We open on a quick recap of the founding ceremony of the Jura Tempest federation which we watched in the second half of season 3. With the opening of a coliseum and several other fun events it was a great success, turning the once tiny goblin village into a proper hub of civilization. All of the important characters are shown doing their various jobs throughout this episode and both Masayuuki as well as Mjollmile are shown to be great assets. Can I take this moment to talk about Aoyama Yutaka’s fantastic performance in this role? Mjollmile is the type of character that would be grating and annoying when voiced by a less talented voice actor, but the personality that Yutaka brings to this wonderfully shady merchant really makes him stand out as a memorable character. I’m blown away by the performance every single time. Besides seeing that Rimuru and his friends are working hard on building the first trains in this world, we also get a quick look at the antagonists for this season. The Rozzo family seem to be the main focus for now, but we also see Yuuki, Kagari and the rest of the moderate harlequin alliance. As much as Yuuki is being made out to be a bad guy – and he definitely is an ‘ends justify the means’ type of character – his actions are ultimately headed towards the same goal as Rimuru has. The Rozzos, Rimuru and Yuuki all want dominion over the west. Maybe Rimuru is much less direct in his approach, but his economic dominance has already caused one kingdom to fall and many others to jump in line with him. I can’t help but like Yuuki and his team, but we’ll see how common of a threat he will end up being in this season.
A quick reminder to everyone out there that these are the good guys, not the scheming villains. I think.
And since we’re in the first episode of a new season where I doubt too much is going to happen, let’s mainly have a look at the opening today. And any theories I have based on the opening are purely from what I think and probably wrong, considering I haven’t actually read the novels yet.
They really put their all into the art for the opening, it looks so much more crisp than in previous seasons.
We open on a shot of Veldora, who is undoubtedly going to play a major role later on in the series, as he’s mostly been pushed aside for now due to being too powerful for the story to be any interesting with him around. Luckily he’s got his good looks to carry his popularity for a while. We see several of the cast going about their day including Shion, Shuna, Diablo, Milim and Ramiris, who are all close with Rimuru. Rimuru himself is enjoying the fruits of his labor, walking through a thriving city while eating all sorts of dishes from his home world. We transition from Ramiris flying to the camera to what looks to be a bunch of spirits in her labyrinth. Perhaps we’ll gain some new friends or there will be some issue in the labyrinth this season? From there, we get some looks into Rimuru’s research, and seeing him in a room full of bodies like he’s the lead scientist at Germa66 makes me wonder what he has planned. When I first saw this shot I thought this was going to be a peek into what Leon might be doing, as the synopsis for these seasons mentions that he’ll be doing something as well, but it does clearly show Rimuru himself, so who knows. We quickly move past this shot to the dream of every person on the autism spectrum, trains. With the railway to Eurazania being started, this should make travel and trade much quicker and safer. Speaking of safety, Rimuru has moved the kids to his own town now that he knows Yuuki can’t be trusted with their safety. While the lightspeed hero is busy promoting the dungeon, we get our first shot of Mariabell Rozzo. Although I don’t think any of her powers have been confirmed yet, we heavily lean into a vampire and mind control aesthetic with the light up eyes and the blood everywhere. Speaking of which, I’m not planning to cover the ending since it doesn’t seem like there’s much of value there, but the sand coming from Mariabell Rozzo there does make it look like she’s pissing herself something fierce. Really awkward choice in my opinion.
Surely this won’t result in heartbreak and tears.
We move on to a shot of a young girl walking with her baby dragon. I would assume this to be Milim as a child, as we know her backstory is a tragic one that involves the death of her dragon and the botched revival as the ascended to demon lord. It was the same ritual that Rimuru used to revive his friends after the attack by the Falmuth kingdom, although in Rimuru’s case it succeeded because the magical barrier kept everyone’s souls stuck in the city. We see the dragon a few more times in this opening and it makes me wonder if we’ll end up seeing someone manipulate this dragon into having to fight with Milim at some point. That would be quite sad. We then see Yuuki and Rimuru clash and I’m curious if Yuuki’s shining red eyes are just his normal eyes lit up by the moonlight or if there is some sort of control happening here. I don’t think Yuuki would benefit too much from a direct fight with Rimuru since it will just send a hoard of monsters into Engrassia to fight him, but who knows. We also saw Rimuru fight with Hinata in the openings long before she ever really fought him, so this could be a hint for an event in a couple of seasons from now. Your guess is as good as mine.
A quick montage of all of the big villains – minus the eastern merchants and their bosses, first the Moderate Harlequin Alliance.The creepy Mariabell RozzoAnd lastly, Yuuki as he faces off against Rimuru
Next we get a montage of monsters fighting against the aforementioned dragon as Yuuki and Rimuru duel on its back. Diablo, Benimaru, Shion, Shuna, Ranga and Gobta all get to show off their prowess, before Milim goes in and delivers the final blow. Or she would if she didn’t waver, and she sadly looks on at the dragon she once saw as a friend. If Yuuki is behind this I might have to take back my earlier comments about liking his character, cause that would be cruel beyond necessity. We’re then reminded that Hinata, Kagari and Luminous Valentine are part of the story and if my hunch that Rozzos are vampires is correct then I wonder if she has something to do with them. I should really look at a map of the Tensura world as the anime and Crunchyroll’s subs do a poor job with giving your a proper legend whenever it’s on screen. With that, the opening comes to an end and we have finished the first episode. Like I said at the start of the episode, very little happened that we couldn’t have derived from the final episodes of season 3, but it was a great way to ease back into the show. I’m excited for the series to properly start in the next couple of episodes and I hope you’ll be here every week alongside me.
The moderate Harlequin Alliance under the leadership of Yuuki. I hope you’ll enjoy these weekly recaps, thanks for reading 🙂
Alright, attempt number five of writing this post in under four pages. I wish I was kidding. If you’re up to date on the first three seasons of Tensura and want to dive straight into season 4, but it’s been a while and you’d like a refresher, this one is for you. I’ll go through each season and will remind you of all the important characters we meet along the way. Let’s not waste any time.
I’m not sure it’s a great idea to give someone who just talked about not wanting to die as a virgin the “predator” skill.
37 year old Satoru Mikami is stabbed to death and born again as a slime in a fantasy world. Stuck in a dark cave, he starts absorbing all sorts of plants and ores before coming upon the storm dragon Veldora. The two become friends and Veldora names him Rimuru, both of them taking the surname Tempest. Rimuru absorbs Veldora and his prison, vowing to free him from it. Rimuru has a voice speaking to him with the words of the world, something that several powerful figures in this world have access to. The great sage – this voice – gives him skills and helps him grow very quickly. Leaving the cave behind, he sets out into the Jura Forest where the balance just got upended by the disappearance of the storm dragon.
The Tsundere dragon himself, Veldora.
In the Jura Forest, Rimuru meets with feuding goblins and direwolves, bringing them all under his wing after settling their fight. He then names his new friends, which is a process that drains his magical energy but in return makes the monsters much more powerful. The goblins turn into hobgoblins and become his first people. Many characters continue to appear throughout the story, but the important ones here are Rigurd – who becomes the goblin lord – and his son Rigur, as well as Gobta, Gonzo and the direwolf Ranga. Having established the village, Rimuru heads to the neighboring dwarven kingdom to procure some craftsmen. Kaijin and his brothers join Rimuru in the village and not long afterwards they clash with the ogres that have been chased out of their homes. Rimur names the ogres, turning them into kijin. Benimaru ends up becoming strike commander while Shion and Shuna work closely with Rimuru. The old Hakuro trains the younger goblins and the dreamy Souei becomes a sort of spymaster. Lastly there’s Kurobe who becomes a master craftsman after already being talented before joining up with Rimuru.
