Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2gtE_SQd9g

New God Knights

The chapter begins by showcasing the God Knights. It’s unknown if all the God Knights are Celestial Dragons like Garling, but one of them mentions they want to seize the trophies for the Manmeyer Family. This is evidently the name of another Celestial Dragon Family, meaning we finally have half the names of the founders of the World Government, including Nerona, Nefertari, Donquxiote, Jaygarcia, Marcus, Topman, Ethanbaron, Shepherd, Fegarland, and now Manmeyer.

Speaking of the name Fegarland, there’s something that I think is worth bringing up, and it’s the fact some people told me that “feggari” is the Greek word for “moon”. Meaning that Figarland is most likely romanized as “Fegarland” with an “e”, making their name the “Moonland” family. Given Garling’s head being shaped like a Moon this seems very much intentional, so I expect it to play a part down the line.

Among the other God Knights, there’s a lot of bizarre designs, such as this girl with a big hat bearing the World Government logo, a kid with a gas mask, one wearing a ruff around his neck, and later also a lady with black hair as well as a really bizarre individual. He seems to not have a head, but I think it’s actually more that he is wearing a cow skull helmet seen from the front. Among the silhouettes there are some fascinating shapes too, including one seemingly wearing an amigasa-like hat, one who is really tiny, and two of them with large horns of sorts. Some of these look fairly young, with Garling calling them kids, but this is likely done so that in the present day they will be all grown up and mature, ready to be veteran warriors that we may have to clash against at some point down the line.

One final worth noting about them is that some of these God Knights bear quite a resemblance to some members of Carmel’s House of Lambs, meaning that… could it be that Carmel sold some of these kids to the World Goverment as God Knights? Well, no. This is basically impossible since all the kids that match were there when Big Mom ate them up, but I guess they were there in God Valley, simply inside of Big Mom’s stomach.

Speaking of lookalikes, there’s this fishman who helps free Ivankov who you’d be quick to jump to the initial conclusion that I did that he is Hack, the member of the Revolutionary Army, but again that’d be impossible as Hack was born during the year of this incident, making this just another fishman slave.

Treasure of Hachinosu

We cut to Marineford, where Kong has a call with Garp. This confirms that Kong was in a high-ranking position already during the era of the Rocks, potentially Fleet Admiral already by the way he gives out orders, having lasted across all of Roger’s Era all the way until the Great Pirate Era.

However, in his dialogue with Kong, Garp mentions something very interesting. When Kong says that he can’t exactly mention the details of the Human Hunt, likely due to the Celestial Dragons wanting to keep such a thing private, Garp jokingly refers to it as the “Celestial Dragon School Trip”. But then he follows up with:

”I told you not to poke the beehive that is Hachinosu!! You underestimate them. That “thing” is the treasure of Pirate Island after all!! Of course they’d come to take it back.”

The way Garp mentions it, it appears that the Marines sought trouble with the Rocks by trying to seize a certain item from Hachinosu that is considered the Pirate Island’s National Treasure. The context seems to implicate that said treasure is now at God Valley, as even some of the Rocks Pirates bring up retrieving a certain item. Particularly, among them Shiki and Big Mom say that whoever gets to it first gets to keep it, but Kaido remarks that it would be pointless in Big Mom’s hands. This all seems to point to the idea that it’s referring to Kaido’s devil fruit, which Big Mom would successfully steal from Ivankov and later feed to Kaido since she already possesses a devil fruit, or one of the other fruits in possession of the Celestial Dragons. Interestingly Captain John also makes mention of wanting to make it his treasure, which makes me wonder if it will tie in any way with his actual legendary treasure, as after all, beyond the Dragon Fruit and the Paw Fruit, there were four other chests among the prizes.

Still, a connection between Xebec and dragons is pretty fascinating, especially when we take into account the connection there is between Imu and dragons, with how the Celestial Dragons are named after the creatures, are fascinated with them, asking Vegapunk to create artificial dragons, and the Void Century ties between Imu and dragons in general. And since Rocks D. Xebec wanted to become “King of the World” and literally take Imu’s position, one can only wonder why the two of them appeared to be so incredibly similar and linked together…

THE ROCKS PIRATES

Things quickly escalate as the Rocks Pirates invade the island, with Xebec himself leading the charge as he gets a few spoken lines, though doesn’t appear on screen. And among the Rocks Pirates we have what is an incredibly stacked All-Stars cast:

First we have Whitebeard, who was 36 at the time. He expressed frustration with Xebec’s recklessness and how everyone wanted to be captain, which can already be seen reflected here. On his hat we even see a prototype version of his jolly roger that is different from his current one.

Next is Miss Buckingham Stussy, the original pirate from whom the current Stussy was cloned, who is getting very cozy with Whitebeard as she would claim to be his lover in the future. Currently the original Stussy has aged, while the clone has remained pretty identical to this Stussy here, supposedly due to her succubus fruit stopping her from aging. At this time Stussy was 38 years old, and soon after this incident and the disbandment of the crew, she would begin freeloading at MADS which would lead to the creation of her clone. And interestingly, her kid Weevil, the supposed kid with Whitebeard, would be born 35 years ago, 3 years after God Valley.

