Video version: https://youtu.be/rmTQ19gzrdw

Cover

On the cover page, we see Kiku, Yamato, and Ocho walking away from the grave of the Wano hero who supposedly died, without leaving a trace, protecting his village, a hero that was born in the West Blue but that grew up in Ringo, Wano… his name being, Kouzuki Moria.

Now obviously this is an insane reveal of its own and there’s a LOT to unpack, but as usual, it’s the type of thing that if we look back, it makes perfect sense, though that does require a distinct linguistic approach. That mainly falls on the name of Gekko Moria. Because you see, here on the grave, we see the name engraved of “Kouzuki Moria”. Moria is written in hiragana, whereas Gecko Moria’s full name was written in phonetic katakana, but that’s generally because Wano, being more Japanese stylizes names with traditional Japanese hiragana or kanji while most other names in One Piece are written in katakana to give it a more foreign feel, as the katakana alphabet is primarily what is used for foreign words and names in Japanese. So as an example in real life, the name Tanaka Tarou would be written usually with kanji or sometimes with hiragana, whereas the name “roger” will be written with katakana. So in this case, even though Moria’s name was natively written with hiragana and kanji, outside of Wano it was written in katakana as “gekko moria” (ゲッコー・モリア).

But what interests us is his family name, Kouzuki. Of course, this is the same name as the main clan of Wano where the title of shogun is passed down, from Sukiyaki, to Oden, and to Momonosuke and Hiyori, with Toki being born as Amatsuki Toki but taking the name Kouzuki Toki after marrying. In Moria’s case, it’s possible that since he was born in the West Blue but later raised in Wano, maybe he married into the family somehow and was still given the name despite being a man, but I see that as difficult given not only that his wife would more logically inherit his family name given the traditions, but also the fact that timeline-wise he would’ve had to get married at a time when we already knew most Kouzuki in the story, so it’d be kinda wierd if Oden just somehow had a sister that Moria married. I think what makes more sense is that Moria is a descendant of the Kouzuki that similarly to Zoro’s clan who set out to East Blue, long ago they set out to West Blue, and Moria was born there but wished to return to his clan’s homeland to regroup with his people and did so at a young age where he was raised there in Ringo.

The key detail here is that it was stated that this person was “born in West Blue but raised in Ringo” (鈴後育ち), which literally means “grew up”, so it’s not like he just did a quick visit but actually spent some time there. The issue is that we see Moria at Loguetown during Roger’s execution just one year before he fought Kaidou in Wano, but if anything I think this suggests that Moria went to Wano at a very young age, grew up there, decided to become a pirate and sail out, went all the way to East Blue just to see Roger’s execution, and then by next year returns to Wano to see it being ravaged by Kaidou, so he fights Kaidou in an attempt to liberate it but is defeated and traumatized, as Kaidou had wiped out his entire crew as well as his town and friends. If anything this perfectly explains how Moria got to Wano so quickly from East Blue in just a year because it wasn’t his first bout with the Grand Line. Interestingly though, Moria would steal Ryuma’s corpse and the Shusui and flee Wano, which explains why they think his body wasn’t left behind. This was seen as a sacrilegous act by the people of Wano, which seems odd if Moria was one of them, but if anything Moria may have stolen away Ryuma and the Shusui so that Kaidou wouldn’t get his hands on the famous blade, and turned him into a zombie to hopefully one day have him help him take Kaidou down, fleeing to the West Blue, which is actually located directly south of Wano if you cross the Calm Belt, where he would turn Thriller Bark into a ship, biding his time, lazing away with his grand plan.

Now, alternatively, it’s also completely possible that Moria was just someone from West Blue but he did something so honorable that he was still accepted into the Kouzuki family or awareded the name in some way. But it’s certainly odd that he’s considered a Kouzuki when his name is Gecko Moria after all, which doesn’t explain the two different family names… unless you speak Japanese. Because you see, as we see it here and as it is written, Kouzuki is formed by the kanji for light and moon. While the reading is reversed to sound more poetic like a family name, the meaning of this kanji is “moonlight”, which in Japanese can also be pronounced as… “gekkou”. Do you now realize? Gecko, or written in katakana as gekkou, is just an alternate reading of “kouzuki”, so they are in fact not two different family names, but one and the same, just pronounced in different ways because of how Japanese works. It’s something that I thought “haha it’s a funny coincidence” years ago but never really thought would actually come to pass this way.