The fact that Shizue was summoned to this world in the middle of the WWII chaos, only to get stuck in a place that isn’t much better is so heartbreaking. Rimuru showing her what modern day Japan looks like through his through communication is still one of the most touching scenes in this show.
Now we need to deal with the orcs that chased the ogres out of their home. In the process of doing so they team up with the lizardmen, whose royal idiot Gabiru ends up making things more complicated. Gabiru was named by a majin named Gelmud, who also named Rigur’s older brother as well as the orc lord Geld. After stopping the orc lord’s rampage, Rimuru takes in the remaining orcs, naming their new leader Geld after the previous leader. With Gabiru and his sister as well as Geld and his people joining the city of Rimuru, it is truly starting to look impressive.
It’s still kind of crazy that Phobio gets away from this entire disaster as well as he does, but he is only punished a littlbe bit.
So now we start to be introduced to the demon lords. The first visitor is Milim Nava, the destroyer. She’s your classic 1000 year old that looks like a teenage girl. She loves fighting and is very childlike in her character. She becomes friends with Rimuru after he bribes her with honey. We also meet Phobio of the three beastketeers who work for demon lord Carrion. Phobio gets manipulated by Footman and Tear, members of the moderate harlequin alliance, into reviving an ancient evil, only to get defeated by Milim. We also meet Ramiris later on, who is both a demon lord and the queen of the spirits.
That is an incredibly powerful ancient artifact that surely isn’t going to be Chekov’s gun in a later season, right? Right? I’m putting my money on something happening with this later on in the story.
In the meantime, we’ve been introduced to a couple of otherworlders just like Rimuru. Shizue Izawa was a student of the hero who then became the new hero. She is burning up from the inside due to the spirit of Ifrit being inside of her. She was summoned by Leon Cromwell, another demon lord, and wishes for Rimuru to take care of her students when she dies. So Rimuru goes to the capital of Engrassia to meet with Yuuki Kagurazaka, the leader of the Free Guild and a fellow former inhabitant of earth. The two hit it off and share a love for manga and video games. Rimuru then meets with Shizu’s students. Kenta, Ryohta, Gale, Alice & Chloe, all children who have similar problems to Shizu. Without the help of a spirit to keep their power in check, they’ll burn up and die young. This is when we go and visit Ramiris in her labyrinth, and save the children from certain doom. After destroying her guardian, Ramiris makes Rimuru build her a new one in the form of Beretta, who is a demon inhabiting this doll. We finish the first season with the city of Rimuru thriving and the children being happy. Rimuru can return home after a season well spent.
You fought one of the Demon Lords, I think you’re good…
Take a deep breath, we’ve made it through the first season. There are many more minor characters like Youm the mercenary who becomes important later on as well as Fuse the guildmaster from Blumund. I reckon Fuse is a self-insert considering that’s also the author’s name, but instead of a powerful self-insert he’s just constantly stressed by being put in crazy situations. Poor author. We start season 2 off at full speed, so let’s dissect things.
Even after season 3 I’ve still not fully warmed up to Hinata. Her actions in this season are so zealous and thoughtless that she feels almost poorly written.
Rimuru is ambushed by Hinata Sakaguchi on his way home from Engrassia. With Rimuru being responsible for the death of Shizu – technically – Hinata is here to extract her revenge. But it does seem like there is more to it. Either way, the two fight and Rimuru manages to get away with his life, but only barely. This all due to some trickery with barriers from both Hinata and elsewhere. Because while Rimuru is dealing with this problem, his city is under attack. The nearby kingdom of Falmuth has sent three problematic otherworlders to provoke the monsters into attacking them. When the monsters initially don’t seem to bite, they just pull a nasty trick and start to fight them anyway. Right as they do so, the Falmuth army invades and Mjurran the majin erects an anti-magic barrier that severely weakens the monsters. They’re trapped on all sides and things go poorly.
I wish all of the Falmuth army an incredibly bad time.
When Rimuru returns, we learn that Mjurran has been working for the demon lord Clayman. Clayman is a member of the moderate harlequin alliance that we encountered earlier on in the story. One of four clowns once working under demon lord Kazareem before he perished. Now they work with Yuuki Kagurazaka. Surprise, the friendly guild leader is a bad dude. His goal is world domination. And in the process he’s revived demon lord Kazareem who now has the appearance of a woman and goes by Kagari. Clayman has it out for Rimuru and he’s planned things properly, mind controlling Milim and getting demon lord Frey on his side as well. They take out demon lord Carrion and his people take shelter in Rimuru’s town. During the raid on Rimuru, Shion, Gobzo and several others perished. Rimuru gets incredibly angry but a story by the adventurer Eren gives him hope. Milim once brought her companion dragon back to life, but due to the lack of a soul being near, the dragon didn’t have his personality when it was revived. In this situation however, the souls of the dead might very well still be trapped within the magic barrier. But to have the power to bring his friends back, Rimuru will have to awaken to becoming a true demon lord, and doing so requires him to kill ten thousand soldiers. This is where we get one of my favorite moments in the series so far, as the people of Rimuru fight back against the Falmuth Kingdom. The otherworlders are brutally disposed, Mjurran’s heart is destroyed but quickly replaced, freeing her from Clayman’s control, and Rimuru commits genocide on the army of Falmuth. He now awakens to a true demon lord. He summons demons to assist him, offering up two of them to complete the ritual of reviving his friends. The remaining demon is the primordial black, going by noir. Now named Diablo, this incredibly powerful demon is feverishly loyal to Rimuru and itching to show off just how much he’s willing to help. Rimuru’s friends are revived and now it’s time to get ready for Walpurgis.
Would you look at that, there’s all of Falmuth’s army incredibly bad time.
The meeting of the demon lords, Walpurgis, is scheduled soon and Rimuru is going to attend. With the demon lord Clayman planning Rimuru’s demise, Milim being under his control and several of the other demon lords still being a total mystery, it’s a dangerous endeavor, but one he must undertake. He can bring two attendants and brings Ranga and Shion, while Beretta and Treyni come along with Ramiris. Leon Cromwell visits Guy Crimson before the meeting starts and we learn that Guy is a bit of a freak. Guy also is friends with another one of the dragons, who is familiar with Veldora. Alongside Guy, Leon, Ramiris, Clayman, Milim and Rimuru, there are a couple of other demon lords present. We met Frey the sky queen for a few scenes and she’s working with Clayman. Carion is absent due to Milim killing him. There’s the sleepy Dino, the giant Dagrull and there’s Luminous Valentine, who pretends to be an attendant instead. With everyone present, Clayman makes his case against Rimuru. Things are said from one to another and the banquet ends with a fight between Clayman’s forces and Rimuru’s forces. Shion takes care of Clayman with ease, Beretta dismantles Clayman’s puppet and Ranga deals with the nine-tailed fox. The fight ends with a decisive victory for Rimuru’s camp and the death of Clayman after it is revealed that Frey was never loyal to him, Milim was never under his control and Rimuru was prepared to deal with every trick that Clayman had prepared. It’s a total defeat for the weakest member of the moderate harlequin alliance. With this, both Carrion and Frey step down as demon lords, now leaving only eight – Rimuru, Dino, Dagrull, Valentine, Guy Crimson, Leon, Ramiris & Milim – demon lords left. They found a new group called Octagram, after the fact that there are eight of them in total. With that, it’s time to move on to season 3. And there’s still a full page and a bit left to cover it. Surely I’ll get it done in under four pages, right?
Talk shit, get hit. You will not be missed, Clayman.
