Video version: https://youtu.be/5pf-_UZx3WY

Cover

With Yamato’s cover story over, we return to the classic cover requests, where there isn’t as much to comment about beyond what’s on screen, though you may notice that Luffy and the monkeys’ clothes feature the numbers “56” on them, which you may already be aware can be read as “go-mu” in Japanese and thus are Luffy’s own iconic number.

Imu’s Form

We return to seeing Imu taking over Saturn’s body, seemingly taking full control much like Gunko since Saturn doesn’t speak much of a word for the rest of the chapter. If you look closely, Saturn’s eyes appear to have gone fully blank, as if a parasite is moving his body like a puppet. The body seems to grow to a gargantuan size, far eclipsing the smaller Marines and taking up almost the entire width of the valley. What’s interesting though is Imu’s versatility in being able to assume a blob-like shape of pure dark matter that moves on its own. We can see that Saturn’s legs, which were otherwise fairly solid during Egghead, begin to morph in a way where the stripes on them detach to become pure black claws of their own, attacking the Marines en masse.

Here we also have a case where we’re seeing Imu in what should be a better lit area, but while Saturn’s body is fairly visible, the part that composes Imu above doesn’t seem to be, being pitch black. And in fact, this part of the body hardly seems solid, moving as we said like a black blob without consistent form. This is actually fairly consistent with a similar ability we’ve seen the Gorosei posses. When we saw the Gorosei transforming in front of Sabo, and when they first spawned on Egghead before the large panel, we saw the Gorosei in these dark blob forms. At the time some fans assumed these were just regular silhouettes, but as seen in the anime and more panels over time, these do not seem to be silhouettes, rather they are in fact formless blobs that serve as some kind of half state before the Gorosei fully transformed. These forms as seen during Planetfall are clearly different than fully transformed, having distinctly different eyes and lacking certain features such as Mars lacking the mane of the Itsumade or even the wings as an example. These forms almost look like something that hasn’t yet fully taken shape, like clay that is being malleableized to take a new form, something we clearly see in this chapter as Saturn’s shape moves, shifts, and wiggles around like it is lacking proper solid form.

Thus, this state that Imu has, is something somehow conferred to the Gorosei as well, which is why so many people doubt whether the Gorosei actually have devil fruit powers or not. A Marine at the start of the chapter even asks if Saturn is a devil fruit ability user, though of course that is just the speculation of a random Marine, not word of Oda. But more than anything, this is starting to beg the question of if Imu has a real face… or if Imu really is just some grand blob of darkness. Now, personally, I feel that Imu probably will have a face reveal that Oda will provide eventually, particularly as the form we’ve seen in places like the Chamber of Flowers feels a lot more solid and physical than this one, so that one likely is silhouetted. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Imu also does hide their face in occasions like these by becoming this sort of blob specifically to keep that identity secret. Here, Imu doesn’t want any Marines or anyone else to know who they are, so it makes sense they’d keep their identity hidden. In spite of that though, the crown still remains, for the identity as king is too inseparable with Mu’s ambition.

Imu launches a large attack disposing of all the Marines in the way, wishing to focus solely on Xebec. The attack even hits some of the Roger Pirates, such as Colonel Mugren or Rowing, who seemingly got too curious about who the figure was, the latter being quite fitting since Rowing is the scholar of the Roger Pirates. Roger gets angry over his “nakama” being hurt and so orders Gabin to take his crewmates and the treasure back to the ship, with Gabin worried that Roger will get reckless again. This is another case where we see Roger acting like we always heard him being like, someone who would always be in the front and put himself in harm’s way to protect those he cares about from his enemies, even if it is at his own risk. We know that Ace would end up being very much the same, even at his own detriment until the very end.

Garp seemingly acts very much like himself too, referring to Saturn as the “one at the top of that pile of maggots”, speaking his mind about how much he hates the Celestial Dragons without worrying about the consequences. We similarly saw this in Chapter 905 where he accidentally called the Celestial Dragons “scumbags”. And as we see later in the chapter, Garp has no hesitation in punching Imu in the face, which adds intrigue as to why he still remained with the Government even after seeing what the top looks like, though I do wonder if he ever became aware during this incident that this isn’t Saturn but in fact the King of the World. According to Sengoku in 957 at least though, he said that though the Celestial Dragons wanted him dead, his massive public influence was the only thing preventing them from doing so, perhaps seeing him as too valuable of an asset. Still, I’m surprised he was able to go as far as punching Imu in the face and get away with it.

