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

Covers

On the cover, we see that Yamato parts ways with Tama, Komachiyo, Speed, and Raizo, continuing his journey with Ulti and Page One in tow. Behind them you can very briefly see one of the chimneys of the old Prisoner Mine, as well as Udon Castle continuing construction. Ulti and Page One are now clothed more like proper vassals, with Ulti carrying a coat that has Wano’s sun symbol on it, much like that of the ancient kingdom, and is bowing to the others in a sign of acting more like a samurai. Yamato meanwhile carries an amigasa hat, which was gifted by Tama as thanks for being rescued, since her whole talent was weaving amigasa hats just like how she taught Ace. In the description it’s mentioned that this hat is meant for Kawamatsu, who is waiting at Hakumai, meaning that Kawamatsu is most likely the Daimyo of Hakumai, while Kiku is by elimination most likely the Daimyo of Ringo, again, making sense since she was born there.

The next chapter’s cover instead is a color spread, which depicts the Straw Hats working at and frequenting a maid cafe. Many of you likely know, but maid cafes are a type of cafe that became popular in Japan where waitresses dress as maids and serve their clients as if they were the maids from a rich household because… well, some people are into that. The title on the top right reads as “Bottakuri Maid Cafe”, which translates to “Rip-Off Maid Cafe”, in much the same way that Shakky’s Bottakuri Bar in Sabaody translates to Shakky’s Rip-Off Bar. This is also why the tray Bonney is carrying has “Rip-Off” written on it, what some English readers might mistake as “RIP” and thinking it foreshadows her death or whatnot. This explains Usopp and the cat’s reaction, as they are absolutely shocked at the bill they have to pay. Lilith taunts him, while Luffy, Zoro, and Chopper could care less. Knowing her, it wouldn’t be surprising if this was all Nami’s plan. In maid cafes, usually maids will serve omurice, or omelette rice, while writing on it a special message with ketchup, usually an affectionate and cutesy message. Here instead however Nami is writing “my goldmine” as well as the kanji for “gold”, so her intentions are pretty obvious.

Robin vs Sommers

This chapter focuses on Ronja, whom the chapter is named after, and as we’ve mentioned previously, she might be named after Ronja rövardotter, a famous Swedish fantasy book set in viking Scandinavia which famously got adapted into a fairly iconic Japanese anime. As she’s about to be dropped off, all the giants from different places head to save her, including some of the Giant Warrior Pirates heading there, including Ripley trying to save her son, and some giants hopping on a svarr from what looks like from the buildings to be Craftsmen Village.

In this case we get a wider panning shot of this side of the Sunworld, which properly shows us the entirety of Branch Route 8 (樹道８号線), which in this case we see bieng referred to as “juppachi” for short (樹８/ジュッパチ), which literally just means “tree 8”, but you could translate as something like BR8 or “Breight”. It shows how at the source of the branch is the Warrior’s Spring with the Walrus School and the Owl Library, while on the tip of it is the West Village with Aurust Castle. If you zoom in closely you can spot MMAs attacking the West Village as well as attacking the collapsed Great Eirik, while if you look at the top right you can spot the colossal sword indented into the tree, and get a feel for how truly gigantic beyond our understanding it is. If you focus on the branch itself you can spot the part that started burning thanks to Loki’s fire as no vegetation is left, while just left of it you can spot ten little dots which represent the children walking.

Robin comes out to confront Sommers, attacking him with an attack called Cien Fleur Craspedia, adding a new move to her repertoire of Cien Fleur moves which include Delphinium, Wing, Spider Net, and Big Tree, and the first new one since Thriller Bark. Much like Delphinium, or Big Tree, Craspedia is yet another flower, whose name is derived from Greek kraspedon, meaning fringed edges, given its shape. In the flower language its bright yellow colors symbolize joiy and happiness. In this case the reference behind this flower is likely the fact that it has a very long stem, and as such, Robin hits Sommers with a hand that extends incredibly long, almost like a Gomu Gomu no Mi punch, and thus said long arm looks exactly like the long stem of a Craspedia.

