One Piece Chapter 1044 Discussion

Eoussama said:


Fair enough. but excuse me for a second as I try to reach ven further than Luffy himself.

I find it interesting how the other Gods (Forest, Earth, Rain) were mentioned on the same panel, while the God of Sun was mentioned in the previous panel with Mousse (Kalgara's daughter). Also interesting is how the other Gods are mentioned in a way that describes the panel visually, (Forest, Rain, Earth), all elements which appear clearly in that panel, in contrast, the Sun God is mentioned, but there is no sun to be observed in that scene. It doesn't hurt to also have other God of Sun overlayed on the lonely panel of Mousse, a sacrifice that was robbed of her freedom to live, and as we know, the Sun God Nika is all about freedom.
I know I'm reaching, coincidence or not, the composition of those panels is nothing short of amazing.
Another cool thing I read in another forum that Luffy's laugh was a faint clue to everything happening now.

“Evolution of Luffy's laugh. Luffy smiles a lot but the SFX actually evolves over time. During chapter 1, it went from Haaaa (はーっ) to Shishishishi (しししし) pre-devil fruit to Nihi (にひ) post devil fruit, then to Ni (にっ) post his growth.”

L0WLY said:


Naruto fan cope lmao, stop being mad about our mc not being an actual asspull reincarnation like a certain other series.

L0WLY said:


Imagine not laughing at someone saying this but then defending Arrancar or pain arc lmao, read the room buddy.

Ardis_Weard79 said:


Da fuck that has to do with anything.
All the OP fanboys that shat on Naruto and now up Oda's ass after this shite are the epitome of this fandom, absolute hypocrisy.

The big difference on why the Kaguya twist doesn't work and this does is that:

1- Kaguya was suddenly namedropped and all that some dozens of chapters before appearing, sure, but the circumstances were that at that one point in time Madara was basically unbeatable and she came forward as a beatable villain that would take his place instead.

In here, it just changed the Rubber Fruit to the Rubber Man Fruit instead, giving Luffy a foreshadowed power up opportunity.

2- Kaguya's backstory entirely retcons lore behind chakra that had been up to that one point firmly established and developed up to that very arc (also creating several contrivances with previously stated information).

In here, the one thing that would be affected is the fact his fruit isn't a paramecia. And for the longest time, there have been many good reasons to suspect his fruit was a "special paramecia?" of some sort because of how it didn't quite work like one.

3- Kaguya's new insertion into the lore basically inserted a reincarnation plot point for both Naruto and Sasuke that obliterated the themes and messages the story was going for since the chunin exam arc (and arguably from the start of the series, really), shafting the entire character arc for Neji in the process.

In here, there's none of that, Luffy's fruit is all that changed. Zoans having a mind of their own is something we have been seen for hundreds and hundreds of chapters at this point, with inanimated objects that had Zoan fruit powers inserted in them having a consciouness. Zoan fruits being the only type Vegapunk was ever able to infuse, likely because of them having a mind of their own, as the Elders put in this chapter.

I do understand that people are used to Oda's foreshadowing with names-dropping in particular happening hundreds of chapters before, but the fact of this happening just a year ago some 30 chapters past doesn't make it any less of a foreshadowed development.

looppy said:
If this wasn't One piece, but some other shonen manga, it would have been mocked for this development...

Danpmss said:
@FMmatron

Not that much of a reach/stretch, actually.
This post came to my attention, and given I've been a JP translator for a while and know about the sort of importance name puns and character unique laughs in One Piece for much longer, I can't counter argue that this may have been in the making at least since volume 15, if that SBS is to be considered.

Children's day (an assumption by everyone since forever, because he didn't use 5/6) gets nothing on Luffy's characterization compared to a Nika after 1044.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/tokct1/the_latest_development_in_ch1044_has_been_planned/

It's a bit long and starts seemingly like a stretch, but read it to the end.

FMmatron said:




