Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dU0cTCwidM

Cover Page

On the cover, we get to see the region of Kibi, which is one of the few regions of Wano we’ve barely got to see much of in the original story! Kibi is based on the Chuugoku central region of Japan, and is named after the food of the same name. Unfortunately though, most of Kibi has been turned into a wasteland, and factories still loom in the background as a reminder of its darker days. Yamato, who is crossing through Kibi, is getting harassed by children who held a grudge against Kaidou, so it’s going to be interesting to see how Yamato is able to turn that around.

Luffy and Bonney’s Gear 5th

In the first page, Stussy, who has decided to free Kaku, is now being told by him to leave before Lucci arrives. As they are currently in the control room, we can spot wreckage of things like the command center which were originally seen since the start of the arc, but more interestingly, behind Kaku’s bubble, you can actually spot a bunch of plates, scattered food, and even Zoro’s bottle of alcohol scattered on the ground, as they are the remainders of all the food the Straw Hats consumed before leaving the control room.

As Luffy transforms into Gear 5th, he exclaims “tanoshiiku natte kita!!”. This has basically become a trademark line for him in Gear 5th, as he’s already mentioned it several times whenever he transforms, translating essentially to “Now it’s getting fun!!” or “Here comes the fun!!”. Luffy then defends against Mars by transforming into a balloon, much like his Gomu Gomu no Fuusen (or balloon) move, but in this case he applies it more similarly to Gear 4th tankman.

This is a good opportunity to bring up the fact that it’s been suggested Gear 4th was seemingly an already awakened form of Luffy’s fruit, though not awakened at its full potential. For starters, it had the cloud scarf that is iconic to awakened Zoan users, but it also transforms Luffy’s body just like a Zoan awakening does. Even Kaidou remarked that the way that Luffy used Python during Gear 4th was unlike how his fruit otherwise worked, as it went beyond the properties of rubber by extending itself infinitely. Instead something like python better matches Gear 5th, where Luffy’s body is instead able to stretch with a lot more freedom. It seems like Gear 4th was only a partial stage of awakening, as Luffy hadn’t quite reached his full Nika transformation where he becomes much more cartoonish and much freer, but at the very least seeing him use a move like Tankman this chapter once again suggests that Gear 4th and Gear 5th are more intrinsically connected than people thought.

Sanji, Franky, and Bonney all fight together towards pushing Mars back through Luffy. In this case Sanji enters Ifrit Jambe again, for which I’d like to comment about its etymology. The original Diable Jambe, which translates to “Devil’s Leg”, uses a kanji reading that reads as “Devil Style Leg”. This is referring to a specific type of cooking known as “Devil Style”. In the case of Ifrit Jambe however, the kanji is changed for “Djinn Style Leg”, which in this case is replacing the devil with djinn, as Ifrit is a djinn, or a devil from Islamic myth. Franky also uses a new attack, being an improved version of his iconic “Strong Right” which he calls “Strong Impact Right”. The kanji reading reads as “shogeki”, the Japanese word for “impact”, but it’s important as it shares the same kanji reading as the impact dial from Skypiea, meaning that Franky may be trying to replicate its effect.

Speaking of Bonney’s attack as well, she calls her version of Gear 3rd “Extra Large Nika Punch”, being a pun in Japanese on extra large servings for meals, given her obsession with food. In this case we can also see she is charging it with armament haki, confirming her as an armament haki user, which is incredibly impressive considering she’s only 12 years old.

Luffy claims that “you guys are using haki”, but I wonder if he’s just generalizing or if that includes Franky as well, even if he technically should to be causing Luffy any impact and not be bouncing back. Luffy then propels Mars back with an attack called “Dawn Balloon”, with the kanji reading being “White Fuusen”, or the Japanese word for balloon he used for his basic version of this attack. Mars is sent flying into the sky and literally becomes a twinkle in it, as if he was Team Rocket getting blasted off just like in a cartoon.

As they prepare to escape, Atlas states that she must go and do something given how York is still syncing with their brains, but while she doesn’t specify what exactly, this might simply be to check that the others are alright, flying towards the Labophase in her jetpack to see how the situation is like. Still, this doesn’t bode well, as it seems to indicate that only one Punk may survive in the end, and at this rate that may just be Lilith left.

Vegapunk’s Message Continued

However, surprise! As the iron giant reaches the sea floor and stabilizes itself, the transmission den den mushi begins communicating again! With it we get a few more reactions across the world. First is Whole Cake Island, in the middle of Sweet City, with the Whole Cake Chateau partially visible in the background. The screen itself is also made of candy canes. We see several Charlottes reacting, including Charlotte Katakuri, but also 32nd son Charlotte Brownie, 16th son and Minister of Gelato Charlotte Moscato, 31st son and Minister of Tasting Charlotte Mobile, 28th son and Minister of Seeds Charlotte Kato, 11th son and Minister of Alcohol Charlotte Zuccotto, and 9th daughter and Minister of Meringue Charlotte Broyé, who actually happens to be Brûlée’s younger twin, who unlike her clearly got the better looks, making for quite the interesting dichotomy of witch and princess. Speaking of Katakuri, an important thing to keep in mind about him is that now that Big Mom is seemingly dead, he is the heir to the throne of Totto Land. There was a chapter during Wano where the Charlottes argued if either Katakuri should rule due to his respect in the family, or if Perospero should rule due to being the first son. But since Perospero should be dead as well, the throne falls directly onto Katakuri. Which makes sense, as Totto Land still needs a ruler, and perhaps under Katakuri’s own command, the nation could see an even more prosperous future.