Season three can basically be split into two halves pretty easily. The first half sees the continuation of Rimuru’s clash with the holy church of Luminus. Rimuru and Hinata are both manipulated by the Seven Days clergy, a group of zealots within the church of Luminus that hold some pretty extreme ideas and want to get rid of Hinata. At the same time, Diablo and Youm are working hard to turn the kingdom of Falmuth into a new kingdom under Youm’s leadership. With the old nobility not quite ready to give up against Rimuru, they need some trickery to make the transfer of power feel more legitimate. Hidden behind all of the trickery here are several forces that have been manipulating things from behind the scene. The Rozzo crime family has been working with a merchant from the eastern nations – on the other side of the Jura Forest – who has been trying to destabilize things and get countries in his debt. On the other hand, Yuuki has been manipulating things at a bit more of a distance. Part of his actions during the last season got Hinata annoyed when Laplace infiltrated the holy temple and killed Roy Valentine, brother of the emperor. With help from the eastern merchant, the Falmuth forces set up to fight off Diablo and his people. They also plan to wipe out all the onlookers, which is exactly what Diablo wanted, as he now has proof that the Falmuth nobility started the fight. He disposes of their forces with ease and then the Seven Days clergy show their faces. Hinata and Rimuru clash near Tempest. The Seven Days clergy manipulated Hinata’s followers to go to Tempest as well, and this causes an all out brawl that both Hinata and Rimuru would have rather avoided. When Rimuru’s forces defeat Hinata’s forces and the latter admits defeat, they are ambushed by three members of the Seven Days clergy as well. Hinata is mortally wounded and her resistance to magicules doesn’t allow Rimuru to heal her. Now faced with the Seven Days clergy on several fronts, the true enemy is now in front of Rimuru and Diablo and they show no mercy. Towards the end of the fight, Luminus Valentine – the demon lord as well as the god of their religion – shows up to punish the remaining clergy and makes up with Rimuru by offering a non-aggression pact that lasts a century. Falmuth is now in the capable hands of Youm and Mjurran and Tempest is once again safe. Hinata and Rimuru become acquainted and she even leaves two of her people behind in Tempest. The Rozzo family and the eastern merchant are still lurking though. And Yuuki now has the full support of Kagari – formerly demon lord Kazareem – and her harlequin alliance behind him in his goal for world domination. But it’s time to take a bit of a respite from all of this and prepare for the Tempest Founder Festival!
Remember how Shion turned the hostages into goop? It’s kind of crazy Diablo ends up being the reasonable one who turns them back to somewhat normal.
The festival serves two functions at once. The first one is that it makes for a great way for Rimuru to meet the leaders of all factions within the Jura Forest as well as in the surrounding areas all at once, allowing for him to introduce himself to everyone in one go instead of one at a time. The second and arguably much bigger benefit is that they get to show off all the crazy ideas, food and technology they have been working on, instantly opening the door for much more commerce and travel than before. To do this all successfully, Rimuru hires Mjolmire. I didn’t mention him earlier because he does a lot of his more important stuff in this last bit of the anime, but when Rimuru and the children were in Ingrassia, Rimuru defeated a small dragon and in the process saved the somewhat shady merchant Mjolmire, who has been incredibly grateful ever since. The two have worked together on some smaller projects and now it’s finally time to bring the human merchant on board as a full member of the Tempest council. He quickly shows that he’s worth much more than Rimuru even expected and is an excellent salesman. The two plan out every detail of the Founder Festival including the big selling point; the coliseum. This structure serves three functions all at once. The first function is for holding fights for an audience to view and making room for people to train there as well under the guidance of the talented fighters already present here. The second and third function have to do with what is under the coliseum. Rimuru finally agreed to let Ramiris live in Tempest, if she builds him a 100 floor dungeon where they can send adventurers to go explore. Using a combination of Veldora’s excessive magicules, the potions they have from Gabiru and Vesta’s research and the abilities that Ramiris can grant to anyone who enters a contract with her, they can create a video game-esque system that allows adventurers to revive on death and get out of the dungeon safely. This place will also function as a bunker of sorts for the people of Tempest to hide in if another war breaks out.
Ranga, that high ranking priest is not a toy.
The festival itself is a massive success with people from all sorts of nations visiting. The king and queen of Blumund visit and reaffirm their commitment to working together. Gazel Dwargo as well as the empress of Thallion arrive and Milim, Freya, Carrion and Luminus Valentine are here to represent the demon lords. Yuuki and Hinata visit with the children and we even see Mariabell Rosso in the mix. I wonder what she’s scheming, considering she is on the front of the art for season 4. Last but not least, we finally get a proper introduction to the hero Masayuuki. It seems like his abilities just allow him to have crazy good luck and have everyone think highly of him. Besides this somewhat manipulative power, he seems like a good and humble dude underneath it all. We end the season with a tournament in which Gobta gets to show off just how much of a powerhouse he truly is.
Mariabell Rosso and the eastern merchant who have been messing things up behind the scene. Likely to be major villains in the next season.
There, just over four pages, but I’m not going to bother cutting anything out now. Just adding in pictures to this post is going to take a while, and I have other things to write this week. Either way, I think this has made it very clear how excited I am for the upcoming fourth season, especially considering they promised us so much anime it will almost double the existing episode count. I hope you enjoy the show as well and watch along with me every week. I’ll be here the day after the episode airs, recapping everything I found interesting. Thanks for reading.
Yuuki and Kagari, two of the biggest schemers in the series who appear to be so friendly and kind on the surface. I’m very curious as to where the story will end up taking these two.
I’ve talked about this series a few times before, and it even made my top 10 anime of all time list, so I’m not going to write another essay about it. But with a new season of Ace of Diamond on the horizon, I wanted to quickly go over the show again and explain why I think it’s one of the better sports anime out there. It’s a personal favorite of mine although I can just as easily see someone preferring Kuroko no Basket, Haikyu or Run with the Wind. I really should rewatch some of those as well, they were all so good. But Ace of Diamond has a layer to it that I feel the other shows miss.
Get used to seeing his cheeky face, cause he’s in this show a lot.
And that is continuity. Ace of Diamond follows Sawamura Eijun, a prodigy in baseball in some aspects, but utterly average in most. He can’t field, he can’t hit a baseball and he can’t really behave responsibly. But he loves standing on the mound and he knows what it feels like to throw some really good balls, although he does not realize why his throws are as effective as they are. And on top of that, once his opponents figure him out, he’s pretty useless. Playing baseball with his middle school friends has been a lot of fun, but yielded no results. Luckily for Sawamura, a scout from the prestigious Seido was at one of his matches and he promptly gets invited to try out for their team. After some hesitation he joins the juggernaut of a school and quickly learns that he is not that special after all. Interesting, sure, but there are tons of great players there who want it just as badly as Sawamura does. Not to mention they have also scouted a monster pitcher in Furuya Satoru. This sets the stage for a season of growth.
Ball is love, Ball is life
As I’ve talked about before, one of the main draws of this series is how it takes its time with its cast. Players leave and join, more than a full year has even passed since the start of the anime and with over a hundred episodes there was more than enough time for the team to experience some serious losses, recover and come back stronger than ever. This allows for a fun show where the main team doesn’t always end up victorious. As much as I love some of the other sports shows, they are a bit predictable at times. Ace of Diamond has the luxury of a very long running series where all sorts of things are possible. At 47 volumes, there’s a lot of material, which explains why we’re getting another season in spring this year.
