in which the characters now live – as well as two pasts. A version of the Void Century was always a given, but another set of mythologies for a world before the Void Century. I really didn’t think we’d get much of that in the story – vague hints of how utopian things were before the World Government overthrew the Ancient Kingdom, sure, but not a whole detailed end of the world story for them. It’s not clear either how long before the events we know of this is all meant to have taken place as well. The Second World could just be the Void Century, with the First covering everything before it. Or it could be further and further into the past.
I’m taking the mural to depict just the first and second worlds. Some will say the right side is the future final battle of the series – and while I think there will be some parallels to it, we won’t see it fully recreated. It’s primarily an image of the past.
The First World, represented by the right side of the mural, seems to have been some kind of dystopia. There are slaves praying for salvation, forbidden from reaching for the sun (sound familiar?), but enslaved by who? The Earth God and the Hellfire Serpent? Other humans, such as the king figure in the mural? The images seem to depict the people of this era descending into the earth via an enormous elevator and returning with a glowing energy source. There are complicated mechanisms underground and very modern cities above. My read would that be people were enslaved to mine a power source compared to the sun from the core of the earth – and led by the arisen (or created) god Nika, they took control of this power source for themselves in a massive uprising. While the Earth God and the Serpent are said to wreak destruction across the world, I think the former slaves ultimately won this conflict, even if it was a pyrrhic victory. The serpent, whether literal or metaphorical, lies dead as the Red Line (possibly called the Red Wall at the time) dividing the world so they “will never meet.”
The use of the Forbidden Sun is curious too. We see a chain of slaves lugging pieces of it from the lift over to a boat going into the city, but the dark section that the ark rides on seems to be spreading outward from a piece of it that’s been let go by its slave. Is the sun making the ocean down there, as well as powering the city? A couple more sit below, with the people lining up to descend into the earth, possibly to power the lift and provide light. Maybe there were multiple uses, or multiple parties exploiting humans to mine the Sun before the uprising.
The big unknowns to me in the First World are mostly on its rightmost side. We have the ark Noah, seemingly being used for the same biblical purpose as its namesake, even guided by an angelic (Lunarian?) figure. Perhaps even in the First World, there was knowledge of the rising sea levels that are spelling doom in the Second and Third Worlds, or at least knowledge of the means to do so. I wonder if part of the motive for raising the seas was to fill in the mines of the Forbidden Sun so no more of it could be acquired by anyone. There’s a king with two oars. And there’s a craft not unlike Enel’s Maxim, but also not unlike the impression we have so far of Uranus, throwing down a bolt of lightning. The dragonlike creature breathing fire at the Serpent also doesn’t seem to be represented by the text. Did the humans offer the Sun to a literal Celestial Dragon in exchange for its power to face the Serpent? And what’s with the other celestial bodies behind the moon, mostly obscured by the text boxes? Could my old pet theory that the world of One Piece used to have multiple moons finally be paying off?
The right hand side of the mural then depicts the climactic battle of the Void Century, in which an alliance of twenty kingdoms claimed victory and rearranged the world with themselves on top. The text talks about “breath in the void,” which makes me think the Second World was a very empty place at its start. The Celestial Dragon that fought the Serpent departed, but left a powerful impression. And to fit with what we already know of this era, the humans remaining used the Forbidden Sun they now have control over to build the futuristic society Vegapunk researched. But for whatever reason, be it envy of the Ancient Kingdom doing this, or power lust, or a hope to recall the original Celestial Dragon by worshiping its image, or being a slaveowner from the First World who wanted to turn things back to how they were, Imu rallied twenty kingdoms to oppose the Ancient Kingdom and killed that First World Forbidden Sun they were still using, rendering all the technology it powered inert.
A Forest God taming demons might speak to the advent of Devil Fruits in this era. The talk of the Sea God’s storms gives us an interesting point to compare with the other gods though. Consider: we know the Second World drowned in a massive sea level rise, leaving only mountains uncovered. That sounds pretty good for the wrath of a Sea God. But we also already know what caused the sea levels to rise, and it’s technology from the Ancient Kingdom. A machine only named for a god. Do we then take the First World’s Earth God as a terraforming machine rather than a literal entity that summoned a big, living snake? The Forest God may be simply an attempt to explain Devil Fruits, just as many real world ancient gods were made to put a face to natural phenomena.
