WE'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE! (1191+)

I think Imu has gears, and that bulky form is specialized for defense, whilst the first one was maybe specialized in summons or speed. So, I see what you're saying. Sort of like the equivalent of Luffy's Gear Fourth suite of Bound Man, Tank Man, and the Snake Man forms. Each of them is designed for a particular specialty. Bound Man is focused on pure punch power, and whilst Tank Man was accidentally engineered as pure defense after eating a few too many biscuits that one night, and Snake Man was actually designed for the primary purpose of speed. And so, what with this second form Imu would be the Bound Man equivalent. And what we saw before would be the Snake Man, yeah? If so, I would be really, really keen to see Tank Man Imu. And there are some similarities like Luffy in Gear Fourth colliding his body in hockey, and Imu sort of does that here by coating himself in darkness that may or may not be hockey. Even does it in the same way that Luffy uses Gear Four by coating his arms and back in black. And what I would love about this is the potential implication that Imu would also have an equivalent of Gear Fifth. I mean, he already has the white hair for it, so why not just go all the way? And if Gear Fifth is where Luffy becomes his most ridiculous, then this is it. Imu's version of it is where we finally get to see the parrot. But, I still think it's probably more basic than that, and that this is the second stage of three transformations. Man on the internet, is it possible that Imu's new form could be that he is actually getting weaker? He is in fact on a time limit, and maybe the longer he is outside of his home, the more he loses control to whatever he made a contract with. That could be why we can see the symbol on his arm now. So, that is a very interesting idea. It's quite counter shonen. The idea that the antagonist doesn't get stronger as he transforms, but actually keeps devolving, getting weaker and weaker, and that the original sleek and neuron Imu was the pinnacle of the balance of power, and he's now reverting to this form where he's losing control. Something like that would be quite fascinating to me, and I think that we are only going to see Imu continue to escalate and become whatever it is he's becoming because it has been noted that the original Neurona Emu had two horns and now this new second stage has four horns and the big silhouette devil in the above mirror mate it has six horns. So he's getting hornier and hornier at each stage losing control understandable. So I reckon that final Emu transformation is going to be that big devil dude and that there may be a cost to this power. Something along the lines of tapping into the power of the devil's fruit. Yes, it does bring it tremendous strength more and more as you give into it with each transformation but it could slowly or even rapidly be corrupting him which is the classic story of a noble well-intentioned hero thinking and you know it's probably okay to use just a tiny bit of sinister power for the great good but then things happen and slowly slowly you get sucked in and corrupted. And if you go by the imagery that we've been presented with an Emu is gradually becoming less and less human. This second stage is more demon than man but there is still a third incarnation apparently that goes full demon and you could also argue that the original silhouetted Emu is more human looking than the revealed Neurona Emu design which is very much breaching into the territory of demon. So the danger in using this could be Emu losing more and more of himself every time which is similar to Luffy's transformations at least in terms of lifespan. This is a problem that still hasn't been solved yet and may never be solved but every use of a gear shortens Luffy's overall lifespan. There is a big cost to be paid when activating even gear second so Emu could operate on a similar premise and maybe that's the fundamental difference between them. Luffy he sacrifices his body and his life to become more free whereas Emu sacrifices his freedom to become more powerful and it's some wanky thing like that. That Gungnir punch is dangerous. He sent a 10,000 ton Mach vise flying with it. I'd be more surprised if it did nothing to Emu. Yeah, I do think that Haradin's actual strength is being a bit underestimated even by me in the last chapter, maybe especially by me. In the fight on Dressrosa, Mach Vice changed his weight to 10,000 tons, not kilograms, not pounds if you use those. I'm saying that he weighed 10,000 tons, which is about the weight of the Eiffel Tower. So, we're not talking a scrub level power here. Hajrudin more or less punched the Eiffel Tower into oblivion. So, if anything, Imu was a much easier hit unless we eventually discover that Imu was extraordinarily dense either physically