What's this for? Honestly my last of the three little connective tissue points I wanted to make was this. Between this iconic scene between Moria/Doflamingo and Izo being killed by specifically Aegis Zero, the two have an established grudge with the powers that be and all. Like, the two have that hook in the upper echelons we'd see in endgame right? That plus Kiku's bookend to mainline Wano and the big class themes just simply gives the pair a reason to still be doing stuff at some future point in the story. The possibilities there are limitless.
We did though get something a little more interesting. An SBS question about the grave in the cover serial and all. So...thoughts ahead, but honestly it wasn't that far off from how we interpreted it:
I'll say right now I think what is and isn't covered suggests more like...this is what Oda thought he might spell out in Wano as a main arc. Cover serials still tend to set up something for the future and Moria's been buzzing around nearby. The extent of what Oda covered is essentially half of the basic interpretation we walked away with. So in the sense that SBS segments cover details the author doesn't think he'll get back to, note he chose to answer one of many questions that didn't directly mention nor did he include anything about Cho/Kiku's involvement.
So what did it say? Like many, Moria washed up in Wano as a kid. No firm age but probably sometime around when Izo or Kiku were born. And he was taken in, treated warmly. Which Fallensnowfan pointed out is interesting because it doesn't track with what we saw in the log. Sure, the Minks/Kawamatsu were racism and I'd buy Kiku/Izo getting some combination of people creeped out by their father's crimes or a subtle nudge at some kind of queer phobia. In essence saying yeah Wano hospitality is great if you're not "abnormal." Or is Oden the unreliable narrator striking again?
The only big thing we were off on is Moria like, making several voyages in and out of Wano as a young adult. But this still puts him floating around during a lot of the time the flashback covered. Though mostly when we skipped ahead over a lot of the good years. Little weird Kozuki was given as a title almost and his name actually is Gecko? Or was it just some kid named Moria and he made the wordplay on Kozuki/Gekko? Does Yamato earn Kozuki if he kicks a little ass for a few more years? Or is this idea of claiming it like he was doing way more normal in Wano than we realized? Oh, also that it seems like there was a grave there the Ringo Stars restored. Like, it's still clearly not there in the cover serial. The way it's written too, if someone knew and was just playing coy letting people think he died valiantly yeah Kiku/Cho fit that bill. This does lend weight to the idea she may have actually helped him dart off with Shusui.
So yeah, if nothing else we do now 100% know Kiku & Gecko Moria know each other. Like, when you're someone who pointed it out during mainline Wano it's not a surprise and all but man, how about that reach being true? There was only one other time in my 22 years of fandom here I had anywhere near this good of a "call" and that was just saying Barto will probably end up wanting to get the Flame Fruit for Luffy for some reason because Luffy will need to get out of this Colosseum. One last time, there were a few clues. Moria came back after Act 1, Oden glossed over it in his log but Kiku the Ringo girlie who might wanna ask about a pirate named Izo had extra incentive. First big zombie we meet is an actress inspired by Okiku's Well and Kiku's intro is stopped by a fat bat gifter. Then the reality she had plenty of chances to and didn't say anything about Shusui like so many others.
Let's kick this off with a more fun one, and you know it's good if I'm going back to BeFunky collages. We had our theorycrafting that ended up doing fairly well for trying to do that with One Piece. We had our initial reaction then a followup on Halloween a couple months after. This little trio is gonna dig a bit deeper now that I've had some holidays and snow days to dig out my volumes and really take in how interesting two arcs become when they connect through an antagonist and a core local girl. Sure, we've seen Bonney & Blackbeard or Lucci & Vivi interact...but assuming this cover serial points to the idea Kiku & Moria grew up together. That's wild, that's unprecedented, and that's cool as hell.
Here's the first thing that stood out to me. There's actually a pretty big similarity in these two. One of the first things we do with both Kiku and Moria to establish their personality is put them in a conflict where Luffy's involved albeit for different reasons. Both of them, when they're justified in feeling they have the easy upper hand, aren't really as violent as they could be and favor taunts, demoralization...you know, being cheeky little shits.
It's not like that is a bad thing, our darling main character Luffy is also a little shit and we love him for it. Just like Kiku, and honestly fuck yeah it's why I liked Moria. In hindsight, when Luffy steps into this fight with Urashima the scene itself has some fun connections to his first clash with Moria. Particularly that blase attitude Luffy takes. He's acting like Moria by this point, the big one to me is his little "Yeah yeah, smash her skull whatever you ain't beating me." Even have a nice next step of Urashima "cheating" and Luffy handling it better than Moria did back in Thriller Bark.