Robin then throws herself off the edge alongside Sommers, though this is just part of her plan since as expected, this was just one of her flower clones. Sommers comments that she wanted to put him out of reach from the kids, implying that his thorns only have effect within a certain vicinity. Meanwhile the actual Robin attempts to free Nami and the others, however the Straw Hats are wrapped up in Gunko’s arrows, which can’t be cut with a normal knife, meaning they remain trapped. You’ll notice that Brook has been wrapped in many more arrows, perhaps Gunko feeling vindicative about his betrayal towards her, whilst Nami freaks out about Robin, even letting out a “kyaaa” sound effect. At the same time, Nami is also shown to be incredibly indignated with Sommers for holding children hostages, due to her love for protecting children, and can be later seen also suffering when Ronja is willing to make her biggest sacrifice.

Even in her final moments, Ronja’s optimism shines through, however Jarul decides to set the school and library on fire. Though Ronja will likely be saved and Sommers and Gunko may be soon stopped, the fire is another question, so even if the demands are over, Ange may have already set fire to both and protecting those may prove difficult. Though the fires caused by Loki were already put out, the fires set now by Ange may prove devastating, as not only could they destroy the countless history contained within the library, even including the research that Ohara had on more than one poneglyph detailing contents about the Void Century (though admittedly Vegapuk had already read them so Lilith might still remember), but more than anything risks going out of control and setting the rest of the Adam Tree on fire, risking burning down the entirety of Elbaph as we know it.

Gaban vs Sommers

However, Sommers is stopped by Gaban, who cuts his arm off and slashes Sommers through the chest. As a pretty neat detail, the blood spurts out in between the two top panels, showing a cool effect of how deep the wound goes.

The two clearly have some history, as Sommers clearly recognizes him and even fears him, particularly because his arm doesn’t regenerate. This seems to indicate that Gaban is able to harm Sommers, but why is this? Well, we don’t know for sure, but the simplest answer would be haki. Of course we can spot that Gaban’s axe here is coated in haki and this doesn’t seem to be a devil fruit, but more than anything we have a precedent for this, being Joy Boy’s haki. Joy Boy’s haki blast was so powerful that it completely negated the powers of the Gorosei. Not only did it forcibly transform all of them back to their human forms, but it also undid the powers of the Abyss by sending everyone but Saturn back to Mary Geoise. As such, it’s even possible that instead of the Gorosei receiving their scars prior to attaining their powers that perhaps those scars were inflicted by increidbly powerful haki users in the past, maybe even the likes of Joyboy, to the point not even the powers of Imu’s mark could regenerate them.

We were previously told that incredibly powerful haki can suppress the powers of devil fruits, and so even if the powers conferred by the Abyss might be slightly different than those of traditional devil fruits, they are still devil-conferred powers, and as such are still vulnerable to haki. It does seem however that very strong haki is needed to deal damage to those with the mark, with someone on Gaban’s level being needed to injure Sommers, and in the case of the Gorosei likely needing someone even stronger which is why not even Luffy was able to injure them yet. This could however pave the way for Gaban helping Luffy (and perhaps other Straw Hats) further strengthen his haki, in the same way Rayleigh taught him the basics, to the point where he could finally be strong enough to fight back against these types of opponents and perhaps even Imu.

As Sommers falls to the ground, Gaban exclaims what can be translated as “you’ve grown weak”, which once again shows that the two have a past together. Sommers tries shielding his next attack with a move called “Ibaria”. This is a pun, as ibara is the word for thorns, with him having eaten the Iba Iba no Mi, but here is combined with “barrier”. The kanji reading (荊壁) reads as “thorn wall”. He then follows this up with another attack called “Ibarush”, which once again is a pun between ibara, thorns, and rush, which in Japanese is sometimes used to refer to a rush of fists hitting one after another, so in this case a barrage of thorns. An… uh, “ibarrage” if you will. The kanji reading (荊狩) reads as “thorn hunt”.

