sahugani's One Piece Review 476

sahugani · Oct 27, 2007

Sahugani’s One Piece Review 476

this is the fearsome pirate worth 300 million

Good (enter time of day here) everyone. Overall, I’d say this is a damn good week in manga, so I’m in a good mood. The pleasantness of the chapters helped make up for the shitty smoke in the air over here. Oh well, the smoke also granted me a week off from classes, so that helped too. Let’s just get going with it. The pics for this review came from the MangaShare Edited Manga and the title pic is a piece done by xmagicx18 over at DeviantArt, so be sure to stop by her gallery.

Alter-Ego

...i think i prefer the warthog

As we left things last week, Luffy had just met up with the shadowless human versions of the Risky Brothers. Who are apparently members of Proposal Lola’s crew. I guessed last week that Lola would be one of the ones sent to float around aimlessly on the sea, but I guess Moria did not consider her enough of a threat to do so. Looking back, I guess this makes sense as her shadow was put inside an animal. Most of the other general zombies have bodies that belonged to legendary figures, thus granting them stronger bodies to utilize their shadow’s powerful skills more effectively. Lola was not considered powerful enough to be given one of the legendary corpses for a body, but after her warthog zombie was completed, it was deemed too strong for a mere wild zombie and was thus grouped among the generals. The strength of her personality likely had something to do with this. One odd thing worth mentioning is that while the real Lola seems to have a reputation for asking every man she meets to marry her, her zombie instead fell in love with Absalom alone. There is only one explanation I can come up with and I hope to god Oda lets us see this flashback before zombie Lola loses her shadow. My guess is that after being created, zombie Lola asked Absalom to marry her the same way her real equivalent does to every man, but due to some circumstances too bizarre for me to imagine, Absalom accidentally says yes (though he constantly says it was a misunderstanding afterwards). The fact that as a zombie, Lola’s dream had been achieved had a profound impact on the warthog. With the dream fulfilled, she devotes her full attention to the man who said yes and her surge of emotion is enough to override the automatic obedience that has affected every other zombie on the island. It really explains every quirk about her character, so I really hope Oda lets us see this.

Update

aren't there any pretty people with stolen shadows?

In conversation with the shadowless pirates, we learn that they are surprisingly well informed regarding the situation on the island. They even have the latest up to date info on the fight between Oz/Moria and the Strawhats. Apparently they have established a special victim network through which they relate all news to every corner of the island. There are a couple important things to note about this. First and foremost, it seems that Moria was indeed lying when he said merely beating him would not free the shadows from the zombies. Before, Luffy’s only evidence came from the old guy that knocking Moria out would do the trick, so when Moria contradicted this, it was not beyond belief that the old man could be wrong. These guys though seem to be insanely well informed when it comes to the nature of Moria’s powers, so for them to say that a mere KO is all that is needed can be used as actual proof. In addition to this, their appearance makes me wonder if they were the same ones who cheered from the shadows earlier in this arc when the old man first told Luffy what he was up against. If they are, one would wonder why they didn’t give Luffy all this info and power back then to ensure victory. I think the best answer is that they didn’t know Luffy’s power back then and so did not want to waste their secret unless they knew they had a person worth giving it to.

Moria’s Double-edged Sword

Samurai Luffy!!!

When Luffy starts getting impatient and tries to leave, Lola decides it’s better to just show Luffy why they stopped him rather than try to explain it to him. They pull out a shadow and stuff it into Luffy. Suddenly Luffy becomes an expert swordsman. When I read that bit in the spoilers I was really hoping that Lola’s group had somehow retrieved Zoro and Sanji’s shadows and gave them to Luffy as they are still unaccounted for and it would be great to see Luffy wield the power of his crew. Unfortunately, it was merely the shadow of a marine swordsman. The idea behind this trick is rather logical. A shadow contains a person’s skills but no memory, so inserting it into a live person would not interfere with the person’s ability to think. As for how the people are even able to hold a shadow, the secret lies in Moria’s ability. While a normal shadow is two flat and mimics its master, Moria gives it its own physical form so that it may be removed from the original owner and in its 3d form is able to act as a soul for a new zombie body. Since Moria gives it physical form, after it is removed from a living body by him or a dead body by way of purification, it can be easily grasped by anyone.

The Collection

you greedy bastards

After the explanation of how it works, the guys reveal that they have captured a large number of shadows already. In their quest to retrieve their own shadows, they have purified a large number of zombies and captured the escaping shadows. Since after being purified, a shadow automatically travels to its original master, it seems wrong that Lola and her crew should halt these shadows from proceeding. In doing so, they are keeping some poor guy from getting his shadow back, which seems quite cruel. However, you must remember that these are pirates, so selfishness is pretty much a given. Each time they purify a zombie, they capture a shadow and keep it tied down. The victims on the island may have made an agreement among themselves to preserve the shadows so that they can give power to a hero when one arrives to ensure the savior of all instead of themselves alone. It is also possible that they collect all the shadows and only give shadows back to those among their group who claim their own. In this second scenario, it means that the collection of shadows would get whittled down to a more select group. While those on the island can collect their shadows, any who were considered too strong for Moria to keep on the island are cast away at sea and thus unavailable to reclaim theirs. As the collection builds up more and more of these powerhouse shadows while the weakling shadows are retrieved, it just makes the collection all the more kick ass for Luffy.

Uber-Luffy

HULK SMASH!!!

