 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything one piece. My name is Liam and the dimensions of my office are about 3.5 deep and about 2.5 wide. So it's not big, but it's not like small, small, you know? And today we are here to talk about the legitimately shocking chapter 1100. Whoa, no, that would be shocking. Chapter 1017. Shocking because it does something that the previous 1016 chapters did not do, which has indicated that Luffy's devil fruit, the Gomu Gomu No Mi, is in any way important. This is really big stuff because for the past quarter of a century of real world time, we've very much been living with the idea that Luffy got pretty unlucky in the whole devil fruit lottery and has been making the best of what in anyone else's hands would be a fairly average ability. And that's, uh, it's all about to change. Just as I am about to change you into a subscriber of the Grand Line review with the enticing offer of regular injections of one piece culture administered directly into your YouTube feed, to put it very simply, push red button and good things make happen. Or I think I meant to say make good things happen. It's early. Oh my God, it's early. But please do say hi in the comments below if you are a new member of the Grand Fleet. Welcome. All right, toast time. Can't read without toast, can't toast without read. Back to this old chapter business. So the out of context summary for chapter 1017 is as follows. The zoo is in anarchy. The animals have turned on their leaders at the behest of a girl who fed them that one time. Amongst all of this chaos, medically trained animals have found a way to heal Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, a dinosaur cyborg from here on out known only as a dino borg once had a past relationship with the father of our chef. Queen equal Sanji's mother confirmed. And elsewhere, a cat fights against fish and complains about a fruit whilst doing it. Chapter 1017 really does have it all. And it's hard to believe that in a chapter absolutely crammed with crazy creatures that the most interesting takeaway for me is about a fruit that we never even see, but here we are. So skipping right to the last page, this revelation kind of blew my mind. This revelation is kind of blowing my mind. So there's quite a bit to unpack here in terms of cypher poles and timelines and stuff, but we now know that the Walt government was once in possession of Luffy's devil fruit. And not only that, but they valued it so highly that CP9 were assigned to guard it. Or more specifically, who's who? Who was a former member of CP9? Which, by the way, makes all the sense in the world because his hybrid form is incredibly evocative of Rob Lucci and Jabra. And if you were to take this panel of who's who and stick it anywhere in any lobby, he would just fit. Like any good cat, if he fits, he sits. But the question we all, or at least I guess I have, is why did the Walt government feel the need to assign any member of CP9 or any CP cell just for the Gomu Gomu no Mi? Like I said in the intro, we've been pretty conditioned over the course of one piece to believe that Luffy's abilities are pretty average in the grand scheme of things. And in fact, the very idea that he is some sort of rubberman is what causes a lot of opponents to underestimate him. And in the early days, they'd even laugh at just what a joke his power was. I mean, look at this, you goofy mofo. So we're in some pretty perilous territory right now because if it does turn out that the Gomu Gomu no Mi was something of much more significant importance, then we have a lot of retrospective questions popping up. Mostly around the idea of why nobody has recognized his power and said something like, oh damn, he has the legendary rubber fruit thing. And there are all sorts of potential explanations around that such as the Gomu Gomu no Mi being a fruit that the world government have held for potentially hundreds and hundreds of years. So that's why nobody twigs to its value. But even that answer to a question raises other questions like, well, if the world government knew how dangerous the fruit was, then why did they continuously underestimate and undervalue Luffy? They should have seen that power and gone, oh no, Kizaru, can you can you handle that? Quickly before it turns into a big world shaking issue. And I don't mean to say that any of these questions like plot holes or manga sins, it's just the sort of thoughts that immediately flare up in response to this kind of revelation. And if anything, it is very exciting because I look forward to having those questions answered and this mystery expanded upon. And a big key to that is who is who's who. And all right, let's try and work this out. So who's who states that the Gomu Gomu no Mi was stolen 12 years ago? Hmm, 12 years ago? Well, that number's a little bit significant, isn't it? 12 is sort of like a magic number in this day and age of one piece. Much more important than it sounds because that plants us smack bang at chapter one of the series, which took place exactly 12 years ago. By which point the fruit was in possession of the red hair pirates. And the simplest explanation from here is that Lucky Rue stole the fruit from the world government. And in regards to that, all we really know is that he took it from an enemy ship. So I suppose it could be more convoluted and Lucky Rue took it from people who took it from who's who. But we're going to go with the Occam's razor explanation for now and say that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. And either way, it's a beautiful piece of connective tissue all the