To celebrate reaching the last translated volume in this series and to close this series off – for now – with a bang, let’s have an extra detailed look at this one. After a short break, One Piece Wednesday will return with posts about different characters, locations and subjects we didn’t get to talk about enough during this recap. I will also issue a warning, One Piece Wednesday posts will now include spoilers up until the latest chapter (not this post, but everything after). I will avoid talking about chapters too close after release and I will not talk about leaks, early spoilers and fan translations. I read the chapters on the manga plus app on Sundays, not earlier in the week. With that out of the way, let’s dive back into the new world and see what’s happening on Egghead.
And let us immediately start this one off with a crackpot theory. With people all over the world reacting to the disappearance of Garp, the world itself is reacting to the disappearance of the kingdom of Lulusia. After Imu zapped it with the mother flame, it left behind a giant hole in the earth that doesn’t seem to be filling up at all. It also caused a giant earthquake which in turn caused the sea level to rise by one meter. What if the kingdom of Lulusia wasn’t destroyed, but instead moved to the bottom of the ocean, just like how old Wano is at the bottom of the ocean. If Imu’s weapon is similar to the one left behind on Wano, then that could be true.
It seems like Imu isn’t done with the mother flame yet, but needs Vegapunk to build it. Thus York offers to do so while St. Saturn, Kizaru and a host of others surround Egghead. Except York isn’t in control of this call, the hostage situation that the world economic journal was spewing as propaganda is actually legit. Luffy and the crew have York – who is technically a Vegapunk – hostage, and now the five elders know about this as well. The only one that is still somewhat capable on Egghead to throw a wrench in the plans is Rob Lucci. While the crew is getting ready to depart in the direction of Egghead, Lucci sends information to Kizaru, who prepares to attack. He is the first one to land and goes straight for Sentomaru. It’s not a fair fight. Sentomaru was heavily wounded already and Kizaru is an admiral. We do get a fun flashback to little baby Sentomaru being chased out of his village and becoming Vegapunk’s bodyguard, training under Kizaru. You’re burning a lot of bridges, old man light for brains. With Kizaru making his way into the dome, Lucci quickly grabs his chances and tries to assassinate Vegapunk once more, being stopped by Stussi who takes a big hit. He leaves Kaku to his fate while fighting Zoro. Elsewhere on the island, Luffy and Kizaru clash.
We get a flashback to the previous day where Akainu is fighting Kuma. He’s getting jeered at by Celestial Dragons for not having enough food and not protecting them well enough. It’s kind of satisfying to see one of the strongest beings in the navy being a total cuck to these weirdos. He really chose the wrong direction in his life. Garp had it right by not wanting to become an admiral. Kuma flees once more and we zap back to Egghead where the code is cracked but it’s too late. Kizaru wrestles Luffy off and makes his way to the main room to assassinate Punk. That means that it’s time for Luffy to release Nika once more and cause some mayhem. The drums of liberation are here and someone very important is hearing them for the first time in a very long time.
The battle rages on and things start going more and more poorly. Kizaru’s devil fruit is an incredibly powerful one and although Luffy in his Nika form is basically a demigod, he still struggles to keep up with the admiral. Kizaru almost kills Bonney, Vegapunk, Usopp, Sentomaru and a bunch of others, the list goes on. He does eventually get distracted by the landing of St. Jay Garcia Saturn and Luffy takes this opportunity to knock his head into outer space, taking him out temporarily. Bonney charges at the monstrous elder and stabs him, furious at the demonic creature that is partially responsible for all her misery. It is also quite fun to see some of the Straw Hats almost casually shrug off vice admirals. We’ve come a long way from Fishman Island in a couple of months. But an elder is a different story altogether and within but moments the lives of Luffy, Bonney and Vegapunk are in serious danger. Is no one able to keep moving?