This is particularly clever once you consider that Gecko Moria’s name already has so many layers to it. For one, beyond the fact that Gecko means moonlight, relating to the night that shrouds Thriller Bark and casts shadows, the name relates to his animal theme, like a lot of other Shichibukai he is named after an animal, in his case the Gecko, as the official romanization is with a ck, like the animal. We see this in the attack where he creates a shadow gecko to stab Little Oars Jr. as well as his final form of Shadow’s Asgard where he takes the shape of a gecko, with a large bulbous neck just like those of geckos who inflate them to intimidate their enemies. But at the same time Moria is special because he has a second animal name hidden in his full name, as when read together, gekkoumoria includes the word “koumori”, which is the Japanese word for bat, as seen in the bats that he unleashes with some of his shadow attacks. So all of this nuance on top of the Kouzuki name, whether it was a coincidence or not, is actually very clever.

We’re not done yet, because now knowing that Moria grew up in Wano makes us question if there’s other hidden connections there. Particularly with the absolutely insane crazy crack theory that somehow now seems very canon… that Perona was from Wano as well. After all, we know that Moria adopted Perona from a young age and raised her like his own daughter, for which she considers him her father and cares much for him. Uuuh… ignore the point when she tried to flee Thriller Bark, but she did come back for Moria and freed him from Hachinosu after Teach jailed him, so now they’re back together. Timeline wise it would line up, as Perona is 25 years old while Moria left Wano 23 years ago after losing to Kaidou, so he could’ve adopted her after she was either abandoned or separated from her family.

But crazily enough, the idea that Perona could be related to Toko of all people is actually not that crazy. Both have pink hair, both have defined eyelashes around their eyes, and both were adopted, with Toko having been adopted by Yasuie after she lost her father at a very young age. Though given how Toko is 6, they have about two decades apart, so either they’re slightly more distantly related, like aunt and niece, or maybe there’s just a really big gap between their parents having them (though Perona was stated to be from the West Blue so that throws a bit of a wrench in that). But even thematically this would fit as Perona is all about generating Hollow Hollows that cause depression and sadness whereas instead Toko was cursed by eating a SMILE fruit, which is interesting to think about. Some people have even associated the father to be Mr. Momora of the Roger Pirates, who we even see later in this chapter, due to the eyes and pink hair, perhaps at a time he would’ve ended up in Wano after the crew’s disbandment, though he would’ve had to have had Perona that same year.

Roger Pirates

Anyway, finally moving on from that cover page, we see that Roger and Rayleigh are talking in the Captain’s Room (船長室) of the Oro Jackson, the first time we’ve properly seen it, looking to be on the back of the ship like a traditional captain’s cabin. It seems that Shakky left Rayleigh with a love letter, after which Roger claimed he saw her as if she had been ill. This is likely her suffering from love sickness, as she’s fallen for Rayleigh, the only guy who’s really treated her normally thus far, and so wants to see him again and elope with him, which may have been part of the reason she decided to quit from the stressful pirate life as Gloriosa cited that love sickness was much of a reason behind both of their abdications. As Roger declares to not give up on Shakky, we see other members of the crew, including Mr. Momora, Petermoo the gunner, Donquino the helmsman, Sunbell, Spencer the intelligence officer, Taro, Ganryu, Moon Isaac Jr. the tactics staff officer, CB Gallant, and Bankuro. Interestingly, we see Roger (not to be confused for a young Shanks, of course, who hadn’t been born yet) asking MAX Marx to cook food, which suggests that Marx is actually the cook of the Roger Pirates. This might be in response to the fact that when Oda unveiled the positions of the Roger Pirates in the latest SBS, they didn’t seem to have a cook, but this indicates he likely forgot and is trying to compensate by telling us here that Marx was the cook. Funnily, the way that Roger exclaims “harahetta Marx, meshi!!” or “I’m hungry Marx, food!!” is said in the exact same way that Luffy would beg Sanji for food.