Most of this image is a battle. A multinational group tries to stop a figure who brings to mind Imu’s monster silhouette in the throne room and a group of guys in spacesuits. Joyboy leads, and his alliance includes giants, minks, fishmen, sea kings, ancient giants, tontatta and Lunarians. There’s a second minklike figure in white, which has me thinking Sulongs may once have been a separate species who’ve passed all their traits to regular minks via interbreeding. The whale is a real mystery, but recalls Laboon, the culturally significant Whale Tree on Zou and the scarred up gam of whales the crew saw on the way to Punk Hazard. Whales that were oddly receptive to Brook’s song. Hmmmm. There are also two identifiable nations in Joyboy’s group – Alabasta and Wano. Alabasta is a strange one, given that it will end up a World Government nation. Maybe Lily was caught between two worlds, extorted in some way by Imu. If she was forced to betray Joyboy, it may have been the reason his alliance failed; but even so she ensures a way for his will to be inherited making her “great mistake” and scattering the Poneglyphs and preventing Imu from claiming a total victory.
Once again, we have the line that they will never meet. The first thought for this one is the Grand Line, building on the Red Line of the previous era. But it’s worth considering what Vegapunk pointed out in his speech – the ocean alone serves this purpose. Most people never meet cultures outside their own because travel is so difficult and dangerous.
And the Third World passage is honestly pretty straightforward. The new era has made an empty space in the chaos of history. People of the D – increasingly likely to be an image of a half moon – lurk in wait and the remnants of the people who fought with Joyboy anticipate the dawn. This ultimate Forbidden Sun power that was valuable enough to enslave people to mine it in the First World and powerful enough to create futuristic tech in the Second World will be rediscovered. The restrictions of the Red Line and the Grand Line over the world will be ended, and people will meet and mix cultures and assimilate again.
One of the cool things across the whole text is that is answers the question from a couple of chapters ago about the three versions of Nika. We actually have a liberator, a warfighter and a dancing, laughing man across the eras. All are true!
That’s about as far as I can go in interpreting and analysis this behemoth of a reveal without going some rereads. It’s so dense with info and we clearly don’t have the full story yet. There’s so much that has to tie in – the city Enel found on the moon, the reason the Celestial Dragons are so obsessed with genetically engineering giants (we can make so safe guesses about why they love dragons so much now), sky islander peoples, the longarm/longleg/snakeneck/three-eye tribes, whatever the heck Blackbeard has going on and so much more. We’re gonna be going back to this for years, and in the spirit of its in-universe presentation, I doubt we’ll be able to agree on the best possible translation for the Harley text until the end of the series, where the things it references are all revealed.
Elbaph has been on a crazy run of hits so far: Robin and Saul’s reunion, the Shamrock reveal, and now this. Emotional payoffs, confirmed theories and building the bigger mysteries. We know this is an arc Oda’s been waiting to do for a looooooong time and it feels like he’s going all out to make it worthwhile. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for next week.
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One Piece chapter 1137 review
Back on three chapters in a row, and the main plot is keeping on picking up steam. This is bliss! The chapter may only have two segments but both are rich with new lore and statements with deeper implications.
We start in the castle, and I have to first compliment the ruined aesthetic. Like previous Elbaph chapters, Oda uses almost exclusively very low and very high camera angles to create a towering sense of scale. It feels very Dark Souls, especially the panel looking down on the crossing walkways.
And what are we learning here? Tons of cool stuff. Horns are evidence of Ancient Giant blood? It was a safe guess but I love having confirmation. Wonder how far that extends to non-giant races. There are no witnesses to what happened between Loki and Harald except the wounded Jarul? Fascinating. Let’s give some more good guy points to Loki because it could not be more guaranteed that we don’t have the full story. Anything from brain damage-induced memory loss to the cross-guard obscuring Jarul’s view of the true culprit (or motive) could be used to explain this away. Ancient Giants are connected to an “era of war?” Hmmmm… anyone remember how the symbol on Oars’ loincloth was also carved on the walls of the Marie Geoise straw hat room? Wonder which side the Ancient Giants fought for then. The World Government’s obsession with either recruiting or genetically engineering giants for the Marines could be an attempt to restore old power, or it could be a plan to capture the power once used against them. And there are more giant tribes in the world? I figured all the talk of warring giants was just Elbaph infighting. Sure, we knew of giants like Saul who had birthplaces in other seas, but I’d figured they were one-offs, not members of other full societies.