To up the tension, we pick this moment to go into one of my favorite flashbacks into the entire series and we learn why Kuma is as big as he is. He’s a surviving member of the almost extinct Buccaneers. They were sold into slavery due to their strength. Kuma’s father and mother were both killed during slavery and the boy himself ended up in God Valley, which was used to hunt for sport. This is most likely the famed God Valley incident that put Garp on the map. St. Figarland Garling – who is now the head of the holy knights – cuts down the king of the island and him and his cohorts are about to hunt and kill the natives as well as some problem slaves for sport. If the evil world government couldn’t get any more evil…
There is a stroke of good luck here for Kuma, as he meets a boy named Emporio Ivankov and a girl named Ginny, both slaves as well. Meanwhile, Fleet Admiral Kong tells Garp to go help out since Roger is going there too. The treasure used as a prize in this event was stolen from Fullalead, the pirate island that in modern days belongs to Blackbeard. It is interesting to note that Garp is aware of the “celestial dragons little field trip” and seems surprisingly unbothered by it.
Things escalate fast at God Valley and although I’m very happy we get to learn a little bit about what happened here, after it was hinted at a while ago, I’m mad that we don’t get to see more. All we know is that both the Roger pirates and the Rocks pirates showed up, as well as Garp. Kuma, Ivankov and Ginny found two devil fruits. One was eaten by Kuma and one was stolen by Charlotte Linlin at the last second and we know it eventually ended up going to Kaido. Kuma proclaims his faith in Nika to St. Saturn and we flash forward to the future. Iva is taking off into the wide ocean while Kuma and Ginny start a life in the sorbet kingdom, where Kuma was originally from. The two live a humble life and Kuma shows off the innate kindness he’s always had. Things go poorly again because the poor guy can’t catch a break and we see Dragon and Iva save the now imprisoned Ginny and Kuma. This is where the revolutionary army truly starts picking up steam. With Dragon, Iva and Kuma, they’ve become so much stronger. Disaster strikes again as Ginny gets captured.
Kuma is heartbroken and things get even worse – I hate how often I have to say that – when Ginny finally returns to the normal world. Her Celestial Dragon husband kicked her out after she contracted a strange disease. Kuma rushes to find her in their old home, where she’s on death’s door. She leaves behind a child who Kuma raises as his own in honor of his late wife. Unfortunately, the child – Bonney – contracts the same disease and while Kuma searches for a cure, he learns that it is in fact incurable. She only has until age 10 to live.
Kuma goes on a wild journey to find a cure and through becoming a king, tyrant and a pirate, he finally ends up on what will one day be the island of Egghead. It seems Vegapunk can cure Bonney’s disease but it’ll cost Kuma some of his blood so Vegapunk can use it to make cyborg clones of him. Pretty bad deal since they will go to the navy, but Kuma has no other choice. Vegapunk wants to build them to help people, but St. Saturn who is listening in has other ideas.
Kuma needs to become a warlord and give up his free will. Only if he chooses to do that, will Saturn and Kizaru allow him to save Bonney. Never forget how much of a villain Kizaru truly is. The horrendous things he’s done throughout the story because “it’s his job” is a very clear link to Nazi Germany and some of the things that seem to be happening in the modern day United States. Being told to do atrocities by someone above you in the rankings doesn’t excuse them. It puts them into perspective, sure, but you’re still committing the terrible acts and should be punished for them unless you’re doing so under incredible duress. It does feel a bit bad to leave Kuma’s story behind us for a while on such a sour note, but that’s just how it goes with the poor Buccaneer. We know that Bonney turned out fine and even met the legendary Nika, so there is a silver lining to this entire story, but I still cried a lot reading this volume. I can’t wait for the next volume to be released. As I mentioned at the start of this post, there will be a short hiatus before we return to One Piece content. There are a lot of topics within the story I want to talk about and the posts might shrink in size a bit – definitely compared to this one – but you won’t run out of content anytime soon. Thanks for following along all this time and see you in the next one.
Opal Kaharis 