I Think We're Screwed...

After years of silhouette speculation and barely understanding what this thing even is, we now have a brand new transformation for the ruler of the world. And according to Juan Scabbard Gabann, we can stop dancing around the terminology now because Imu is a god. However, the chapter it starts with Luffy getting involved with the same topic that fans have been diving into for the past few weeks now as Luffy is questioning how it is he's still alive after being impaled twice by Imu. And he also speculates that if he loses the Gear 5th form, then things are going to get real bad. Essentially, if he relinquishes his cartoon powers and becomes just a regular dude again, then that damage is going to be pretty costly. Which is interesting self-awareness because later on in the chapter, Luffy seems to be in a bit of denial about just how serious his injuries are. Which is of course the preferred health care system of all anime and manga characters. Denial generally, as long as you don't actually acknowledge the injuries then you can keep fighting. Or maybe it's that Luffy is temporarily willing healing into existence so that he can still fight. Very possible. Some Some weird stuff happens at the end of the chapter, but we'll get to that. Because for now, Luffy and Scabbard Gabann, they are together. Which was slightly surprising because I thought at the end of the last chapter that Gabann fell into the underworld with Imu. He did cut off such a massive chunk of tree that I didn't think he'd escaped. And the way that 1,190 ended made it seem like Luffy was looking down at Scabbard Gabann after having fallen. Look, maybe this is just me getting old and is a me issue. But in Elbaf specifically, I'm sometimes getting quite lost in regards to exactly where people are. I swear, I need air tags on all of these characters. And again, it could be me, but I don't think this has been one of Oda's finest arcs in terms of that clarity. And part of that is the issue of scale because this island, it gets pretty trippy pretty quickly. And you've got three sizes of people. You've got humans, you got regular giants, you got Loki-sized giants, and Imu who gets drawn rather inconsistently as the size of all three of them depending on who he's in a panel with. At this point, I feel like every wide shot of the arc needs one of those very helpful scaling bars that you see on Google Maps. However, turns out that Luffy, he's right next to Scopper Gaban, and Luffy here, he shambles closer to Gaban, his internal organs being held in place with nothing but the adhesive power of whimsy, but they do have a fun interaction, and I love how Scopper Gaban speaks to Luffy. Luffy begins to apologize about Gaban's arm, implying that Gaban lost it for his sake, which to be fair to Luffy, is generally what happens with the Roger Pirates. They lose arms for him. It's how this whole adventure started with Shanks. But instead, Gaban, he keeps up with the disappointed father routine and insists that he was fighting for Elbaf, not Luffy, because Luffy sucks. And disappointment aside, we as readers, we know what the truth is, and I think you can also argue that Luffy, deep down, knows what the truth is as well. He was definitely annoyed by how Gaban treated him in the last chapter, but Luffy's emotional intelligence is a bit too sharp to miss what's going on here. At least, I think so, anyway. But he doesn't make any kind of deal about it. Instead, he changes the topic and finally gets a little bit curious about Mr. Imu and decides to ask, "Who even is this guy who's impaled me twice now?" It is a very long overdue, but quite welcome question, and Gaban's answer is, "Well, this has been translated a little bit differently from every source I've seen so far." And the exact wording that gets used here, I think is quite important. But I've seen it translated as one of three things, which is, "Nobody needs to know who he is, nobody should know who he is, or it seems like it's a big secret." And then Gaban says that if he had to put it into words, then Imu, that guy, is a god. Not a devil fruit user with the powers of some sort of mythical god fruit, just a flat-out god. They exist, huh. But the god part is not so much what I'm concerned with at the moment. It's the first part about either nobody needing to know, or should know, or the secret. Because the first one, it sounds a bit flippant, like, "Ah, no one needs to know who that guy actually was in a previous life. The important thing is he's a god now." Whereas the second one, it sounds more like a warning. Nobody should know who this guy is because otherwise there are consequences. And then we have another one with Kaban saying, "Eh, it's a big secret." It could be other things though because all of these translations, they do not agree with each other. So, I will be eagerly awaiting what Kaban has to say in the official translation. But with the knowledge of Imu being a god in mind, we cut to the underworld where we see god on his back bleeding and ruminating, which is a pretty stark contrast to what Kaban just said. The bleeding man on the floor is not the strongest argument for god that I've ever seen. But hey, I suppose this confirms that even gods take fall damage. And also Imu releases a rather impressive burst of conqueror's haki to pacify all of the animals who think that they have just spotted today's lunch. And I really enjoy the way that Oda is portraying this high-level conqueror's haki because what Imu does here looks very similar to Kaban's divine gate from the last chapter. And I think that makes sense with Imu's dialogue about not expecting the pirate king's crew to become such a problem. Such a problem that they're starting to be able to do things that I, Imu, can do. And Imu also acknowledges that he should have dealt with all of them during the God Valley incident, just as he did with Rocks. As if he's leaving a one-star review on a restaurant that he visited 38 years