As is tradition with sports anime, this is Senpai’s last chance at nationals
Second, the story focuses not only on Seido itself, but spends a lot of time developing the other teams as well. I’m not saying that other shows don’t do this, as both Haikyu and Kuroko – as some of the more popular sports shows – spend time developing other teams. The main difference is that in some parts of Ace of Diamond, it’s almost easy to forget who the main team is as you start rooting for some of the other schools. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing, Seido is the most interesting team we visit, but some of the other schools have fantastic casts too and even the manager and coaches and the struggles that happen behind the scenes with replacements and other things add to the fun.
This show can get pretty intense at times.
To stop myself from ranting for another four paragraphs, I think I’ll mostly leave it at this. If you like sports anime, and are looking for a show that really keeps you occupied for a while, definitely check out Ace of Diamond. The cast is fun, the matches are great and always different due to different styles that teams can have and it got me interested in baseball as a sport. Then again, it doesn’t take much to convince me, I’m easily influenced. Thanks for reading!
With a rather large school arc now seemingly behind us, we returned home to the cottage at the end of the last volume, where it’s time to wind down and relax a little bit, having dealt with Philomela’s grandmother and the accompanying corruption. Yet trouble stirs almost immediately again as the actions that Chise took by turning into a red dragon and swimming underneath the land have alerted the church and its allies, who are now investigating the incident to figure out who or what is responsible.
We start off this volume with Torrey giving Chise a bit of a history lesson about Britain and the witch hunts, which of course immediately triggers Chise’s visions and she almost ends up adding another curse to her long list of problems. Her being a Sleigh Beggy will never stop putting her into serious trouble whenever she is near anything even remotely magical, but she has good friends and allies here as Ruth jumps in to protect her. Back at Elias home we meet Jasper, the owner of said home and a long time patron of Elias due to a peculiar curse that runs through his family. His sister in law’s baby is currently the latest victim of the curse and they’re here to ask Elias to fix it. We learn about their history in a fun little side story and I wonder if we’ll return to this at some point with Chise putting a permanent stop to the curse. Oh right, and Zoe grows wings.
Josef and Elias meet at the information market where rumors spread. The aforementioned red dragon has been seen swimming under the British Isles and this is not a good sign, with a red dragon having the power to tear the earth apart into little pieces. Not many people and neighbours would appreciate that, but what they don’t know is that Chise is the one responsible. Josef ponders why he’s been left to stay here despite the horrible things he does and Elias basically informs him that he’s so unimportant that it doesn’t matter to him, which pisses Josef right off. Returning to the home, we learn that the first visitor of the year is underway.
The head of the St. George house is here with the official request for Elias and Chise to investigate the dragon, with Simon present to mediate for the church. Elias considers his options for a bit, which is a clear sign of growth for the mage. What’s even more important is that not only does he consider Chise’s safety, he also considers that of some of the other friends he’s made in recent memory, which is a completely new feeling to him. The duo confer and decide to help out with the investigation as long as nothing unsafe happens to Chise. That’s when we learn that Violet and Jasmine are also present, and Chise quickly figures out that there’s something odd about the twins.
This is where the different storylines start to slowly diverge into a common thread. Chise is likely undergoing a form of atavism. It’s a change in mythical creatures which was demonstrated by the dragon that went berserk as well as Zoe earlier in this volume suddenly growing wings. It’s a rare thing that can happen and it might be what is happening to Chise, allowing her to turn into a red dragon. Alongside all of this chaos, the St. George twins reveal that they have their own weird creature to deal with. It seems to be a newborn creature of unknown origin that has grown fond of the twins. They hid it from their father who found out within seconds, then they all hid it from Elias who also found out within seconds. They’re not very good at hiding things, but they think they are.
Lastly we zoom over to Lindell and the dragons, where a stranger approaches and danger lurks. Fortunately, it does seem like this stranger has no ill intent and is instead coming with a request. Hilda St. George asks him to come with her to England.
It seems like we’re still going to learn more about the different alchemist families, focusing on St. George now. They seem like good people and their house being responsible for dealing with all sorts of dangerous creatures probably means they’re pretty capable too. If only this doesn’t end in a tragedy for the twins or another curse for Chise. We can only hope. It looks like we will not have to wait nearly as long for the next volume, as the breaks around the last few volumes were quite long, but it looks like Volume 22 should be out in February or March. Look forward to another run through that volume when I get my hands on it and as always, thanks for reading!
As third prince in a relatively small and young kingdom, Cobal Blueyerd never expected his life to get nearly as exciting as it got. He was supposed to marry a noblewoman from a strenuous ally at some point to strengthen the kingdom’s political power, and this might still very well be on the table, but in the meantime some very different priorities have taken over his life.
Performing an old and powerful ritual, the court mages of the kingdom summoned a person from a strange world. The woman – dubbed Mana – is supposed to become the next hero of the kingdom, just like the hero Might was over a century ago when his family performed the same ritual. To everyone’s surprise, Mana ended up being a former teacher with absolutely no strength or seemingly aptitude to being a hero, not to mention that her anxiety kept getting in the way of doing anything heroic. With this woman at his side, Cobal was sent on an adventure to figure out how to awaken her dormant power – if she had any.
Mana and Cobal first landed in the Ravadier Peninsula. A piece of indigenous land that has been taken over by the Blueyerd Kingdom but still maintains some sovereignty in the form of the Lord of Ravadier. Most of his tasks have been taken over by his daughter as he is in poor health, making lady Diana Vadier the local leader. Cobal and Mana dive into the ocean nearby to find an underwater civilization with a temple to Aquana, one of the five members of the Arpentara, the main pantheon of this world. There they meet Miyara the seer, who tells them that Mana needs to find three important people. The first one is Dionil the woodland sage who Miyara knows of. The other two are unfamiliar names to her. One person named Abu and another named Sorda’Thun the wanderer. With this information, and a new companion in the form of Cassandra, a local tinkerer and busybody, the group travels north towards the Liriath Forest, and the elven city of Milinia. On the way they meet Kimi’Thania, a spirit of music, who they save from a magical prison and who then joins them as well. The party finds Milinia after some struggling and there Cobal’s patience with this seemingly pointless mission reaches a boiling point. He lashes out at Dionil, who puts him in his place pretty effectively. It is then revealed by Mana and Dionil that the reason for all this tension is something that Cobal’s family did. To be specific, they had the previous hero executed due to being too powerful and dangerous. Dionil has been around since the time of Might and remembers this betrayal, while Mana learned of it after arriving in this world, not quite sharing exactly how she came across this knowledge. Cobal and Mana talk things out and start growing closer during their stay in Milinia. The first volume is capped off with a harvest festival in the elven town, where a strange magic user interrupts things and is confronted by the party. Unsure what is going on with these strange fiery beasts that keep appearing on their path, the party continues their studies until they’re interrupted by a letter from the Blueyerd capital city of Saphestan. Cobal’s eldest brother and crown prince Sapher Blueyerd has disappeared and the northern neighbour of Rilodar is blamed for his disappearance, sparking a war.
Volume 2 sees our party figuring out politics and mystery as they travel back to the capital before soon deciding to head north to the libraries of Marsolin where they hope to learn more about the strange magic circles that appeared around them during their journey as well as the one that appeared in Sapher’s room. Joined by Mirgia, who came from the elven city to deliver some news, the party seeks out a ship to travel to Jasodar, the trade capital of Rilodar. The border is closed so the seas are their only option. Their ship is soon attacked by the ruthless captain Tidescreecher, who turns out to be a lot more sociable than they expected, with Mana even referring to her as a theater kid. With Eliana Tidesinger on their side, they continue their journey towards Marsolin, but on their way they stop at an island that has been pestering Eliana and her crew lately, resulting in a stand-off with a strange cult that is related to the things that have been happening to Cobal’s family. They manage to fend off most of the cultists’ leadership but during this process several of their allies – including Mirgia and Kimi’Thania – disappear. Heading onward to Marsolin, the party meets an Irkan named Grac who was being forced to work while his wife was captured by cultists. They team up and reach their destination at the end of the volume.
