Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTC4rJukiLg

Covers

On the covers, Yamato proceeds from the region of Kibi to the region of Kuri, where several mysteries are adding up. For starters, a woman gets assaulted by a dark figure, which runs away and escapes in the foliage. Interestingly this silhouette seems to be slender, like what could be a female, and what seem to be socks are visible on their footwear. At the same time, we see that the people of Wano are trying to rebuild Oden Castle at the top of Bakura Town in Kuri, after it was destroyed by Kaidou’s Bolo Breath at the start of the arc. As traditional of Japanese architecture, most of the building is being constructed with wood. On the carpenter on the right you can also spot the kanji for “carpenter” on his vest. However, their master carpenter, Minatomo, is missing. If you remember, Minatomo was first seen at the start of the arc training Franky, who was trying to get the blueprints to Kaidou’s Castle in Onigashima, since Minatomo was the one who designed the fortress for Kaidou.

Minatomo is in turn a reference to an older joke One Piece character that was introduced all the way back in East Blue. Oda explained that the reason why the door of Makino’s bar magically repaired itself after Higuma broke it in Chapter 1 is because a carpenter also named Minatomo was passing by and felt the urge to fix it. Oda even later justified this in-lore by explaining that the two Minatomo are related and part of the same family, but one of them is native to Wano while the other is part of the people that left the country and headed for Shimotsuki Village, including Zoro’s grandma Furiko and Kuina’s grandpa Kouzaburou. However Minatomo and some others continued on throughout the East Blue, making him end up at Foosha Village by Chapter 1.

Eitherway it is likely that these two incidents are likely related, so I wonder how the woman getting assaulted ties into the missing carpenter.

On the first page, we are told about the Seraphim being charged and then transported to a ship. This gives an insight to the fact that they seemingly need to be charged with electricity every once in a while, depending more on energy rather than feeding, making them more like robots than humans. It is likely that when the Pacifista were seen in their pods, they were similarly being charged.

One of the Cipher Pol agents questions Lucci about Stussy, and on the back of his jacket you can see the writing “CP”, standing for “Cipher Pol”. Lucci claims that they have killed Stussy, but I think it’s honestly more likely that she did get away and Lucci is just trying to cover up. I do wonder though if Lucci is unaware that Kaku let Stussy get away and assumed she just escaped, or if he is actually willing to cover up for her here as well. If anything, I think it’s likely that Kaku told Lucci that Stussy died of her wounds that he inflicted on her, and Lucci believed him.

Saturn and Emet

We then cut to Saturn, who is reflecting on the blunders that happened to Egghead. The Admirals insist to pursue the Straw Hats to Elbaf, but Saturn knows how fruitless that is, as Elbaf is essentially a natural fortress for the giants. With that said, they have been able to secure York and thus the production of the Mother Flame, which by the way here is again written with the kanji for “undying fire”, but at the same time, thanks to the robot the transmission continued and the Straw Hats were able to get away. However, we get a really fascinating reveal, where we are told that the one who preserved the iron giant this whole time was actually… Saturn himself!

We were told by Vegapunk that after researchers 200 years ago investigated the iron giant after its attack at Mary Geoise, they were ordered to dispose of it. However, they hid it away at Egghead, which back then was still just a research laboratory for the Marines Scientific Division, where it slumbered until Vegapunk took control. With that said, something always confused me, and it’s how the researchers were able to so easily hide the robot from the Government, but we now know why: it’s because they were colluding with Saturn, who told them to secretly study the robot. This might be due to his nature as a scientist, and his desire to investigate, hoping to one day turn the robot into military power for the Government, as we do in fact see in the present how the Government is trying to re-engineer the technology of the Void Century after it had vanished for their personal uses.

However, this hubris by Saturn would eventually result in their downfall, as the robot being kept intact would allow Vegapunk to send his transmission, and also let the Straw Hats get away by sending its haki blast. So Saturn is responsible for a lot of the blunders on Egghead, not to mention his failures such as being unable to kill Luffy, falling for Vegapunk’s trap, giving Bonney her fruit, failing to dispose of Kuma, so on and so forth. So it is likely this set of failures, particularly aggravated by Saturn allowing the iron giant to run amuck, that resulted in his demotion later on, but we’ll get to that soon enough.

Of course there is also another massive elephant in the room, being the fact that Saturn was alive 200 years ago. We already knew that he was seemingly perennially youthful when he looked identical in God Valley 38 years ago, but this only proves it further. However, this as well is something we’ll get to later.