ago and has long since closed. I agree, the service was terrible, but it doesn't do you a whole lot of good to complain about it now. And so then Imu, he decides to do a bit of a transform. And I think that this, uh, this is the most controversial aspect of this chapter and probably the most controversial thing to happen in One Piece in quite some time. I'm seeing some very, uh, divisive discussions on this so far. But I will say for now that the transformation, the initial part on this page, it looks really cool. Because we just see the hand, we see a close-up of Imu's face and the, uh, the silhouette, pretty damn incredible silhouette. It sets you up for something so, so cool that I can, uh, I can see how it may have disappointed some people. However, we have something else to address first, which is that before we go to all of this next level Emu stuff, we do cut back to the Owl library. And it's for the reason that we all speculated, which is that Biblo is trying to communicate with Robin and Saul, but failing, which is why we need Chopper to translate. And whilst Chopper does apparently speak ancient squirrel, because he was talking to Ragnya before, or maybe Chopper speaks ancient hammer, we don't know what Ragnya's native language is. But whatever the case, what happens here is very difficult to decipher. It's a classic Kichiro Oda cliffhanger, where what actually happened is left up to interpretation until presented otherwise. Biblo, he starts speaking. He says, "Ho, ho, ho." And so on. And Chopper replies with, "Eh?" So I'm glad we brought in the translator, really cleared that up. But Chopper's "Eh?" here can mean just about anything. It's a noise of general surprise or bewilderment. So one way to read the scene is that Biblo has just started speaking, and Chopper doesn't understand a thing. The "Eh?" sound is surprise, because Chopper, he understands all animals by default. And this is one of those rare and/or only occasions where Chopper just hears the same animal noises that regular people do. We don't even know how old Biblo is. Nobody on Elbaf even knows where he came from. So if Ragnya came to be in the Void Century era, then Biblo could be from the same era that that 3,000-year-old lab was built in long, long before the Void Century. And if so, then the language could go so far back that it's quite an issue to translate. For example, if we go back just a thousand years into English, we're talking the tail end of Anglo-Saxon English, and it's pretty much completely unrecognizable to modern-day English speakers. But another option is that Biblo has said something so confusing and/or shocking that even though Chopper understands the words that are being said, he can't make immediate sense of it. Basically, your guess is as good as mine here. Biblo could be revealing secrets about the Void Century. He could be explaining a weakness of Emu. He could be reciting histories from the past even before the Void Century, like the 3,000-year-old lab. But he could also be asking to be presented with a small mammal because he's hungry and that's what owls eat, I think. Because that's one thing Oda could be setting this up like it's some sort of big reveal, but then it goes on to have a comical explanation like, "Mate, I owl haven't eaten in years. These people, they don't feed me and these books, they have such little nutrition in them." However, something that I would be very excited for is the potential idea of a Robin Chopper team up. Let's say that Biblo, he can speak, but what he speaks is the ancient language and Chopper, he doesn't know that language, but he might be able to replicate the sounds for Robin, who does know the language, but unfortunately cannot speak owl. That feels like a fun team up to me, using both of their skills to speak with Biblo. But, they'd better speak pretty damn quickly because mate, we have massive problems elsewhere. So, cutting back to Luffy and Gabal, Imu has made his way all the way back up to the Sun World and we have the full reveal of his new transformation and it is it's it's okay. It's a solid okay. I've got to be honest here. I'm not hugely into Imu's new form and I think I know why and it does bode very well for the future. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. It feels like a very classic second stage boss fight transformation. The only thing it's missing is a new health bar and I don't think there's really enough about it that's radically different from the first form to make it all that worthwhile to draw. Luffy says that Imu looks completely different, but mate, I disagree with my fictional captain here. To me, he looks like a slightly bulkier alternate outfit Imu and it feels very much like an awkward second stage evolution. You know, there's a reason why the Pokémon company mainly sell Squirtles and Blastoises. You don't see Wartortles very often because they don't have the cuteness of a Squirtle or the awesomeness of the Blastoise. That's exactly why even though I do not love this version of Imu, I think I can see a vision for the future because I would be shocked and appalled if this was the final version of Nefertari Imu. If this was the best that Oda could conjure, nah mate. I think he is deliberately holding back because he has something actually crazy planned next. To give a very traditional example, this new form of Imu feels a lot to me like semi-perfect Cell from Dragon Ball Z. He was that awkward middle stage that didn't have the unique design flare of imperfect Cell or the fully sculpted glory of perfect Cell. It was like Akira Toriyama had to hold himself back because he couldn't blow his design low too early knowing the perfect Cell was right around the corner. And that's how I feel here with Imu. I'm slightly disappointed because I liked his initial design significantly more, but I'm also excited for the potential of something greater. And if we were to apply standard devil fruit rules, which we might not want to because Imu, he