Volume 3 sees the party research several different topics with the help of some new and old friends. Kayzel is a former associate of Eliana who is a scribe at the Sapphire Respite and the party’s way into some of the upper floors of the esteemed library. Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card, after all. There they meet Senior Librarian Lysa Drant, who is quickly intrigued by their quest and offers her help. Cobal spends time with another scribe by the name of Salandra Fevezar. A young woman who has been studying here for a while and is interested in flora and culture of the Feral Wildlands, the central region of the continent that has yet to be conquered. They learn about the name of this cult – the Jasmine Order – and their presumed goal of awakening their god, Shifeth the undying king. The magic circles are an ancient form of magic that use the power of storing energy and releasing it at a later date. When used by the wrong people, it can force others to part with some of their energy to strengthen this magic. They learn another important bit of information. The abandoned Solin Manor is where they’re likely to find the cultists, as it seems like there is something they need to do there. The party gears up to raid the manor, where they find two very surprising people among their enemies. The first one is Selvia, Cobal’s childhood friend and very talented jeweler, who is being held against her will. The second one is Sapher, Cobal’s missing brother. Contrary to Selvia, Sapher is very much here of his own accord, proclaiming that the summoning of strange people into this world will cause the end of the entire continent. With the revival of Shifeth, they should be able to rid the place of these unnatural otherworlders and that is their goal. Achieving whatever it is they wanted to achieve in Marsolin, the cultists escape, leaving Cobal and Mana to have to deliver the bad news back home in an attempt to prevent the looming war from getting worse. Cobal and Salandra hook up before the party returns home.
Returning to the capital in volume 4 and the hostile political climate that comes with it, leaves Mana to sink deeper into her anxiety. She gets sick and starts holing up in her room until Cassandra shows up with some bad news. The Ravadier Peninsula is in danger, with villagers walking into the sea, never to be seen again. Mana quickly decides that she wants to help Cassandra figure out whatever it is that is happening. Cobal needs a little bit more convincing, but after stumbling across Layla and Thimar. The latter is a friend of Cobal’s younger sister Cyanna, who Cobal doesn’t like very much. Talking to the two helped him make up his mind, and the duo travels with Cassandra to the peninsula, where they ask Diana Vadier, the people of Arana and Eliana for help. With their combined efforts, they find out about a story of ghosts originating on Shark Tooth island, a dangerous place once inhabited by a powerful wizard who has long since left. They make their way to the island and find out that the stories were real, encountering a crew of ghost pirates. These pirates have been stuck here for a very long time, cursed by the aforementioned wizard to stay bound to this place until they find the key to his tower and unlock it. With ghostly bodies that have their limits, they have not yet been successful in finding the key. Cobal, Mana and Eliana use everything they have access to in an attempt to figure out the location of this key. It ends up being a gift from Dionil – a quill that can manipulate words into doing magical things – that is the key to finding the actual key. Traveling through the strange tower, they quickly figure out – at least Mana does – that the place belongs to someone who came from Mana’s world. It seems like this person has been here for quite a long time, despite also making references to things that happened around the time Mana was alive in our world, which makes things very confusing. The climb up the tower ends with them finding the artifact that allows the pirates to finally find rest as well as a conversation with Abu, the wizard in question. He invites them to his place in Severanti. Off screen we hear another person mention to Abu that “Sorda’Thun the wanderer is there to see him.” This cuts the conversation short, but the invasion stands. Now having some lead on the remaining two people in Miyara’s prophecy, the party needs to head to Severanti. But there is still the political mess they abandoned in the capital. Unless they’re ready to take some desperate measures, they probably can’t get out of this mess unscathed. Luckily, Diana Vadier has a plan. If Cobal marries her, the bond between Blueyerd and the Peninsula will tighten significantly, causing the remaining noble to have no choice but to accept Cobal and Mana’s path. With the duo having ties to two major allies, even lord Darsivan Meduer can’t touch them. Having set on this plan, and scheduling the wedding for a few months into the future, Cobal and Mana head to Severanti.
While all of this was going on, Mirgia (which I pronounce as meer-jah, but you do whatever you want) found himself setting off a teleportation trap, arriving in a far off region of Severanti where he quickly gets caught up in some of the local drama. Before meeting up with the rest of the party in a future volume, Mirgia first has to deal with this strange structure that has popped up, and he feels a duty to protect the people that treated him so kindly when he suddenly appeared in their fields unconscious. We join Mirgia at the very start in this little side quest in next week’s chapter. I hope this post helps you remember how we got to this point, since it has been a few years for some of these important moments. Thanks for reading.
It’s been a little while since we last covered a One Piece volume, but the latest one landed on my doormat the other day and I am excited to dive into it. Reading the chapters every week has been a ton of fun, but so much has been happening in the last few arcs that it’s hard to keep track of all of it, so with the anime and the physical volumes it’s nice to repeat things and get a reminder of all the things that were going on. I’m also still far from bored with this series and am currently considering either rereading or rewatching it, but when am I not considering that. Anyway, let’s dive into this volume which should be the tailend of the Egghead arc.
We continue our adventure in the land of the future as the five elders in their demonic forms are trying desperately to keep Vegapunk from broadcasting his posthumous message to the world. With the help of York they think they have found the source, but it turns out rather quickly that they were wrong. The Straw Hats on the other hand – now aided by the giants from Elbaf – are trying to get off the island alive. A buster call has been attacking in full force and with Vegapunk’s main body already dead, there isn’t any good reason for them to stay here, they only need to get out with as many people alive and well as possible. This is posing to be a difficult task as the five elders turn out to be very capable fighters. When we were first introduced to these ancient bozos, I never expected them to be a fighting force and although I doubt their brawn is going to be a big problem in the future, they are definitely strong enough to give an emperor a run for his money which kind of makes sense considering they run the world so they need at least something to back up their authority.
Far and by large the most important thing that happens in this volume is Vegapunk’s message to the world, which he manages to get through despite the attempts at interference. What he tells us about is how the world used to be made up of several continents that now lie 200 meters below sea level. This is due to someone using the ancient weapons in a way that caused the water to rise to the level it is at now. The small earthquake and rise in sea level confirmed his theory and he is now predicting that this will happen again in the near future. The motherflame that he developed allows the people in charge to do some pretty nasty stuff – as we saw with Lulusia – that they can still repeat. What we also learn is that during the void century, the precursor to today’s world government was at war with Joyboy’s section (more on what that likely entails in a future volume), and it ended with Joyboy’s defeat. The last thing Vegapunk tries to reveal is what the middle letter of “D” actually means, but the elders manage to stop the broadcast at this point by attacking Emet, the iron giant who was just looking to meet up with Joyboy again. It is clear at this point that Joyboy also possessed the same devil fruit that Luffy has now and it makes me wonder if any other people had the fruit between these two people, but were snuffed out before they could make anything out of it.
With the message over, the five elders now fully focus on taking down Emet and the escaping Straw Hat crew. Atlas sacrifices herself to silence Lilith’s connection so that York thinks there are no remaining Vegapunk satellites left after Atlas blows herself up to propel the Thousand Sunny. On the water below, Luffy and Bonney both transform into a Nika form and pummel Saint Saturn into the afterlife as we get a quick moment between Emet and Luffy, who Emet sees as Joyboy or at least a successor of Joyboy. We end the volume with Vegapunk’s message being over and the crew leaving Elbaf behind.