Next is Big Mom, who is currently 38 here, wielding Prometheus in hand already. As we were told, she was able to get the Dragon fruit for Kaido, for which she considers him to owe her a debt of gratitude.

Similarly Kaido here is 21, having spent 6 years on the crew already.

After him is “Golden Lion” Shiki, making his first proper full appearance in the actual manga, with the antagonist of Strong World having been a historically famous pirate at the time. He appears to have already eaten his fruit at this time, as he states “I’ll send you all flying”, which may not be a hyperbole, but meant quite literally.

And next is quite the curveball, as Gloriosa is revealed to be a member of the Rocks Pirates! As a reminder, Gloriosa was the empress of Amazon Lily and Captain of the Kuja Pirates many years back. The one who succeeded her was Shakuyaku, Rayleigh’s current wife and owner of Shakky’s Rip-Off-Bar. The one after her is an unnamed empress who ended up dying of love sickness, which was then followed by Hancock. Gloriosa mentioned how all empresses in these four generations were afflicted with love sickness, though only the one before Hancock died of it. In Shakky’s case it was possibly Rayleigh, but I wonder if in Gloriosa’s case it was one of the Rocks Pirates instead.

However, Gloriosa’s presence here would actually explain a lot of things, as it is quite likely that both Gloriosa and Shakky operated together as members of the Rocks Pirates. In an SBS Oda heavily teased readers about the fact that Shakky was an ex-member of the Rocks Pirates. However, as she told us in the story, she quit piracy 42 years ago to open up a bar at the Sabaody Archipelago, which she continues to this day. This explains her absence from the God Valley Incident, but Gloriosa likely continued on the crew for a few years more after the two operated together for some time. This further lines up with how it was mentioned that Shakky and Gloriosa worked together to help the Boa sisters return home after they escaped from Mary Geoise, still keeping in contact after all these years as not just former empresses, but also fellow crewmates.

We also should give a shoutout to Kurozumi Higurashi, as she was confirmed to have been involved with the Rocks during Kaido’s flashback, something that was also supported by the fact that she had the face of a young Shiki in her Mane Mane no Mi repertoire, but she isn’t present here, meaning that either she left the crew already or just isn’t present for some other reason.

Finally, adjacent to Gloriosa is Captain John, the famous pirate who left a legendary treasure behind but eventually died of mutiny when his crew killed him for not revealing the location of his treasure to anyone. His corpse was then later pillaged by Moria, who revived it as one of his General Zombies.

And he wasn’t the only one! There was a lot of speculation for a while that some of the other zombies from Thriller Bark were other members of the Rocks Pirates, and the guess appears to be perfectly correct, as we can actually see some of them matching here, such as the pirate with the large helmet and beard being identical to the general zombie that appeared with John at Thriller Bark. A lot of people speculated this to be O-Choku, since the pirate he was inspired by, also known as Wang Zhi in Chinese, similarly had a long beard, but this is impossible as O-Choku had been ruling Hachinosu until Blackbeard defeated him in the Rocky Port Incident during the timeskip. But regarldess, this pirate clearly became a zombie Moria resurrected, and he’s not the only one either!

Above Whitebeard there’s a pirate with three claws for his hand. These match with another one of the general zombies of Thriller Bark who sported similar appearance and weaponry, among others.

All this connection between Thriller Bark and God Valley however sparks a sudden question… what if, potentially, the two islands… are one and the same? What if God Valley vanished from the map because the island literally became a moving island, which was reformed into Thriller Bark, the moving phantom island. And this would match perfectly because Thriller Bark originated in the West Blue… the same ocean God Valley was in. That said, some things don’t fully add up, as Moria was still 12 years old at the time, so it’s hard to say if this is yet another coincidence or if there could be some truth behind this.

To round up the Rocks Pirates, you can actually spot Streusen in the corner, who evidently has been accompanying Big Mom as her right hand man ever since the foundation of the crew. At the time of this incident he would already be a whooping 54 years old, making him one of the oldest members of the crew. Streusen is actually the current oldest human in One Piece at age 92, excluding the bizarre case of Kureha and her perennial youth.

There is another pirate that appears silhouetted however, someone that appears to be sporting a top hat, who we can actually see separately further in the back right beside Kaido. This could be just some other generic pirate like the one with the long beard, but I have an outlandish theory regarding him. Given the top hat, could this potentially be a young Hiriluk? He did mention being an outlaw around 40 years ago, until he found the sakura mountain in the West 37 years ago, one year after this incident, after which he decided to return home to Drum. Could this have been him during that time, finding this mountain in the West after fleeing God Valley and going back home? Well, it could be possible, but there is one weird inconsistency, being the fact that this top-hat character weirdly enough seems to possess four arms, though it’s also possible he is a separate character from the one we see in the panel later.