We also get some interesting giant social dynamics. Blood purity is serious business here, explaining the issues with Hadjrudin’s claim to the throne, but also giving more power and context to his dream of being king of the giants. We sure as hell didn’t need a backstory for Rodo’s presence on his crew, but the one we get ties well into that goal.
It’s definitely a little odd that the castle was sealed with all the bodies inside. I wonder how giant society feels about funeral rites, or if there’s some kind of cultural thing about leaving warriors where they fall if they do so in battle. Do these giants believe in a Valhalla? And then there’s Harald’s appearance. The head scars are cool, but if we’re talking horn removal I would have loved to see a Hellboy homage. Takahashi managed an art exchange with Mignola, why not Oda? Regardless, that portrait does not look like a man of peace, and Oda even added an ominous sound effect to be sure we get the message. If Harald was not what we’re told he was, did that factor into his assassination?
We cut to the Realm of the Dead, and to open on aesthetics again, Gunko’s style is growing on me, seeing her in motion this week. What seemed to be a fabric-based power is actually… arrows? Like, the concept of arrows. Sometimes they form out of or extend her clothes and sometimes they just seem to appear. Sometimes they’re physical things that can spear attackers. Sometimes they create vectors for her other attacks of accelerate on. It’s abstract with vague rules, but it’s so visually striking I hope she gets a meaty fight to show off in. I remember Medusa from Soul Eater and how good her battles looked, and maybe Oda does as well.
And on the topic of the arrows acting as vectors, Loki is very, very curiously aware of the directions they’re setting up for a blindfolded man. Could be even basic observation haki reading Gunko’s intended movements, but they talk about it like he has a pretty keen and immediate awareness.
And we end on a reveal that’s been teased for weeks and coming for years. Figarland Shamrock. Waaaaaaay back in mid-2018 when we first saw “Shanks” meeting the Five Elders, I actually did think it was the real Shanks. He’d put forward appearances as kind of a peacekeeper of the New World, taking actions to maintain the balance of power when he prevented the Marines and Blackbeard from taking their victory too far at Marineford. Having that role go further, with some kind of rapport with the Elders seemed within the realm of possibility. It wasn’t until Film Red dropped its line about “Figarland blood” that I became a believer in a brother/twin for that scene, but once that last piece fell into place it was impossible to read it any other way. It’s so perfectly framed to keep the right arm and the place where the scars should be out of sight, but it does so without being so blatant that the deception is obvious. A great long con deception, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what Shamrock’s relationship with Luffy and Shanks is going to be as the story goes forward.
This is all building up in some very exciting ways, but it feels like Luffy’s team is going to have to step on the gas if they want to arrive in Loki’s scene before it ends. There’s no way Loki dies here, but maybe it’ll be the Oda classic bad guys forgetting to confirm the kill when he’s only mostly dead, then Luffy meets Shamrock as he returns to the castle (assuming he has to do that to teleport again). Well, whatever happens, it’s great to know we’ll be finding out in just a week’s time. Good to be back.
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One Piece chapter 1136 review
Alright, the holiday break season seems to be over, and it looks like we’re starting to get to the main plot of Elbaph. I’m excited to get back into a One Piece rhythm.
In the cover story, Who’s Who reminds us all that he was once a spy with his incredibly subtle secret base. But genuinely, the design of the building is super fun with the saber teeth going down through the roof. Love that kind of flourish. And I’m happy with the choice of ex-Beast Pirate to use as an antagonist here – the dude had one of the best designs of the crew and some interesting lore to boot.
The lack of knowledge of the outside world the giants show when speaking to Jinbei and getting taken in by Usopp’s (admittedly truer than usual) tall tale and Sanji’s talk of mermaids, emphasised by Zoro and Nami’s exchange about how few have gone to sea, points to Harald’s cultural shift not being as dramatic as we might previously have been led to believe. No culture can be made up entirely of raiders, and the listeners here are obviously old enough to have lived through the period when giant pirates were a thing. In fact, aside from Loki’s rampage thta Shanks ended and Hadjrudin’s group working under Buggy, I don’t recall hearing about many giant crews besides Dory and Broggy’s, so it might be that a small handful of groups defined the wider world’s perception of giants for the better part of a century. (Can’t fault the locals for being confused by Brook though, whether or not they’d gone to sea.)