Xebec and Imu

Xebec confronts Imu directly, calling them as “hey, king of sewer rats”. Specifically he calls him “dobunezumi” (ドブネズミ) in Japanese, which is the name of the brown rat, or more colloquially the street rat/sewer rat. I assume the insult Xebec is trying to make is that Imu is like a disgusting sewer rat, scurrying around and hiding in the shadows away from the human eye. On the other hand though, Imu refers to Xebec as “Davy Jones”. Imu appears to have a wierd fascination with almost roleplaying the identities of those they clashed with during the Void Century into the people of today. In a similar fashion, Imu got angry at Saturn that he let “Joyboy get away”, but was in fact referring to Luffy. Is this just some wierd bizarre fixation of Imu, or does Imu perhaps see something, such as inherited will, that others cannot? And does this have something to do with the fact that Imu refers to themself as “Mu”, as we see in this chapter again?

Xebec however states that while he is not Davy Jones himself, he still wishes to keep the “promise”, giving title to the chapter. This promise, while not elaborated upon here, would likely refer to a promise that his clan has made with the original Davy Jones, since that’s the implied subject of the promise here given the previous line. And while we don’t know what that is, I sort of suspect it has to do with Xebec wishing to take down Imu, which is why he declared to Imu he was an adorer of Davy Jones. At the same time though, we know Xebec also wanted to be King of the World, so I wonder how different the two really are in that regard. But Imu affirms that said promise is the reason the Davy clan must be wiped out.

Wierdly enough though, in this line Imu uses the pronoun “omaetachi” (お前達), which is an informal casual version of the plural second person pronoun “you people”. But this is bizarre as Imu uses the second person pronoun “nushia” (ヌシア), which is a unique archaic pronoun that we’ve seen translated as the likes of “thee” or “thou”. So it would make sense that since “tachi” (達) is used for pluralization, that Imu would use “nushiatachi”, or some other variant such as “nushiara”, but such a common casual “omaetachi” almost seems odd coming from Imu. I even did a double take when I was reading, but the bubble is clearly pointing to Imu and the Japanese version is using Imu’s font for this line, so I wonder if this was an editorial typo, or if Imu simply doesn’t use nushia for pluralized pronouns, which would be an interesting distinction in their speech pattern, perhaps due to growing more angry or something like that. Especially as later in the chapter Imu uses “nushia” again to refer to Xebec. Imu still continues to use “Mu” though, claiming “Mu’s world is not yet complete”, indicating that Imu won’t be fully at peace until all opposition has been suppressed.

John and Kid

Meanwhile, we see the Roger Pirates running away with the treasure, with Donquino carrying a large cart full of chests and Mille Pain and Elio defending them, with the latter seen using guns to fight. However, they are interrupted by Captain John, who was ready to ditch the Rocks Pirates and steal all the treasures for himself. This is quite fitting, as John was historically famous for being someone very greedy who would hoard all his treasures, and in fact infamously died after his own crew rebelled against him when he refused to tell the location of his hidden treasure. I even wonder if said treasure was something he was able to steal from the island here today, as despite being foiled, he may have yet been able to get away. Unless somehow, the events of his crew turning against him referred to other members of the Rocks.

John however uses a move called “Big Eater”. The phonetic reading is just that, the katakana for the English words “Big Eater” (ビッグイーター), the kanji reads as 暴贖握磁気, which reads as “violent magnetic grip”, referring to the magnetic powers he is using to attract all the treasures towards himself. This shows us, as confirmed by some random mob as well, that these are the powers of the Jiki Jiki no Mi, or in other words Kid’s fruit. Now, this won’t come as a surprise if you joined us for our analysis a couple chapters back, as we had already come to this conclusion by the fact John seemed to be carrying a metallic arm in much the same way Kid did. And that’s when we kind of put together the connection that Kid and John share together when you realize that both share the epithet of “Captain”, meaning that there was some connection between the two, much in the same way that Capone “Gang” Bege inherited Don Marlon “West Blue Gang”‘s epithet. Though whether that is simply Kid having eaten John’s fruit and thus coming to be known by the same epithet or the two of them being related in some way is yet to be seen.