or mentally. But, Hajrudin broke just about every bone in his arm defeating Mach Vice. And just one cool thing in retrospect, Hajrudin also said, "Let him fly to the kingdom of the gods." as he punched Mach Vice upward, which I now believe is a reference to the astral world on Elbaf where all of the uh the gods are said to reside. So, Hajrudin was basically giving Mach Vice extremely violent directions home. Land of the gods, I know where that is. Straight up. And one more thing I really liked about Hajrudin being involved is that when he smacks Imu, Imu then goes and collides with Yggdrasil and he makes a bit of a crater, which is exactly what happened with Loki. Imu got smacked by Loki and Ragnia and got embedded into Yggdrasil as well, which is a little nod to the brotherly dynamic developing now. Nothing brings siblings together quite like bullying the same person. And Don Sai says, "Los Hermanitos están aquí." Despite that, I do think that it risks breaking uh how should I put this? The illusion of power scaling. And it's because we haven't really seen Hajrudin do much apart from lose to Luffy in the Corrida Coliseum and then beat Mach Vice. With all of those events in mind, it just seems like a massive jump to suddenly be thwacking the god of the world from here. Although, I do take that there's an important distinction between being able to move Imu and being able to hurt Imu. There's a piece of dialogue from Iron Man 2 that I'd like to think is relevant. If you can make god bleed, then people will cease to believe in him. And that is why it is so hard to take what Scopper Gaban says in this chapter seriously because he has this very dramatic full stop where he says that Emu is a god. And then we cut to god having clumsily fallen on the floor bleeding everywhere which has been a consistent portrayal of Emu on Elbaf. Gaban also calls Emu immortal but he's bleeding all the time. He's also huffing and puffing. So right now I would say that Emu looks more mortal than the old man whose had his arm cut off. Gaban feels like he's in better condition than Emu like he has more life left in the tank than Emu does. And I have to imagine that this is deliberate that Oda's not undermining his dialogue with his artwork. And so I think the contradiction is the information that this is an intentional juxtaposition that will become quite clear when we have Emu's full story. And just on Scopper Gaban a fine little Japanese thing here. Up until this chapter Luffy has been referring to Gaban as GG which is a wonderfully disrespectful way of saying old man. However, in chapter 1,191 Luffy has now started calling Gaban Ojisan which is a more polite way of addressing an older gent. So Luffy's respect for Gaban it has gone up considerably as it should. Is Emu posing for the camera in the final panel? Maybe it is a it's very Jojo sort of pose to make, you know? But I believe that this is Emu blocking. He did a similar but not a same thing when Loki attacked him in Nidhogg form. He was doing his hand signs and all that. So it appears that Emu can't just tank attacks. He does need to prevent the bulk of the damage. Very interested for someone hailed as an immortal god feel the need to block. Dude man in the internet room, you differentiate a Go Koku and Ha Koku sovereignty as generational but between Gerd and Goldberg's last minute upgrade from two to three generals and Big Mom having performed an I Koku, it's got me thinking if they're not all escalating in line of Elbafian technique with Haki still remaining an homage of Ha Koku. I'm not sure if it's an escalating series of attacks because it very much depends on who uses them at any given time. At the moment, we've seen these one, two, and three-person variants. But, I would argue the Big Mom's personal variant, Ikoku, was probably more powerful than Gerd, Goldberg, and Road's Gokuku. Although, look, using the word generational, that might have been a bit clumsy on my part. I think it's more ideological. So, the original attack that all of this is based on is Hakoku from Dory and Broggy, with Hakoku meaning warrior nation. This is the classic spirit of Elbaf. And my interpretation of the attack is that it is meant to be a condensed shot representing the spirit of the nation itself, rather than the individuals performing the attack. It's like smacking someone with tangible ideology. This was Dory and Broggy showing us the pinnacle of what it is to believe in being a warrior. Meanwhile, Big Mom's variant was Ikoku, meaning mighty nation. This is very different, and it showed that her priority was might, raw power, as opposed to embracing the actual warrior's spirit of Elbaf. This is how Big Mom saw the giants of Elbaf, not as warriors, but as a source of might to be used for her own personal purposes. And so, she took that ideology and created her own attack in an effort