But what’s really interesting here is the new Nika lore. A ruler, a liberator, a destroyer or a god of laughter. Sects within the belief system, it seems. (Rodo getting destroyed in the brawl over it is a great touch.) As much as Luffy is emphatically not the actual Sun God, it’s pretty obvious which interpretation he leans to. I wonder then, will the story’s endgame (or at least this arc) give us candidates for the other three versions as well? We even have Loki putting himself forward for one of the others later in the chapter.
And what is this about the world being destroyed twice before? I guess the original mythological Nika, and then Joyboy and the World Government’s war. But how much of the first one will we actually get to learn about?
The stories about Loki’s youth feel a whole lot like how Oda built up Oden as a figure. He gets a dozen good guy points from the comparison alone. And that’s before he sets himself against the Holy Knights at the end of the chapter. Granted, his pranks read a little more sinister the way they’re told here, but I’ll bet there’s some exaggeration or misunderstanding at play.
Luffy, Zoro and Nami’s mission to get into the castle and free Loki feels a little contrived, but it can be forgiven for the sake a quick transition from the party to the real plot. Like, would Nami really be that okay with freeing Loki given what she’s just heard about him? This seems like a prime ‘voice of reason’ moment she just skips. Even with the treasure motivation, she should have pushed back a little harder on what Luffy and Zoro are doing.
The Holy Knights coming for Loki has the gears in my head turning. We suspected from their warp point in the castle that were was a prior connection between them and Harald or his family, but the confidence with which they offered Loki a job really raises some questions about what they know or think they know. And that Loki also knows of the Holy Knights and confirms that they’re entirely Celestial Dragons. I wonder if the revolts started over Vegapunk’s message are stretching the World Government thin, for the Knights to be recruiting outside their own. Also Loki gets another ten good guy points for calling them trash.
This conversation is followed by the full Gunko design reveal, and… Ugh, I feel like we’re so close on this one. I like the hat and jacket and mismatched eyes. I think the pantsless look can work in this seafaring world where swimsuit bottoms are reasonable everyday attire. But they just don’t go together. It really just looks like she forgot to finish getting dressed in the morning. And the fabric power as well; if Oda wants to get a bit fanservicey by making her unravel her clothes to attack he can do that – the world of shonen has far worse – but you have to start with the clothes first. That untwisting sleeve is a glimpse of what could have been if she’d come decked out in layers of baggy clothes to gradually weaponise, revealing more leg or chest or whatever else bit by bit as the arc goes on.
Oh wait, what if she already sacrificed her pants to tie up the two guards in the castle? I think that would be the development that would salvage this bizarre design choice.
Loki’s attitude towards death is a fascinating note to end on. He has a quick acceptance of an ally getting killed, much faster than most heroic characters we’ve seen, but still embraces the emotional reaction to it. I wonder how many fallen warriors are already fueling him and his plans for when he gets free. Do we think we count his father among them?
I can’t imagine Oda spending too much time on Luffy’s group just looting an empty castle, so I imagine we’ll get to the disabled guards and push towards a Holy Knights confrontation sooner rather than later, which is a great way to build some momentum for this year. Let’s get this series back in gear!
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Wind and Truth review
This review is spoiler-free for Wind and Truth but may contain mild, implicit spoilers for previous Stormlight books.
Brandon Sanderson has a particular way of writing finales. They are big and bombastic and bring foreshadowing from the whole story to bear while plot threads cascade into one another, resolving in sequence. The POV begins to shift rapidly to accommodate the sheer amount of story in play and the prose becomes simple and plain – abandoning all pretense of subtlety – to stay out of the way of the action. Wind and Truth is an experiment with writing not just a final act but a whole final book in this style, for better and for worse.
WaT makes a rough first impression. Even with its aspirations of being a 1,300 page, foot-to-the-floor final act, it still needs to start with slower scenes to provide a calm before the storm and a chance for the cast to have intimate and emotional moments with their friends, family and partners before embarking into battles they know they might not return from. This section of the book does not gel with the simple prose and constant headhopping at all. Without explosive action to back it up, the language feels stilted and the prose seems to beat you over the head with the intended takeaway from every interaction. When you don’t even get to spend a full chapter in one POV, it’s hard to get immersed in the atmosphere of these would-be cosy scenes.
