One of the fun things about buying a box set instead of individual manga volumes is the bonuses that come with the boxes. For One Piece, these are small posters – which are folded so there’s no way they’ll ever look great on a wall – and small manga volumes of extra stories. When I started One Piece Wednesday I first talked about Romance Dawn. Romance Dawn is an alternate start to the One Piece storyline that Oda wrote first. You can find my thoughts on it here. The bonus we get for the second box set is a comic called Strong World. It serves as a precursor to the Strong World movie – one of the best One Piece movies in my opinion – and gives us some interesting lore in the process. Let’s talk about everything we learn in this short volume.
23 years ago, two pirates clashed. It was Gol D. Roger and his ship against the entire fleet of Shiki, the golden lion. This war has been called the Edd war in the history books. The war ended in a draw where several of Shiki’s fleet were killed by bad weather and the captain himself got a ship’s wheel stuck in the back of his head. Three years later Shiki got the news that Roger was captured by the Navy and was going to be executed. In an attempt to kill Roger himself, Shiki fought against Garp and Sengoku in Marineford which led to his capture and subsequent imprisonment in Impel Down. Sengoku was not yet the Fleet Admiral at this point in time, this position belonged to a person called Kong. Kong is still working for the government in present day One Piece, so he might become important later in the story.
To escape imprisonment, Shiki cut off his own legs and left Impel Down. He returned to his crew and even met up with Whitebeard who more or less told him to piss off. He then got started on a project that involved a floating island, presumably a sky island of sorts, before disappearing for twenty years. The next time we see Shiki the golden lion is when he fights against the Straw Hat Crew in the Strong World movie.
Shiki is not a figure that’s seen in the main story of One Piece all that much. He’s a figure of legend, which there are many of, but he’s still had his impact throughout the years. Most of – if not all – the One Piece movies are considered canon to the story since Oda also helps write them. They do feel like more separate stories to the main story, but they fit into lore, and we learn little bits about the story and the world through them. They’re generally very good, so if you haven’t seen them, I suggest you start with Strong World. Do check if you’re up to date on the anime to roughly when this movie first aired, so it doesn’t contain any big spoilers.
This comic contained a look at several important characters and what they looked like 20 years ago, which was neat. The panel with Cobra and what I first thought was Vivi was cool, because I think that’s supposed to be Vivi’s mother. I believe that canonically Vivi is quite young, being younger than even most of the straw hats, so she wouldn’t even be a baby yet. There is a shot of Kuina as a baby and her parents saying she’ll grow up strong. Come on Oda, you killed her by making her fall down the stairs. I cannot think of a motivation he could have to draw this panel unless he’s planning to bring her back. This panel as well as Tashigi being who she is make me wonder what is really going on there. Kuina might still be dead, but I’m not fully convinced she’s out of the story entirely.
But that’s conjecture based on a bonus manga that was written over a decade ago. All things considered, most fans agree that Kuina probably just died when she was a child, but I’m not 100% convinced, only 99%. Anyway, this was a nice quick read, so if you can either buy it somewhere or find it online, I suggest you check it out. You can easily miss out on it, but the panels are fun to watch. There is also an anime adaptation of this volume, which is about an episode in length. It doesn’t do much more than just animate the panels, but if you don’t want to read it, that’s an option too. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 