[Chapter 1131] Rested Review: Pent-up anger

#1


Doodles, again. "The" Netflix break came after doodles and it ends with more doodles. At this point, someone should consider publishing the chapters as a script and nothing else.

Or maybe not. It'd be so so embarrassing from everyone, us readers included, to find out most chapters' detailed script nowadays wouldn't take more than a page.

In the meantime, we have to endure this ugly sketchy linework. To name a few:
  • Komacchiyo's flaming fur that looks more like partially maggot-consumed leaves.
  • Yamato's horns that Oda was too lazy to actually fill the tips with ink.
  • Tama's four-fingered hands.
  • Speed. All of her. But, really, the rear half.
There are four characters in the cover and none of them are drawn right. The dog is now four or more times smaller. At least it's only the scale that's bad about him. Oda's supposed to be an animal-drawing expert and yet... Speed. Horses don't run like that. They're not rabbits or kangaroos, they don't use their legs at the same time, they shouldn't be in the same position.

Then the rear abdomen's shading together with an inexplicable line cutting off her whole rear from the front part of the body, makes it totally look like she's not a centaur, but just a pant-less woman floating in the air in the same position she'd be sitting in the toilet.

But enough of the illustration, you can see it's bad at first sight. In last chapter's review, I considered the possibility that Yamato had just set a trap for the criminal by playing asleep only to catch the thief immediately after.

I was wrong. "That thief" really stole from Yamato and left. I hadn't considered Speed before because I know it's not a real character in Oda's mind, but I did say Shinobu was there too and this chapter it's confirmed she was useless.

Anyway, let's move onto the actual chapter:



After Loki's dramatic yet unmotivated introduction of Elbaf, Luffy seems to be very excited and babbling about things Loki doesn't know nor cares while the giant tries to tell him something.

There are two things I don't like in this page that I'm so willing to forgive because they're done in favor of a greater good.

The first one is that Loki has been stripped off his badass realistic proportions (like mine) in favor of a more One Piece-esque style with his legs looking like soccer goal posts akin to brother Cracker's biscuit soldiers. This makes Loki uglier and a bit weird-looking but it allows somethign you can see in the panel in the center of the page: Loki is packing a massive giant cock between those skinny posts. I suppose after a lifetime of boob-worshipping and his recent newly-found taste for buttocks, Oda's journey of discovery through the human body has reached the male nether parts.

The second one is the fact that most of the text in the page is meaningless. Nothing Luffy says has smallest bit of relevance. However, this is done only so that Loki feels like Luffy doesn't listen to him even though he's trying to tell him something.

Yes, Oda could have made Luffy say something meaningful as well and, yes, it doesn't make sense that Luffy is now so careless and friendly when last chapter and for the first time in the whole manga, Loki's presence in the distance scared him enough to feel goosebumps. But, let's focus in the good parts: Oda is here setting up Loki to have a personality similar to Luffy's. And the first step has been giving Loki a taste of Luffy to then...



Loki yells loudly to claim Luffy's attention and respect. We're not shown explicitly how Luffy shuts his mouth to let Loki speak, but he does. Instead, we see some animals in the forest become angry because of Loki's yell.

Loki tells Luffy that he's "the Sun god" from Elbaf's legends and tries to establish some dominance after successfully silencing Luffy.

This is similar to some things Luffy did in the past. Probably the one that feels closest is when he rendered unconscious the wolves at Impel Down's lvl 5 with a yell, because of the snow, the trees and the wolves (obviously). But he's done that in other occasions like stomping on the table and yelling at Usopp for asking Rayleigh about the One Piece.

Now, two things about Loki believing himself to be the "Sun god":

Interestingly enough, we, as readers, have been put under a strong bias to immediately think "haha, sure dude, it's not like you are actually in front of the true sun god or anything". However, were the "Sun god" a real thing, Loki might as well be it because, technically, Luffy isn't. He's just a guy with a devil fruit's power that grants him the same powers as the "Sun god Nika", but he isn't the Sun god himself. The same way, Kaku having the powers of a giraffe doesn't mean there can't be actual giraffes out there.

