This is a man who literally transforms into the Buddha, the most powerful and wise being
in Japanese and Chinese mythology.
Because this golden and slightly overweight form is that of a mythical human Zoan fruit,
arguably the most rare and dangerous type of Devil Fruit in the entire story that we
only get to see in action this one time here at the peak of Marineford, one of the most
turbulent and exciting arcs in all of Anime and Manga.
But this man is so much more.
Fighting side by side with Luffy's grandfather Garp, against the likes of Rocks Whitebeard
and Shiki, and respected by the Pirate king himself for his power.
The Buster call on Ohara, a fleet of devastating Navy Ships sent to destroy the island of scholars,
summonsed at his command.
Unforgivable, I am personally insulted.
Smashing Garp head-first into the ground to keep him from attacking Akainu, who just murdered
his grandson.
Ending the war to stop unnecessary bloodshed.
Handing in his resignation to Kong.
Keeping a picture of Corazon is his drawer.
And having a long and sincere conversation about him with Law on Dressrosa, after he
and Luffy took down Doflamingo.
And since Corazon was his foster son and Law Corazon's, these two are basically the weirdest
and most awkward Grandpa-grandson duo of all time.
Looking at a before and after, he is without any doubt the character that aged the most
over the two year time skip, well, together with Koby I guess.
He retired from his position arguing that a change was necessary and almost seems to
be a completely different person now, eating crackers like Garp and generally going against
his former extremely strict and serious behavior.
By the way, this video contains spoilers for the one piece manga, so if you need to leave,
do it now, but otherwise:
Welcome to this breakdown of fleet admiral Sengoku, well...ex-fleet admiral.
My name is Manu, and now that we have all bathed in the glory of Luffy's legendary mythical
Zoan devil fruit reveal right here, I got extremely excited to look deeper into the
deeper meaning of this power in the story.
And this golden grandpa, who by the way is the only other official mythical human devil
fruit in the entire story so far next to our Rubbery Hero, has been on my list for a while
now.
Because looking back now, through the lens of a completely different One PIece and against
everything I believed in prior to this, it looks to me like Sengoku was not only a character
with a more than fascinating character arc, but that he might end up being one of the
most important characters in the story.
Someone who might play a central role in taking down the world government, as paradoxical
as it may sound.
Let's go back to the image of a giant golden Buddha here.
I think to really drive home how big of a deal this devil fruit is, it's worth pointing
out once again, that Buddhism play a central role in One Piece.
Zoro's character and fighting style is heavily based on Buddhism and the six paths.
Luffy's appearance as the wisdom king in Wano, Enel's buddha from and a number of other buddhist
deities can be found throughout the story.
And the similarity of Imu's name to the Kanji for the Buddha, is by far one of the most
prominent and consistent sources of speculations I come across in the Japanese One Piece community.
At the climax of the Marineford war, as Luffy finally reaches Ace, Sengoku transforms, and
berries the Rubber boy under his palm.
On the one hand this is reference to the Journey of the west, a major inspiration for One PIece,
where the monkey king sun wukong is also buried under the palm of the Buddha, the ultimate
being.
ON the other hand, knowing about Luffy's true nature now, I think it was also fantastic
foreshadowing.
The reveal of the the first mythical human-type zoan devil fruit is in direct contact with
Luffy.
Two powerful deities going head to head, even though we weren't aware of that fact yet.
Also, when I look at the list of some other mythical Zoan fruit users in the story, Marco,
Kaido, Momo, Luffy and Yamato, an interesting pattern emerges.
One reason I speculated that Luffy might be a Zoan fruit before the official reveal, was
the story of Momotaro, where the boy Momotaro goes on a quest to defeat an Oni wth the help
of a monkey, a dog and a bird.
Though admittedly pure speculation, I think it would be plausable that a story line surrounding
the Buddha and the journey to the west could involve mythical devil fruit users as well.
point or even join the revolutionary army, on way or the other supporting the family
of his friend garp, who he failed during the war.
Some even see him as the secret leader of sword.
I'm not sure I would go that far, but I think it's fair to assume that Sengoku will be a
force of good going forward.
Because we've been talking about all that and I haven't even discussed Sengoku's subtle,
but surprisingly impactful character development arc.
You see this here, holding down Garp to keep him from taking revenge, as much as I might
have disliked him for it in that very moment, is the face of someone tormented by his own
responsibility.
On the surface, Sengoku falls into the same category as Garp, X-Drake, Coby or Aokiji.
The good boy squad of the Marines if you will, that show what this organisation is supposed
to be, a force for good, that holds the safety and freedom of all the people as its most
sacred ideal.
This stands in stark contrast to Akainu's absolute justice, that doesn't shy away from
killing deserters or civilians.
Or even worse, the world government, that uses the Marines as a tool to keep the kleptocratic
domination of a few, that live and rule at the cost of everyone else.
And yet, even though the ultimate power lies with Kong, The Gorosei and Imu, Sengoku himself
has been at the top of this organisation for many years.
He has carried out countless missions in the name of justice and ordered even more as fleet
admiral, commanding the governments most powerful fighters.
I think it is clear, that personally Sengoku has always been fighting for the sake of the
people and against the cruelty of many of the pirates.
We see him going through documents, tolerating the Yonko and even the system of the warlords.
He orders the buster call on Ohara, where the researchers have uncovered parts of the
forbidden history.
Sengoku's credo is Kunrin seigi, which the wiki translates as reigning justice, which
if you ask me makes no sense at all.