There’s also a steady issue of humour and modernised language in these early chapters. A lot of quippy lines and juvenile bits that just do not land. And while Stormlight has always had the characters speak in a more modern tone compared to most other fantasy, it really pushes the limits of immersion here. Particularly in the therapy scenes – this is a world where the idea of any mental healthcare beyond ‘ignore it’ and ‘stuff em in an asylum’ is a couple of months old at most, but the cast is suddenly dropping recognisable technical real world terms for afflictions and coping strategies in a way that feels way too on the nose. Mental health has always been a big theme in Stormlight, but previous books had a little more faith in readers to put together what the characters were dealing with and which strategies helped them make positive progress without rubbing our noses in the precise therapy speak for it.
Finally, there are plot threads that while functional on a technical level never quite reach the levels of emotional connection they were supposed to have as the story buckles under the sheer size of its cast. Ten Heralds and nine Unmade (with ridiculous hyphenated names) on top of the actual main and supporting cast is a crazy amount for even the most dedicated reader to keep track of, and they most of them haven’t had enough presence as individuals to cement a place in memory outside their collective. I was losing track of which ones we’ve seen before and which ones we’ve just heard of; which ones have been driven made by the centuries and who can still be reasoned with; who is associated with what abilities and has their fingerprints on which parts of this sprawling plot.
Things click more into place more after the opening downtime is out of the way and the plot gets in gear. The action that justifies the shallow prose starts to happen, and the big lore bombs and plot reveals overshadow the unsubtle and unfunny parts of the character writing.
The core conceit of this one is that both sides of the war know that the climactic, conflict-ending confrontation will happen in ten days and there will be no more gaining or losing territory after that point. For some of the core cast, this means a quest to complete or a puzzle to solve within the time limit to prepare for that last confrontation. For others, it means holding ground against an enemy who wants to control as much of the landmass as possible when the ceasefire is called. Sanderson somehow manages to leverage the time limit in two directions at once. When you’re with the questers and puzzle solvers, ten days feels like a terrifyingly short amount of time to finish everything they’re trying to do. But then the perspective shifts to a defender on the front lines, facing assault after assault, and ten days feels like an eternity to endure. The ability to turn the atmosphere from time pressure to survival marathon on a dime without feeling like it’s contradicting itself is one of the great, redeeming victories of this book’s writing.
The central arcs and personal journeys that the main characters have to face are also strong across the board, and do justice to the people we spent the past four books coming to know and love. The story feels deliberate and planned, with foreshadowing and loose ends from the first book through to the fourth finally coming together and paying off. Bombs drop, sending shockwaves that will define not just the direction of the second arc of the Stormlight Archive, but of all the connected works in the Cosmere going forward. While I’m in no hurry to do so, a reread of everything that’s come before this with the benefit of hindsight will likely be a very rewarding experience. WaT feels like a vital seed for the planned endgame of Sanderson’s one of a kind fantasy extended universe.
(That said, I might dock a point for some similarities to how the finale of the first Mistborn trilogy played out in terms of revealing ancient history and playing with the powers of competing gods. WaT changes enough that it’s only one point, but I’ll be disappointed if we get a third iteration of these ideas.)
Wind and Truth is everything Brandon Sanderson does well and everything he struggles with all amped up to eleven and put in a blender. It’s bold and epic and conceptually ambitious with larger than life characters who are easy to love; and it’s bloated and unsubtle and linguistically unambitious and frontloaded with “jokes” that are easy to hate. Sanderson claims WaT to be his most heavily edited book to date, but I have to assume that’s all structural edits to fit all these plot threads into one tome without cutting so much they no longer make sense. There is no way to give a book this long the line by line polish it needs with only a year between the completion of the first draft and its release, and it shows. If you’re already invested in this universe and these characters there’s a lot here that will satisfy, but I hope the next big release gets a little longer in the oven to make the prose into something that lives up to the lofty narrative ideas.
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One Piece chapter 1135 review
New year, new Piece, let’s go! We kick off with a pleasant surprise of Tama taking charge in the cover story. Good for her. Holdem’s dropped sword taking out the lion on the way down is a fun detail.
There’s a mix of highs and lows in this first week of the year, Oda doubling down on some of his more offputting ways of handling children, but also some gorgeous art and character design, and the threat of not-Shanks and his friend ramping up.
As a reader, I’m not quite seeing the vision for this thread about Elbaph’s youths yet. On one hand, we have Luffy and Usopp reinforcing again that this isn’t what they wanted to see in Elbaph and treating it like a let-down or a broken promise. On the other, we’ve yet to see any giants object to or lament the state of their youngsters, even the members of the old warrior groups – even the ones who’ve been offshore for most of the time this reform was happening. But then we have Collun being portrayed as closer to Luffy’s ideal, teased by the other kids for being a brute and encouraged only by Miss Ripley, who by her own admission teaches by negative example. Well, I asked for nuance, didn’t I?