A few small things of note, before I leave you all again. We learn that professor Clover had the letter “D” in his name and they sacrificed themselves to the knowledge they gained could live on. We learn that Saul survived the ordeal on Ohara and even Vegapunk was mingling heavily in their research after the scholars passed away. We also learn that Gaimon – the man stuck in the chest all the way back in Romance Dawn – got himself a girlfriend and her name is Sarfunkel and the existence of this miniscule subplot is very funny. We also learn that Sword is looking for answers, not all of the Celestial Dragons are very tuned in to their own history and that many people now feel a renewed enthusiasm in trying to find the One Piece. What better vibe to have heading into the upcoming adventure in the land of the giants – assuming nothing goes haywire on the way out of Egghead, as things are still happening at the end of this volume. I hope you enjoyed this little recap and as always, thanks for reading!
You might be coming into this post wondering why it’s called 3.5 and not 4. Well, the honest truth is that there’s not nearly as much to update you on as I would have liked. In the past month I’ve been incredibly busy with work and my studies and although I did spend some time writing during my May Break, it wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have liked. As a matter of fact, I’m going through a bit of a writer’s block right now and although I’m hesitant (haha) to put this on paper, I think I might need a bit of a break from writing. Not completely, of course, but I’ve been trying to write at an honestly ungodly pace while combining it with the rest of my life. I think I’ve been a little bit burned out. As of this post, I have about 2 months of work to go before the year ends and I get a bit of respite. Part of July and the entirety of the month of August will be my summer break and that tends to reinvigorate me quite a bit. But we’re not there yet and the exhaustion is definitely weighing on me. But it’s not all negativity, let me update you on what I have been able to do in these past few weeks.
When it comes to volume 4, I’ve been trying to navigate the early chapters of the Shark Tooth Island arc. It’s a story beat I came up with pretty quickly before struggling to properly make it work. There’s some great moments in what I wrote for it last year, but there’s really no glue holding it together. Not to mention I never got to properly write an ending to it, as I’d reached the 50.000 words for November and then kind of put it aside since I’d run out of ideas by that point. I was pretty far ahead at some point earlier this year, but as of this post I’m only one chapter ahead of schedule. That’s still better than the amount of wiggle room I had during the first three volumes, but since there is more I can get stuck on for this volume, it worries me that it’s not enough. So keep in mind that a hiatus might happen in the near future, although I’ll try my best to avoid it. I am excited for you all to meet a pretty important figure in the lore of this world soon.
Meanwhile I’ve been focusing a lot of energy on volume 1 as well, but I’ve been struggling on that front too. The gang is still in the Milinia forest, making their way towards the elven stronghold. I want to flesh out the forest itself and make it clear what sort of place it is before they actually stumble into the city proper. One thing I found lacking in Milinia was building a proper population. The council felt like it was introduced and then forgotten (and I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about it for a big part of writing the subsequent volumes). There were gifts and bonds that were completely dropped by the time we were back in Saphestan and although the blog version of this story was always going to be incomplete and rough around the edges, I want to make very sure that the final version I’m writing right now is much more complete and waterproof. I’m not perfect and I’ll probably miss some stuff, but I want it to feel like a satisfying story. I’ll be working hard on the next couple of chapters in May and although my initial hope of finishing the draft by late June is probably a lost cause, I still want to have it all finalized by August. I’ll just have to print it out at home on a small printer. I shudder at the thought.
Now allow me to change the subject a little bit before I end this post although it’s probably not exciting news for readers of this story. I’ve been feeling that itch to continue on The Necromancer’s Daughter. It’s changed a ton in its form and although I haven’t put much time into actually writing the story itself, I have been collecting notes and ideas in a document that’s becoming larger and larger. I was hoping to keep this story on the backburner for a while longer as I put all my time and effort into The Hesitant Hero, but with how much this story is still nagging me I might have to start giving it some attention. Part of me wonders if the writer’s block I’m feeling will be fixed by a change of pace. This doesn’t mean that new chapters or new editions of The Necromancer’s Daughter will be posted anytime soon. I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not doing so until I have at least two dozen chapters I’m satisfied with and I highly doubt that will happen before late next year. I might also post something soon that’s been in my folders for a long time now. I had an evening where I suddenly wrote a couple thousand words of a completely new story out of nowhere and I quite like the setting, but there’s not enough of it to be all that interesting. Perhaps just posting a chapter of it online will help get me some feedback. But that’s another case of not wanting to put too much effort into too many different projects. As of right now, my main focus should be on The Hesitant Hero until I have a satisfying draft done of the first five volumes or so, before continuing the story from incomplete drafts becomes too chaotic. Some consistency would be nice for online readers, after all. Luckily volume 5 should enter us into a completely new arc which allows me some time to fix some old mistakes before we continue existing storylines. But let’s not get too much into spoilers.
To make a long story short, I’m still working on The Hesitant Hero. I want to branch out to different stories a bit, and I need to get through these next two months before I can get some more peace of mind. My body is also constantly in pain due to the effects of stress and exhaustion, but it’s not as bad as it’s been in the past, so I’m pushing through most of it. Expect some delays and breaks here and there in the next two months but I promise you that things will be back to normal once we’re well into summer and I have some room to breathe. Thanks for reading.
Cause I feel like taking off, let me be your supernova.
Now who was it that sang that song? It popped up in my head when I started writing this post. Oh right, it was by Mr Hudson and…. Oh, nevermind. Let’s move on. The supernovas were introduced to us as these big game changers at the start of the Sabaody Archipelago arc and some of them definitely had a big impact on the story of One Piece. But did the worst generation truly live up to the hype, or did they sort of fizzle out into nobodies half the time? Let’s take today to dive into each of these rookies and look at their story. Where did they start, what did they accomplish and where are they now? I’m excluding Zoro and Luffy for obvious reasons. This post will also contain spoilers up until the most recent chapters, especially pertaining to those supernovae we see at that point in the story.
To this day, this is still one of my favorite panels in the entire series. It perfectly encapsulates Blackbeard’s place in the world and his ideals.
So apparently Blackbeard is a member of the supernovas, also often referred to as the worst generation. Since I plan to write about everyone’s favorite laughing villain in a separate post, I’ll keep things short. He’s the only supernova outside of our main duo who we knew a fair bit about prior to Sabaody. He encountered Luffy in Jaya and got Ace locked up after all. He was making big moves while the rest of the rookies were still just making a name for themselves. He also wasn’t present at Sabaody with the rest of the supernovas.
Unless we get another look at Urouge in a future arc – which I don’t think we will – he is probably the most disappointing member of the supernovas.
“The mad monk” Urouge is arguably the member of the supernovas that we know the least about. We’ve seen him act very little throughout the story, but we do know a few things about him. For starters, he likely hails from a sky island, sporting a haircut reminiscent of Skypiea in a drawing as a child. He can grow in strength but was – understandably – no match for Kizaru when himself, Kuma and Sentomaru wreaked havoc on Sabaody. He was later fighting in Big Mom’s territory, taking out one of her four sweet commanders before being defeated by Cracker. I personally don’t expect we’ll see him again unless he somehow ends up relevant to Enel and his grand return. At least I hope we’ll see Enel return.
He has definitely mellowed out after he got married and got a child. He’s a cold bastard when he’s first introduced.
One of the supernovas we work with for quite a while is Capone Bege. The mobster boss with a body that functions as a fortress is our ally throughout Whole Cake Island. He cares about his family but is quick to betray others. His entire plan in joining with the Big Mom pirates was to one day betray her after all. He is married to Charlotte Chiffon who is Lola’s twin sister. This gives the Straw Hat Crew an in with him and although tensions are high at fights, eventually things calm down and they become a solid block, working together on the Big Mom assassination plan. They manage to escape Big Mom’s territory against all odds and that’s the last we’ve seen from them, despite some short appearances in side stories.