I personally believe Kunrin in this context is much better described as controlling justice.
In other words, he thinks, that it's the job of the marines to keep the world in balance
and and that all decisions should be made in the name of keeping the more or less stable
status quo.
Even if it means tolerating Doflamingo, who killed his foster son Corazon.
Even if it means stopping his best and oldest friend in the entire world from getting revenge
for having his family member killed.
And even if it means destroying an entire island, if it will keep the world from knowing
the true history and falling into chaos.
And he has to balance his own sense of justice with the wishes of the government.
Basically Sengoku is what Garp could have been.
Rising becoming and admiral and ultimately fleet admiral, coming under the direct control
of the celestial dragons and burdened with the responsibilities and restrictions that
come with that position.
And so I think it's no big surprise, that the three biggest moments of change for Sengoku
were the Ohara incident.
The Summit War and the defeat of Doflamingo by Law and Luffy.
The incident of Ohara was a major blow to Sengoku's image of the marines and the government
as a whole.
He understood that the knowledge about the true history couldn't be made public, even
if it wasn't for the same reasons as the Gorosei.
While they wanted to keep their own name clean and keep their legitimacy to rule, Sengoku
saw it as a necessary step to keep the balance and avoid chaos and war.
So while he ordered the buster call, he also organised the evacuation ship for all the
citizens of the island, that should have taken everyone off Ohara.
But then two things happened.
Dr. Clover was prepared to say the name of the true history to everyone present, to which
the government ordered him to be taken out, while Akainu, who was already radicalised
at this point, sank the evacuation vessel without batting an eye.
This brutality towards unarmed people and civilians must have left Sengoku questioning
the meaning of Justice and the true nature of those he served.
His ideal was clearly to be a moderate leader and influence in a world where both piracy
and the marines were becoming more and more extreme in there views and actions.
That was the same year that Roger died as well.
A great example of how times changed after these two major events is the trial of Franky's
father figure tom, who was trialed for building Roger's ship.
As the judge himself notes, this was not very common at that time, marking a change in the
the world that Sengoku was trying to fight.
I think it's fair to assume then, that Marineford war, the death of whitebeard and ace and the
mass breakout of Impel Down buried his hopes for keeping the balance of the world.
He must have felt like he failed what he set out to do and thus decided it was time to
step down.
This not only made sense for Sengoku I think, but also from a storytelling perspective,
as the radical Akainu, the man who killed his brother Ace, will make a much better antagonist
to Luffy, rather than a morally good person, who wants peace for the citizens above all
else.
Not a kind and calm Buddha, but a boiling pile of Lava.
This marks the start of Sengoku's enlightenment if you will, a falling out of love with what
the government and the marines actual represent in the world and warming him up to Luffy and
the change he is bringing.
It it this island however, Dressrosa, that brought the biggest point of development yet
for his character.
Before I start speculating about Sengoku, here are the facts from the manga.
- He displays an outright hatred for Doflamingo.
- He trusts Corazon enough to share highly sensitive information with him, including
the Donquixote Crew's location.
- He keeps a foto of Corazon in his desk drawer.
I think the manga has been extremely suggestive, that Corazon was basically a son to Sengoku.
It seems like he was raised and cared for by the former fleet admiral.
Sengoku, who keeps Garp from killing akainu and who always puts his duty first, showing
this level of aggression towards Dofi, is extremely telling I think.
Especially because he doesn't show anything remotely similar for people like Moria and
co, who arguable aren't any better than Doflamingo.
The photo scene also was very interesting to me, because nothing ever came of it.
Vergo didn't find out about Corazon by seeing it, so it's purpose clearly was showing us
that Sengoku keeps an image of this person in the same drawer where he keeps the most
important and confidential things and documents to him.
The fact that he trusts Corazon so much, especially after all he has lived through during his
lifetime speaks volumes for the relationship they had as well.
The most heartbreaking thing ever, is the scene where Corazon hangs up on Sengoku, who
opens up this drawer to look at a foto of his son, because hearing his voice made him
want to see his face.
Clearly it's a relationship built heavily on love and trust, that shined a completely
new light on Sengoku as a person for me.
And this gets even more interesting in his interaction with Law on dressrosa.
Again let's look at the facts first.
- Law, who usually is rude and disrespectful, is only polite and affectionate in his Japanese
towards two people, ever.
Corazon and when he meets Sengoku on Dresssrosa.
He doesn't mutter a single insult, even once. - he hates the marines.
- Law sees Corazon as his parent figure, that he loves and cherishes so much, he not only
named his crew after him and has his face as a tattoo across his chest, but he also
made it his life's mission to get back to doflamingo.
- Sengoku was in disbelief that Corazon disobeyed him for law's sake.
- He tells law, that he would love that arrest him and that he dates that Law is the only
person he can talk about Corazon with.
Basically, Sengoku blames Law to a certain extend for the loss of his son, while at the
same time recognising and respecting that Law was to Corazon, what Corazon was to him.
And more importantly, that he exposed and defeated Doflamingo and bringing both of them
closure.
He ensures Law, that Corazon didn't save him for being a D, but simply because he love
him.
And the fact that he is able to let Law go and take away his doubts about his father
figure really shows how much Sengoku has grown.
He allows a pirate, who confessed to him to be of the D clan, to leave, just as Fujitora
is doing with Luffy and finally overcomes his own strict ideals, being able to see the
good in what these two pirates have done together.
But to really understand the beauty of this scene, you should really watch this video
on Law, where I explain everything there is to know about his increadible character arc