However, he combines this with another attack with the combining “and/&”, with a move he calls “Guren Jigoku” (紅蓮地獄), which translates to “Crimson Hell”. If you recall, this move is in fact the same name as Impel Down’s Level 1: Crimson Hell. There’s a lot of conclusions that could be drawn to this, but what comes to mind to me is that if Imu conferred these powers, then what if the level of Impel Down relate to Imu in some regard, even if it is just thematically.

While Sommers taunts him however, Gaban cleanly cleaves him in half with an attack called Futenraku (斧天楽), which roughly translates to “Axe Heaven”. However this also is likely a pun, as “futenraku” in Japanese would also usually mean “infallible”, or “undefeatable”.

He then rushes to Gunko’s side, as he recalls Colon’s birth. This was 20 years ago given his age, which must’ve been four years after Roger’s death. Interestingly, in this time, Gaban already had the scar around his eye, meaning he must’ve gotten this scar between the time that he saw the One Piece 25 years ago and 20 years ago. Perhaps once again it’s tied with a younger Loki or Elbaph? Gaban prepares to attack Gunko with powerful haki, as indicated by the lightning sparks and the “bari bari” (バリ バリ) sound effect, which represents the cracking of haki thunder. However, through what looks like future sight, he sees Colon getting pierced and likely dying, so Gaban surrenders, in much the same way he did against Luffy and Zoro. Interestingly, Gunko also notices that Gaban will surrender before he himself says he will surrender, as indicated by the panel of her noticing beforehand, which coupled with what we mentioned previously where she seemingly foresaw Usopp’s attack, once again suggests that she might also have future sight herself. As a result Gaban falls off of the Sunworld, but Chopper leaps after him, likely to use guard point as a way to cushion his fall.

Gunko’s father

However, Colon screaming about his father suddenly awakens an old memory within Gunko, a memory that she seemingly can’t recognize but that is real: a memory that she seemingly shares with her father, as she screamed out “father”, with said father chanting in her memory… “yohoho”.

Wait, what?! Yes, there’s no doubting it, Gunko’s father is in fact Brook, which if it wasn’t obvious enough by the “yohoho” and the afro silhouette, is also clear by his speech pattern, which is the inequivocably polite form in which Brook speaks. Not just that, but there’s also music notes between them, showing that Brook might actually be playing some music to Gunko, perhaps even Binks’s Sake. The similarity of this scene to Kuma and Bonney’s Nika dance makes me wonder if this somehow in some way relates to Gunko’s fear of Nika or how that ties into all this, and how much of that was her or Imu influencing her.

Now just to be clear, it’s still possible that this could all be misleading and that her screaming out “father” and her hanging out with Brook, despite being side by side, could be different things and was crying out to a different father while Brook was more of a supporting figure, and even if Brook was the father, we still don’t know if he was the biological one or a father figure. Particularly as she later calls him Brook rather than “father” but for now let’s at least run with the assumption he’s a father figure for the sake of the argument. Thinking about it though, it now makes more sense why Gunko felt her heart ache kicking Brook, as another repressed memory likely arose.

This explains why Brook found Gunko to be familiar, which would be weird to forget your own daughter, but keep in mind, for Brook it’s been well over 50 years, and by that point you’d never think that someone as young as Gunko could be your daughter… except we’re forgetting, Gunko is immortal, meaning that she is perennially youthful and thus, just like the Gorosei, doesn’t age. So her age must’ve frozen at some point which is what caused this discrepancy and why Brook’s own kid is still alive and young despite him being 90 years old. Brook still seems to recall her face, claiming “she sure looks similar to her”, but is likely dismissing it due to the age difference.

It’s also likely that Gunko may not be her real name, especially since it’s such an odd name, being written with kanji and reading literally as “child soldier”. This however explains her love for Soul King’s music, as she likely didn’t remember him, but may have felt an emotional connection that subconsciously drew her to his music. If they are biologically related, crazily enough, it’s even possible that Gunko’s heterochromia may have been inherited from Brook… because after all, we’ve NEVER seen Brook’s eyes. Back when he was alive he was always wearing sunglasses and even when we saw him as a child in a color spread he still had sunglasses. So since heterochromia can be hereditary, Brook may actually have had heterochromia himself.

