One Piece Chapter 1172: THE ELBAPH I DREAMED OF

This Chapter reorients us within the current-day Elbaph storyline, reminding us of the abilities and powers of the Holy Knights, and their plan to kidnap the children of the country into slavery.

A lot more action-heavy than the flashback chapters have been, showing off the overwhelming force the Knights pose against the heroes. It’s been a little while since all the action on Branch 8, so I’m not surprised Oda is reiterating the stakes for the audience. St Sommers’ ironic trap, in which trying to save the children will hurt both the adult and the child in the equation, is perhaps the cruelest part of these villains’ plan. The themes of parenthood have been particularly strong since the re-introduction of Bonney into the story, with Kuma doing everything in his power to save his daughter, now we will see the parents of Elbaph do the same. Creating a better future is one of the key themes of the whole story, and we see it in full force as Elder Jarul declares war on the World Government, one of the highlights of the arc so far for me, naturally bringing to mind the iconic moment during the Enies Lobby portion of the Water 7 Saga, where Luffy orders Sogeking to shoot down the World Government’s flag. With the way the penultimate page is ended with a panel of Usopp gleefully expressing his love for Elbaph, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a big moment in the coming chapters as the action ramps up. For the meantime, it seems Zoro and the Elbaph Warriors are going to take on the Domi Reversi-fied Dorry and Brogy.

The way the Giants emphasise the importance of the children over the knowledge in the library also reminds me of Cobra’s “a country is its people” speech. The leaders deemed ‘good’ in the text of One Piece are always those who put human life above anything else. This goes back as far as the East Blue villains. I have always maintained that the villains of that saga exist to show the differences between a good captain (Luffy) and the bad ones, Kuro sees his crew as collateral damage, Krieg believes that quantity and scale are more important than quality and trust, Arlong refused to see human beings as equal to Fishmen and treated one particular member of his crew as lesser for it. The same parallels are drawn between the ‘kings’ of the series, and the villains of their respective storylines, Dalton and Wapol, Cobra and Crocodile, Whitebeard and Akainu, and we are now seeing it with Jarul, and the words of Imu in the previous chapter.

Imu has made it apparent his disdain for the different races of the One Piece world, tools to be used and discarded as necessary, free will being an obstacle to the world he desires. I didn’t mention it in my last review, but Imu declaring “Elbaph is D” seems relevant to the current discussion as well, the meaning of D has been speculated for over 20 years now, with anything from the Half Moon, to the word Dawn, to a smile emoticon. Right here, right now, to me it spells “Defiance” those who refuse a world of unjust hierarchies, those who defy the fate spelled out for them, and make their own path.