i'm biased as a shamrock enjoyer myself but i really think shamrock is going to turn out to be more important to the overall story than people realize. i feel like discussion about him has dwindled since his initial reveal but let's remember that
he was created at least seven years ago, as that's when we see the hooded red-haired figure speak to the gorosei. whether you believe that was shanks or shamrock (and i'm still of two minds about that myself) i doubt that scene would have been included if oda didn't already know about shanks' history and family. + this means shamrock is first shown/hinted at in an arc that is all about introducing deeper lore and endgame characters of the series.
he was (almost definitely) included in the panel at the end of 1121. i mean it hasn't been confirmed but who the hell else could it be lol. while theories differ on what the intention is behind showing these twelve characters, it feels pretty clear to me that they're going to be the twelve biggest players in the endgame. and damn, oda's gotta believe a character's going to be important if he decided he needed to feature them here despite not having even properly introduced them yet.
3. shanks is important. like, really important. do we know why yet? no! has he been all that present for like 99% of the story? no! but there's a reason he's lurking in the character page of every single volume, including all the ones he's not in. he's the character who kick-started the series and luffy's entire journey. he's been referred to as a "child of fate" for some unknown reason. so another character being as closely related to him as to be his identical twin brother means they pretty inevitably have a major role to play.
4. whatever tf this means
now...HOW is shamrock going to be important? hell if i know. but i have a distinct feeling that he's going to be very present in the last arc. i do think he'll end up fighting one/some of the revolutionaries, possibly sabo (their positions seem to mirror each other after all) but i predict it'll go deeper than that, and that the whole figarland family may have strong ties to the void century and a role to play when it comes to the one piece in some way. very interested to see how everything plays out.
The "Luffy's fruit is a Zoan" reveal/retcon was extremely controversial when 1044 was first released; do you think Oda did a good job foreshadowing it?
yes!! it addresses a lot of idle questions i had about luffy's powers for quite some time (while also raising a ton more, of course, but that's the nature of one piece).
(all of my thoughts here and on gear 5 in general owe some credit to @grainjew, who has been my main discussion partner on this topic)
luffy's fruit has always been, from what we've seen, kind of weird for a paramecia? obviously since the categorization of 'paramecia' is sort of a grab bag and a lot less well-defined than logias or zoans, that's kind of a hard claim to make, but generally speaking, most of the paramecia users we see throughout the series do not have their powers always on. (the strongest counter-example i could think of to this trend is brook, and even that is one i think you can argue.) luffy's power is way more passive, in the sense that he doesn't have to activate it- it's just there, always. even seastone and seawater do not make luffy not rubber, they just sap his energy and stop him from stretching himself, as we see as early as arlong park.
that is weird! what we see of most other paramecias is that they have to use their powers intentionally, even when those powers do involve transforming their body in some way, like with mr. 1 or alvida. there's a whole plot in dressrosa about knocking a specific paramecia user unconscious so she'll lose her grip on her power and it'll disappear. luffy will stretch when he is asleep, when he is underwater, and without knowing he's doing it. he's always rubber.
so luffy is weird for a paramecia, though not completely unprecedented. his power has always seemed to me to be... almost logia adjacent, in the sense that he's made from a specific material and all his powers are based on being that material, but that doesn't quite track either. aside from the fact that the thing he's composed of is tangible and, again, he can't turn it off, he clearly has access to a greater level of complexity in his transformations than logias do (whose devil fruit powers seem to be basically a binary system).
which actually leads me to compare him to chopper, who is the zoan we know the best, and who, conveniently, also ate a version of the hito hito no mi.
i think the way luffy and chopper interact with their powers is actually very similar. much like luffy, chopper was fundamentally altered by his consumption of a devil fruit in a way he cannot return from. he can still look like a normal reindeer, but he can never actually be one, because the most important trait his devil fruit gave him was human sentience. and he would still have that if you put him in seastone, he just wouldn't be able to transform. similarly, luffy had his body fundamentally altered by his fruit in a manner he does not seem to be capable of even temporarily reversing. he can't make himself not rubber any more than chopper can return himself to being a normal reindeer.
like chopper, luffy's power progression has been based around finding new ways to transform his body and force it into new and more powerful forms. his gears are roughly comparable to chopper's points. that is zoan stuff! chopper is the main other person we see interact with his fruit in that specific way. so, yeah, i actually do think it does make sense for luffy's power to have actually always been a zoan. at the very least, it makes more sense than him being a paramecia, to me.
