The One Piece manga just CONFIRMED the shocking end of the conflict on Pirate Island, where
Monkey D. Garp was defeated and most likely captured by the Blackbeard Pirates.
Which is absolutely game changing for the story because this will surely lead to some
world altering events that could involve the Marines, Cross Guild, the Straw hats, and
even the secret ruler of the world, Imu.
And that’s not the only thing that happened in this chapter because Koby also revealed
what could be the future justice system of the marines, plus he demonstrated his incredible
new strength for the very first time.
To top it off, we finally seem to be headed back to Egghead Island in the very near future
where we will finally see the events that will shock the world.
But whatever twists are to come during Egghead, it is going to be hard to live up to the insanity
of the Hero of the Marines being defeated.
Because back in chapter 1071 when Garp first announced he was going to save Koby, I don’t
think ANYONE seriously thought that he would lose and be captured like this.
Because in this chapter Garp nearly takes out the island man Pizzaro all by himself
and shows off his impressive speed that even surprises the former admiral Kuzan, but he
eventually gets surrounded by the Blackbeard pirates.
Koby and the others have made it safely to the escaping ship, which we’ll discuss more
in just a moment, and even though Koby wants to return to help Garp, he is already being
frozen by Kuzan, just like what happened to Saul back in chapter 397.
Now
before we go any further into what this means for Garp’s future let’s talk about what
this means for Kuzan.
And even though at this point you might say it is major copium, I’m still not convinced
Kuzan is evil because maybe the ice man knew that Garp was going to die from his stab wound
in the last chapter, so freezing him was a way to keep him alive while his body heals,
kinda like going into cryofreeze.
Plus I’m sure the rest of the Blackbeard pirates would have kept stabbing and shooting
Garp until they knew he was dead, but if he is frozen then it makes sense that they stopped.
And It is also a convenient way to keep Garp trapped, although we’ve seen characters
break out of ice before.
Before we get back to Garp’s future, there is one other mind-blowing point I want to
make about what all this means for Kuzan.
Because if you look at the title of this chapter, it is called “Last Lesson”.
So I’m wondering if this scene where Garp sacrifices himself to save Koby is actually
the so-called last lesson that Garp is trying to teach Kuzan.
Because if Garp is willing to give up his life to protect the person that he most believes
in, then maybe Kuzan is being set up to do the very same thing in the future.
And if we are thinking along these lines, then the person that makes the most sense
for him to sacrifice himself for would definitely be Nico Robin.
Because as we pointed out in the last chapter, Kuzan let her live after the destruction of
Ohara, and ever since he has been waiting to see what kind of person she will become.
So could we see him give up his life to save Robin during the fight between Blackbeard’s
crew and the Straw Hats?
But whatever Kuzan’s future role is, I think it is fair to say that we all thought Garp’s
role would be a whole lot different than we see at the end of this chapter.
I mean he is the Hero of the Marines and many consider him the strongest marine.
Plus he is Luffy’s grandpa which means he should have some major role in the story.
Which could still turn out to be the case just not in the way we were expecting.
And in the last chapter review, we speculated on exactly what could happen in the future
if Garp was indeed captured.
To sum it up, there are essentially three options for what the Blackbeard pirates could
do with Garp.
First, they could straight up kill him, but since Kuzan took the trouble to freeze him,
that doesn’t seem likely at this point.
The second option was for the Blackbeard pirates to hand Garp over to Cross Guild to set up
a sort of Reverse Marineford, where the pirates are executing a marine.
And the third option was for Blackbeard to try to ransom Garp to the World Government
in exchange for being recognized as an official kingdom.
And at this point, I don’t think any of those options have changed, but since it is
now confirmed that Garp is defeated, let’s dive a bit deeper into how each of these options
could play out and why they make sense for the story.
As I already said, the option I still think is most unlikely is Garp straight up dying
right now.
I mean the only purpose that would serve is to inspire Luffy to get revenge and for Koby
to inherit Garp’s will of being a great, honest marine.
Which just doesn't seem epic enough for a character like Garp at this point
But that is nowhere near as exciting as if Garp gets turned over to Cross Guild for an
execution.
And with a 3 Billion berry bounty, I kinda wonder how the leaders of Cross Guild would
even pay that amount, but let’s assume they do get their hands on Garp, then we could
be in for a global broadcast execution on the scale of Marineford.
And I’m sure Garp’s marine friends would come to save him unless they were ordered
not to.
Which might cause even more marines to resign if that were to happen.
I’d also expect Luffy to come save his Grandpa.