It's a reach till the very end, I was in utter disbelief when he mentioned the anchor, lmao. I love it that people read much into details and it's what makes this fandom so alive and awesome. It's always fun to speculate about stuff and look for clues in line with recent events. This was a nice read, but we gotta keep it real, nothing he said is concrete, he just cherry picked stuff that fitted his theory. We have seen many similarly well put together theories and analyzes over the years and how many of them proved to be true? Puns and One Piece being goofy and cartoony is definitely not foreshadowing or evidence that Nika was planned since the beginning. Even if the words were there, the concept came later and Oda could've made it fit even if decided on it 2 years ago, this is the nub of the matter here. Dropping the actual figure Nika like 30 chapters ago when he had the concept in mind since chapter one simply sounds like the most Ridiculous thing in the world, pun intended xD Oda was always fond of ridiculous awesomeness which clearly shaped the One Piece world. Abilties, places and occurences that defy common sense and go beyond wildest imaginations are what made One Piece what it is, so this reveal is only consequent or perhaps the climax of what has been established and the ultimate power up for Luffy who exhibited so much joy throughout the journey. It fits narratively, which is amazing and that's why I think that people are off the mark with their negative criticism, but same can be said for the camp that's trying to sell it as more than it actually is. The truth is as always somewhere in the middle. I'd say Oda had Gear 5th/ the power up in mind and Nika was like the most fitting name he decided to go with later, that's as far as I can go based on the loose "evidence".

FMmatron said:




It's a reach till the very end, I was in utter disbelief when he mentioned the anchor, lmao. I love it that people read much into details and it's what makes this fandom so alive and awesome. It's always fun to speculate about stuff and look for clues in line with recent events. This was a nice read, but we gotta keep it real, nothing he said is concrete, he just cherry picked stuff that fitted his theory. We have seen many similarly well put together theories and analyzes over the years and how many of them proved to be true? Puns and One Piece being goofy and cartoony is definitely not foreshadowing or evidence that Nika was planned since the beginning. Even if the words were there, the concept came later and Oda could've made it fit even if decided on it 2 years ago, this is the nub of the matter here. Dropping the actual figure Nika like 30 chapters ago when he had the concept in mind since chapter one simply sounds like the most Ridiculous thing in the world, pun intended xD Oda was always fond of ridiculous awesomeness which clearly shaped the One Piece world. Abilties, places and occurences that defy common sense and go beyond wildest imaginations are what made One Piece what it is, so this reveal is only consequent or perhaps the climax of what has been established and the ultimate power up for Luffy who exhibited so much joy throughout the journey. It fits narratively, which is amazing and that's why I think that people are off the mark with their negative criticism, but same can be said for the camp that's trying to sell it as more than it actually is. The truth is as always somewhere in the middle. I'd say Oda had Gear 5th/ the power up in mind and Nika was like the most fitting name he decided to go with later, that's as far as I can go based on the loose "evidence".

ChibiTalha said:


For real, it's like a certain portion of the fanbase simply believes that Oda knew everything and is just conveying.

Wait, what if Oda found the entire story of One Piece as a medieval book on one of his juvenile adventures and is now refining everything to tell it in a different medium

Danpmss said:


Those guys are wrong from the point One Piece was retconned into continuing instead of ending in Skypeia/whatever was supposed to be the arc in its place. Most of everything planned for One Piece back when it was completely reconstructed from a short run to a long one was likely not planned from the start at all.

Yet people forget that One Piece as we know basically came from deciding to extend the story.

ChibiTalha said:


Indeed. Even Haki as we know it now was significantly retconned considering how at first Oda simply wanted peeps duking it out with their Strength of Will.

-Actually I remember reading it somewhere that Oda's plan for the series' five year serialization included duking it out with the four emperors in the New World. Though he came up with the Warlords during the serialization.

I'd say, maybe Skypiea wasn't even in his original plan?

Danpmss said:


Skypeia came from his desire to draw that one party panel after the climax, but we don't quite know for sure if it was part of the OG run, I think.

Gotta say, whichever the case, I really appreciate he transformed what was already a really good story in what I now can currently consider a masterpiece. What a fantastic way to rework a story with all that new world building and plot threads.

FMmatron said:
@Danpmss @ChibiTalha

The fact that Oda did one hell of a job is what we can all agree on.

Unalina said:
Why didn’t the world government chase Luffy sooner? They knew about the fruit

Unalina said:
Why didn’t the world government chase Luffy sooner? They knew about the fruit

Tintler said:


Yes, I don't understand it. They should've send Fleet Admiral, Admirals, CPO when they heard about Luffy ate it.

FMmatron said:





That's because this reveal wasn't fully thought out, period. It raises too many questions and requires mental gymnastics to justify all of it.

GRAYLIGHTNING said:


This might be the worst writing we have seen in One Piece yet. Still, I don't want to be a complete doomer, let's keep trusting Oda for a little while now. One Piece hasn't been ruined yet. We just have to wait longer.

JokerVentura said:
This is the start of a new era for One Piece, things are gonna get incredibly interesting from here on.

So Luffy has a Mythical Zoan, Sanji has a body of Science, is the whole Zoro Reaper the birth of something new too, perhaps the Reaper came from his new sword and we will truly have a Monster Trio.