That’s crazy, coming from the most annoying member on this list.
The next few supernovas will be discussed in batches since their effect on the plot is similar to each other. The first one of these groups we’ll talk about is the trio of Apoo, Hawkins & X-Drake. This trio ends up working for Kaido. Apoo and Hawkins do so after they lose a fight alongside Kid & Killer, but X-Drake does so of his own accord and ends up going through the ranks until he’s one of Kaido’s Tobi Roppo. Each of their stories fizzles out during the Wano arc. Hawkins dies and although both Apoo and X-Drake survive, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of them. What is interesting to note though, is that X-Drake is a member of Sword. And although I doubt he’ll play a big role in the upcoming story, seeing as his story feels played out, I do think we might see him fighting along Sword members in the future. His father was also the one who had possession of the Ope Ope no Mi before Law took hold of it.
This is what you get for teaming up with idiots.
Just like how the previous three were mentioned as a group, Kid & Killer are sort of a package deal. Kid is the captain and Killer is his right hand man in the same way that Zoro and Luffy work together. I believe Oda originally wrote them as foil for Zoro and Luffy, with them being the only other crew that had two supernovas on their side. The duo does well for themselves until they lose the aforementioned fight against Kaido. Kid gets locked up and Killer is forced to eat a smile fruit, ending up as a miserable assassin for Orochi. Eventually the duo joins with the alliance to take down Kaido and both Killer and Kid become crucial in that fight. Unfortunately, their story ends rather abruptly after they make the poor decision to attack Shanks’ crew at Elbaf, resulting in the emperor and his two giant friends annihilating the Kid Pirates. There’s only room for one red-headed emperor on this ocean, I’m afraid.
But how do magnets work, Law? Tell us.
Now if you’ve kept count, there are only two entries left in this list. There are a total of twelve supernovae and I believe that five out of these twelve – including Luffy and Zoro of course – will end up being crucial to the final arc of One Piece. We’ve already talked about Blackbeard, so that leaves Law and Bonney. Law is an interesting one, which we’ve spent much more time with than any of the other members of the supernova. We first met him on Sabaody and he was the one who saved Luffy at the end of the Paramount War. We then see him again on Punk Hazard where he becomes an ally for Luffy and his crew for most of the four emperor saga, only separating from the Straw Hats at the end of Wano. He then had the bad luck to run into Blackbeard who desperately wanted his devil fruit. Whereas Kid quite clearly got destroyed, Law got away with the help of Bepo, his polar bear mink friend. Still, the fight against Blackbeard all but ruined the Heart Pirates which is a real shame as I quite liked them.
The reflection in the eye is so good.
Last one, and it’s a good one. This will also be the one with the most spoilers so if you somehow got to this point but don’t want to get spoiled for the most recent arcs, I suggest you step back now. Let’s talk about the child. That’s right, Jewelry Bonney, the gluttonous pirate captain that seemed abrasive from the start is actually just a little girl masquerading as an adult. It was fairly obvious from early on in the story that Bonney was going to be an important character but I can’t say I really guessed what her role would be until we got to her story. It turns out she is the daughter of none other than Bartholomew Kuma. Not biological, but if uncle Phil taught us one thing it’s that your father is the man who raised you, not the man who helped conceive you. It’s just that for a lot of people they overlap. Either way, Kuma turned into a cyborg so that Vegapunk could cure Bonney and now Bonney is searching for revenge against the world who took her father away from her in such a brutal way. She took pity on Vegapunk in the end, but with all the chaos on Egghead most of him died anyway. One thing that makes her interesting is that her distorted future abilities allow her to be as free as Luffy is in his Nika form, but to a much lesser extent. She seems to be there for the ride and I expect her to end up with the revolutionary army in some capacity by the end of the story, although what that will look like I don’t know. For now she’s with us on Elbaf.
Poor Bonney, she’s gone through so much at such a young age.
And there you have it. The twelve rookies in a quick overview. Luffy and Zoro seem to be at the very apex of this group although Blackbeard seems to be in a similar position as well, having some incredibly powerful people under him. I think ultimately most of the supernovas have a role to play in the story. Apoo and Hawkins showed us that some dreams get cut short brutally. Urouge filled a somewhat similar role while also giving us some more nuance when it comes to the Big Mom pirates. Both X-Drake and Bege had a fun role to play in their respective arcs and then disappeared from the story. The three big captains of Luffy, Law and Kid were needed to surpass the wall that is the previous generation and lastly Bonney was there to break our collective hearts. With Urouge being the least interesting one from the bunch, I think the supernovae are now done with their story and I think that Oda did a great job making them all feel important enough to be worthy of that position. But those are my thoughts and my opinions, perhaps you disagree with me. If so, please let me know in the comments down below. Thanks for reading.
We’re getting way too close to the end of the series here, which means that these posts are becoming longer and longer. It’s a combination of too much happening as well as me not wanting it to end. Just the sheer amount of important revolutionaries, kings, propagandists and marines that are on the front cover gives away how big this volume is going to be. So let’s not waste anymore time and instead dive right into Volume 107.
As the Straw Hats fight against the different Seraphim, we learn that they were initially created with the help of King – Alber’s – blood. His Lunarian blood combined with the bloodline elements of power users has created these monstrously dangerous robots. While the Straw Hats fight, Shaka goes off to find the main Vegapunk, only to get shot through the head. I’ve seen One Piece characters get up from a lot of crazy wounds, including flying away safely from a nuclear bomb at point blank, but I think this might be it for Shaka. We find out shortly afterwards who was responsible. It seems like York has been in contact with the 5 elders in an attempt to become a celestial dragon. She’s the one who thinks one Vegapunk is enough and wants the rest wiped out for researching the void century. Shouldn’t have formed your satellites after sins, that was a pretty dumb move. With York unpetrified causing mayhem and the navy as well as Blackbeard’s ship approaching, the world is about to be shaken. So let’s take a step back and look at some red haired people for a moment.
At the coast of Elbaf, the Kid pirates attack Shanks’ underlings which goes about as well as you’d expect. A combination of Shanks one of a kind haki and Dorry and Broggy using their iconic attack wipes the floor with them, killing everyone in the process. Shanks’ underlings are known for being weak, living under his protection, and he does just that, protect them. It is still a pretty brutal retaliation though. Deserved or not. Elsewhere in the world – as we see a little bit later – the fight between the Heart Pirates and Blackbeard has come to a conclusion. Bepo uses a medicine made by Chopper to save his captain in an act of desperation. We don’t see what happens to the rest of Law’s crew, but instead of “destroyed” his crew is only “defeated”, so we’ll likely see them again.
Let’s move once again, this time to the pirate island of Fullalead. This is the home base of Blackbeard, where Koby is currently making his great escape. Perona freed him under the agreement that he would in turn free Moria, to allow the duo to escape. Blackbeard wants to use Koby as a bargaining chip to become a proper kingdom, but because Koby reveals that he is a member of Sword, this plan goes to waste. What they didn’t expect was that the rest of Sword would come over to help out. King Grus, Hibari, Kujaku, Helmeppo, Tashigi and most importantly, the legend that is Monkey D. Garp. The last one launches his ship onto the island, using his Galaxy Impact punch to destroy a large chunk of the inhabitants. This is an elderly man with no devil fruits. It is easy to recognize why he was on par with people like Roger and Rocks. We once again hear mention of the man with the burn scar here, but we are no closer to figuring out who it is.
