RJ Writing Ink

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.

I Give “Ronja” a 4/5

Click here to see more animanga stuff.

One Piece Chapter 1147 Review/Recap

Of all the enemies that the Straw Hats have faced over the years, the God’s Knights might be their most dangerous to date. Despite only three of them being present in Elbaph, they’ve managed to nearly cripple the nation of Giants. Their children have been captured and are being marched towards slavery. Half of the crew has been beaten by Gunko alone. And to make matters worse, the adults either have their hands full with Sommers or Qillingham or their nightmare monsters. In their arrogance, though, they have managed to make an enemy out of the last people they would ever want to tick off. Immortality or not, the Straw Hats are not going to let the God’s Knights get away with their heinous actions!

Recap

Despite wanting to get out and help Saul, Robin and Chopper obey his orders to stay hidden inside his hair. Elsewhere, Gunko and Sommers have captured Nami, Usopp, Jinbei and Brook. The former Knight even demands that Brook only make her music from now on, and when he refuses, she proceeds to beat him up. As this is happening, Summers begins to broadcast a message to Warland. They announce they have kidnapped ten children, now including Colon, and are marching them back to Mariejois as their hostages. Elder Jarul must decide if his people will bend the knee and serve the World Government, or refuse and allow the kids to die one by one. Furthermore, the Knights order the Giants to destroy their schools, their libraries, and everything about their history, or each kid will die.

Everyone is outraged at these demands, but none more so than Gaban and Robin. Immortality or not, the former will not allow let his son be enslaved by the evil Celestial Dragons, and the latter will not let the knowledge of her people be destroyed. Separately, the two take a stand and prepare to fight to protect Elbaph!

Review

You know, it’s funny. As bad as things are looking for Elbaph right now, and they are bad, I cannot help but laugh at what’s going on. Yes, the God’s Knights might share the Five Elders’ immortality and will no doubt be some of the strongest enemies the Straw Hats will ever face. Yes, they have taken the kids hostage to blackmail their families. And yes, they have taken half of the Straw Hats captive. Yet I still can’t help but laugh at how things are going. And it’s all because they’ve managed to do the one thing that they shouldn’t have done. The one thing they weren’t supposed to do: they picked a fight with Luffy.

For all their posturing as gods, the God’s Knights are as arrogant as they are ignorant. They want to avoid angering Luffy, one of the Four Emperors, yet every single one of their actions thus far has done exactly that. They attacked his crew; they took kids hostage, which is something that none of the Straw Hats loathe. They are trying to force their friends to do something they don’t want, which is also a big mistake on their part. Lastly, the God’s Knights openly declared their intent to burn the knowledge of Ohara, Robin’s destroyed homeland, to ash. It is for all these reasons and more that the Straw Hats are going to fight them. And when Luffy arrives with Zoro and Sanji, they are going to regret their immortality.

Immortality won’t save the God’s Knights

We saw during the Egghead Island Arc that Luffy and others near his level are more than capable of putting beings like the Five Elders down. If they didn’t possess some sort of immortality, it’s likely the Straw Hats would make sure they stayed down. Even then, though, Luffy and Bonney proved that this immortality doesn’t stop someone from being knocked out of a fight. In other words, Luffy and the others need to hit so hard, they will be down for the count. And given all the pain the Celestial Dragons cause, this will end up being absolutely cathartic to watch.

Sadly, we won’t get to see how the protagonists attempt their counterattack for another two weeks. With Golden Week set to kick off in Japan, Shonen Jump will be on break for a week. However, it will be worth the wait to see karma catch up to the so-called gods soon!

I Give “The Things We Find Scary” a 4/5

Click here to see more animanga stuff.