however, having said that, i also don't think it's as straightforward as luffy just being a zoan instead of a paramecia. we see that the awakening of his fruit definitely has both paramecia and zoan qualities, since he's transforming both himself and the environment around him, as well as other people. (the wiki puts this down to him being a mythical zoan but i just don't think that's true. kaidou is also a mythical zoan and he is completely baffled by what he's seeing.)
i made a bunch of jokes in discord about luffy being devil fruit nonbinary while i was reading this chapter- there's three genders and you have to pick one, and you can't just go switching it up, etc- and i do think that what luffy's fruit indicates is that the sorting system of devil fruits itself is imperfect. outliers do exist that don't fit cleanly between the lines- which we already knew! just look at katakuri.
I don't have time to write this out yet (with manga caps, etc., although I started last week), but I want to write a post about how One Piece has many underlying themes, and one of them is good folks investing in bad masters, or opting for the status quo, all with various outcomes.
Cases in point,
Gin and Don Krieg: (stays with his abusive captain, could have left)
Gaimon: to a degree. He wants to take care of the island forest animals, but he's lived his life so long dedicated to a false expectation, that he maybe can't break the habit and leave (most tenuous of this list).
Bellamy and Doflamingo: (eventually leaves, but fights Luffy pointlessly for the time it takes for Doflamingo to toss Law around like a beanbag and pump him full of bullets [or his body-double]), there is a battle before that.
Chapter 779
Shits on Law for rescuing him from marine capture at Doflamingo's castle headquarters, rather than thanking him. Had wanted to go out with Donquixote crew, or moreso, the man, he'd dedicated his life to. A man that he experienced firsthand as not giving a shit about him.
Like Harald below, Bellamy knew what kind of man Doflamingo was as far back as chapter 303 (two years beforehand), but his resolve to his decision could not be shaken (finally, it seems it was, but he wanted to fight to his death. This, of course, has parallels with the samurai in Wano: Making Usopp's speech so important).
Reiju and the Vinsmoke family?: She doesn't have her free will, but enough emotions to help Sanji out. (Again, more elements are at play here).
1166 spoilers below the cut.
King Harald: keeps chasing the World Government like the gaslit half of a narcissistic, codependent relationship. The WG dependent on his naivety, and Harald chasing after their approval. Yes, he wants peace for his people, but has so much self-loathing that he attacks his own kind in his grief --
chapter 1166
--rather than attacking the institution that has done him so much emotional (and physical) harm. True, the giant above was not a good guy, according to the text, but the humans the giant had terrorised pled with Harald to stop hurting him, and stated that Harald has punished him enough.
And Harald then chases after and tries to atone for supposed giant sins to that organisation (World Government). The media vilified him before this. Also, like Bellamy before, Harald offers his servitude and loss of agency (stating he's willing to be a slave), despite knowing the crimes of the master he kneels before, and despite knowing how this master will treat him (Harald might still be blind--like Sengoku, he talks about the spread of the military below).
1157 (above), Harald attacks a navy ship after they're harassing an non-WG aligned country. A few frames later, Rocks and Ida are talking in Ida's bar. Rocks and Harald apparently having some kind of relation with Garp, Harald wanting to send more giants to the military, believing the general "Navy is generally good" propaganda, despite evidence to the contrary (he still has a point in terms of infrastructure, but systemic abuse occurs in systems).
Ida's words carry extra weight now, and it seems that she is talking about Hajrudin and Loki (and Rocks) due to the framing when she tells Harald that he should choose his friends wisely, but could be seen, retrospectively, to be talking about Harald and the WG rather than Rocks. It should also be noted, again, that the media (in cahoots with the military, no doubt) consistently ramp up their own negative propaganda about Harald too.
Chapter 1164
Imu states that Harald's pliability is what the World Government, or Imu, is after, for their own nefarious means (mwha-ha-ha). But Harald has witnessed the injustice of the WG. His trust, is maybe comparable to Garp's wish to protect rank and file in it's earnestness (although any earnestness on Garp's part is very gruff).
Garp. He states he is remaining in the institution for the rank and file.
Chapter 1166
"There are still things at the bottom of the cliff that need a guard dog!!!" Garp proclaims against Sengoku's statement that it's impossible to effectively challenge an institution or to gauge a higher-ups sanity, and he would ignore said insanity, and to not ignore it would be like barking from the bottom of a cliff; Garp also states that if Sengoku gets corrupted, he'll come for Sengoku's head himself. Sengoku is a pragmatist. We saw that at Ohara, and I don't support him (he is an interesting character, though).