The one point I will outright dock at this stage is for the repetition of the pervy brat gag, which wore out its welcome with Momo several arcs ago.
For plot build-up that is coming together cleanly, I’m liking what Oda’s done with Collun so far, the way he storms in and makes an impression on Luffy, establishing just the kind of outsider status to his society that just about all the Strawhats have experienced at some point. Add on Shanks’ interest in him and his mysterious (but apparently locally based) human father and you’ve got a recipe for a character to keep an eye on.
All story stuff aside, the art here is awesome from start to finish. The scenes in the Owl Library are marked with a persistent wood grain detail, and Oda uses a bunch of creative perspective shots to emphasise the scale of the setting, whether we’re looking down from Biblo’s perch or the end of the swing’s arc, or looking up from among the furniture or between blades of grass to see humans, giant children and giant adults each towering over the other in turn. I hope Oda’s able to keep up this change in framing for the whole arc.
There’s also a new batch of Elbaph outfits for the crew that just arrived. I think the Elbaph designs are a much more consistently good set than the Egghead ones. Now that everyone’s got one, I can say with confidence there’s no losers this time around.
I’m unsure what to make of the revelation that there’s multiple Adam trees. You would think, given the crazy scale of it and the magnitude of the reveal that Oda would want to keep the Elbaph one feeling as special as possible. Does this mean there’s more than one Eve tree as well? There has to be something more here he’s setting up to circle back to.
The structure of the back half of the chapter feels a little odd to me. Jarul’s reveal is a funny bit, but not the kind of cliffhanger panel Oda usually likes to go out on. It feels like the cutaway to the invaders in the castle might have been intended as the final scene, but moved to the middle after Oda realised it was too similar to the last chapter’s end point; or it was moved up because he decided he wanted a scene break to justify the amount of time that passes between the Owl Library and feast scene.
Regardless, the scene serves to set up the newcomers as threats, as if there was any doubt. Oda likes to treat new powers with a bit of mystery when they’re first used, hiding the details so that things just seem to happen. Go back to the early chapters and watch how the framing suggests Buggy is lifting an underling with his mind before the Chop Chop reveal, or Robin seeming to telekinetically steal the hat off Luffy’s head at Wiskey Peak before the Flower Flower explanation. Look at how Haki was portrayed before the timeskip. At a glance, you might think the same thing is happening here as the giant guard collapses in agony, but a closer inspection shows ribbons or bandages like the ones covering the stranger’s face appear to constrict his arms and legs between frames. Some kind of fabric manipulation power then? But is it a Devil Fruit, or like the Five Elders can we guess the ability comes from another source?
The last scene does a good job reminding us just how much of the series has been pointing toward Elbaph. So many giants with reasons to celebrate the Strawhats already, and this is before the actual arc plays out and gives them the chance to save the whole island. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a welcome like this before. I’m as surprised as anyone that Luffy actually recognises Stansen, but I love the detail of his arm stretching through the background of the refresher panel to punch Charloss. Top notch.
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One Piece chapter 1134 review
Elbaf is getting in gear and starting to hint toward its real themes and storylines. The prelude, reunion and environmental art dumps seem to be wrapping up, but even with the big cliffhanger this one ends on there’s likely to be a crossfade between the opening worldbuilding and the serious story over the coming chapters.
The colour spread makes a very nice tribute to Franky’s voice actor, but the passing of the speedos onstage at Jump Festa was even more fun. Still, it’s a great piece of art even without that context.
Despite the yakaza speak gag not being something that translates culturally (and me not knowing much at all about yakuza traditions) the opening scene does its job. I think it helps that Jinbe employed a pretty similar tradition with his formal self-introduction at the start of the Onigashima raid, so even though the crew is confused about where Luffy picked this stuff up, it’s obvious who he’s copying. Which is actually pretty sweet, that he used Jinbe as his model for how to make a first impression on someone you respect. Saul’s kindness and the crew’s support of Robin keep the warm and fuzzy mood going.