On the other hand, Loki saying this again is plain awful, in my opinion, because we have no clue what he really means by that. We haven't read a single one of those "legends we pass down on this island". We can't even know whether he means the same "Sun god" as Nika or something else entirely. In fact, we have reasons to believe he should be speaking of a different myth because the first time he claimed to be "the Sun god", he accompanied it by also claiming to be so and the one "to bring about the end of the world". Something radically opposed to all we know of Nika. Additionally, as one of the megalomaniac type characters in One Piece (like Eneru), it would be incredibly embarrassing for him to make such claims of being "the god of liberation" while being captive himself.

So, right now, Loki saying that means next to nothing to ourselves. That information is useless.

Oh, and about Loki's bounty... Okay, we can infer he's labeled a criminal by the World Government, sure. But what does that mean "special bounty"?? Useless information again. I mean, it would be a completely different thing if that were written in his WANTED poster or something and therefore it was part of the information the characters manage. Like when Sanji's WANTED poster said "alive only" and that sparked the curiosity of the rest and ended up meaning something.

But this isn't like that. This is information only us readers get from a source that's never going to interact with any character or other element of the actual story and that means this information goes nowhere.



You can skip Luffy's words again. They're still irrelevant. Only to pretend they're having a conversation, because Loki doing a monologue for 5 pages straight would be weird. It is weird. Any way, he gives some information that might actually be of some use at some point:
  • He's been chained to that tree for the past 6 years.
  • The huge tree in the island is, indeed, the treasure tree Adam.
  • All those giant chains are, indeed, kairōseki.
At this point I have to admit, so far this arc is garbage just like the previous one, but this guy here is starting to grow on me already. 6 years chained to a tree in a snowy field and he's in this good mood. Moreover, right here and right now (copying Luffy's personality as I said before. His disrespect for others in this case) he becomes the first character to give Luffy a taste of his own behavior. Something no other character ever addressed. Rather than Luffy, he calls him Loppy.

And this might just have become one of my favourite panels in all of One Piece, because this interaction is great. The panel is perfect. Contrary to the previous panels (and the ones after that, sadly). The image shows what matters now: the two characters. It also does it without need to change the relative size between them like Oda does so often. Luffy isn't static, but doing "Luffy things". In this case, he's relaxing and getting comfy in Loki's pants. And the text not only is it relevant and advances the plot, it also has this unique thing I started talking about seamlessly built-in. And that's not even the best part!

In these few words, there's even something else. As Loki calls Luffy the wrong way, Luffy corrects him without being bothered by Loki's mistake at all. This is nice because now that this happened we have proof that while Luffy is quite disrespectful by almost never bothering to learn the names of the people he interacts with (including those he befriends), at least he doesn't care when others do so too. Maybe remembering names is something difficult for him and he understands it can happen to others too.

But the best parts comes now. Loki immediately calls his name again. And this time he says it right. Why? It's obvious, because Luffy just told him how to address him. But this is something no one usually does to Luffy. Luffy walks the earth calling people the wrong name and they don't correct him, so he keeps calling them the wrong way. But, increasing the similarities between Luffy and Loki, it turns out all anyone had to do for Luffy to say his/her name right is correct him once. Just like the only person who ever corrected Luffy for this:



The first time Hancock tells Luffy to call her by her name, he doesn't get it right. But she corrects him. And what happens the very next time Luffy tries to use her name?



He says it right!

At the time, this looked like Luffy treating her different than the rest and making an effort to remember her name whereas he didn't with others. It turns out all the other people had to do was just tell them their name again so he could remember. We just learnt that through Loki and we did in a small panel that's not even about that! Isn't that great??