Regarding Garp, yes, he did not stop the Moses in the Bulrushes persecution of mothers and children in Baterilla, as I've seen some people mention, and if he'd tried, knowing his strength, he might have stopped it, but as Sengoku says: "The world government and the marines are massive organizations. If you count the member nations' armies, were talking about tens of millions of soldiers worldwide." Garp is a super-powered man, but still just one man.
Sengoku goes on to say that it's impossible to know what every arm of that machine is up to at any given time (Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex back in 1961, btw, if we're using the U.S. military as an exmaple).
If Garp was not there at some point, Ace probably would not have survived childhood, depending on who was with Rouge. Yes, I know that Garp did not stop his death and that it's a failing. On Roger's wishes, he is pivotal in Ace being alive for his early years at least (which lead on to older years).
Aside from that, Garp seems to be more aware and critical of the shortcomings of his boss (the navy, the WG) if we compare him to Bellamy or Gin, and he also has more agency (but, this is the theme of One Piece too ā about the choices you make when you can make those choices).
He isn't blindly loyal or fawning or starry-eyed about the higher-ups, which also makes him different from the above (to be fair, Gin and Bellamy seem to know the shortcomings of their bosses, but still lick their shoes/stay despite the abuse; Harald knows, but his ideals are all-consuming). Garp's employer is more powerful than both the individual employers or seekers of approval above (bar the WG in Harald's case), and I think that his decision to remain in the navy is probably the most layered/complex out of the characters I've mentioned, because he seems to be the most aware, even if the end results so far have not been ideal. He's crucial in freeing Dragon, we now know too.
Also, I like the Japanese ććć rather than the English 'kay for his words in both accepting Dragon's decision to leave the navy, and in his disdain of Garp. Similar meaning, but the ććć (ah--), can be interpreted a number of ways, including touches of sorrow, and understanding for why someone might make the decision they have. It's non-committal, more of an acknowledgement, rather than the lack of care that's often apparent in a casual "'kay."
Bellamy also was never made an executive, and he stayed loyal after knowing that (at least for the duration of Dressrosa).
Hawkins and Apoo? (Kaidou's subordinates) --> although it seemed they didn't have much of a backbone in the beginning, and they were faced with a huge threat (to their men, in the case of Hawkins, as well as himself).
Then, we get those who do leave their abusive bosses when they can, and those who are aiming to.
Jaguar D. Saul, Sabo, Nami, Robin, Law, Sanji, Yamato, Dragon. Saul.
Dragon, Law, and possibly Robin, here are characters who moved from a darker organisation/ Families they willingly entered and maybe believed in (Robin, Dragon and Law definitely did [edited in the strikethrough and Dragon]) to either a lighter one and/or their own (non-evil, non-abusive) independence. Robin and Law's former organisations are obviously criminal, Dragon and Saul's organisation has the veneer of respectability.
Saul, chapter 396, and Sengoku acting in a manner I'd deem as corrupt, or immoral.
Yamato, and most of those in that list, rebelled against the beliefs and actions of their families or organisations from a young age.
(Also characters like Bon Kurei (Bon Clay), Hatchi, Mr 3). Stussy? (although programmed, but caught between two worlds for sure. Agains exploring the idea of free will in yet another direction).
Kuzan is possibly here too (we're still not sure of his motivations in joining Blackbeard). Drake is also an interesting character, due to all of his allegiances, and don't forget Guernica's (<--the CPO agent. I might have it wrong) words to him, that he wished he could change allegiances so easily --
chapter 1042
--(which, as we know with Hawkins, is not always the most positive thing, so it's that independent will and ability to assess and choose. Circumstances affect that ability, for sure).
Something about Vivi in there too. She chose to stay with her kingdom due to duty, Carrot too. Yamato as well. Carrot seemed to have less choice, but considering she independently stowed away on the Thousand Sunny on its trip to WCI, she's not without agency, i think (even if I don't like the decision :D). Scabbards staying with Toki or Oden. Those institutions are not cast as evil.
Anyway, I'll tease it out. I'm sure there are more characters to put in all categories, and I know it's not a perfect 1:1 match for everyone I've singled out. But, yeah, the (wrong) choices we make along the way, even in the light of evidence that our choice is gonna fuck us or others up. And or But, the individuals making those choices, don't feel they are the wrong choices for them (except maybe Reiju), blinded by either convictions or the inability to visualise themselves in another situation (or having too much fear to act).