Doberman then asks Saturn about if Vegapunk’s message being allowed to transmit being a blunder means that he was in fact speaking the truth, but he steps out of line and Saturn hits him with his Gyuuki power to injure him at a distance, causing him to fly back and crash through the door of the ship. That said, this being One Piece, we don’t know if Doberman is really dead, especially with other Marines calling in the medical team, so it’s possible Saturn is willing to spare him but just wanted to punish him. Doberman is actually a character with quite a bit of history, as he originally appeared during the original Buster Call on Enies Lobby, fought at Marineford, and also got some spotlight in Film Z, having been one of Zephyr’s pupils and growing emotional and crying at the death of his master, so I wonder if we will keep seeing him after this.

Sky Island Punk Records

Meanwhile, up at the Labophase, the whole island suddenly begins to rise, being enveloped by island clouds that cause it to elevate further into the sky. York realizes this is the work of Edison, who is still barely clinging on to life in the Fabriophase, having manipulated the island clouds to help the Straw Hats escape, and thus using this to make the Labophase escape into the air by turning it into a mobile sky island. York however notices, and so breaks the connection point between the lower half and top half of the eggshell, causing only the top half to get swallowed up by the clouds. Thus, Vegapunk’s laboratory remains close to Egghead, and with it the Power Plant that York needs. However, the top half of the eggshell, inside which is Punk Records, the massive brain if you remember, went up into the sky, getting away. And with it, any mechanisms and tech that were included in the Punk Records room, though this seems to appear limited as most of the lab was under the shell.

As the new island that is Punk Records flies away, we hear the Punks talking within Punk Records itself. We can also see in this panel that the sky looks dark, which could be for effect but I wonder if it’s trying to represent them being close to the edge of the atmosphere. Regardless, this is likely what Lilith meant last chapter, that the other Punks are still there, and despite having physically died, they are still around. This is because as we see in this chapter, their bodies are purely mechanic, simply being made by several parts being strung together and being controlled remotely from Punk Records, like a remotely controlled robot. It was alluded that this was the case with Atlas, but it is evident now that this is the case with all the other punks as well, even someone like York who was showing so much skin, as we see here that said skin is entirely synthetic. This makes it extra amusing that Vegapunk essentially designed all of the Satellites to look however he wanted, which also includes seemingly enjoying inhabiting the bodies of cute anime girls.

In this panel of the gallery that Edison walks through we can in fact spot York’s bodies on the left, with her heads right next to her feet. Then above her are hers and seemingly Lilith’s arms, above which are a bunch of Lilith heads. On the other side instead we have a bunch of Edison heads, accompanied by a unique robot head closer to Pythagoras’s, and some Atlas faces, followed by Shaka helmets next to them. Edison tries to rebuild himself but is lacking Edison parts aside from the head, so he gets a Shaka torso, mixed with a Pythagoras backpack, a Pythagoras right arm, and a York left arm, which is really massive due to her increased size.

So essentially all the Punks live and exist within the brain itself. It’s not that the brain was chopped and put into each of their bodies, but rather that it was kept alive within the tank and each of its parts split into its different aspects, which each control a remotely controlled robot. However, there is an exception to this, being the main unit Stella, which was still Vegapunk’s original human body. And so now that it is dead, it may be possible that he is the only one who cannot come back to life, as we don’t see him present here within Punk Records. Meaning that we still have lost a Vegapunk, but part of him in form of his aspects still lives on.

Edison mentions that since they don’t have the funds or ability to further their research, they should ask an old friend for help. This turns out to be Haredas, the researcher on Weatheria that used ancient technology to study the weather and helped Nami during the timeskip. It would make sense that the two knew each other, being fellow researchers, and Haredas may have even helped Vegapunk develop the island clouds further.

Dragon and Bridges

Cutting at the Kamabakka Kingdom, now nighttime, Koala, who is surrounded by the other deputy commanders, Ushiano, Ahiru, Jiron, and Gambo, gives us a brief summary of Vegapunk’s speech:

• 1: A great war happened during the Void Century, in which Joyboy was the first pirate and awakened the Nika fruit
• 2: Three ancient weapons were made during that period, which Joyboy wanted to pass to the present
• 3: The world sank by 200 meters
• 4: Whoever becomes Pirate King and attains the One Piece will likely also get their hands on the power of the ancient weapons

The Revolutionaries mark the danger of the world sinking, as just like Dragon comments, looking East while doing nothing as he always does, it is likely to lead people to wrestle for the only places safe left to live, which would be atop the Red Line, where the Celestial Dragons dwell safely. However, we are also told of the colossal bridge that was erected in East Blue, Tequila Wolf, and we finally get a reason for its existence. But what is even more crazy is the fact that it’s not the only bridge. In fact, there are four of them, being Tequila Wolf, Vodka Wolf, Rum Wolf, and Bourbon Wolf. All of them follow a clear pattern, as they are named after drinks. This would explain why Oden saw the bridge in the Grand Line, as it could’ve been a separate bridge from Tequila Wolf in the East Blue. However, in the anime it was listed as “Tequila Wolf” during Oden’s flashback, so we don’t know if that was indeed part of Tequila Wolf that crossed into the Grand Line, or if the anime simply assumed and made a mistake.