Shanks could show up as well, which could actually have disastrous consequences, which
we’ll discuss more in just a moment.
Honestly though, I don’t think Oda would have another execution style epic war just
for the sake of it, so let’s analyze some of the reasons Marineford was so impactful
on the story.
First, before the war even started the darkness fruit user snuck into Impel Down and recruited
some powerful prisoners onto his crew.
So if we are having another kind of war like Marineford, I wonder if Blackbeard would try
to do something similar and steal another prisoner out of Impel Down.
And if you are wondering who that might be, well look no further than this pink guy.
No, wait, not that one.
This one.
That’s right, you may have forgotten that Doflamingo is still in jail, but he is AND
more importantly he knows some of the world government's deepest secrets knows, in particular
the national treasure of Mary Geoise, which still hasn't been confirmed exactly what this
is.
And that is exactly the type of information that I am sure Blackbeard would love to get
his hands on.
Which brings us to the next important aspect of Marineford, which was that the person being
executed had someone very special to them try to rescue them.
And that special person - which was Whitebeard - ended up dying.
But what’s important about the former Yonko’s death was that it was all part of Blackbeard’s
plot to steal a second devil fruit.
So if we have a second Marineford style war, even if it was a smaller scale, this could
be another opportunity for Blackbeard to swoop in and steal another super powerful devil
fruit.
Maybe Luffy's, Sengoku's Buddha Fruit, or one of the admirals' powers might make sense.
Or if it wasn’t a devil fruit that Blackbeard is after, maybe he could be coming to steal
Poneglyph copies during the chaos of the fighting.
And if we focus on Whitebeard dying, the final thing I could see possibly happening in this
scenario is Blackbeard taking advantage of the fighting to finally have his long-awaited
showdown with Shanks.
Because at Marineford, Shanks offered to fight Blackbeard, but the darkness fruit user said
that this wasn’t the time for them to fight.
So what better opportunity to finally have this epic clash than at a Reverse Marineford?
And if they fight, I would certainly be sweating that Shanks could die in this scenario.
Because I mean we all know Blackbeard is one of Luffy’s end game villains, so he probably
won’t be defeated by anyone other than Luffy.
But that’s not even the most insane character that Blackbeard might defeat out of this whole
situation, so make sure to subscribe to the channel for more One Piece content like this.
And I say that because if Blackbeard doesn’t hand Garp over to Cross Guild then the other
likely option is that he tries to ransom the Hero of the Marines in exchange for Pirate
Island being officially recognized as part of the world government.
Of course that would make Blackbeard king, which if I'm being honest it is entirely possible
the world government would simply refuse and not give Blackbeard what he wants.
But let’s assume for a minute that they do agree and Blackbeard becomes an official
king of the world government.
And I’m warning you right now, strap on your seatbelts because if this happens could
change everything that we know about the final war at the end of the story.
To set this up, let’s head back to chapter 907, where we are first introduced to the
Empty Throne in Mary Geoise.
Here we can see that this annoying guy right here is making his oath as the new king of
the Goa Kingdom.
To do this he is supposed to place a blade before the empty throne and swear to not try
to seek control over other kingdoms.
Now, no one really cares about Stelly, but this is important to think about if we are
considering Blackbeard could become an official king of the world government.
Because it is reasonable to assume that Blackbeard would also be required to come in and make
this oath before the empty throne.
Of course, Blackbeard would probably never make that promise, but the key point is that
Blackbeard would supposedly have access to Mary Geoise.
And man my mind just goes crazy when thinking about Blackbeard strolling around the Holy
Land.
Because who is to say that Blackbeard doesn’t already know about some of the secrets hidden
up here on top of the Red Line.
Could he know about Imu?
Or is there some other secret like a devil fruit tree that he might be interested in?
There are so many possibilities in this scenario!
But if all of this does happen and Blackbeard finds himself in the castle, then I could
see something happening that could completely change the entire story.
Because in chapter 1085 we were first shown the Gorosei and Imu’s powers.
And while these powers were kept in silhouette, many people have also speculated that Imu
really does have some sort of powers relating to darkness, shadow, or nightmares.
So I am super curious how these powers would fare against Blackbeard’s darkness fruit
powers.
Could Blackbeard’s darkness negate Imu’s abilities?
And if they fight then the outcome could shake the entire world.
I mean can you imagine if Blackbeard somehow took out Imu and the Gorosei?
Which might sound crazy, but just think about it for a moment.
One thing that has always been strange to me about end game One Piece is that there
are basically two final boss type characters.
Blackbeard and Imu.