Unalina said:
Why didn’t the world government chase Luffy sooner? They knew about the fruit

Brack said:


Presumably during the previous 700 years, most of the subsequent fruit users after the Joy Boy of the Void Century were defeated with little disruption.

It's only within recent months for them that the status quo has been thrown into disarray from Morgans declaring Luffy a de facto Emperor, Big Mom and Kaido allying and Fujitora's plot to remove the Warlords succeeding.

The system that they presumably believed had prevented a Joy Boy from appearing again has been completely destroyed. (Though clearly, what we know of Rocks and Roger suggests this system was never that great).

If only Who's Who had managed to successfully guard the fruit!

Napeti said:


Personally I have a bit of an issue with that explanation. The fact that they actually send Cp9 to guard Gomu Gomu no mi, that they imprison him for failing to do so and that they were actively looking for this DF over the course of 800 years suggest that they actually still see it as at least some sort of threat. And if so it is hard not to wonder why they didn't try to do anything about Luffy when he was relatively weak and could be defeated without assigning any major resources to do so. I could understand that they didn't know about him until he start his journey, and that they maybe didn't want to act on rumours, I could even understand that they didn't want to attract any additional attention to him in case someone could figure it out that his DF is more powerful then it seems. But we are talking about pirate who start a war against WG and punched Celestial Dragon, they have plenty of reasons and opportunities to take him down. They didn't even have to allocate any additional resources to do so all they have to do is make his head a priority for Kizaru during Sabody incident which wouldn't even be that odd taking in account that he was actually main offender there. They have months to try it on East Blue, Paradise even at the start of New World but they never actually actively attempt to take Luffy down which is almost unbelievably weird. I mean his actions alone could justify WG sending someone with direct mission to take him down and if you add to that the DF that was consider threat enough to actively look for it and try to obtain it WG actions seems almost impossible to explain.

And that is actually only of the issues I personally have with this recent revelation. I actually still think that it is not unreasonable to call this powerup Luffy got an asspull. Yea I know that Nika name was mentioned before, and quite recently it was mentioned that one Devil Fruit has fake name due to WG actions as well as well as it was hinted that Gomu Gomu no mi is somehow important but I'm still not convinced. I think my main problem here is that Luffy actually got this power up seemingly out of thin air. In the past each time he got major power up it was result of either him getting and inspiration from one of his enemies or actual training he have to go through. But this time I fail to see how any of his previous experiences could lead to him awakening this power.

I also don't like the idea of Gomu Gomu no Mi being Zoan. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it actually a first time we see a Zoan fruit with seemingly no source in real life? I believe up to this point Zoan fruits was always entities that you could at least hear of in real life that were portraited with a pinch of creativity from Oda that often lead to them having some surprising powers. But no matter how hard I look I just don't see any supposed god with rubber body in real life mythologies not to mention them beeing somehow related to the Sun. It kinda feels like this is the first Zoan based purely on entity created in One Piece world kinda makes me feel it is a cheap trick.

Also I believe with this revelation we are dangerously close to Luffy actually being a chosen one. I mean we know that Joy Boy is supposed to be some sort of liberator destined to do at least few things including opening Wano borders and I was okay with that until there was possiblity of Joy Boy being simply a title which would mean anyone from One Piece world could achieve that. But with Joy Boy being closely tied with Gomu Gomu no Mi it kinda feels like Luffy as a Gomu Gomu no Mi was destined to that instead. And concept of chosen one seem to be lazy plot point that just doesn't fit Luffy very well - he is someone who wants to be trully free and just following your destiny does not fit that concept very well imo.

Got quite a bit sidetrack here but felt like I really would like to discuss about that, and actually would love to be proven wrong here as this plot point is making it much harder to enjoy what was until now one of my favourite series of all time.

Danpmss said:
This chapter was fucking insane, holy fucking shit!

I guess that explains the previously addressed indagations of some characters regarding how Luffy's fruit doesn't work as a paramecia should. And considering what Who's Who said in 1018, the Gomu Gomu was INDEED the fruit listed under a fake name.

This fight is crazy, is giving me the biggest Roger Rabbit villain vibes. Honestly, Luffy looks terrifyingly dangerous in this new form.

And I guess the hito hito no mi mythical zoan theory from the beginning of last year turned out to be true, GG to that.

Some 700 chapters ago foreshadowing for that Nika business gotta say (ever since Skypeia's epilogue party), this one was pretty nice.

One of the best chapters of Wano, and there's some fierce competition lol

5/5