And then on the flip side, we have a fully functioning Vegapunk Stella clone. Come on, Oda. You pushed the limits with all the Satellites living on in a single body, but there was still the loss of the original there to make the arc feel impactful. This walks back even that consequence. But credit where it’s due, Vegapunk’s ability to make all these trips to Ohara and Elbaf and have meetings with Clover while working for the World Government is easier to swallow if he has a secret extra clone going in and out for him. I can buy that. And at least Lilith makes it clear it’ll take some time and tech to get him up and running. So this isn’t a character coming back right away, it’s setup for a Vegapunk faction to show up unexpectedly in the final battle with a bunch of new weapons invented.
I wonder if the promise to heal Kuma is going to be conditional on this new lab, essentially giving him and Bonney a temporary jumping off point for the story, or if there’s plan to make them part of the Elbaph plot as well.
Most of what’s left in the chapter after this toys with our expectations for Elbaph and its culture. Over a couple of generations, there’s been a shift from a fearsome viking warrior tribe to one that seeks trade and peace, to the shock and disappointment of Usopp. While this explains the lack of giants terrorising the seas in the present relative to their reputation, I’m definitely feeling wary about this turning into the ‘kids these days are too soft’ narrative I’ve already seen some people online taking it as. I don’t think Oda is the type to make that point without at least a level of nuance, but you never know. Come on, Vinland Saga has proved that vikings and peace aren’t incompatible concepts, and that a pacifist might even be the most badass thing a viking could be. I wonder if the setup here is for Usopp not to be rebuilt from the ground up as a ‘brave warrior of the sea’ by the giants, but helping a new generation of them redefine the term for themselves.
But this, along with the scene from the end of the chapter, gives us some pertinent questions to ask about King Harald motives and allies and how they play into Loki’s accused act of fratricide. In Big Mom’s flashback, Jarul attributes the idea of trade over plunder to Carmel, who we know was in touch with Cipher Pol about getting giant soldiers for the Marines. But does the timeline work for her to be the root of it? The heyday of the Giant Warrior Pirates was a hundred years ago, so assuming the raiding stopped soon after there’s a gap of decades before Carmel began wielding influence. And, of course, Harald continued pushing these ideas of his own accord for decades after Carmel’s departure and death. And the fact that two apparent Holy Knights would have the ability to portal directly into what I assume to be Harald’s castle implies an even higher up connection than what Carmel was working with (assuming fairly confidently that the summoning circles have some restrictions about distance unless someone connected to them has gone to a place physically already). And if Harald was colluding secretly with the upper tiers of the WG to disarm Elbaph’s society, why – to get Elbaph recognised as a member state? To weaken the nation to the WG’s benefit in exchange for… something? Or is it some deeper negotiation to do with the ancient past and the Sun God, disconnected from Harald’s pacifist politics. And we can’t discount the possibility that the WG assassinated Harald (as they are very much known to do) and framed Loki to sow discord, whether in connection to the giants’ cultural shift or not.
But that’s jumping ahead. First we have the absolutely gorgeous backgrounds of the Walrus School and the Owl Library. Wonder if we’ll circle back to how the books were made giant. Just beautiful.
Loki’s scene this week leans in the direction of him maybe being a good guy, but he’s gone back and forth on that point for me already, so his role is far from confirmed. Whatever way he ends up going though, he’s going to be an fun character to have onscreen. My first thought for his shaggy friend was Jarul – he has the beard that goes with the snail’s appearance and Big Mom’s rampage makes for a pretty strong traumatic experience that definitely would have someone like Loki saying her and Carmel ‘should have been put down for good.’ But then, I don’t think the timing and social elements work for Loki saying he never saw or met Shaggy in person – his dad apparently clashed with village chiefs like Jorul and Jarul over culture, and their village is seemingly right under his castle. In fact, it seems almost impossible that Loki never met Jarul. Perhaps the as-of-yet unnamed giant warrior who witnessed Big Mom eating Carmel and the other orphans then?
And finally, circling back to the ending scene, we have the near-confirmation of Shanks’s evil twin. Not fully, given that we still don’t get to see his arm or the left side of his face, but given that we’ve been shown the real Shanks should be elsewhere and with his crew right now, it’s getting hard to deny. Some people aren’t thrilled by this, but honestly I like it. I’ve been onboard since Film Red revealed that he had Figarland blood, and I like how the framing of his scene at the Reverie provides clues in hindsight. I’m a big fan of a reread bonus.
2025 is going to be a good year for One Piece, provided it can be even mildly lighter on breaks than this year. The setup for a great new arc is all here, now all it needs is the chance to pick up some momentum.
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