At the very least though, I would assume that the four bridges are likely located in each of the four blues. And Ivankov speculates what may be the reason behind their creation: to have a way to easily traverse the world even after a greater flood, by being raised far above the sea level. It could be possible that they all lead towards Mary Geoise, sort of how like all roads lead to Rome, extending into each of the four Blues, though I gotta question if they’re really meant to go anywhere in particular.

New Gorosei Garling

In a shocking turn of events however, Saint Figarland Garling walks upon the Gorosei and reveals that he is now one of the Five Elder Planets, having been ordered to take the position of Wargod of Scientific Defense in place of Saturn. He even has changed to a suit and refers to the other Elders as “fellow Planets”. Of course this means that Saturn is demoted, and in Imu’s terms that means death. This change of positions is not only fitting, as Saturn has gotten so much screentime over Egghead that his tenure in the story is fittingly over, but it can also give a lot of spotlight to Garling. Interestingly, Garling does not represent any of the Five Elder Planets obviously, but he instead represents the Moon, accounting for this final missing astral object in this cosmic scheme. As a reminder, Fegar is a Greek word that can mean “Moon”.

That said, this makes me wonder what will happen with the plotline of Catarina Devon having stolen Saturn’s appearance. With Saturn now dead, will it make it easier for her to deceive whoever she wants to deceive that she’s the real Saturn? But how will that work exactly?

Change in Management

Regardless, there’s more that we can extrapolate from Saturn’s death here. As we see, Saturn begins to choke, falling to his knees. Then his skin begins to look wrinkly as he turns into a corpse, like that of a mummy, and after a dark silhouette with an extended mouth, similar to the silhouettes we saw of the Gorosei back during Chapter 1085. And finally Saturn turns into an actual skeleton, falling apart as nothing keeps it together.

The way this works makes me wonder if Imu actually removed the perennial youth from Saturn. After all, as we mentioned early, we know that Saturn has been alive for at least 200 years, meaning that just like Imu, he is perennially youthful. But in this case, it looks as if Saturn lost his youth all of a sudden, causing him to rapidly age, gaining wrinkles and then turning into a mummy, only for his flesh to evaporate and turn into nothing more than a skeleton. It’s kinda similar to the near death experience that Bonney used against Marines, turning them into skeletons by aging them up real quick.

So this not only seems to further confirm the fact that Imu gave the Elders perennial youth, but the fact that Saturn is replaced with Garling seems to finally answer once and for all how the Five Elder Planets came to be. For many years, the fandom has debated wether the Gorosei are immortal beings who have been alive from the Void Century, or simply chosen Celestial Dragons who are promoted to the position every few years. However it turns out that the answer is a little bit of both!

The Elders are in fact beings from ancient times who are blessed with perennial youth. However, they can be demoted, and they can be replaced. We know that Garling is not perennially youthful, as he was quite young in God Valley, but it is likely that now that he rises to the position of Elder, he may be granted the ability to be perennially youthful and regenerate as well. Furthermore, unless he already has a devil fruit, I would imagine that Imu would also bless him with a devil ability that would allow him to transform into a mythical demonic creature, which gets the speculating gears going again to make us wonder what kind of monster he will turn into.

However, this gives us a better insight into how Imu confers these powers. A big deal in this chapter is that we see Imu telepathically talking to Saturn, blaming him for letting Joyboy get away. This confirms definitively that the Elders are not just connected telepathically to each other, but are also connected to Imu directly. This further reinforces the idea as we’ve mentioned that all of their special powers, from their devil powers, the ability to summon each other, their regeneration, and their perennial youth, are all connected. However, with Garling joining the Gorosei, it would seem that Imu has the ability to confer this powers to others, which makes one wonder, who were the Gorosei PRIOR to becoming Elders?

Well, the answer is simple, they were Celestial Dragons just like Garling, the most esteemed and high ranked among them, and those Imu deemed most fitting for their positions. So it’s not that the Gorosei are devils created by Imu, but they are Celestial Dragons selected by Imu and conferred the powers that turn them into devils. This again explains why some of them have scars, having attained them in ancient battles. While now they can’t be scarred anymore, their old scars and their older age remains, so someone like Garling will likely not age again. In this case though, it makes one wonder how far ago they go. How old are each of them actually? Are all of the original five all the way from back in the Void Century, especially with how Saturn recognized Nika, and only now is Imu changing plans, or have some Gorosei changed across the years for their failures?

Regardless of the truth, one thing is evident at this point. The Gorosei are mere puppets to Imu. They are humans who have made a pact with the Devil himself, serving only as pawns for the Devil who sits upon the throne at the top of the world.