Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTLe8GYlql0

Giant Warrior Pirates

So this time we get to witness the arrival of the Giant Warrior Pirates, the legendary pirate crew from Elbaf, arriving in their iconic ship, the “Great Eirik”, a viking drakkar. As you might recall, Dorry and Brogy, had been dueling in Little Garden for over 102 years, but just recently decided to end their feud to return to Elbaf. This is very recent, since as of the start of the post-timeskip they were still dueling on Little Garden during a cover story, but as Nami mentions, she believes Oimo and Kashi, the former Enies Lobby guardkeepers, must have gone to Little Garden to get Dorry and Brogy back together, likely telling them abut the Straw Hats again, with them now going after Luffy who they see as the Sun God. Oimo and Kashi already tried to go after them 52 years ago, but were tricked into becoming Enies Lobby gatekeepers for half a century, until Usopp helped free them.

The Sun God was already alluded during Big Mom’s flashback, where it was mentioned the Giants pray to the Sun God, and the Winter Solstice fast that caused Big Mom’s first hunger pang was made to honor the resurrection of the sun, or in other words the Dawn of the World. Some of the giants can even be seen bearing the ancient kingdom’s mark of the sun as a tattoo in this chapter. And they’ve already made the connection that Luffy is Nika, though I wonder if Shanks was the one who told them. Given how Elbaf is fairly close to Egghead, being one of the three islands leading from Wano, it makes sense that they were able to reach it fairly fast in just in just a day.

Dorry and Brogy are both 160 years old, since giants live over triple the amount of length than a normal human, so think of them like being in their 40s-50s in human years. They are 22 and 21 meters tall respectively, and are known as the “Blue Oni” and the “Red Oni”, a reference to the two types of oni in Japanese culture. It’s also believed that some of the designs for some of the Giant Warrior Pirates could be derived from Vicky the Viking, a cartoon that Oda cited as a major influence for One Piece in his childhood, as certain characters from it bear a striking resemblance to some of the viking giants.

Meanwhile the Pacifista keep blasting the Marine ships, having taken down almost a third of the entire Buster Call, so one of the Vice-Admirals asks to fire back. This Vice-Admiral, who is seemingly a cyborg with a steam-powered arm, is given a name, being Vice-Admiral Red King. His name is a reference to Red King, the beast from Ultraman that similarly has a very long layered neck.

Luffy’s Friends

Cutting back to Luffy, we see Bonney witnessing Luffy transformed as Nika for the first time. By the way, last week when Luffy was being detained and transformed, if you look to the next panel, you can actually spot the Marines that were trying to capture him being shot into the sky Team Rocket style.

Also something that I wanted to mention, this is a really subtle and grammatically complicated detail, but ever since Wano, Luffy has been using a different term to refer to “friends”. Originally, he used the word “tomodachi”, which is the Japanese word for “friends”, but ever since Wano he instead has started using the abbreviation “dachi”, something he has used for Momo, Tama, and Bonney here too. Interestingly enough, it’s also the same abbreviation that Bon-chan always used. It’s not exactly sure why Luffy uses this abbreviation now, as even Japanese fans wonder what the emotional intent behind it is, but I thought I’d at least bring it up.

Kizaru and Sanji

Kizaru attempts to finish Vegapunk and kill Bonney with him, but is then stopped by Sanji. He is clearly very conflicted in this as can be seen in his expressions, but this isn’t just limited to his facial range. In general, Kizaru’s speech pattern has completely changed for the first time in the entire series. Borsalino usually speaks in a very casual manner, lengthening his sentences and adding particles that indicate ambiguity and amicability, in a way that you can never really tell what he’s really thinking inside, like he’s just trying to be polite, likely the main reason why he wears sunglasses as well to conceal his emotions. But in this case, he is being curt, quick to the point, and direct, in a way that we’ve never heard of him speak like before. For the first time in the entire series, something we’ve waited years to see, we’re finally seeing Kizaru snap. However, after Franky and Atlas run away with Bonney and Kuma, Kizaru begins to sound a little more relieved again. You could infer that perhaps he might be feeling some relief at having failed his mission and that some of his friends might live, but I’m extrapolating here.

However, Sanji is able to deflect the laser beam, just like he had been able to block one in the past chapter as well. Sanji chalks it up to the power of love, but this likely has more to do with his genetic augmentations, as his eyebrows have once again shifted from his normal pattern to that of a 6, obviously standing for Germa 66, just like his siblings, something that Oda confirmed in an SBS as well. So it seems that Judge was able to apply to his children, and in a small part to Sanji as well, the ability to interact with light.

Blackbeard Pirates Master Plan

Meanwhile, Saturn, who has been blasted away, is confronted by the Blackbeard Pirates, who finally after that small tease almost an entire year ago, are finally making their move. We mentioned before how all the other Blackbeard Pirates aside from Catarina Devon and Lafitte should currently be busy on other islands, as Teach, Burgess, Van Augur, and Doc Q were fighting Law on Winner Island, while Kuzan, Shiryu, Pizarro, Vasco Shot, and Sanjuan Wolf were fighting Garp at Hachinosu. However, it has been a whole day and both islands are not that far from Egghead, with Hachinosu being barely a day away given how Garp was able to go from the nearby G-14 to Hachinosu within the same day, and with Augur having the powers of the Warp Warp Fruit, it’s not surprising he was able to get all the way here. It just makes me wonder just how far Augur is able to warp and if he warped all the away from Winner to Egghead, or did part of the trip on ship.