Do I think this was secretly Luffy realizing the connection and trying to subtly broadcast he knows Moria? Fuck no, but it is Luffy matching that speed and you gotta wonder if Moria's influence is a part of him thinking of doing this. Definitely suits the segment well. But the main takeaway to me is this. We've talked about how the Bakura Town introduction is important for Kiku because it's giving us who this girl actually is when she doesn't feel much of a need to live up to expectations. Kiku tends to mirror who she's around.
What Moria represents for Kiku is someone she probably doesn't have to perform around very much. And on the flipside like, Cindry was already part of the spooky vibes. There's this impish aloofness to both of their personalities that doesn't take long to see as a cover for a very sharp pair of minds. Kiku's also not exactly a stranger to being a little macabre. We are talking about the demon-masked lady presiding over a massive snowy graveyard. Not unlike the type of "Cemetery King" Absalom proclaimed as his dream.
So yeah...on that basic level of "do you think they'd get along?" Hell yes!
What a blessing I haven't actually used this panel yet. Cindry wasn't in it. The second big takeaway I think is a pretty big deal, looking at this scene where Moria drops his big ethos statement. Go make me the Pirate King. A key theme around Moria and Thriller Bark in general is underlings. The quality of the people following you. What I see now is that another concept that felt tangential to this might be deeply connected.
We talked a lot about Kiku during Wano. Especially when we had that month hiatus towards the end. And there were three general areas of interest; Shanks, Moria, and the relationship Kiku quietly builds with the Straw Hats. I still don't think it was an entirely bad idea. If someone comes in early and is kinda quiet but fills a niche there does seem to be room for, has connections to the prior story, and then gets overshadowed in the second half by a sudden addition that deliberately feels clunky and is very outspoken about tagging around with Luffy? Yeah...I still don't think it was a bad interpretation of the way the arc was going.
Because we were always grounded in very realistic observations. Don't be mistaken, I liked Kiku but didn't pay much attention until the subtle brilliance clicked around the 3/4ths mark. Just the basic stuff like how well Bakura Town sets up a character arc built around delayed decoding. Seeing this rapid-fire early element of how mutlitalented Kiku was presented as but how it's obscured by her storytelling following suit with the trait of that really exaggerated, deferential kind of traditional ladylike politeness.
What I'm getting at here is this is something that still matters a ton of we're connecting her to Moria's story as well. We did kinda ruminate on the idea, like when it still looked like Moria invaded and maybe met our girl briefly when she went to investigate did he try to poach the demonic prodigy of the Akazaya? Was his malaise after the fall warped by seeing the quality of subordinate he could have had? Girl would be 19-20 when Moria fought Kaido. If we dip into powerscaling a bit...there's not really much of a gap between Kiku/Moria. Like, put Okiku in Brook's place the first time he raids Thriller Bark. She's honestly got a fair shot at making it fall or bare minimum Moria himself has to be the one stopping her.
How fast that little spark of an idea becomes a raging wildfire if the two grew up around each other. If Kiku cared enough to remember a secret about his name and make sure he was honored properly. If she called him the "Pirate of Justice." Even the idea this scene praising "a couple of good underlings" doesn't tell us exactly who he's referring to but given the flow of the fight one has to be Robin.
In essence, those aspects of Kiku that were identified to argue she'd make a great fit as a Straw Hat Quartermaster also work equally well for slyly showing us Moria's gold standard for an exemplary follower.
That's a fascinating idea. In Moriatorium we pondered the idea Moria might have the chance to re-unite with an honorary member of the Gecko Pirates. A teen girl who hung out around them sometimes like Misao and the Oniwabanshu in Rurouni Kenshin. But at the same time, even if there's an age gap Moria's got like ten years he's a pirate and Kiku's an active retainer. Was Kiku specifically or even just the Akazaya Nine in general who Moria was thinking of as the type of retainers who could have been enough to conquer the world? Was she something like Jinbei was to Luffy? Someone Moria really wanted but just wasn't that level of captain yet. I still think there's a great opportunity to show the mask was a clandestine way to fight as a Gecko Pirate. Fits Moria's aesthetic, did Kiku have a scene like Shinobu in the big clash from Oden's log? Something like denying their association to save her?
These are all really cool things to think about, but you can't deny that connection Moria's arc baited Wano and had a huge theme of the quality of those who follow you. Then Wano built it's story around a group of outstanding retainers.