By the way, I forgot to talk about this in last chapter's review so I'll say it now that the whole island is depicted again: Having a humongous weapon nailed into the island is repetitive and if no one speaks about it just as it happened with the giant katana in Onigashima, it's going to be very ridiculous.

That said, making it a sword, again, is even more repetitive and a missed opportunity to make it a spear. THE spear of Elbaf. The one that inspires the name of the strongest of Dorry's and Brogy's moves (and maybe Kaido's and Big Mom's too).



So... Loki asks Luffy to unchain him and offers violence as gratitude. That's... pretty much Luffy in a nutshell: "Am I grateful to you? Then tell me whose ass do you want me to kick and consider it done." As he did with Nami in Arlong Park, Vivi in Arabasta, Rebecca in Dressrosa or Momonosuke in Wano.

But halfway through the page something changes. Loki almost forgot. The chapter's title no less!! "This is the realm of the dead" he says referring to "the lowest layer of Elbaf". That means, the ground level, because higher levels are above in Adam's tree-top. Why that name, you say?

Because "it's a place no onw dares to approach. Criminals and the condemned are dropped here. It's a prison and an execution ground."

Seriously??
In Elbaf, they reserve a space for their criminals, "a prison" they call it, and it's not just the biggest part of the island, but the only one with access to the sea and surrounding all the rest, which means the actual prison and prisoners are the "non-criminals". Genius. I didn't expect less from "the land of War". They may know a lot about smashing each other's heads, but they are gigantically dumb. Never a brain that big was that stupid.

Loki says "no one dares to approach". The realm of the dead. Then... what about the giants that come and go from and to the island? What about the bar Shanks was chilling in some chapters ago?? That was the lowest layer as well. Even the whole village was at the "lowest layer" back in Big Mom's flashback. (In fact, the middle layer we were shown a page ago and last chapter didn't exist at all back in Big Mom's flashback).

I really wonder what could be the reason to say such an obvious and ridiculous inconsistency.



A lot of giant beasts appear in a threatening demeanor. Loki wants to use them to coerce Luffy into accepting his deal. But for Luffy it just reminds him of long ago at Rusukaina training alo... wait! What's with the nostalgia??? Yes, that was 12 or so years ago for US readers, but not for Luffy!! It's been only a couple of months for him!!

Any way, Loki says there are countless dead humans and giants here. But that contradicts what he said about no one daring to approach. Even he admits to have been visiting since he was a kid!!

Loki also says this part "belongs to the sun", which is pretty ironic considering it's clearly the part of the island with the most shadow all day long.



HAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

"No one dares to approach" he says. And immediately after a horde of fodder human servants of his make their entrance. No comment.

Luffy has already befriended the giant beasts, thus deactivating Loki's coercitive power. It surprises Loki and his entourage and that's it. The important part is, that Loki's servants apologize for fainting when Shanks "showed up".

Showed up where?? Didn't Shanks leave after defeating Kid?? He said he was leaving, didn't he? Did he return already? He found the One Piece?

Did Shanks visit Loki personally or did he just knocked out the servants on a whim with his telephonic haki??

It's really weird, because the fodder servants know for a fact it was Shanks their cause for fainting, but at the same time, Loki wonders whether Shanks actually came? How can he not know??? In this very page he realizes what's going on between Luffy and the beasts even though he's blindfolded, so he clearly has good observation haki. Why do the servants know but not him???

Any way, Loki calls Shanks coward and this is the latest approach Oda discovered at ruining One Piece.



As soon as he hears "Shanks" and "coward", Luffy resorts to violence. Gear 4th Kong gun straight to Loki's face without thinking twice or even a word.

This is it. As it happens so often, it looks like Luffy at first sight, but it's Iñaki actually. But I'm astonished this time. This is so so out of place. That angry look on Luffy's face, like Loki had just killed his pet or something.