I am one of those people who does not necessarily feel that narratively Garp made the wrong choice, by the way, but it definitely has had consequences on his life and the life of others. I don't think we know the full story yet.
Usopp's words to the samurai as a counter to Bellamy's wish to die for his master, no matter what:
chapter 1036. Izou comes flying in to help them all, and tells Kiku they'll catch up later, and then sacrifices himself, contrary to his words here (although not when he landed on Onigashima), and contrary to what he tells Usopp, and that's the story Oda writes.
Major spoilers for One Piece chapters 179-181 below!
Ok lets get things straight its analysis time. I have a hill I'm willing to die on.
This fucker doesn't actually look like that ^
Why? Well. First off, the shillouette doesn't match up. And yes, I know, Oda's original shilouettes are often misleading compared to the final character designs, but thats not whats going on here. For Loki and Kaido, those shilouettes were both presented hundreds of chapters before their debut, and they were people imagining what the characters looked like. For Imu, his (their?) debut was physical. They were shadowed, but that was their actual real body. Second, look at Imu's shilouette body even from the chapter this design dropped.
The shoulders aren't NEARLY broad enough. And look at that wrist! It's skinny! There's no way in hell this could physically be the same built guy we see only panels later. And obviously, Oda knew what the design was going to be at this point.
Second! We know that Imu already has at least some control over his appearance. When he fights Loki, he grows to the size of a giant. He seems to be able to summon and disappear his massive wings at will. And when he first arrives at Elbaf, he seems to undergo some kind of painful physical transformation.
Not to mention when he seems to turn into this giant, horrifying thing when facing down Sabo???
It seems to go a bit beyond a normal Zoan transformation. Maybe he just has more control, like Luffy or Chopper. Not neccesarilly full-on shape shifting, but certainly enough to change his appearance to a degree.
Third, hey Imu, we know what you look like so why are you still a shillouette in this flashback?
You could argue its just because the original Joy Boy is a shillouette too, but notice that Imu's shillouette isn't his demon pretty boy one. Its his veiled persona. Almost like that's a "true form" that he would've used in a casual conversation like this seemed to be. And notably, a true form that the author still wants to keep hidden.
Fourth. The design is too cool. This ones less of a concrete point, but I still think its important. He looks like goddamned Sephiroth. Handsome, scary, way-over the top outfit, not a single "quirky" or "joke" element in his design. Its not very One Piece like. And that all makes sense if you imagine that this appearance is one Imu designed for himself. Its his ultra-edgy unbeatable self-insert OC.
And that makes it interesting in parallel with Nika, doesn't it? Nika is a clown, his power comes from laughter, while Imu's appearance begs you to take him uber-seriously. There's something really pathetic about a scrawny guy who hides in his room and stabs photos of people he doesn't like trying desperately to present himself as shadow the hedgehog. Its fascinating, and it makes me really interested where hes gonna end up as a villain.
This is the first of a series of posts about Nika & associated religious practice in the One Piece world. As I write and post the rest of the series, Iāll add links to this header.
Pt 2: Symbology & Syncretism | Pt 3: Joyboy was Shandian | Pt 4: Sun God Tropes
Enormous credit to @oriigami for being my discussion partner through all of this and having a substantial influence on the final product. Check out our ao3 series Joyful for a narrative rather than analytical take on the Nika tradition, and definitely go read her OP blog @kaizokuou-ni-naru for meta and translation fun facts.
-
The Nika Cult is a Crypto-Religion
Terminology note: I will be using cult in these posts in the sense of ācult of worship,ā rather than in the modern pejorative sense. Additionally, I tend to use ātraditionā rather than āreligionā as a general term, because āreligionā is a messy and difficult to define concept, while ātraditionā is much more inclusive of traditional practices, folk beliefs, and cults of worship that may not be considered religions by Western scholarship.
Raise your hand if you saw Kumaās church and Bible, concluded āoh, the Nika stuff is basically One Piece Christianity,ā and moved on with your life.
Itās an easy assumption to make, and for all I know authorial intent may well stop there. Iām not Oda. Iāll never be able to guess what goes on behind those fish eyes of his. But a second look at the worldbuilding around both Nika and Christianity in One Piece brought me to a very different conclusion: that the Nika cult is a crypto-religion and is, in Kumaās case, using the outward appearance of Christianity as camouflage.
