One Piece Chapter 1148 Review/Recap
On the last piece of One Piece, the situation in Elbaph has grown increasingly desperate. Now that they have ten Giant children hostage, including Colon, they’re holding them hostage to make the Giants bend the knee. Even worse, they demand that the Giants burn their school and library and erase their history and everything from Ohara along with it. But they’ve made a big mistake with their threats, and Robin and Gaban are ready to show them the error of their ways. There is a special place in Hell for people who threaten kids and try to destroy the past, and the Straw Hats are going to send the God’s Knights to it!
Recap
As the other kids watch in horror, the God’s Knights move the first of their hostages, a girl named Ronja, to an arrow platform leading over the Underworld. If the Giants don’t give in in the next thirty seconds, they will let her fall. Sommers even makes it a point to say the Giants are forbidden to save anything from the school or library, much to Robin’s utter fury. Pushed to the absolute limits of her rage, Robin emerges from her hiding place and wastes no time attacking Sommers. She knows she can’t kill him, so instead she has one of her clones throw both of them off the edge of the branch, figuring it would negate his Devil Fruit Powers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
As everyone in Elbaph is listening, Ronja speaks up. She says that she loves her school, the library, and everything she’s learned, too much to let it be destroyed. She would rather fall than let that happen! However, Jarul can’t accept this, and begins to give the order to destroy the library. Right as he does so, though, and right as Sommers has Robin at his mercy, Gaban arrives. And in one swift the furious former piratee, he severs one of the cruel knight’s hands before delivering another blow to his chest…and they don’t regenerate.
Review
Words cannot describe the absolute fury that I was feeling as I read this chapter. Having devoted much of my life to the study of history, both as an academic pursuit and for the fun of it, I consider the act of destroying it to be one of pure evil. And it’s already been a long-established fact that the Straw Hats consider threatening the lives of children to be a reprehensible act. Once they manage to escape counter-attack, they’re going to focus their full fury on the God’s Knights. They’ll be lucky to return home in bodybags, especially since we now know they’re not invincible.
We still don’t know how it is that Gaban was able to deal Sommers an injury his regeneration can’t fix. However, one theory on Reddit might provide the answer. The fan theory is that Gaban managed to do this by infusing his attacks with a level of Haki strong enough to negate whatever healing factor the God’s Knights have. And they’re likely right. If you’ll recall when Luffy and Bonney beat Saturn to pieces, he was left down for the count. Even afterwards, he was still visibly injured. In addition, there’s the fact that when Emeth unleashed Joy Boy’s stored up Haki on Egghead, it was enough to send most of the Five Elders back to Mariejois. And it made Imu keel over in pain.
For the moment, it’s safe to assume that Haki is the key to putting a real dent in the God’s Knights. And unless the other Straw Hats awaken the ability to do so, it will be up to the Monster Trio, Gaban, and the Monster Trio to save the day. Whoever takes them down, though, won’t matter. What matters is that the good guys make the God’s Knights wish for death before they are done. Hell itself might be too good for the likes of them at this point! Sadly, we will have to wait two more weeks due to Oda going on break. In the meantime, next week the anime will be getting into Kuma’s life story, something that I’ve been eager to see animated since reading the manga.
Gaban, make the God’s Knights suffer.