To better understand their relation, let’s review the little we know about Brook’s past: all we have to go beyond the fact that he is 90 years old, being born in 1434, is what Brook told us upon joining the Straw Hat Pirates, that he was the “Knight commander of a certain kingdom’s military squadron”. Particularly the words used here are “goei sendan” (護衛戦団), which can mean military squadron, or escort squadron, basically a group of knights or guards, and Brook himself held the title of “dancho” (団長). If you’ve been paying attention, you might notice that “dancho” is the same title that Shamrock currently holds, translating to “Knight Commander” and being the leader of a squadron of knights, though again not the same role as the Supreme Commander that Garling holds.

Brook only referred to the place he was from as “a certain kingdom” (とある王国), but we don’t have details beyond that on where this really is. Brook’s origin is listed as “West Blue” in the vivre cards but that’s as far as we currently know at least. There was some speculation in the past on if this could be the Toroa Kingdom, a kingdom offhandedly mentioned with Byron, a slave that was auctioned at Sabaody’s Human Shop, since he was said to be a musician and dressed very similarly to Brook. But this is just a theory without confirmation.

It appears that at some point, Brook and Gunko were separated, quite tragically given the way Gunko cries. She screams “otou-sama”, which means father, but particularly uses the honorific “-sama”, which is a very polite honorific that usually only rich ladies or those of a noble/high background would use to refer to their father, what in English you could picture as using “father” instead of “dad”. This actually checks out, because something that gets lost in translation is that Brook always speaks in polite Japanese, being a sign of a higher upbringing. This is also why he often uses the honorific “-san” to refer to people, such as him calling Luffy as “Luffy-san”.

Within this memory Brook also comments on how he has the dream of becoming a pirate, which lines up with what he also mentioned about his past on how after that period of being a knight he became a member of the Rumbar Pirates and eventually its captain after Yorki was forced to leave. Hopefully though this is not another case of Shanksitis as a deadbeat dad, but rather as a result of them being torn apart, but it seems liek Brook becoming a pirate may be related to him being separated from Gunko.

Ultimately there’s the possibility that Brook was indeed from a kingdom like Toroa in the West Blue and Gunko got somehow roped into the God Knights and thus the two were separated. But there’s also the other possibility that some have considered that… what if Brook was part of the God Knights? After all, dancho is the same position that Shamrock now holds, so it could potentially make sense. However, one would wonder how a God Knight, particularly a dancho, would not have the mark and thus be conferred Imu’s powers, if that’s something you can even get rid of and Brook did actually get hurt and… well, die. But it’s at least worth considering if there’s some reason to justify it all.

As she regains her memories, Gunko rushes towards Brook, likely to help him, which seems to suggest that her own memories were being hidden and repressed, but this might suggest that a lot of her personality all together may have been altered to begin with, which is a terrifying thing to think about what likely is an effect of the mark. This brings into question however why Imu was interested in making Gunko a God Knight, particularly if Brook was not a celestial dragon himself if that is the case, and why Imu would brainwash her this way.

Burning Mary Geoise

However, just as Gunko runs back towards Brook, suddenly a voice enters her head. This is Imu talking telepathically to all the God Knights there, just like we saw with the Gorosei. We see in this instance that Sommers is still alive, showing that Gaban stopped his regeneration but seemingly didn’t actually kill him. Imu however drops a massive bomb, being that “Right now, the Holyland is… a sea of flames”, stating that Mary Geoise is literally on fire, being burned and assaulted. This explains why Shamrock came back to Mary Geoise, they weren’t just being cautious, they were literally being under assault, and thus needed one of their best knights back there. However this is shocking, this is basically world-shattering news, as an assault on the Holyland is something fairly unprecedented, with the only two similar attacks being by Emet 200 years ago and by Fisher Tiger 15 years ago, though by the way that Imu describes this, claiming to need more manpower, this is far from one rogue attacker but a full on assault by a group of people. Which can be either one of two: the Revolutionaries finally making their move, and thus as Dragon put it the God Knights having to move, or potentially the Blackbeard Pirates setting the next stage of their plan. Eitherway, while we likely won’t see what’s happening right away, keep this in your mind because this is no doubt the start of an incident of unprecedented proportions.