to forge her own ideal nation. Now, with Gokuku, it means roaring nation, which we've seen performed twice now, both with members of the new giant warrior pirates. And this seems to be based on Hajrudin's desire to open Elbaf up to the rest of the world, to follow in the work that his father Harold began. For Elbaf to stop being silent and to make its voice heard, hence why roaring is their elected name. After centuries of isolation, Elbaf has finally unmuted itself in the group chat. And there is one other variant that was mentioned, which is when Big Mom and Kaido formed their own combination attack called Hakai, which is the only variant without using the kanji koku. So, it's the only variant that doesn't involve a nation being referenced, because Hakai means supremacy sea. It was made to symbolize the alliance and ambition of Big Mom and Kaido, which didn't belong to any particular nation, because it was all about conquering the seas, and thus it didn't use koku. So, I don't know if any of these variants are designed to escalate or be more powerful than one another. It's more so that it's a physical manifestation of the ideology of those using the technique. An ultimate attack where their full beliefs are on display and can be put to the test against opposing ideologies, which is why it's going to hit pretty hard when Imu comes out of this Kokoku sovereignty and he's just fine, because it'll be a massive middle finger to the dreams of Haradin and Loki specifically. Plus, if that's what Kokoku means thematically, the uh roaring nation, then I don't think that Oda could have picked a better opponent for it than Imu. Because Imu's entire existence, it is built around silence. Nobody knows that he exists, history has been silenced, 100 years have been erased, and entire nations now never existed. So, this roaring nation mentality is more important than ever because we are now at the stage where we will We will no longer be silenced. No longer will this strange silhouette mute us. And we're not just going to make our voices heard. We are going to make the lingering voices of history heard through all of the Poneglyphs and such as well, and the true history. And it's good, it's good. I like it. Maybe Biblo is a human that ate the Tori Tori no Mi model owl and wants to keep secrets and literally just makes owl sounds. Hoot, hoot. That would be a reasonable and honestly hilarious guess. But unfortunately, we do already know what Biblo's devil fruit is and it is filthy, absolutely filthy. Biblo uses the Iku Iku no Mi, which allows him to enlarge objects. However, what you see with this dirty old man likes to do is sneak in some subtle questionable jokes every now and then, because Iku is also the Japanese slang for I'm coming, and repeating it like Iku Iku is a hentai trope. So, you know what? I don't know what Biblo is saying, but maybe I'm comfortable leaving it untranslated. And maybe that's why Chopper's going uh-huh. "Mr. Internet man, have you seen the One Piece SpongeBob Happy Meal at McDonald's? My country isn't doing it. Is Australia having a happy meal time? I don't know if we're having a happy meal time yet because I've been told that Australia would be getting these wonderful bits of plastic and that it would be happening in August, which is now. But to the best of my knowledge, this hasn't started in Australia yet. There was a very cool ad for it though online where you can see this unholy fusion of the One Piece world and Bikini Bottom to show us what happens when two of the most powerful nautical franchises on Earth collide. But it does look really fun and I would be keen to get my hands on some of these, especially the Squidward as Sanji combination. When I first saw Imus' new form, all I could think about was Magellan. Yeah, you're definitely not the only one. I got this sudden influx of Magellan-based comments as a result of this chapter and I don't know if there's a definite connection here like say the ancient culture of Impel Down is based on whatever Imus' race is or a physical manifestation of Imu himself and this is a fact that's been long forgotten or if this is just how Oda chooses to draw these very standard devils. Despite all of the comments telling me that they thought of Magellan, looking at Imu and Magellan, there isn't a huge similarity between them. The horns aren't even the same shape. They're just quite prominent on both of them. Plus Magellan, he has these bat wings while Imu, he has this luscious plumage and it looks like he even has some some scales up above. So Imu, I would describe him as a Satan who values haute couture. Also Magellan, he just works a 9-5 in hell and he understands the dress code. But it would be cool for Oda to tie both of these ideas together. However, it could be thematic coincidence with Impel Down being based on the idea of hell. So Oda created a