way back to chapter one. To think that we are only just now having this vague mystery solved 116 chapters later is pretty mind boggling and it hits me with this mixed dose of like shock and nostalgia. It's a very strange feeling, but I like it. With this timeline though, who's who is apparently 38 years old, so he would have been 26 at the time. Whilst Rob Lucci is 30 and he would have been 18. Which I only bring up because who's who offers up a direct comparison with Lucci. Timeline wise it seems more like who's who was the talented older brother type. Whilst Rob Lucci was the insanely gifted younger child. With that said, who's who shows off some amazing Rukushiki variations in this chapter like the knife and the fang shi guns. Which is also nostalgic in a way because it takes me back to the anti-sobby days where these techniques were actually, I mean irrelevant, they were present afterwards but very few key figures made use of them and never in a nice showcases sort of way. Which has always struck me as odd because they are legitimately incredible and useful to every fighter in this world. And if people like Sanji and Luffy can learn them without any kind of training, then surely others can as well. This is a very good match up for Jinbei though, quite exciting because it's like a martial art showcase. A master of the Rukushiki versus a master of fishman karate. It's less of a freestyle brawl and more of a high class technical showdown. Although I will say that I am a little bit disappointed at the ultimate connection between these two. In chapter 998, Jinbei and who's who had this like little teaser conversation. Where who's who said, I once saw you as a warlord, Mr. Fish. And then Jinbei's all like, huh, take off your mask and maybe I'll recognize you, Mr. Cat. So it felt like it had the potential to be a bit more of a personal matchup. Wait, is that it? Who's who just doesn't like him because he's vaguely associated with the man who is also vaguely associated with his own failure? Silly cat. And one other thing I did want to notice that it was only one panel, but CP0 did indeed appear in the chapter. The panel itself was relatively inconsequential because it only told us what we already knew they would know if that makes sense. Like you don't even get any fun reactions because the CP0 guys is just like a brick wall. However, it was a very good decision to include it because it plants that Cypherpole seed into the chapter. So the Cypherpole groups are already in our minds when who's who reveals that he was once part of CP9. And yes, it is a very, very minor thing. But in terms of telling the story in this isolated chapter experience, it does help to build that reveal rather than having the Cypherpole name come out of nowhere. But as for what blank face CP0 member is reacting to, well I suppose we should get to the main action of 2017. Ah, deliciousness has arrived. Now we are back with Vegemine today because my Australian cravings are acting up. Alright, Tama. This young girl has now officially risen to the status of MVP of Wano. And it's going to take an awful lot for something to dethrone her. This chapter finally gave us the payoff of following Tama for the past almost three years now. I mean Tama was one of the first human characters that Luffy met on Wano in chapter 911, which, and this saddens me, was published in July 2018. So that was a bit of a long time ago. Wano is a very long up. But it's not just Tama's story that's paying off here. It's also all of the time that Oda has spent introducing smile users. And in the past, I think there have been a fair few examples of chapters where people have gone. Why is Oda wasting time drawing chicken butts? Which I always love because they're a fun bit of comedy. But that all pays off here as well as we get panel after panel of goofy smile users that we've set up now being the key to properly turning the tides of the battle here. It's because of these guys that characters like Jinbei and Frankie will now have their shots at defeating Tobi Ropa members. I really love these moments in One Piece. The ones where the meticulously set up plot thread suddenly activates and just changes everything. Thus confusing all of the bad guys, but to us readers of culture, it's all very much according to Keikaku. So it's definitely time that we award Tama with some coveted raid points. And she's going to be given three. One for converting all of the gifters to our sign. The second for briefly converting Big Mom and having her defeat Page One and soften up Ulti. And the third is for saving both Nami and Usopp much earlier than that when Ulti was about to kill them. And three is a very, very impressive amount of raid points for an eight-year-old child. I really don't know what more she can do, but I do know that without Tama, we would have no hope whatsoever on Wano. And in fact, Tama is now the second highest on the raid point leaderboard, beaten only by Zoro in first place with the mighty five raid pointos. But someone who does get a bit lost in the events of 2017 is Sanji. However, he has another satisfying hit on Queen. I really don't know what it is, but it's just so much fun seeing Queen get hit by, well, anyone. Even as a dinosaur, his face is just so punchable. This quickly turns into a bit of a sub revelation though, as we are given a specific name, that name being Mads, which is apparently a team of super researchers, which involved both Queen and Judge. And right now it very much feels like the sort of science equivalent of the rocks pirates. You know this legendary group of dick bags who probably did some