This is something else. And I'm not speaking about characters losing their personalities or the plot making no sense, like in this case though, because Luffy had nothing but praise towards the man that wanted and tried to enslave him and his friends, and now he does this to someone because somethign he didn't like was said. No, this is way more than that.

Remember when Luffy refused to fight back in Mocktown and even ordered Zoro to do the same, mirroring what he couldn't understand as a kid about Shanks not fighting back Higuma at Makino's bar? The lesson about fights that aren't worth it because they're of no consequence and your above that?

Well all that was just thrown overboard. Luffy has been retcon'd yet again and this time he turns out to be a hyper-aggressive meathead, who needs literally even less than a provocation to start acting like a caveman. This is very, very sad.

And you know what makes it even worse? He misses. Can you believe it? Your opponent is a freaking giant chained in kairoseki, you punch him at point blank and miss.



Not happy enough with what just happened, Oda keeps it up.

Luffy proceeds to scold Loki for sying something he didn't like and threatens him. Luffy threatening. I might be wrong, but I'm sure this is a first. "Next time, [...] I'll bury you in that tree". As if the previous page hadn't been enough, now whatever small fragment of the original Luffy that was still in him just vanished. Luffy now walks the streets threatening people's lives if they say something not to his liking. Everything Luffy ever represented down the drain in one page. I can't believe what I'm reading.

Is Oda going to keep saying he's writing as though he had to please his 15-year-old self??

I'm shocked. "I don't care if you can't move". Is this for real??

What reason is there to break continuity and the protagonist this hard???
Less than two months ago (in-story time), Luffy was announcing how he was going to attack against a blind Marine admiral because he felt the fight was unfair. Now, he's threatening with death and jumping not just a blindfolded (maybe actually blind as well) man, but one chained and restrained who can't defend, let alone fight back. And he even says he doesn't care. A fight he initiates completely unprovoked.

Remember back in Little Garden when both Luffy and Usopp were in awe of the honourable duel between Dorry and Broggy and how pissed he was that someone had tainted it? Well, all that goes overboard as well. He went to Elbaf of all places to demonstrate all that is no more. Now his values are to act like a bully and take advantage of every handicap others may have.

As a man who seriously wounded himself on purpose while fighting the Mugiwara to not take advantage of a wound I didn't inflict on him, I am utterly disappointed and I say: Shame on you, Monkey D. Luffy. Shame on you: Oda Eiichiro.

But no. Not knowing shame at all after such behavior, Luffy continues by questioning Loki as though nothing happened. He actually expects Loki to answer him. Really? Why would anyone answer Luffy after all that? It's unreasonable, which tells me Luffy is relying in his threat to make Loki talk. Luffy is now a gangster. WTF??

Thankfully, our new favourite character comes to save the day! Loki tells him in quite a mysterious and dramatic way that he can't answer that question, and with that he brings a wide smile to my face. You may be wondering why is it Loki can't tell, because the scene is so shocking you already don't remember, but the answer is right there a couple of pages before:

Loki can't tell Luffy whether Shanks is in Elbaf or why because he simply didn't know Shanks was in Elbaf either! XDD



And after an intense scene like the previous one, we can relax. Let's start with some Reaction Piece. Of the best kind: reactions to something we haven't seen either. A giant comes running through the bridge with a smoking cape.

"He looks like he was just struck by lightning".

Now you know it, boys and girls. This is what people struck by lightning look like. Lively, overly active... maybe running a marathon. With no visible wounds but with a slightly burnt cape. Do you know the worst of all? In the very same panel we can check that Rodo couldn't possibly be wearing those clothes under his costume because the shoulder pads make him a lot wider than he was disguised. So, he had to change and put on a cape that was already burning because of the fire in his workshop.

Oh, I have to say this too. As per the images we've seen before this chapter and the previous one, what we see in the first panel is very close to half the island and yet in the distance the Mugiwara pirates can be clearly seen. This is probably, although not too apparent, the worst case of bad proportions in the whole manga. Maybe tied for worst precisely with Big Mom's parent's ship.