A lot of people get pulled by the magnetism, though Roger seems unaffected despite carrying his sword because he’s just that strong. However, John is stopped by Ganzui, who appears to flick a booger in his direction, which then explodes and injures John, stopping the magnetism. This attack is called “Sky Snake Red Cannon” phonetically with the katakana for English, whereas the kanji is exactly those words but written in Japanese kanji instead (空蛇乃赤砲, “Red Cannon of the Sky Snake”). This might however all sound familiar to some of you, and it’s in fact because this is the same attack as the Nose Fancy Cannon, the move that Mr. 5 used during Whisky Peak and Little Garden. Which would suggest that Ganzui was the previous user of the Bomu Bomu no Mi (Bomb Bomb Fruit) before he passed away and the fruit eventually made its way to Mr. 5. Even the kanji used here though is a pun, as Mr. 5’s original attack, Nose Fancy Cannon had the kanji reading of “nose sky imaginary cannon” (鼻空想砲). This however was an articulate pun as those kanji can be read as “hanakuuso” which is very close to “hanakuso”, which means “snot”. In this case, Ganzui’s attack not only reuses some of the kanji such as that of “sky”, but the kanji could alternatively be read to form another pun. And this could vary depending on the alternate reading for the kanji so I’m not sure if this was the intended pun, but you can read it as “kuja no shaku”, or “Shakuyaku the kuja”, so I wonder if perhaps this is a way of getting back at John for getting in the way of saving Shakky as we saw them fighting on the way some chapters ago.

Shiki confronts Ganzui about why he attacked John, but the latter clarifies that John was likely trying to steall all the treasure for himself, as he belives the chests could be worth up to a billion berry, a legitimately insane amount when you think about it which puts into proportion how much wealth the Celestial Dragons possess. However, Ganzui also claims that surely John isn’t the only one who would think of keeping all the treasure to himself as he points his arms towards Shiki, ready to fire at him before the scene cuts away. This shows that Ganzui and Shiki ended up infighting for possession of the treasure, and also explains why Shiki was not counted in the retellings of the God Valley battles, as the poor sap was too busy fighting his own crew.

At the very least Ganzui definitely seems way more skilled of a user than Mr. 5 ever was, as the explosion is quite huge, even sending Dragon flying. In the chaos, however, Dragon lost sight of Shanks, who instead wanders into an empty treasure chest, thus fulfilling his destiny as we know it of becoming trapped inside a chest that the Roger Pirates would steal, as fittingly in just the previous panel we see the Roger Pirates taking more chests while Rayleigh carries Shakky to safety. Among them we also see the weapons of Mr. Momora and Taro, who wield a sword and spear respectively.

The Ultimate Attack

All the actually important fighters gather at the island’s epicenter however. We have Rocks, Newgate, Kaidou, and Linlin riding atop Zeus, with Roger and Garp joining the frey, as they all unleash their strongest attacks on Imu, completely ripping Imu’s body apart, so let’s go over each and every one of them:

• Roger uses Kamusari (神避), or Divine Departure. This is fitting as more directly kamusari is a poetic term that refers to the death of a God, so it is fitting Roger uses it to try and kill Imu
• Garp uses Galaxy Impact (拳骨衝突), with its kanji reading as “fist impact”. This is of course the same move he used at Hachinosu, but seen in its prime
• Xebec instead unleashes his first named attack, posessing the phonetic reading of “Pandemonium” while the kanji reading (深淵の呪い) reads as “curse of the abyss”, which is an interesting term considering the dynamic between the Davies and Imu
• Whitebeard also finally unleashes his first named attack in the entire series (save for some of his attacks being named in video games, but those aren’t canon), being “Hakua” (破空阿), which translates to “splitting skies”. This name mirrors his weapon, the Murakumogiri (むら雲切), which literally means “splitter of heavens”. The attack may be a pun though, as “haku” is another word for “white”, as in “whitebeard”
• Linlin instead uses Napoleon to unleash the already named Ikoku (威国), which translates to “Mighty Country”, which is slightly different from Dorry and Brogy’s Hakoku, or “Conqueror Country”, or “Supreme Country”, as she seemingly learned this attack from the people of Elbaph
• Kaidou on the other hand, unleashes an attack called “Ryuuuuuh” (龍~~~), with the last sound extending a lot without knowing exactly what to say. What he is using is clearly a Bolo Breath, but since this is his first time attacking with his fruit, he doesn’t know what to say, so he simply says the word for dragon, “ryu”, and keeps extending it with a long “uuuuuh” to figure out what to say but can’t come up with anything. Poor guy