absolutely horrendous things, but have been forgotten by the world at large. The fun thing about this is that it does of course imply that Queen and Judge were not the only members of this here group, although it is hard to think of others outside of the potential of vagabunk. We don't have all that many world-renowned scientists in one piece, at least not renowned to us. And I doubt that Caesar Clown was there because surely that would have come up by now with all of the Vinsmoke focus on Hawkeak Island. But it does look like Oda is setting up some history here to be revealed at a later date, like we're talking maybe a hundred, two hundred or so chapters down the line. We meet vagabunk and he's like, oh yeah, I was part of the Mads thing, along with your father and that dinosaur guy. And it would just be a nice retrospective thing where we quietly applaud Oda with a golf club for setting up that thread a couple of years in advance. That's what's happening here. Also, Queen's hybrid form is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. He looks funnier than most of the smile users that we've seen, actually. It's just so hard to take him seriously, but that is generally difficult with Queen because he's such a naturally funny character, despite his sickening tendencies, which I love and makes him compelling, but you still look ridiculous. And that scene transitions pretty directly into Chopper and Zoro. And I know I did predict this happening, as did probably everyone, but I didn't expect Zoro's recovery to be this easy and potentially instantaneous. Apparently, the minks have some sort of miracle medicine, or at least a temporary cure for everything. It reminds me a lot of Marineford, where Luffy had to be injected with hormones by Ivankov just to keep on fighting, but he was warned that this could kill him. I feel like this is the same sort of deal and obviously, Zoro is going to take that risk because he's Zoro. But it could be a little bit BS, I suppose, because even though consequences are like the technically flag, I doubt there will actually be any enduring problems. Zoro will finish the arc, he'll be in a lot of pain, recovering for a while like after Thriller Bark, and then all will be good again. So the whole consequences aspect does feel a bit artificial, and it's also such a dangerous thing to introduce into the story, because now that this miracle medicine somehow exists, why do we not use it in every single circumstance in the future? Like, it's going to be very hard to paint this as a one and done. This medicine does now exist, Chopper is aware of it, and people like Luffy and Zoro are going to be very keen to abuse it. So it's something that needs to be handled quite carefully, or also could become the one piece world equivalent of Sensor Beans and Dragon Ball. Meanwhile, Chopper, he is beyond adorable. He was already small, now he's smaller and in direct correlation to that, he's also cute too. And I guess speaking of consequences, this one is more reminiscent of Luffy's original Gear 3rd ramifications. It's pretty damn cute, and it is quirky that it seems to give Chopper this sort of old man persona, and it actually makes his experience and medical knowledge sound appropriate, like a withered yet worldly doctor type. I suppose it is actually pretty hard to have any kind of tough consequences for a mascot character. You know, it's one thing to put Zoro through endless physical pain, but we cannot do that to the cute reindeer. Instead, his consequence is going to be that he becomes even cuter. And while there's not a lot of pure focus on many others, there are a ton of other off panels in this chapter with some very important catch-up information regarding certain characters. Firstly, we do see Luffy having been saved by the heart pirate, so he is no longer drowning and has that sort of fun Looney Tunes water spurting out of his mouth effect. More interestingly, but also more confusingly, we also have one panel of Momonosuke and Shinobu. They don't really know where they are. In fact, I don't know where they are at all. They just sort of appeared out of nowhere. After dodging Kaito's attacks with Shinobu's abilities, so they do feel a bit out of place because we left them on quite a literal cliffhanger. And there's no real closure to whatever that event was. It's just, uh, oh, they did survive, and now they're, uh, they're somewhere. I think. However, the reason why this panel does actually work quite well for me is because it's played alongside Luffy's with Tama in the middle separating them. So we have our two primary arcuros, the Joy Boy and the Crying Boy, both incapacitated and needing to be saved by others. And with Tama in the middle, what this series of panels makes more clear than ever before is that the entire success of this raid very much rests on the shoulders of a series of children. Which is great because One Piece is a generational story, and right now we are in a key moment of generational shift. So it's only natural that our younger characters are playing very key roles in surpassing the former generation. And if you'd like to surpass all former generations, then you can do so by becoming a groundline review channel member and gaining access to all sorts of embarrassing emoji. You just click the join button below the video, or wherever it is on your particular device, and bam, good times ahead. And then go and test out your new powers by commenting on this video, which is designed to explore why Kaito may be a bit of a lackluster antagonist. Or not, that's the question we're asking, so I look forward to seeing you there.