However, it seems that the plan of the Blackbeard Pirates here was to let Catarina Devon touch and copy the appearance of Saturn. Her fruit is the Inu Inu no Mi, Mythical Model: Kyuubi no Kitsune, which refers to the Nine-Tailed Fox, the mythical creature of Japanese mythology that is able to take the appearance of humans. This fruit seems to be fairly similar to the Mane Mane no Mi, the Mimic Mimic Fruit Bon-chan has, but it appears to have the advantage to copy not just the biological appearance, but also the clothes of the person it’s mimicking, being able to transform into Absalom’s physical clothing as well, making it more effective. What it really has me wondering is if it can also mimic the devil fruit powers of those it touches, such as being able to transform like Saturn here does. I would assume not, since that would be incredibly broken without restrictions, but her mentioning “I wonder what type of devil fruit ability it is you have” does make me wonder if it somehow could be possible.

This also brings into question though what was the purpose of copying a Gorosei. There’s the potential to perhaps gain access to certain places or deceive others, but more than anything I think that Teach may want this ability for the sake of being able to control the Pacifista. Likely following his encounter with the Seraphim at Amazon Lily on Nyogashima, he may have found out about the authority hierarchy and wanted a way to take control of it. So if Teach could seize the Seraphim in some way, then this could completely turn around the power of the Seraphim, instead essentially giving Blackbeard his own personal army of Warlords.

Saturn wonders why such a dangerous criminal like Devon would decide to follow someone like Teach, but she mentions that Teach is “special”, and Saturn affirms that this must in part be because of his “bloodline”. The word here is “chisuji” (血筋), which literally means “bloodline”, though you could translate it as “lineage” as well. Generally this refers to the idea of being a descendant of someone or group of people, but it makes me wonder if he could be referring to the lineage of people, in this case the D. clan that formed the ancient kingdom which Teach is a part of, or his actual bloodline in the sense of being part of a special race or something.

After all we were told that Teach’s body is abnormal, which is why he is able to host a second devil fruit within him. And, think about it, we’ve recently been told about how Buccaneers are large creatures with the power to allow their memories and will to live on even beyond death, so is there a possibility that Teach could be a Buccaneer and that is why he is able to somehow bear a second will of a second devil fruit within him? Or is it perhaps something else entirely? It’s still hard to say.

Devon is surprised that Saturn was aware that Teach’s bloodline makes him special, which makes me wonder even further, because I think it’s fairly obvious the Gorosei would know more about the D. Clan, but I’m sure a lot of people may also wonder if said info came from Shanks’s warnings to the Gorosei about a “certain pirate”. It’s all mentioned so vaguely that it’s still hard to say for sure.

And finally, Saturn asks the Blackbeard Pirates “What is it that you’re after?”. And they simply reply… “sekai”, “the world”. Their objective goes beyond being Pirate King or finding the One Piece, it is to attain the entire world, something that is reminiscent of what Rocks D. Xebec, a figure that is very deeply connected with Blackbeard in some way or another, also desired, wishing to become “King of the World”, a position that is instead now currently being held by Nerona Imu, who has been directly called the “King of the World” by Sabo and Cobra.

It is evident that the Blackbeard Pirates are trying to scheme a plan of cataclysmic proportions, one that the Government may very well be underestimating. Having mimicked Saturn, they could now have control over all the Seraphim and Pacifista, having a private Shichibukai army at their behest, and there’s also the fact that Blackbeard is aiming to make Hachinosu a World Government country that can attend the Reverie. Much like in the past, it would make sense if this would be for the sake of infiltrating Mary Geoise and attaining something from there, but I feel that there should be simpler ways to do that, so I wonder what the true purpose of that move is.

And unfortunately, the Blackbeard Pirates gain even more of an advantage in their great plan as they get stopped by Caribou, who is revealed to have been a massive fan of Blackbeard all this time, essentially the Bartolomeo to Teach that set out to sea inspired by him, which makes sense since Bartolomeo and Caribou became supernovas at around a year of distance, and even have almost the exact same bounty.

Caribou’s gone on a long journey in this series, having originally become a Supernova, then getting captured at Fishman Island, capturing mermaids and Shirahoshi, only to get busted by the Straw Hats and Jinbe dropping him with the Marines at G-5 during a cover story to be executed. He was however saved by his brother, who he ended up backstabbing to run away and got stranded on an island of Kaidou’s territory, controlled by “Ironboy” Scotch who enslaved the locals to produce weapons that he would then have Kaidou sell in the Underworld thanks to Joker, or Doflamingo. Caribou however posed as the local revolutionary Gaburu, obviously inspired by Che Guevara, and led an uprising that put an end to Scotch’s rule, liberating the island but getting captured by X Drake in turn. Then he was imprisoned in Udon and helped Luffy during the Raid, being allowed to leave the island but ending up stranded on Egghead, where finally he is given a chance to meet the man of his dreams, Blackbeard.

And this is something we already knew, as Caribou mentioned several times before that he imagined a “certain person” would be very interested in some of the information that he found out. Particularly, when he overheard about the true identity of Poseidon being Princess Shirahoshi, as well as him overhearing that Pluton is found beneath Wano. Meaning that now Caribou is aware of the location of two of the Ancient Weapons. And given how Ivankov believed that the remaining ancient weapon, which should be Uranus, is in the hands of Imu, being powered by the Mother Flame power cells to destroy Lulusia, then Blackbeard now could potentially have access to the two other available ancient weapons, setting the stage for his global conquest and if things should go badly, the very end of the One Piece world. Little by little, the stage is being set for the very final conflict of the series!