It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? I checked the date on the previous volume’s post and it was back in April, which is the distant past by now. Of course I’ve been keeping up with the manga’s weekly releases and the anime as well and both have been brilliant, but it was really nice to get a new volume in my hands and get the chance to sit outside in the yard and read the entire thing in one sitting. Reading on your phone just doesn’t hit the same, although I am a big fan of both methods. Primarily, as much as I enjoy having Solo Leveling, Tbate and ToG on my shelves, those types of comics are much better on a phone due to the scrolling nature of the story. But I digress, let’s take some time on this humid summer day to look at the 109th volume of One Piece.
And in volume 109 we round up the Kuma backstory. We learn that Alpha is actually the sister of Kalifa, who we met in the Water 7 arc. This is mentioned in an SBS by Oda, where he explains that despite most Cipher Pol agents being orphans, there are some exceptions although both sisters have been raised completely separately. We see some of Luffy’s events from Kuma’s perspective and we end with a quick montage of Kuma’s life. This part has just happened in the anime a little over a week ago as of posting this, and I highly, highly recommend you check out that episode if you haven’t already, it’s one of those moments where animation and music add so much value to an already incredible scene. But we end this sad backstory with Vegapunk, Stussy and Sentomaru incredibly sad about basically killing Kuma for the sake of his daughter. We also learn that Bonney’s crew are just the rough and tumble fishermen from her hometown who had a crush on her mom and spent all those years raising her alongside Kuma and Conney Dowager. They even made the ship look like pizza just for Bonney.
So it’s no surprise that now that Bonney knows the truth, she aims all of her anger and frustration at the true villain of this arc, St. Saturn. Unfortunately she is nothing compared to one of the highest authorities in the world that has clearly lived for a very long time and has incredible powers and quickly gets thrown to the side. But as they all get ready to kill her, someone shows up. That’s right, this is One Piece, so very few things that die are truly gone, and the husk of Kuma still has some instincts that allow him to protect Bonney. We learn that Saturn already pulled the self-destruct switch, but it only turned off his personality completely instead of actually destroying him, because Vegapunk is not nearly as evil as he seemed at the start of this arc. We now go into a rapid fire of fights and there’s no real time to cover all of it without getting boring, so let me get through the highlights instead and focus on the truly interesting parts.
Luffy gets some food from somewhere – most people think it was Kizaru that secretly snuck him some food but I’m not convinced – and recovers. The pacifistas turn on the marines because Vegapunk found it far too cruel to have the likeness of Kuma turn on Bonney, so he made her the highest authority even above the five elders. Luffy beats the crap out of Kizaru and Saturn, but Saturn seems to be immortal. The fighting continues and Sanji reflects a laser beam since love is stronger than laser beams. She’s 10 years old Sanji, relax. Franky takes some damage, Jinbe tries to find Zoro and Lilith and Brook struggle to move the Sunny along the island, so they just sort of wing it. But disaster strikes as the World Government now has no more need for Vegapunk, and the old apple man is mortally wounded. And we still have four things to talk about that happen in this volume that are of massive importance.
Van Auger and Catarina Devon show up and Catarina copies Saturn with her devil fruit powers. They also reveal that “Teech is special” implying that there’s a good reason they work with him. This is on top of his bloodline, which has been revealed to us in the current day, but not in this volume, so we’ll not talk about it much. Saturn is also aware of this though, which means the government really let the man become a warlord while knowing what he was. They quickly leave again, taking a desperate Caribou with them who is a big fan of Teech and is going to tell him where to find Poseidon/Shirahoshi. This could be bad, and sets up the final fight between the two crews.
It seems like the ship with survivors from Egghead – that Saturn claimed was fully destroyed – managed to get out anyway, with the help of some unexpected visitors. And these unexpected visitors are two decades of real world time in the making. That’s right, the Giant Pirates have reunited and they’re here to pick up Luffy and his crew to make their visit to Elbaph, which we’ve been waiting for since I was a teenager, and I’m now 32. They defeat several of the navy fighters and come to support the crew in their retreat. To counteract this though, Saturn and his cronies decide that it’s time for a big clash, and the other four elders are summoned to Egghead, starting a brawl between the five elders, the giant pirates and the Straw Hat pirates.
There are just too many things happening at Egghead that are bad news for the stability of the world. There is an emperor there, Vegapunk has been researching the void century and has turned traitor – if he was ever truly an ally – the Giant Pirates have reunited and showed up here and the sun god Nika has been revealed here as well. To make things even more dire for the world government, Vegapunk set up a message to be broadcasted to the world upon his death, and we’re now entering a mad dash to either protect that broadcast or shut it down. This could alter the course of history forever. And it will all happen in 10 minutes. And let me tell you, those 10 minutes took months when these chapters were coming out. It was rough, but worth the wait.
We’ll see how all of that plays out in volume 110, which is probably not coming out for another few months, but I’m already excited for it. I’ve been considering rewatching some anime that I love and I will probably start with the recently released top 10 that I wrote for this blog, but after that I want to check out both Naruto and One Piece again. I rewatched Bleach leading up to the TYBW arcs that are still in the process of airing, and I want to rewatch Naruto to then check out Boruto, seeing how popular that manga has been getting on the Jump app. And rewatching One Piece has been something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, but doing it at the same time as I was slowly rereading the manga felt like overkill. Besides, it won’t take that long, just a mere 10 year journey to get through it all. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 