Garling

Indeed, things are brewing. At Mary Geoise, 40 years ago in 1484, we see a young Garling speaking with the Gorosei. At this time, he was already a God Knight, but as a lot of people have pointed out, it’s interesting that he has aged up to old age, particularly as we’ve seen God Knights like Gunko seemingly keeping her perennial youth as she once knew Brook. So is perennial youth, which could or could not be tied with the mark as a package or instead be separate, only given to very specific God Knights of the highest caliber, a position Garling had not yet reached? Or is there a specific reason why Garling did not grow older?

Garling mentions making a stop at God Valley in the West Blue during a mission, where the island possesses a country with its own independent and distinct culture despite not being a Government country. Which is why Garling proposes it for the next Genocide Tournament, an event taking place every three years, which the Gorosei mention having just happened, as one must’ve took place the year prior, so the next one is still 2 years away. Interestingly, the Straw Hat Stories Novel talks a bit about the process of the Genocide Tournament, which was actually published years before the Kuma flashback, though without explicitly mentioning the event by name. In one of the stories, a young orphan details how the Celestial Dragons would descend from Mary Geoise to take over countries, not only enslaving or wiping out of all its people, but also erasing their culture and their language. Despite the fact that the One Piece world uses at large a universal language known in Japanese as Koyogo (公用語), translating to “official language” or “government-instated language”, which is what is currently known to us as Japanese, other languages do in fact exist. But as the Celestial Dragons erase cultures and languages, these get lost to time and instead they enforce Koyogo as the only language to be spoken worldwide, which was already largely adopted but many cultures but is now used globally. In the end it’s just Oda’s convenient way to not have a language barrier, but it further illustrates the horrors of the Genocide Tournament.

The fascinating thing here however is that Garling mentions that beyond the natural resources the island possesses, they also found an “unbelievable thing” (とんでもないもの) there, and claims that the “ontai” (御大), or “boss”, which if you remember is the term the God Knights use towards Imu, will be very satisfied. What this is we don’t know, he just calls it a “thing”, though he describes it as “tondemonai” or “unbelievable”, a term that even Roger used to describe the One Piece when he found it so that should tell you the level of importance he attributes to this thing. I don’t think it’s just a small item, like the devil fruit prizes for the tournament, as something small they could’ve siezed by force while staying there, but rather something that they seemingly need to seize the entire island for, but again we could be misunderstanding. But certainly it’s something worthy enough to please the boss.

Roger and Rayleigh

First though let’s check in at Hachinosu, where Shakky’s Bar is seeing its business booming. As indicated by the previous Garling scene, this is still 40 years ago. We see that much like in the future, Shakky’s still as much of a rip-off, mistreating their clients unless they are people she takes a liking to, such as Luffy.

We see Rocks enjoying himself at the bar with Linlin, Ouchoku, Stussy, and Newgate, likely having priority access due to owning the island, but as Stussy points out, Xebec doesn’t seem to have eyes for Shakky anymore, as he seems to have found someone else to love, even to the point where he seems as if he got hitched with a kid. Of course we are talking of Teach, who was born 40 years ago, and so it seems that in this time as we expected, Xebec found another woman to love and he left her pregnant, and for as much of a scumbag as he is you can’t blame him for not being loyal to her, not having eyes for Shakky anymore. Interestingly, Linlin seems to know about it, or rather probably figured out from her female intuition, but Xebec strictly told her to keep this matter confidential. After all, a child is one’s greatest weakness.

The Roger Pirates show up at the bar, and Xebec is immediately clashing with him but the two can’t fight as Shakky’s rule is that pirates can’t brawl in her bar. Funnily, the interactions between Roger and Xebec here and not too dissimilar from those of Luffy and Teach’s first encounter, also at a bar, though in this case it does seem the two have already previously clashed. Thus, they would not settle things here. Roger is interested in drinking with Whitebeard, as we’d later see the two would grow close, but in this case particularly Whitebeard walks out. Interestingly, it looks as if his mustache is even grazing the edge of the door.

