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I don’t actually have that much that to talk about this month. I don’t know if it’s the weather or what, but I’ve just been down the past few weeks. Sleep has been kinda hit or miss, I’m not enjoying things I used to. I have done some cool things that I might blog about once they’re totally done though (virtualized TrueNAS in proxmox). Thanksgiving was pretty good, my family came over and we deep fried a turkey, and we all had a good time. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving day too!
One Piece
I guess I’ll talk a little about what’s going on with One Piece because it’s been crazy.
SPOILERS FOR UP TO 1166
We’re actually going to have 4 chapters this month which is cool. I know Oda usually takes it easy in December (totally understandable) so we gotta enjoy it while we can.
Apart from when I first read Marineford, this has been the best month I’ve ever had as a major Whitebeard fanboy. It was a little sketch there when Whitebeard ran away from Garp, but it was just strategy, not out of fear lol. I love the guy, so anytime he’s in a chapter I’m locked in.
Quick rundown of all the major things that have happened:
1164
- Rocks reveals Davy D. Jones was the former king of the world, and mentions Joy Boy to Imu
- Rocks gets Domi Reversi’d
- Imu reveals that he’s after Elbaf for soldiers
- Imu forces Rocks to kill the other Davy family members on the island
- Whitebeard tanks a shot from Domi Reversi’d rocks with his bare arm and causes God Valley’s mountain to start falling*
- Everyone starts trying to flee the island
- Dragon lost track of baby Shanks
- Kuma (one of the GOATs) is trying to save as many people as he can
- Kuma jumps just in front of Rocks to save Eris and baby Teech, and also presumably teleports away himself
- Rocks, facing Roger and Garp presumably uses the Voice of All Things to ask them to kill him
*Only moderately important, mostly included because of the Whitebeard fanboy thing and this is another feat I will be using in my own power-scaling/agenda-piece
1165
- One of the coolest panels of all of One Piece is where Rocks is in his Domi Reversi’d form and about to attack at Roger and Garp while he’s asking them to “Please kill me”
- Roger and Garp realize Rocks isn’t himself
- Garp and Roger decide to temporarily team up, but their attacks aren’t working
- They want to try to figure out a way to undo the curse, but they can’t seem to think of anything
- Big Mom claims she’s gonna come back for Kaido to get what he owes from him stealing the azure dragon fruit
- Polo Graham is introduced
- Dragon threatens a navy ship to be able to save more people on the island and bring them along
- Saturn (or maybe Imu in Saturn’s body) declares that God Valley never existed, and that it will be erased
- The narrator interrupts and declares that all the records of God Valley were purged and the number of people killed is still unknown
- Roger invites Garp to his crew, but Garp declines because he wants to protect the Marines
- Garp and Roger talk about creating a “mass” of Haki to be able to beat Rocks, basically pouring everything they have into the attack
- Roger cries for Rocks as they give the final blow
1166
- The attack seemed to work, and even broke the Domi Reversi curse
- Roger and Garp are sapped of energy
- Rocks is unable to move and thanks Roger and Garp before Garling stabs him, finally killing him
- Rayleigh and Gaban take Roger and Garp off of God Valley
- God Valley crumbles and seems to sink to the bottom of the sea
- The narrator interrupts to highlight the importance of this event on the world and the pirates and players in the following generation
- Roger and his crew find Shanks among the treasure they stole from God Valley
- Garp is upset over what they’re saying about him in the papers (Hero of the Marines)
- Sengoku and Garp have an argument over differing brands of Justice and what they should do in the marines
- Garp declares he wants to help the people at the “bottom of the cliff”
- Loki learns of Rocks’ death and has a flashback where he told Rocks he thought he was Nika
- Rocks didn’t know who Nika was, but said that if anyone had that kind of power it would be Harald
- Rocks mentions the Galera (maybe Galley-La depending on translation I think)
- Harald has a breakdown and beats a giant who was being mean and cruel to humans
- Harald’s desire to join the World Government was the only reason he didn’t help Rocks out
- Dragon has been imprisoned for what happened on God Valley, but Garp seemingly breaks him out by giving him a key
- Harald declares that Loki and Hajruddin are both his sons and that he wants them to get along
- Harald breaks off his horns as a symbol of loyalty and as a pledge to the World Government
Technically I could wait until 1167 comes out since it should be in the next day or so, but I’m gonna go ahead and get this done and out. This God Valley flashback is without a doubt in my mind the most important and probably the best flashback in all of One Piece. So many big names together all in one place, everything in the world of One Piece can be traced back to this single event. Amazing, peak fiction, absolute cinema, Oda is the GOAT. There’s a chance that the void century flashback is more important and introduces some cool characters, but I really don’t know if it’ll top this. (That’s a challenge Oda, please prove me wrong).