warden in the guise of the devil. Now we've come all the way back to this well of hell, this is hell well and Oda is exploring an actual devil. But because he's already done this idea before, it has some of the same elements. Internet mate, I think it's interesting that Imus' new form has three skulls on his necklace. They look just like Blackbeard's Jolly Roger. The bones on his Jolly Roger even look like horns. So Imu did have three skulls on his previous design but they are much more prominent now. In the last design, these three skulls were scattered across his pants in a cascading formation. And look, there could be something here. Blackbeard, he is well aware of Imu. His crew have stated that it is Blackbeard's intention to target, quote, the world. And it wouldn't surprise me if these three skulls do have a greater meaning, which is why Blackbeard chose them to represent his ambition on his Jolly Roger. Because he may or may not want to achieve the position where Imu is right now, which could have something to do with the three skulls. But there is another possibility that could be quite interesting, which is that what if Blackbeard didn't take these three skulls from Imu? What if that's not the inspiration? What if both of them are referring to something else? Australian on the web, going to be very blunt. This is one of the chapters I'd say is kind of bad. I felt like we made zero progress other than Imu getting a new form, and that's it. I usually don't say this because I can usually find something in even meh chapters that I like. So I do appreciate and I do see where you're coming from. In my opinion, this is one of the weaker Elbaf chapters of the entire arc. But I think that this chapter does also suffer quite a bit from its publishing time. I think that this chapter would feel a lot better if it didn't come right after a break and right before a break. Chapter 1,191 exists in a break sandwich, and the filling it just is not substantial enough. So it feels a little bit frustrating that in three weeks this is all the progress that gets made, whereas normally this would come as say the second installment of three chapters over three weeks, and overall our media diets would feel quite substantive. And having a break next week especially really harms the impression of this chapter because it's a bit like, "Uh, is this it?" Especially with Oda dangling the conversation between Chopper and Biblo over our heads because he didn't actually tell us anything. What he did write is spend an entire page telling us that he's going to tell us something at some stage, but not now. He dedicated an entire page to scheduling a future page. but also another issue that we always need to remember is that One Piece chapters are always held to a much higher standard than regular shonen manga. And that's because they usually meet that much higher standard. So, when a chapter is just it's okay, it's not phenomenal, but it's also not terrible, it doesn't matter because it can still feel worse than it actually is. And I do think that there's an important distinction between a bad chapter and a bad week to publish a particular chapter. Because there's nothing terribly wrong with 1,191, there's quite a lot that happens, but because we are starving from last week and preparing for the long winter of another break week next week, it just, you know, would have been nice to gather up some more nuts for hibernation or whatever metaphor you want to insert there. I think that Elbaf is going to be another Whole Cake situation where we have to flee instead of stay and fight. I don't know. I don't know if we can do that again. Not just because of Whole Cake Island, but because we just did that on Egghead Island. We had to flee from the world government. So, does this arc really end with us needing to flee from the world government again? I personally feel that there's too much to lose by abandoning Elbaf. This isn't like Whole Cake Island where we were in enemy territory and leaving didn't really affect the quality of life of those living there or Egghead where it was more or less world government territory to begin with. We also have our full complement of Straw Hats, so we don't have the Whole Cake excuse for fleeing. And Elbaf, it is the home of our friends. It would be a hit unlike any other for us to be forced to run. And I also have a very hard time seeing how you would convince anyone to do so. Luffy, Hajrudin, and Loki are three characters who are not going to run from this situation no matter how bad it gets. And I'd have to assume that it would be the same for each and every giant with the heart of a warrior. They would rather die than abandon Elbaf, which to me removes running from our solution pool. But look, maybe I'm wrong. And for now, I want you to let me know what you thought about all of this in the comments below.