A ship for regular humans the size of mountains. Now we have a castle bigger than mountains and regular humans the same size as giants and who are also discernible from a distance so far away that you can also see half an island.



Gerd and Goldberg run after Rod with the Thousand Sunny in their arms. The Mugiwara see it and keep running.

Please a minute of silence for the Sunny's klabautermann who just died of sorrow because the ship was at the castle (or near it) and not Sanji or Usopp, with their great observation haki, nor even Luffy, with his even greater observation haki and the voice of all things, sensed the Sunny nor even cared to look for it.

Zoro has a nice idea: They have our ship. They're with the one who tried to enslave us. Let's cut them up and get what's ours back.

Usopp has another one: Let's think this through, they might be friends (of ours. Without us knowing).

What do they do? None. They keep escaping who-knows-why.

Why do they think it's of utmost importance to go up??? They don't know where they're going. They have no orders. They're not waiting for Luffy. They're not confronting their enemy. They're even turning their back on their own ship!! How ridiculous can this get???

"If they catch us is all over!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA """The wings""" of the Pirate King. Pitiful. For the record, they had already caught you before and it wasn't all over. You just escaped.

"I bet there's a village or something up there" You sure?? Who told you? Plot convenience?

Oh, and remember Nami's intermitent sword from the beginning of the arc? It's still with her! I mean, half the panels at least! Not in the first one, but it is in the last one.



And here they are, the last two members of the New Giant Warrior pirates: Hajrudin and Stansen. They're... Oh, my, god. I can't believe my eyes. They are... at "THE REALM OF THE DEAD". Didn't Loki said NO ONE EVER DARED APPROACH that place??? Noe everyone is there and more people will come. It's like Wano, that was supposedly isolationist and a natural fortress very difficult to access but anyone could come and go easily, even a drowning little cat and dog could accidentally wash up there. But let's not lose focus.

Hajrudin caught a moose!! He wants to make a tribute to the Mugiwara pirates. Nice. But... Does someone know why he says "moose" when it's just a dinosaur with antlers??? The other animals were "normal": bear, elephant, snake, wolf... Why isn't this called a dinosaur at least??

But the best is the "refresher". One thing I have to admit: If this chapter is something, that is original. In a bad sense most of the times, but very very original nonetheless.

So, what about "a refresher" of something that NEVER happened? Like Hajrudin being controlled by Doflamingo with his Parasaito. Perfection. Who knows! Maybe Dressrosa's been retcon'd and we don't know yet, but in the revised version Doflamingo did use Parasaito on Hajrudin at some point.



Skull joke: 👍

Shoehorn Lilith and Bonney: 👎

Brook cuts Robin's hair and we see the result... only that what er see hardly ressembles Nico Robin. How ugly can this portrait of Robin be???

The thing is, that due to Franky's comment and the obvious reason that the only look Robin was charismatic with and we all see in our minds when we think of her, we also think Brook cut Robin's hair to be like pre-time skip (which would be a step in a great direction).

WRONG.
Brook cut Robin's hair so that she ressembles kid Robin from her flashback. That's why he's drawn here with the childish look and the rounded face (even though Brook obviously couldn't perform an aesthetic surgery on her).



True adult Robin and kid Robin for reference. The new one, as the one before her looks nothing like them any way.



This page exist solely to complete the 17 pages the chapter had to have. There absolutely nothing of interest or relevance in here. Not good or bad, just nothing.

Actually, now that I think about... the whole chapter is little bits of nothing.

Thank you for reading all this. I'll take the chance to say that maybe I won't do any more reviews of new chapters. I tried with this new arc but every single chapter so far has been boring me to death. It''s not about them being better or worse. It's that regardless, above everything else, they're boring because there's no story. Nothing happens and it's been a while. So, as you may notice by the time I'm posting this, I'm struggling to find any motivation to review these nothing-pages.
 
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