Shakky asks Roger to meet Rayleigh, but he mentions that Rayleigh stayed back on the ship, where we see him singing Binks’s Sake right next to the giant egg. What seems to be happening is that both of them are inadvertedly looking out for each other. When Roger found out that Rayleigh got a note from Shakky, he ended up being very bummed out as we see at the start of the chapter, because it’s the point where he likely realized that Shakky did not have eyes for him and that he had to give up. But after thinking about it, he decides to still go to Hachinosu, claiming that pirates should go take what they want. While this comment is dangerously close to sounding horribly sexist at first, in reality what Roger meant was to give Rayleigh an opportunity to shoot his shot and encourage him to be with Shakky, as we see in the bar while Roger is still enamored by her, he wanted to give Rayleigh the chance to get closer with her, but him staying back on the ship left Roger feeling really awkward because he couldn’t help his friend out.

But I get the feeling that Rayleigh feels the same, he doesn’t dislike Shakky but doesn’t want to get tied down with a woman quite yet because he cares about his captain and their journey so much. And so he instead decides to stay on the ship to let Roger have a chance with Shakky, unaware himself that Roger was the one trying to hook him up all along. In the end, it’s a surprisingly wholesome tale of a couple of friends trying to help wingman each other. And honestly, there’s a surprisingly wholesome turn to God Valley as well when Roger went to rescue Shakky not for his own sake, but for Rayleigh’s sake as well, though clearly Gabin wasn’t fully aware of this as he still tells Roger that the captain gets no favoritism. Interestingly, since Xebec got a woman as well, I wonder if he too went to rescue Shakky simply because his crew wanted to, because he still wanted to rescue her anyway, or if he was the only one on the crew that did have a further goal. Particularly as Newgate claimed that “Xebec might lose sight of the goal”, which to the crew in large was rescuing Shakky.

Regardless, Shakky seems to faint, likely induced by love sickness, as not being able to be with Rayleigh tears her heart apart. Thankfully, this story will have a happy ending, as after the Roger Pirates would disband, Rayleigh would finally marry with Shakky, and the two would settle in Sabaody. I do honestly wonder as well if Rayleigh will be the one to rescue Shakky as well during the incident, making her fall for him all the more.

Rocks vs Harald

Back at Elbaph, we get the titular scene of Rocks vs Harald, as Xebec questions Harald’s willingness to rat out his friend for the sake of the Government. It seems Harald was willing to have an honorable duel between them on Elbaph, one of the few lands they can actually fight out without like wiping out an entire country, but Xebec is still quite heartbroken by this betrayal. Harald disagrees with the Celestial Dragons but he still sees working with them a necessity for the sake of his people and their allies, as he’d rather achieve peace, even in an unfair world, than just fight back with even more violence, which creates an interesting moral conflict. However, when Harald mentions the Celestial Dragons, Xebec suddenly covers his face, almost as if he were about to cry.

This could be due to the betrayal he feels from Harald siding with the Government, but I do wonder if Xebec does have more history with them or is being reminded of some trauma of some kind. Maybe even as if he had been owned by them directly. Ultimately the duel would not really see a winner or a proper conclusion, but their friendship would break apart. This might be what the God Knights and Imu meant that Harald “screwed up” and that it’s his fault that Warland isn’t part of the Government, as if he had just killed Xebec then this matter could’ve been solved a lot more quickly. Though clearly, despite blaming him, the Government perhaps resented over time not being able to own Warland and started moving quicker towards siezing it. Interestingly though, the narrator mentions that Harald and Xebec would not meet again… until the day of that incident, which confirms to us Harald as a participant of the God Valley Incident!

God Valley

We move one more year forward, a year before the incident, or 39 years ago in 1485, at God Valley in the West Blue. As we know, the island is composed by a giant valley in the midst of its gigantic mountain, and I repeat again what I said two years ago that I highly doubt this perfectly clean cut between the mountain is natural, rather I feel it must’ve been the site of some ancient battle, though clearly this must’ve been caused by a sword of titanic proportions… or a person with titanic enough strength to make such a cut. As we see, the people on the island dress with cowboy-esque clothing, as the island has a wild west culture to it. Among the citizens, there’s even a couple faces that you might recognize, of poor victims who would end up mutilated just a year later during the Genocide Tournament.