is god and all that, but it's always a good place to start. If we were to assign those fruit rules, then we could consider this to be Imu's hybrid form. The first form being the human form, and what we still need to see is the full beast form, which could actually end up being that massive devilish silhouette that we see as part of the Elbaf mural because we do have hints of that in this chapter. There is that one panel where we see the silhouette of our new form of Imu, and he is doing the same pose as the creature in the mural. And there is also that giant silhouette that we saw during the Reverie flashback. This is definitely Imu, and the current top idea on this matter is that this is a giant parrot. And maybe that's the reason why I'm not feeling second form Imu. It's not not paraty enough for my tastes. However, something that is fascinating about this new form is that Imu now appears to have the mark of the abyss on his left arm just like the holy knights do, which I don't believe was there on his previous form. We just saw a lot of a lot of dots. Although the back of his cloak did have the abyss insignia on it. But the fact that the mark is in the same place adds a lot to the idea that Imu was not the originator of the abyssal pact, and that he himself may have formed a pact with someone or something in order to gain the power that he currently has. I really did like the interaction between Emu and Gabann though, especially with Gabann saying that he no longer has two hands available to applaud Emu. This sassy old man is doing more damage to Emu verbally than Luffy is capable of physically, which is about as much as we can hope for because Gabann does go on to state that Emu is immortal and he urges Luffy and his crew to leave Elbaf right now. However, a 70-year-old amputee and a critically injured Hot all we have left in our arsenal as Harudin does appear to not only block Emu to save Scop Gabann, but also to perform a very familiar attack which you may recognize because it is the same attack he used to defeat Mach Vice on Dressrosa. And it proves to be shockingly, surprisingly effective against Emu, which is another reason why I'm not sure that I'm feeling the second form. Don't get me wrong or do, it doesn't matter. I love this moment for Harudin, it's fantastic and he has needed something like this for quite some time. And I generally dislike power scaling, but it does make me wonder exactly what the purpose of the second form was because if Emu can be smacked around like this by Harudin who's significantly weaker than Loki, then the second form doesn't appear to make him stronger or faster. And if anything, he ends up looking a bit weaker because he's getting Loki'd by Harudin. But I also don't know why he had to transform to begin with. It doesn't feel like we'd caused Emu enough problems to to really earn this escalation, you know? However, I love that Harudin is here because Gabann encourages him to flee as well and to think of what would happen if Harudin were to perish. He is of course the heir of King Harold and seen by many as the only hope forward to retain Harold's vision. However, Harudin, he replies that it's okay if he dies here because we still got Loki and this is such a huge moment of development for Harudin because this is Harudin saying that his brother Loki is also able to carry on the will of Harold. He's okay with Loki becoming the next king of Albaf. So, this brotherly relationship has now been completely healed. And instead of fragmenting Albaf, Imu has accidentally ended up galvanizing both of its next generation of leaders. He gave them a common enemy and an immediate need to reveal an inconvenient truth about Harold that could have gone unsaid for their entire lifetimes otherwise. It doesn't look like it right now because Imu was quite physically overwhelming, but he has strengthened the spirit of Albaf to the point where it is going to become overwhelming against him in the future. That is if he lives long enough to see it. But I mean, look at what he's done here. Therapists hate this man and his one weird trick to resolve any family trauma. And we also get a small taste of this union with one massive attack to conclude the chapter, which is a triple Gokoku sovereignty being performed by Loki, Harudin, and also Luffy is there. He just had to get himself involved and ruin this nice brotherly moment. Luffy can never let two brothers be. He always has to barge in and become the third. I do enjoy seeing this attack again though because we have seen it before. This is the new giant warrior pirate incarnation of Dory and Broggy's Hakoku sovereignty. And we have seen this exact triple person variant performed by Gerd, Goldberg, and Road previously in order to defeat the Nightmare Nika. Now, exactly how Luffy gets to the point where he's able to participate, well, according to him, it's because he has stored enough food to make it he does seem to recover through willpower and maybe imagination alone because I'll be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure what happens because Luffy, he bloats himself up almost as if he's just finished eating a lot of pretend food. And then he's suddenly okay. He's being powered by placebo calories. And it really does make me feel for Sanji, a man who dedicated his whole life to the art of cooking when apparently all he needed to do was vividly describe a delicious sandwich to Luffy with sufficient conviction. He should not have become a cook, he should have become a poet. But whatever the case, what we have going on here is very much all in the mind brain of Luffy, and it does seem to have worked at least temporarily, and we may now have a race of endurance. Who will run out of life first? Will it be Luffy with his injuries, or will it be Imu with whatever his condition is? These are questions, questions that I cannot answer, but perhaps you can, and please do feel free to let me know your thoughts on 1191 in the comments below.