While Lola’s crew can only take a couple shadows before passing out, they assume Luffy can take about thirty. To their surprise, Luffy takes all 100 of the shadows they had, giving him a new monstrous form that we have yet to see fully. This new Nightmare Luffy is equipped with the skill sets of one hundred individuals in addition to his own. Unlike others we have seen, the incorporation of shadows has actually affected his physical anatomy, making him a great deal larger with ape-like proportions. Since the shadow only affects a person’s mentality, it doesn’t seem logical that Luffy’s body should change. This is probably a combination of the various skills causing Luffy’s muscles to bulge involuntarily and the fact that Luffy’s devil fruit powers allow such expansions to occur. In short, Luffy has become an unstoppable monster for ten minutes. What I’m hoping for is not so much to see as many extra skills as possible but rather to see these skills amplified by his own devil fruit powers. Even if all these skills give him the power to take down Oz, I think it is only right that he deals the finishing blow with an ability all his own and I’m still thinking that the ability to be used is gear 3.

Moria’s Manipulation

...slightly overpowered

As we turn back to the Oz fight, we see that things are not going so well for the Strawhats. The acquisition of rubber abilities has made Oz a good deal stronger. We then hear from a bragging Moria the true secret behind this new boost. It seems that in actuality, Oz never did get Luffy’s devil fruit powers. By fusing his own shadow with Oz’s, Moria is able to control the form of Oz’s body by reversing the relationship between a shadow and physical body. Using this skill, he can recreate Luffy’s powers by stretching Oz’s anatomy according to the attack being used. This ability would most likely allow him to recreate any devil fruit power that merely alters the shape of one’s anatomy (the other one that comes to mind is Buggy’s bara bara no mi). The ability to have such control over a body through the shadow seems like an unfair advantage. By this logic, he should be able to recreate the aforementioned types of devil fruit powers in himself by using his own shadow or severely alter an opponent’s anatomy to give a severe handicap in a fight. However, I’m guessing that this ability only works on zombies. For living people, their shadows are a direct reflection of themselves and while Moria can use his ability to cut the two apart, he can’t invade its shadow while the owner is still alive. Zombies bear two shadows though. They bear one on the inside that is reflective of the living person Moria stole it from and thus can’t be invaded. The other is the shadow of the corpse, which no longer has any spiritual connection to its owner and thus can be taken over by Moria. He manipulates the form of this dead shadow to change the shape of the dead body while the living shadow inside still retains conscious control.

Brooke’s Will to Fight

hahaha!!! death and destruction

With the Strawhats losing badly, Brooke feels the need to make himself useful even if his skills don’t match those of his new allies. Since at the moment they are out of options, they reluctantly agree and set up another powerful combo. Usopp reloads the giant slingshot that sent Franky right into the danger zone last time. This time, Brooke is the ammo though. Robin wraps him in a coil of her arms and Nami provides a dark thundercloud. In the end, the combo hurls Brooke’s light body at high speed towards Oz with his sword drawn. Robin uncoils him in midair and he passes through Nami’s cloud to create a powerful arrow of lightning. Although the attack pierces right through Oz’s shoulder, it leaves him embedded in a wall. Like the Strawhats, he is now simply in the position of waiting for Luffy to come kick Oz’s ass

Picking Them Off

oh noes!!!

As the attack on Oz continues with Zoro trying to continue the chain of combos, the true value of having Moria there begins to show. While Oz would normally just fight the Strawhats by attacking whichever one is closest, Moria has given him the order to destroy them one by one. In accordance with his orders, Oz ignores Zoro and decides to finish off Brooke before continuing on to anyone else. With a swift axe kick to the wall where Brooke is stuck, he takes the skeleton out of the battle to join the unconscious Franky. As Usopp is the next to attack, Oz decides that the sniper is the next target of his focused attack. While before, the Strawhats could distract Oz with one attack while preparing another, this new strategy is extremely dangerous for them as their efforts must now go to protecting the current target instead of preparing attacks. As they are unlike other pirate crews, they don’t feel right sacrificing their own members for a chance at a perfect attack.

Robin’s Genius

its amazing how well those arms mesh together to look like a giant arm

As Oz prepares to attack Usopp with a stretching punch, he realizes that he can no longer stretch. Apparently Robin has used her ability to restrict Moria rather than take on Oz directly. By keeping the master tied up, she hopes to nullify the ability to manipulate Oz’s shadow. The reason for the effectiveness is more than likely simply a break in Moria’s concentration. We have already seen Moria manipulate his own shadow without moving an inch of his real body. Holding him still should have no effect on his ability to manipulate his shadow and through it Oz’s as well. Even if somehow this actually does stop his ability to manipulate Oz’s shadow, he can still separate his own from it and use it to attack Robin in order to regain control. With things looking dire at this point, Luffy will likely arrive soon and we may get a short return to Kuma just to see a mere reaction while he watches things unfold.

Overall

I so look forward to these chapters each week cause they so rarely disappoint. This week is no exception. While the chapter didn’t have as much of the flair as other chapters, it did quite a bit in peaking my interest for next week. I am psyched to see the horrendous glory that is Nightmare Luffy as he will cause a whole new level of destruction. One thing I truly hope for is to see Franky get back up and rejoin the fight. I was sad to see the screen of him still unconscious. Oh well. Until next week, farewell and may the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.

Helltroll · Oct 27, 2007