Within the town, a woman with long red hair is strolling around her two newborn babies: Shanks and Shamrock. Interestingly, the former is brimming with joy, while the other appears more pensive. This lines up, as the two were born 39 years ago. But what’s interesting is that their mother is not a Celestial Dragon, but seemingly a resident of God Valley. This presents a very dark disturbing truth. When Garling said they had to make a stop at God Valley, it seems that during that time he decided to take a young woman to relieve himself. Now, while it’s still possible that he may have seduced and made a woman fall for him, the reality is that knowing Celestial Dragons like Garling he probably took her and used her by force without any consent like the disgusting vermin he is. I don’t imagine at the time he expected her to remain pregnant but he’s also the kind of person that wouldn’t care about the consequences, and so Shanks and Shamrock were born. It would seem their mother still wished to raise her kids and care for them despite their origin and thus told a lie to the townsfolk about their father to not cause further distress. Her having red hair also explains the twins’ red hair despite their dad having the banana hair.

This finally answers some things, because it was stated that Shanks was a native to the West Blue, but also further Shanks brought Whitebeard some alcohol during their encounter which he claimed came from his hometown in the West, which wouldn’t make sense if he was born in Mary Geoise. But this finally explains it, he was a native of God Valley, he simply had a Celestial Dragon father that conceived him there. What’s interesting though is the fact that Shamrock still retained his nobility despite being the child between a Celestial Dragon and a commoner and Shanks seemingly did too considering that he was able to return at Mary Geoise at one point and be given a tattoo with the symbol of the God Knights, which suggests to us he either decided to follow Imu or purposefully pretended to for the sake of some greater plan.

But the point is, even mixed blood can be recognized as Celestial Dragons which is interesting to think about. We saw with someone like Charlos that he took several women as his “wives”, who by all means were his forceful slaves, and Ginny in much the same way was taken as some Celestial Dragon as his wife, left discarded when she was pregnant, though that seems to have been more due to the Sapphire Scales than due to being pregnant. Interestingly, this would’ve made Bonney eligible to be a Celestial Dragon by this logic, unless there was some bigger requirement, but it makes sense that Bonney becoming a wanted pirate and her being a bargaining chip against Kuma killed those chances. Though it certainly gives an idea for how the Gorosei operate when Saturn saw even her as beneath him. Conversely though, Shanks also was already a pirate apprentice on Roger’s ship when he went to Mary Geoise, but perhaps he was able to provide something in exchange or show his loyalty in such a way that they were still willing to accept him.

This does however put things into perspective on how things played out. Garling left the mother pregnant 40 years ago, and a year later the twins were born following the 9 months of pregnancy. When Garling came back to God Valley for the Genocide Tournament the next year, he likely found out about his children, and thus was willing to take them for himself, eventually raising Shamrock as a god knight. Though frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Garling could care less about the very woman he impregnated, and if she maybe even died to his hands. Shanks, however, would be stuffed inside a treasure chest for some reason, and as such would accidentally be stolen by Roger, who would then adopt him and raise him as his own child. Alongside Buggy, of course, but we still don’t know exactly when Buggy joined in, but it clearly was at a very young age.

And so with this, the stage is set, as are its major players. God Valley, the island holding a mysterious “thing” of great value to the Government as spotted by Garling. Shakky, the treasure of Hachinosu, to be kidnapped by the Government during this tournament spurring many pirates to rescue her, including of course the Rocks Pirates. Legendary devil fruits being offered as prizes, which are seen as the key to escape by Kuma, Ivankov, and Ginny. The Roger Pirates coming to rescue Shakky and joining forces with Garp to finally bring down Rocks. And Harald also playing in some form where he would meet with Xebec again and still survive the incident.

All the pieces are set for an incident of historical proportions… the God Valley Incident! (as long as Oda doesn’t skip it again, that is)