And if we assume that Luffy is supposed to fight Blackbeard for the One Piece, then does
he go and fight Imu after that?
Or does Imu come to Laugh Tale?
It honestly seems a bit weird since finding the one piece has always seemed like the climax
of the story.
So wouldn’t it make sense if these two final bosses fought each other and only one emerged
as the final super villain?
Wow, we are way deep into theory territory here.
And you might think I am crazy for speculating all of this based on the simple fact of Garp
being captured.
But we've already seen how much a single event can change the world.
Just look back at Ace being captured and all of the mind-blogging madness that resulted
in.
But there are a few other super interesting points from the chapter that hint at endgame
outcomes for One Piece.
The first is that we see Koby finally unleash an impressive attack, which is called Honesty
Impact.
With his a haki covered fist that very much resembles Garp’s devastatingly powerful
Galaxy Impact that we just saw in chapter 1080, he completely destroys the giant hand
that is about to crush the escaping marine vessel.
Koby has learned a thing or two from Garp, but what I am most interested in is the “Honesty”
part of the attack name because I think this could be important foreshadowing for the type
of Justice that Koby will embrace when he eventually becomes an admiral in the marines.
I mean it goes along with his character, and it is a stark contrast to the corruption that
exists in the current world government and marines.
The world government is actually incredibly dishonest in many situations, especially when
they tried to cover up the horrible events in Alabasta and Dressrosa.
So I’m definitely looking forward to some change in philosophy that Koby will likely
bring in the future.
Plus we finally got to see more of why exactly Garp believes so much in Koby, because we
get to see many of their interactions during Koby’s time training and see just how hard
he hard to work to become as strong as he has.
But that’s the only impressive thing he does because we also get to see exactly how
Koby ended up captured by Blackbeard.
In chapter 1059 we saw the start of this conflict on Amazon Lily, where Blackbeard attacked
with the hope of taking the pirate Empress Boa Hancock’s devil fruit.
And while the Yonko was stopped by a combination of Koby, the Seraphim, and Silver’s Rayleigh,
it turns out that Blackbeard was going to take hundreds of marines with his as prisoner.
That is until Koby traded himself for all of those marines, which is how he ended up
captured.
And if that’s not what you call being a “hero” than I don’t know what is, so
it makes even more sense now why Garp has so much faith in Koby.
Shifting back to the end of the chapter, we got a narrator box which explained that tomorrow’s
newspaper has information that Koby was safe, Garp disappeared on Pirate Island, and apparently
that Luffy is going to claim Egghead Island as his own territory.
Now we have to keep in mind that this is the newspaper which usually exaggerates things,
but regardless it seems we finally shift back to Egghead Island.
We even get to see that the ships carrying Saint Saturn and Admiral Kizaru are finally
pulling up to the island.
So After nine whole chapters away, we are finally going to return for the conclusion
of this arc that we were literally told will shock the world.
And wow I am so excited to see the straw hats again, in particular their inevitable encounter
with Saint Saturn.
After seeing a bit of what his powers can do in chapter 1085 I simply cannot wait to
see him and Admiral Kizaru in action against Luffy.
However, we have to remember that they are not the only ones here.
Because we also know that someone from Blackbeard’s crew is here as well, which brings us back
to the question of what they could also be doing here.
And one idea that I saw on Twitter from 3SkullJoe was that Blackbeard could be bringing Big
Mom’s daughter, Pudding, to try and use her devil fruit powers to get some top secret
information out of Vegapunk.
In case you forgot, Pudding has the memory devil fruit, which lets her see and manipulate
a person’s memories.
So if Pudding is forced to use her powers on the genius scientist, I wonder what information
he could be after.
Plans for some incredibly powerful technology?
Secrets about the Void Century or how to read the poneglyphs?
And even if this isn’t the case, Blackbeard might be able to use Pudding on the newly
captured Garp to retrieve some memories from the Hero of the Marines.
And what memories might Blackbeard be after in this case?
Well, how about information about the person who inspired Blackbeard, Rocks D. Xebec?
After all, Garp was the one who defeated Rocks with the help of Roger, so he is sure to know
information about the infamous pirate from forty years ago.
And hold on, if this were to happen then does that mean we could actually get a real flashback
to the events of God Valley?
If I’m being honest, I have been dying to see the legendary clash between Roger, Garp,
and Rocks, which I bet would undoubtedly be one of the most hyped up moments in the entire
story.
And if all of this has got you wanting a pure injection of the most badass moments in the
entire story, then you can check out my ranking of the most exciting moments in one piece
right here.
Shanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.