Ch. 1133 p16 & p17
Robin makes Saul notice that, despite everything in her life was terrible, she ultimately followed Saul's advice: she stayed alive and found some friends. She also asks for praise, Saul praises her and both cry.Actually, the bit about finding friends isn't true, though I think it should be. These two pages annoy me. A lot. And I'm aware of what I just said about the previous two, but believe me, these two are even worse.
I get what Oda is trying to do here by showing Robin in this light: vulnerable, lowering her emotional defenses, regessing to a childlike state, seeking validation... He's trying to give some depth to the character, to humanize her a bit. And I really appreciate it but... this comes late and it's wrong and poorly executed.
First of all, Oda wouldn't have the need to do this if he hadn't murdered Robin's character before. Robin already had a character pre-time skip. Only to come back from it almost entirely devoid of such a feature. Her whole character was replaced with an emotionally ice-cold mannequin with a twisted and morbid sense of humor. Something she wasn't before, I might add.
But most important of all, because these tears, this overcoming the pain and this realization of her success in doing what Saul asked her belong to this moment:
Ch. 398 p17 & p18
and to this moment alone. That is one of the most cathartic moments in the whole manga serving as an inflection point to one of the most loved arcs. The moment Luffy declares war on the world government JUST so that Robin can speak freely without fear for them. Luffy (and the rest) raided Enies Lobby just to hear it directly from her words. Whether she was truly okay with her situation or not. And if she was, then that's okay, but is she wasn't they'd move heaven and earth to rescue her. And that's when she realizes she's found the friends Saul told her she would eventually find and it's only then that she's able to move on.And now, two years of in-story time later, out of the blue we get this re-enactment of that realization, completely unprompted, unrequired by the situation, in a situation of absolute lack not just of epicness or narrative tension, but anything actually, there's literally nothing going on. Even the faintest shred of a plot we were having that's having a big feast with the giants was abruptly interrupted like an advertisment in the middle of a movie to have this moment rehashing one of One Piece's "greatest hits" in a graceless way, while using it as an excuse to justify a retcon and exalt a previous fiasco just for the sake of... I don't know. Giving the chapter a highlight, maybe?
I find this insulting towards Oda's own past work and can't begin to express how terrible it feels to me. My mind is blown by the comparison. Just thinking about what we had and what we're getting nowadays.
But, hey! The retcon is real, this encounter between Robin and Saul is happening and to me that begs for at least one question. Let's see... Turns out Saul lived and escaped (with lots of books of Ohara's scholars even!). The Marines reaction to Saul's giant body being nowhere to be found was:
Marine high-ranking officer 1: "The body of giant Jaguar D. Saul, who was charged with treason and collusion with Ohara's scholars can't be found. Do we declare him missing in action and issue a bounty for him?"
Marine high-ranking officer 2: "Better not. Let's just assume he's dead and move on. I'm tired of this shit."
So, after that, Saul was effectively one of the freest people in the world thanks to the World Government not giving a shit about him. And now he claims to have missed Robin so much. He cries a lot too. But the facts are:
- He didn't go to see her arrive to Elbaf even though he knew she would.
- He didn't go with the other giants to help her at Egghead, even though he knew she was in such danger.
- He, for 22 long years has read newspapers with news of Robin suffering hell on earth every single day of her life and did NOTHING.
He stayed comfortably hidden in Elbaf, reading those newspapers with a hot coffee in his hand saying to himself "I should help Robin, that poor little girl I love and care so much for. Maybe once I'm done reading all these books I saved from Ohara. Oh look! There's still a heap of them left. It's too bad... They're so tiny I can barely read anything at all, I have to really force my eyesight. Well maybe in 50 years or so I'll be done. Then I'll do something about Robin. She deserves to be happy. :) "
All he had to do was get a hair cut, put on different clothes and look for her under the safety that no one is actively looking for him and he's basically dead to the world. Donquixote Dofla'emon, one of my favourite characters post-time skip is a living proof that a little costume works wonders in this world. So it shouldn't have been a big deal. But no. Saul did nothing. And if I were Nico Robin, rather than looking for praise from him I'll be expecting a very thorough and convincing apology from him. Because Saul spoke to her about some wonderful friends she'd make in life, but in this retcon'd reality he was surely not one of them.
Finally, to end this review that turned out way longer than I wanted it to be, I want to discuss something less dramatic if possible.
Ch. 1133, clockwise from top-left: p10, p14, p16, p17 & p13
At least Lilith and Bonney don't appear in last panel. It's something I suppose.
Thank you very much for reading until the end.