Beyond them we also get to see Gaimon and Sarfunkel on Rare Animal Island, alongside their animal friends cocox and usagihebi, though they don’t seem to be aware of the call, as they likely wouldn’t have a den den mushi. This is likely intended, as in the same panel Vegapunk exclaims “I pray that, at any costs, this message can be delivered”, which in this case it isn’t being delivered to them, even if they likely aren’t the target audience.

As Vegapunk’s message continues, here is where he picks off:

“…because there is no such thing. You could call it a will that has been continuously inherited. I pray that, at any costs, this message can be delivered to they who have been led around by that very reason.”

Obviously this message is quite vague, as we do not quite possess the context of what he said beforehand. We don’t know what he meant that there is no such thing, as it seems something separate from what he says later. However, he refers to inherited will, and that he hopes that whoever has been led by that reason, seemingly that of inherited will, will be able to listen to this message. This seems to further reinforce what we talked about last week that Vegapunk’s message seemed to refer to there being “another Joyboy”, or something like that. Particularly as he appeared to refer to there being another someone in the D. clan and this seemingly referring to a new Joyboy having appeared, which in this case has been the result of being led by this inherited will, which would line up with Vegapunk’s message here.

Warcury and the Iron Giant

However, as our heroes attempt to escape, Juu Peter throws a bunch of buildings and Cipher Pol members down like a fountain, continuing off from where we saw him previously sucking them up. This also means that the Seraphim might drop in the proximity of the Straw Hats, once again causing potential trouble if they are freed. Suddenly though, Warcury jumps towards the ship and leaps into the ocean. You may not realize it, but this is in itself a massive plot twist, because here we have what is supposedly a devil fruit user willingly jumping into the water. I obviously don’t think Warcury is just tossing his life away just to be able to hit them, so why is he willing to jump into the water just to stop them? Admittedly the Gorosei seem to regenerate endlessly, but can they survive drowning in this case, devil fruit or not? The thing is, we have to keep in mind that the Gorosei are not traditional devil fruit users… in fact they don’t seem to be fruit users at all, but devils of their own entirely, and we already know they kinda break the rules of devil fruits in several ways. So what if, the Gorosei can even somehow… survive and move in water?

After all, it’s been implied in so many ways that Imu may be the incarnation of the Sea itself, the Mother of Nature Umi, and it’s also been implied that the Gorosei could be extensions of Imu’s powers. So if Imu is perhaps immune to water itself as part of his powers, then maybe the Gorosei are similarly also immune to drowning and are able to survive. We can’t say for sure, maybe Warcury is capable of using geppo just like Nasujuro and would just hop back to land, or there is some other reasoning, but it just seems too otherwise reckless for Warcury to be willing to jump into the sea and it seems too clear of a hint by Oda to not mean anything. And if they really cannot be drowned, then truly the possibilities for killing them for good really do seem just about impossible.

However, before Warcury is able to smash the ship, from beneath appears the iron giant, to deliver a good punch, which actually shatters one of Warcury’s horns, though not like that will matter since it can regenerate. The iron giant likely got up by using the jetpack on its back. Since the Vegaforce was modeled after the iron giant, it makes sense that it too can fly using the jetpack, which is what Shaka assumed it used to scale the Red Line to begin with. We are getting a veritable mecha vs kaiju fight in One Piece, and Luffy is similarly fascinated by it, as the editor’s note comments “romance is back on the road”, referring to how seeing a giant robot fighting is any men’s romance, or more accurately translated any man’s dream.

What is more interesting however, is that the iron giant appears to have an inner dialogue as a memory. It exclaims “Joyboy”. The interesting thing here is that Luffy seems to react to the iron giant. To be fair, he could be simply using his observation haki or future sight, but in this case, I wonder if Luffy could actually hear the giant’s own voice calling out to him through the voice of all things, or if I am reading too much into this. But the iron giant follows this inner dialogue by recalling a memory with… none other than Joyboy!! Being the first time we ever hear the voice of Joyboy, and likely will in the anime some year and a half from now! Joyboy simply tells it “iika Emeto, izatte toki da”.

In the first half, we get an actual name for the iron giant, being “Emeth”! In Japanese it’s pronounced as “Emeto”, but it may be written as Emeth with an h, as that name bears particular importance. This is because in Hebrew myth, the word “Emeth” is the command word that was used to give life to golems, the large animated creatures of mythology, which are quite similar to the iron giant in design and general existence. The word “Emeth” itself refers to the “universal truth”, which makes one wonder about the truths that hide within Joyboy’s story.

But in his second line, Joyboy claims “izatte toki da”, a line the robot repeats, which is a Japanese expression that refers to “the hour of need”, or “the critical moment”. It’s unclear if Joyboy is referring to a moment from the past, or if it was advising the iron giant about a moment in the future it will have to await. But given the context, it would almost seem rather like he was referring about the present, as Emeth seems to be recalling this memory due to the situation that involves it right now. At the very least, Joyboy is making it clear that at some point a critical hour will appear, and at that point, Emeth itself might be needed to do its part and help bring a change in the world to lead it towards its Dawn. And perhaps, who knows, that moment might even be right now.