Imu Descends

However, this isn’t enough, because the most insane part of all is Imu showing up directly on Elbaph?!! Though more precisely this does not seem to be presentially but rather Imu seemingly ends up taking Gunko’s body, which once again shows the depth to which the mark basically links all those who have it to Imu. This however adds a whole other layer to how Imu’s powers work, because it seems like the mark gives people not just an extension of Imu’s powers, but also act as an extension of Imu’s body. As such, the immortality and perennial youth that comes with it may not be all the God Knights being conferred this power but rather it just being something that Imu has, maybe even through the Ope Ope no Mi as Ivankov suggested, a trait that extends to all those who share this body link with Imu. As such, when Saturn died it may have been due to Imu cutting the link between them and thus Saturn aging all of a sudden and turning into a skeleton. Though this brings up the potential tragic ending to this story of what might happen if Imu revokes Gunko’s immortality and causes her to age up. But considering that Brook died at age 38, Gunko must be around 70 years old at most, so we could still have a bittersweet reunion between the two as she simply stays old.

This might even make me wonder if all the Gorosei seemingly having Conqueror’s haki really is due to all of them having that ambition to grant them conqueror’s haki or if even that could be an extension granted by Imu, though perhaps slightly weaker due to their bodies. This would also explain what we pondered that Gunko’s powers resemble what Imu used to kill Cobra, as it is possible the powers Imu conferred to the God Knights could be powers that Imu already has and that they simply are channeling as a result. Which means that Imu may also be able to generate thorns, create nightmarish MMAs, and so on. However this means that not only can they share that telepathic network with Imu, but Imu can even seemingly manipulate memories or completely take over their bodies.

And in this case it seems that Imu is quite literally taking over Gunko’s body, not just her consciousness but seemingly even transforming her body. This is followed by powerful haki lightning sparks, including the “bari bari” sound effect of cracking thunder. Her heterochromic eyes change to Imu’s red pupils of the same color, while her hair actually grows longer, considerably longer than we’ve ever seen Gunko with. And furthermore, even the kids mention how her face morphed into something scary, proving that there is a physical change. This would suggest that Imu’s true form does in fact have long hair, which may suggest that Imu could be a woman and in fact reinforces the idea that we’ve long since had that St. Nerona Imu of the Void Century, who was referred to by male terms, may have used the personality switching operation of the Ope Ope no Mi to switch bodies with Nefertari Lily, thus leading to the “vanishing” of her body, and then followingly got the perennial youth operation, which now extends to the God Knights too. This means that we might get a glimpse at Imu’s true appearance, but it’s possible the transformation might be partial, not to mention that it shouldn’t be much more than what we see here with Gunko’s eyes and hair, as her mouth is still covered and so is most of her body anyway.

As Imu descends as Gunko, he exclaims “ムーが見せてやる”, which means “Muu will show you”. “Muu”, as we’ve established, is Imu’s own first person pronoun, which we still don’t quite fully know what it means (and it’s also worth noting that it’s an elongated muu sound with two “u”s). At the very least Muu is part of Imu, though Imu is written with one u, but others have suggested that “muu” may relate to meaning “emptyness”, or “dream”, in Japanese, and potentially a whole other host of meanings that some have tried to link like the lost continent of Mu and whatnot. This is followed by “神の支配”, which means “the dominance of god”. In this case, Imu believes to be a god incarnate, with “shihai” translating to supremacy, or to rule, to control, to dominate. So Imu is saying that Muu will show the power of dominance over those in Elbaph, intending to take action directly and making us face the final boss, with the catch that this isn’t Imu’s real body, and as such is but a tease of what this truly devilish creature can do, and the way that its powers extend to those who have struck a deal with the devil.

To close off, we have the editor’s comment, which simply states “kourin!!” (降臨!!), which basically just means: “god descends”!!