Man oh man, so much happens in rapid fire from here on out, but it all has to do with the holy land of Mariejoas, so let me try my best to work through it. The revolutionaries have charged the place, destroying food supplies and aiming to rescue as many slaves as possible, including Kuma. Kuma is currently being used to try and capture Shirahoshi. All the chaos comes together here in this moment with St. Myosgard asking the pirates under Luffy’s banner to attack St. Charlos, finishing the job that Luffy started all the way back on Sabaody Archipelago. Shirahoshi is saved and Kuma is captured by Morley from the revolutionaries, which is how he got to be in Kamabakka a few chapters ago.
Elsewhere in Mariejois, we see King Cobra of Alabasta confront the 5 elders about the past of his country. There were 20 kings that formed the world government during the void century and relinquished their thrones back home. Except one of those 20 – Nefertari Lily – didn’t stay and become a noble. Instead she returned home to Arabasta to continue her line, except there are no records of her in the history of the country, causing Cobra to ask questions. While he is talking to them, Imu ascends to the empty throne and sits down. Imu – or Mu – talks about Lily’s great mistake 800 years ago causing the poneglyphs to descend into the world. It’s revealed here that this was no mistake, but a planned action by Nefertari D. Lily. In a final act of defiance, Cobra angers the 5 elders and their leader, getting killed for it. But fortunately for the old king, both Sabo and Wapol hear what happens and get away safely. Sabo to tell the revolutionaries and Wapol to tell Vivi. He finds Vivi kidnapped by CP0 who tells her that Fujitora has gone rogue and helped the slaves regain their freedom. Things are utter chaos and making use of this chaos, Wapol and Vivi flee the island.
With the world in turmoil, and the person at the very apex of the World Government perhaps being an immortal king from the times of the void century, we finally see the first member of the Holy Knights. Saint Figarland Garling is the leader of these legendary fights and he has put Saint Donquixote Myosgard to death. Two celestial dragons have been murdered in a very short amount of time. Vivi is missing and Imu wants her captured, Alabasta is without a leader and Sabo is safely back in Kamabakka kingdom.
Before we say goodbye to each other, we get to conclude the fight on Fullalead. With Garp facing off against Kuzan as well as others on Blackbeard’s crew, he gives us a masterclass on how you show off that you’re a legendary hero. Kuzan trained under him in the past, but he got expelled. And in front of his expelled student he gives his final lesson to Koby, the next generation of his students. Koby went through the same training but gave it even more. Pure drive, motivation and willpower got the whiny kid from the early chapters to this point. The point at which he is able to punch an island sized hand into rubble. With everyone else escaping, Garp goes missing on Fullalead.
And that’s where Volume 107 leaves us off. There is only one volume left before we’re all caught up with the official translated volumes. Much is yet to come, but this is a big volume when it comes to world events. I really enjoyed this one, and I think it was even better the second time around. But now I need a break. As usual, thank you for reading and please join me next week as we fully catch up on volume 108!
This week we are headed to Egghead. The arc that started with a ton of theories and ideas and where we finally learned about a lot of what has been happening in the world of One Piece for the past millennium. It feels like we’ve finally reached the part of the story where we get our pay off for 30 years of loyal reading. Because I opted to leave out a little bit of the coverage of Egghead in volume 105, I’ll quickly go through how we got to this point before picking up this volume. I’m sure it won’t be another lengthy post, right?
After meeting up with Jewelry Bonney the crew heads to Egghead where Lilith and a giant robot await them. Lilith is one of the seven Vegapunks that roam the island besides the Stella. After a tense meeting, they are let into the island and quickly start becoming a problem by attacking holograms and stuff. Since Vegapunk is the one responsible for turning Kuma – who is Bonney’s father – into a mindless cyborg, she has a bone to pick with him. And I would say fair enough. We also meet the other 6 Vegapunks, Lilith, Shaka, Edison, Pythagoras, York and Atlas. While Shaka contacts Dragon to tell him something before the good scientist dies – as he senses his end is near – Luffy, Jinbe and Bonney stumble across an old robot from far in the past. What secrets are Vegapunk and Egghead holding? This is where we move on to volume 106 proper.
The hits don’t stop. We find out that the knowledge on Ohara was preserved by a combination of Saul and the giants from Elbaf. There to witness this were Monkey D. Dragon – who would create the revolutionary army later that year – and Dr. Vegapunk who is on friendly terms with the revolutionaries despite working for the government. Back in the present day, Luffy and his companions meet the “real” Vegapunk, who is an old man with an apple for a head. While he requests a ride off of the island, CP0 arrives elsewhere and Kuma – who is being repaired by the revolutionaries – has started to move. Things are heating up so fast it’s crazy.
With Lucci, Kaku and Stussy getting onto the island and damaging Atlas severely, they now get to fight against Luffy. Lucci was one of the biggest antagonists of the first half of the series and he surely powered up since. One of the big things on their side is S-Bear, the Kuma seraphim. Luckily for Luffy, his favorite Axe Boy – Sentomaru – shows up and he has higher clearance. Knowing this, Lucci takes him out, angering the rubbery sun god. Luffy clearly has the upper hand here, but since his aim is to get to the Labophase, the closed off facility at the top of Egghead, he makes a run for it instead, allowing Lucci, the Seraphim and a quickly approaching Kizaru to all join up with each other.
It’s an interesting situation for the Straw Hats to be in. In a lot of arcs they have a big, difficult goal to accomplish on the island. Now their only real goal is to get out of here before they’re caught. That’s usually the easy part in other arcs. Of course, with this being One Piece, there is no easy part, but it does feel like the odds are much more in their favor compared to previous arcs where they were serious underdogs. We do have one of the five elders approaching alongside Kizaru, so for how long they can hang around, we don’t know.
Bonney and Vegapunk have their fight, with Vegapunk refusing to answer her questions, since he promised Kuma he wouldn’t. They were good friends and the rampaging cyborg being in the state he is in right now is hurtful to Vegapunk too. Bonney isn’t having it and opens the door to Kuma’s memories. With CP0 approaching the lab, Stussy reveals who she really is. A clone of Buckingham Stussy who is a former Rocks pirate and the mother of Weevil. She takes out both Kaku and Lucci before handing them over to the Straw Hats. We learn that Weevil has been protecting Whitebeard’s hometown in Marco’s absence, so that’s nice of him. The navy was trying to raid it and kill the people living there.
While Bonney and Vegapunk are fighting, she finally touches the memories of her father, seeing some of the horrible things he had to go through as a child before being shunted out of there again. He was already a large person at birth, perhaps a giant? I’m sure we’ll find out more about Kuma in the next volume. Luffy and Zoro fight alongside the CP0 members as the Seraphim are set to attack the punks and the Straw Hats, really not caring about killing Lucci and Kaku in the process. With a tense fight happening on Egghead, we’ll jump back out to have a quick look at the rest of the world. We see a familiar face that we haven’t seen in a while. Both Vivi and Wapol are currently aboard the flying airship of Morgans, who runs the World Economic Journal. They’re doing some propaganda while they’re at it. Finally, we see the start of a confrontation between Kid and Shanks. Having come to Elbaf, it’s time for him to settle the score with the emperor that took his arm on their last clash.
That’s Volume 106 in a nutshell. Law and Kid are each facing off against an emperor, Vivi is alive but in a strange place and Kuma is climbing the red line. Bonney is learning about her father’s past while Luffy and the crew are dealing with a complicated web of problems on the future island of Egghead, trying to get out of there with Vegapunk’s main body before the admiral and one of the five elders land there to make things much more complicated. Saul, Dorry and Broggy are all alive and well and have reached Elbaf while Dragon is a former friend of both Vegapunk and Dr. Clover. Things are really moving ahead at a breakneck speed and there’s no slowing down from here on out. I’ve tried keeping this post relatively short, but next week is going to be a long one again. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 