 out of all the things I was expecting to see this week. You better ask that God Valley was at the bottom of the list. In fact, that's a lie. God Valley wasn't even on the list. From murder mysteries to massive lore reveals, Eckhart Island has been full of twists and turns. But believe me when I say that this chapter completely took me by surprise. To think that after weeks of asking, Kuma backstory when? We wouldn't be just getting a simple backstory. Oh no, this backstory is the mother of all backstories. It is THE backstory. A massive tale that's about to show us the origins of a number of huge names within the series. Some new, and others whom we've been wondering about for years on end. So strap your seatbelts, kids, because we're beginning our journey into what promises to be a wild tale. One full of drama and action, highs and lows, moments that will have us yelling with hype, and others sending us reaching for tissues. It is already looking like it may be one of the best flashbacks in the history of the series. And I meant that about the tissues, because this backstory is heavy. Tragedy is a crucial part of any good one-piece backstory. But straight from the get-go, we start off with a very dark premise. We find out that Kuma was born to the last of the Buccaneer bloodline. A near-extinct race apparently said to have committed a grave crime that makes them deserving of second-class treatment. Given it's Saturn who mentioned the Buccaneer's great crime, the immediate assumption is that this special tribe that has the blood of giants was also somehow allied with the great ancient kingdom and or joyboy. A so-called crime that generations later, the remnants of the tribe are still paying for. Because even prior to the tournament at God Valley, we see that Kuma's dad was practically living in hiding or on the run for merely existing as a Buccaneer. What's interesting is that Buccaneer is actually a real word, and it's a word that describes pirates. Or more specifically, pirates from the region of the Caribbean or the Pacific coast of Central America. The term came about from the French word Bucane, which is a grill for smoking meat. And the reason that this group of pirates were given this specific name was because they lived off hunting wild game. So why Oda decided to use this term for this race immediately causes me intrigue. It seems like a particularly twisted case of irony. The Buccaneer race named after pirates that used to hunt wild meat here in the one-piece world have become the hunted. But before diving deep into Kuma's backstory, first, this video is sponsored by Atlas VPN. Grab a big deal with Atlas VPN. For a limited time only, Atlas VPN premium is just $1.83 per month with 3 months extra. And you get a 30-day money back guarantee. You can take this deal by clicking the link in the description below. 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It's a very short-lived joy experiencing the happy family, celebrating the large strong boy. Oda flicks the switch really abruptly. And although I was always expecting a very dark story for Kumar, it still broke my heart reading this chapter. I think one of the saddest parts for me was when you see Kumar trying to reassure his dad that he's not having such a rough time with his celestial dragon overlords. It seems to be a trait that he picked up from his mom, who also used to reassure him that everything was okay, despite being enslaved herself. But what's so effective here is that this not only presents Kumar to be incredibly sweet and pure-hearted, but also suggests a high level of emotional intelligence and maturity, which is what makes the next series of panels so much more heartbreaking. When you see this strong front crumble at the news of his mother's death, you're reminded that Kumar here is in fact just a young boy. And in the short time of only two pages, we see him go from being described as a happy baby to a devastated child who wishes for his own death. And this seems to be the running structure for Kumar's backstory. We're continuously going back and forth from one emotion to another. We see short reprieves of joy and calm before wild emotional storms. For example, a happy family celebrates a new baby. The family then gets captured and enslaved, Kumar being a sweetheart, devastating news of Kumar's mother's death, hopeful tales of Sun God Nika and the abrupt death of Kumar's dad. It definitely set the tone and causes me to feel very apprehensive about the chapters to come because this chapter does actually end on a slightly happier note. What with Kumar meeting new friends in a fellow young slave, Emporio Ivankov and his sister Ginny. And while I'm sure that the early friendship between these characters will bring smiles on our faces, I'm also very much expecting to witness further deaths, mostly Ginny, who I imagine is going to become Kumar's love interest and most likely Bonnie's mother. While I would equally love it if we found out that this is in fact Crocodile and the big secret that Ivankov alluded to back in Impel Down was revealing the fact that the two are actually siblings and that Crocodile is only Mr. Two because Ivankov used his devil fruit ability on him. I think the more likely answer is that Ginny is Bonnie's mother. I know that there are also speculations that this is Luffy's mother, but I'm less convinced. I just think it's less likely that Oda would simply introduce a character as important as Luffy's mom like that. And the fact that Ginny is eating meat isn't only reminiscent of the Monkey D family because Bonnie also shares that gluttonous trait of love for food. Another reason why I think Ginny will be Kumar's lover is because she seems to be marked for death. We know that Ivankov has obviously kept true to his words and lived on, but we've yet to see Ginny in the present timeline. And so if she is indeed