This massive attack, what might even be the most powerful combined attack we’ve seen in the series, is however, of course, useless, as Imu simply reforms into the dark matter like we had previously seen thanks to the power of immortality. In that regard I feel this scene is indicating not so much that Imu is so strong that they can take the attacks from all these heavyweights, but more that with immortality not even such powerful attacks can do anything, and so there needs to be a workaround on immortality to be able to seriously damage them. Gabin seemed to suggest that conqueror’s haki was the key to harming the immortals, but he seemingly didn’t kill Sommers either, instead however slowly delaying his regeneration. But since Imu regenerated really quickly here despite what are clearly several conqueror attacks (with all participants here being in fact conqueror’s haki users), it makes me wonder just what really is the key to trumping immortality once and for all.

Xebec Reversi

Xebec realizes this and attempts to slice up Imu, but again to no avail. Imu instead pierces him, but rather than hurting him, he uses these tendrils to cast Domi Reversi (黒転支配, as a reminder, the kanji literally meaning “turning black domination”, or in other words “domination reversi”). Though interestingly, in this case Imu does not cast the A Kuwaru (悪魔契約) circle as seen with Brogy and just uses Domi Reversi right away.

This was expected by quite a lot of people since it would explain a lot of things, but it is interesting to think that even Xebec succumbed to the Domi Reversi, as he is arguably one of the strongest people we’ve ever known in this world, making us wonder if anyone is truly immune to the power of Domi Reversi and if there is a counter to it given the ease with how it is used. The counter may be Nika, but is Luffy’s fruit really the only counter to it in the world?

There’s also the question as to why Imu would Reversi Xebec but not the others, perhaps indicating if there’s some stipulation to Reversi such as being part of a specific clan or race affecting you or having to do with both giants and Xebec being in their homeland, though that seems a bit random. Perhaps more simply Imu felt it was enough to have Xebec fight against the rest of the group and that would already be enough to disrupt things.

So in a sense Sengoku’s retelling of God Valley wasn’t fully innaccurate, just missing a lot of details (although I’m skeptic on the claim “Roger and Garp fought to protect the Celestial Dragons and their slaves, that just sounds like full blown propaganda). Roger and Garp did fight Xebec together, so that adds up, but Sengoku’s retelling shows them against the other three members present at this scene right now, Newgate, Linlin, and Kaidou. So I wonder if they too ended up getting the reversi, thus setting the stage for a much larger battle, or if instead these events are embellished and the reality was that it was Roger and Garp alongside the Rocks trio fighting against Xebec, so we’ll have to see which of the two scenarios ends up playing out: all-out battle against Xebec or Roger and Garp vs Reversi Rocks Pirates.

At the very least though things are starting to make more sense, as this explains better that Roger and Garp joining forces against Xebec was not so much a matter of them settling their rivalry on God Valley, but rather them having to fight Xebec because he was out of control, and in fact, maybe it’s even possible that Xebec, with what little control he might’ve had left, may have begged to be stopped so that he wouldn’t go on to kill his wife and child and Roger and Garp complied with that. Ironically a fate that would cause a lot of trouble for the world considering the monster Teach would end up becoming, but in a sense Blackbeard is picking up Xebec’s ambition of trying to usurp Imu’s position, thus fulfilling that promise to Davy of taking down “the World”. Though whether that is out of duty to his will and Davy or out of simple personal ambition is a different thing.