As a final bonus, the other pirate beneath him looks somewhat similar to Wellington, the washed-up pirate captain from North Blue that Doflamingo ended up killing during his flashback, but this could just be a coincidence since his appearance is rather generic.

However, on the other hand we have the Roger Pirates, which include Gol D. Roger at age 39, Silvers Rayleigh at age 40, Scopper Gaban, Millet Pine, Spencer, Yui, and Sunbell. Roger himself looks like a splitting image of Ace, and also appears to be wearing the famous straw hat still. He mentions how it’s been one year, which could be in reference to how a year prior, Roger had made it to Lode Star, the final island of the Grand Line route, and had now continued his journey to locate the poneglyphs and find the real final island.

Yet another third party joins the fray however, as Garp’s reinforcements hit the scene, with a 40-year-old Garp emitting haki lightning from his fist in a battle that will crown him as Hero of the Marines. Alongside his side however is the ever-loyal Bogard, who looks quite great despite his age as this flashback indicates he must be at least around 60 years old in the present.

Kuma and Ginney

In one of the most tragic and emotional One Piece deaths however, the God Valley flashback is off-screened, as we skip ahead to Kuma’s return to a normal life in the Sorbet Kingdom. Ivankov makes a quick mention of Morgans, who was already active at the World Economic Newspaper, at quite a young age too since he would’ve been 15 back then.

And as a cool detail, when Ivankov bids goodbye to Kuma and Jinney, Kuma mentions that he’ll never forget a face like Ivankov’s. Which makes it all the more painful when in Marineford Kuma has had all his memories erased and Ivankov begins crying at the fact that Kuma has forgotten his face and now treats him like an enemy.

We get to find out that Kuma’s family seemingly lived at a church, which finally explains to us why Kuma always carried a bible with him, as he appeared to be a man of religion, though I wonder if his adoration for the Sun God was the focus of this religion or something complimentary to it. However, Kuma’s vision of religion seems to be more focused on a pious path of kindness and selflessness, as we see even him healing the wounds of other kids later on like some sort of miraculous prophet.

As we expected, Ginney stays behind with Kuma to eventually become Bonney’s mother, and the two begin a new humble life in the Sorbet Kingdom. Jinney usually speaks with the pronoun “uchi”, which is common to the kansai region of Japan, giving her a very friendly speech pattern, and she refers to Kuma with the adorable nickname of “Kumachi”. Kuma refers to her as a “big eater”, which is an allusion to Bonney’s epithet, with their hunger seemingly running in the family.

Together, the two (and by two I mean mostly Kuma) work hard gathering wood just as we saw in the drawing of a kid Kuma, which as I mentioned last video, is a reference to a Japanese symbol of rising the ranks through hard work. This will result in Kuma becoming King and getting to raise Bonney in the Sorbet Kingdom, before he would be driven out as a tyrant. Speaking of Bonney though, interestingly we see two kids who decide to follow Kuma in this chapter, and these are fairly relevant as they’ll eventually become members of Bonney’s crew, taking care of Kuma’s daughter once she set sail as a pirate to the ocean.

Joyboy’s Race

Before we wrap up though, I want to bring up a detail regarding Kuma that arose during his confrontation with Saturn. As the Gorosei told Kuma that he was always meant to be born a slave, a concept that Kuma simply can’t get behind being born right or wrong, something fascinating is mentioned, as Kuma tells him that just like Nika, he wants to become someone who can save people. And Saturn replies “…that is exactly why your people must be erased”.

What this sentence seems to be implying is potentially the idea that the original Joyboy user of the Void Century may in fact have been a Buccaneer. That is the crime that their people brought to the world, bearing the user of the Nika fruit which resulted in the first Joyboy turned reality, which the World Government would then condemn his entire race in order to avoid any other Joyboy from arising ever again. This would make a lot of sense, as it would explain the mysterious hat found at Mary Geoise. A lot of fans have often mistaken that hat for the hat of a giant, but that is sort of impossible as One Piece giants are way bigger. Like way, waaaay bigger, the hat would have to be at least three to four times its size to fit an actual 20m+ giant. However, it is still slightly larger than a normal human, but for a buccaneer, it would fit perfectly in their head! This might even explain better the name of the race, as evidently the ancient kingdom was closely tied with the concept of pirates, if not mostly composed by pirates, so it makes sense that the original Joyboy was part of a race literally named after real pirates.

Saturn witnessing Kuma mentioning wanting to be like Nika likely rose his suspicions again, but ultimately the Government is missing the fact that becoming Joyboy by being chosen by the fruit isn’t really something race-dependent, which is why even a human like Luffy can now become Joyboy. Becoming Joyboy is not a matter of blood or birthright, a notion that Saturn clearly falls victim of because he believes all to be born right or wrong, with Kuma being born to be a slave and him being born to be great. But living up to the name of the character of “Joyboy” is simply a matter of wishing to deliver liberation, to inherit the ancient will of freedom, and to be able to make such massive dreams a reality!