First of all: We have ample evidence that Christianity (or some variation of it- Iām fascinated by the implied existence of such things as One Piece Jerusalem and the One Piece Council of Nicea) does exist in the One Piece world, and is both fairly widespread and quite legal. Flevance was pretty explicitly Catholic (Law went to church as a kid), Miss Monday and Mother Carmel masqueraded as nuns to imply harmlessness, many if not most of the graves shown in the series are crosses, whatever Usopp was on about with that exorcism equipment, and, yes, Kumaās church and Bible.
Even mentioning the Nika cult, on the other hand, is grounds for the government to assassinate you with extreme prejudice.
A crypto-religion is what happens when a religion is suppressed to the point that its practice is grounds for exile, torture, and/or execution: Some people will convert. Some people will flee into exile. Some people will die. And some people will outwardly adopt the dominant religion, but will continue to practice their own traditions in secret; ie, theyāll create a crypto-religion.
One of the more famous examples of this is the post-Spanish Inquisition crypto-Jews of Spain and Portugal, who converted to Christianity in public but kept what Jewish traditions and rituals they could in private. To this day, descendants of these conversos whose families have been Catholic for centuries are discovering that their family tradition of lighting two candles on Friday or not eating pork on Saturday are in fact the legacy of a violently suppressed heritage. There are countless other examples of crypto-religions throughout history, both among Jews (my own personal field of knowledge) and among other traditions (for an example that would be known to Oda, the crypto-Christians of Japan).
Thereās no way the Nika cult could have survived except in cryptic form. If it ever had physical infrastructure in the form of temples or pilgrimage sites, the government would have sought them out and demolished them long ago if they were not adequately disguised, especially in World Government member states like the Sorbet Kingdom. Likewise, anyone foolish enough to speak publicly about Nika will be summarily assassinated.
In fact, I have doubts that the Nika cult ever existed outside cryptic form, at least in a significant or long-lasting manner. It was specifically introduced as a slave tradition, likely nigh-exclusively oral, practiced in secret either from its inceptionāif Nika was a figure created by slaves, including the buccaneersāor for a very long timeāif it was the cultural or ethnic tradition of the buccaneers, which spread from enslaved buccaneers to non-buccaneer slaves because Nika was a figure that resonated with them. I tend the favor the second option, but either has merit.
As @oriigami said when we were talking about this, Kuma has a church. Kuma has a bible. Kuma worships a god about whom absolutely nothing is written except in the oldest texts.
Additionally, Iāll expand on this more in pt 2 of this series, but the pendant Kuma leaves for Bonney, a large circular sapphire surrounded by eight smaller circular sapphires, matches the circular symbol inset into the crosses of his church. Bonney immediately identifies the pendant as a sun even though it really doesnāt look like one, and it can be surmised therefore that itās a Nika amulet, and the sun with disconnected rays a Nika symbol. Following this read, and especially because this symbol occurs across the world in other contexts (see pt 2 for my thoughts on that), its presence in the church is a very careful bit of architectural sleight of hand on the part of whichever of Kumaās ancestors built the place- echoing a very common practice of real-world crypto-religion adherents to mark the true nature of their allegiances and houses of worship in ways only those in the know might recognize.
And on a storytelling level, Kumaās entire presence in the narrative and in the world has been a tragic saga of appearing to be one way until heās revealed, again and again, to be the opposite. It makes thematic sense for him to be fooling the world about his faith as well!
It feels very intentional that Zoro ends up paired with Usopp and Brook in the Ryugu palace.
In Sabaody, Luffy, Zoro and Sanji split so they could protect everyone. Of course Zoro couldn't do that then.
It's really cool to see him, 2 years later, protect Usopp and Brook from Hordy, going as far as being able to keep up and fight on equal terms with a fishman while underwater.
i feel as though we dont talk enough abt this scene in punk hazard. This is why Zoro is seen as the unnoficial first mate: he is always reminding luffy of his responsibility as captain during important moments. He did it during water 7/ennies lobby, and he does it here too. Zoro saying this is the *only* reason why Luffy survives the fight with Monet. otherwise, he wouldve died. And (if im remembering correctly) Sanji in this scene is literally talking abt how harsh Zoro is on himself. He smiles so much less post time skip than he does pre, and u can see him shouldering the responsibility that hes placed on himself as one of the strongest on the crew. I think a good video that talks abt this somewhat is MelonTeesā video called āZoro and the anxiety of strengthā (or smthing like that). Agh i just love Zoro and i love this scene.