Davy D. Jones being the former king of the world was crazy. I need to go back and look at the Harley texts and the mural again to understand how that could fit into it. If he’s the one that started the Davy Back fights, I wonder how that plays into Joy Boy? Could Joy Boy have lost a crew member to a Davy Back fight? Could Joy Boy have been related somehow? Could Joy Boy have been trying to take down Davy D. Jones as king of the world and somehow Imu overcame both of them to get the throne? Lots of questions to be answered still. One Piece is all about misdirection and misinformation so I wonder who the good guys really are. Does Imu serve some higher power beyond themself even? I highly doubt that one though, I hope that isn’t the case.
All of the attacks this flashback have been crazy too, I hope they do well in the anime. I’m super excited for these episodes. I need to watch from Egghead onward to get Kuma’s backstory and this when it comes out. Everyone’s stocks rose these few chapters.
The only disappointment I have is with Harald. For him to go directly to the people who killed basically his best friend and mutilate himself, he really killed my opinion of him. I loved his introduction, but he’s playing right into the government’s hands. I understand his reasoning for wanting to have Giants be seen as less aggressive and nicer. I understand too that public opinion favors the world government associated countries, especially more docile ones compared to Elbaf. But it’s still just disappointing. Garp and Harald have ideals I don’t totally understand or agree with.
Garp I understand a lot better after 1166, I think I finally am starting to understand why he’s so focused on young marines like Koby. I think he’s basically thinking that if he can be an example for great marines who will go to high places someday that they’ll be able to fix the world instead of him fixing it himself now. Some readers think that he’s wrong for not fixing it himself, which is fair and valid, but I think Garp himself knows that’s not a good idea because of how hot-blooded he is. Which is the same reason he doesn’t become an admiral or fleet admiral, he COULDN’T work under celestial dragons. He’d be executed or have to leave the marines at the first sign of them doing anything he doesn’t agree with, which is counter productive to his ideals. He still believes in the system he’s in, so he figures it’s better to try to aid those in the system than to leave it. Which I guess also means he believes that having celestial dragons is better? That’s where it starts getting weird. I guess a small amount of pure evil is the price to pay for world peace? I suppose that’s basically got to be true if people in One Piece are anything like humans in real life, there will always be some evil.
Rocks has climbed my favorite characters list super fast. He has had some of the sickest panels in the whole manga. I hate he wasn’t around for long, he’s like everyone in flashbacks though, they’re incredibly badass and then they die lol. He was Teech’s father, and Teech has done some crazy things so… Rocks’ full introduction and main backstory (potentially/probably his only backstory) has made me question Teech’s motives even more now. Originally Rocks was shown to be kind of an asshole, to go as far as stabbing Loki as a child (although he didn’t seem to mind I guess), but overall he ended up being a guy who just wanted to save what was left of his lineage. Teech I guess just has nothing left to hold on to and wants to watch the world burn. Killing Whitebeard and Ace though, one of your father’s incredibly loyal crew members that stayed and fought against a literal demon (Imu) and your father’s rival’s son (a rival who Rocks related to and respected). I have to wonder how much Teech knows about his lineage and the void century.