Kumar's wife and Bonnie's mom, this flashback may present Kumar losing three people most closest to him. And that may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back and is what results in both Ivankov and Kumar to found the Revolutionary Army. On that note, the appearance of Ivankov and Kumar here at God Valley naturally gives rise to the question of whether Dragon is also present. Seeing as we know that these three are the founding members of the Revolutionary Army. But unless Kumar and Ivankov were also a part of the Freedom Fighters, then it's actually possible that the three don't meet until over 10 years later because we know that the Revolutionary Army wasn't actually formed until 22 years ago after the Ohara incident. But now knowing that Ivankov knew Kumar when they were both slaves, it also made me reconsider their relationship in a completely new light. Because while I fully expect this backstory to throw even more tear-jerkers at us, we also know that there is a sort of silver lining in the fact that the two obviously must have been able to escape somehow to be able to form the Revolutionaries. So for Ivankov, who knows what Kumar would have gone through as a former slave of the Celestial Dragons, having to witness Kumar becoming enslaved again, I'm sure all of Kumar's comrades were shocked and sad at what happened. But I imagine it must have hit Ivankov the hardest. Kumar has always been one of, if not my favorite of all the Shichibukai, and definitely the most intriguing for sure. I always knew that finding out his backstory may just solidify him becoming my definite favorite. And even though we're just at the beginning, I can say yes. Yes, he is my favorite warlord. You can't just not root for this guy. This short initial look into his story is all I needed to confirm that I just know it's going to get even more impactful from here. Both for me as a fan, but also because of how his history seems to be very closely linked to the history of the One Piece world and how this will impact the series as a whole once we see the full picture. And so I am just bubbling with excitement to see the journey and to see the impact of the journey of Kumar going from slave to tyrant king, becoming a revolutionary founder to a pirate, a warlord, and then to being a slave again. And how all of this is also tied to one of the most anticipated events in the series that we are now about to find out, the God Valley incident. Just when you think that the celestial dragons can't get worse, they prove you wrong. We've known of their penchant for genocide already, especially given the history of the Lunarians, but the fact that they see ethnic cleansing as a sort of game, a sport is particularly horrifying. I'm unclear as to the exact rules of the tournament, but it seems to involve contestants rounding up and killing as many natives of the chosen country as possible to be named the winner. And it seems like this may be how the world government obtains control over lands that they desire, and it's most likely how they eradicated the Lunarians to gain control over the red line. And this time they've deviated from tradition by attacking a non-world government affiliated country, God Valley, which was located in the West Blue, explaining why Shanks is said to hail from the West Blue, and is only named God Valley because of its rich resources. A clever detail was in the panel when they were announcing the game because we see treasure chests lined up on the posts. And I suspect that one of these may serve to protect Shanks as the flashback continues, and so including that detail here really adds more excitement and anticipation for how that story will come to be. If we needed any more clues to confirm the connection between Shanks to Garling, then this is it, because young Garling looks very much like a pompous-ass version of Shanks. The immediate comparison that my brain went to was if Shanks is Jamie Lannister after his redemption arc. Then Garling is the season one selfish and arrogant shithead of a character. Design-wise, it's very clear that he is special even amongst the world nobles. He's dressed fancier and seems even richer. Interestingly, Garling was already part of the elite group of the Gods Knights, which raises even more intrigue about what this group does exactly and where they fit in the hierarchy. And Garling was as cold-blooded and ruthless as we saw him to be in his response to Mirl's Guard, dispatching the God Valley's King with zero hesitation, simply because the King wanted to protect his people. So what we've seen of the God Valley incident so far suggests very much that this was a barbaric event that deserved to be attacked and shut down, which of course raises the question of why Roger and Garp teamed up to save the Celestial Dragons instead of joining Rocks to destroy them. It's becoming more and more likely that Rocks is another example of a world government lie. Similar to how they branded Robin as a devil child or the O'Haran scholars as treacherous evil, but it's really Roger and Garp's involvement that has me really intrigued. I also imagine Kaido's backstory will continue here as well. Given how his relationship with Rocks was only dealt with very briefly in the 1-0 arc, it would make more sense for his backstory to be fleshed out now or at least enough so that we could put two and two together. So on top of Kuma's backstory alone, this flashback is shaping up to be so incredibly juicy, consisting of so many different characters and the potential to reveal so much more lore about the One Piece world. Already, an interesting detail was the appearance of Saint Saturn at the tournament, looking pretty much no younger than he does now, definitely not almost 40 decades younger and therefore potentially confirming the theory that the Gorossae are immortal beings. And on that note about Saturn, I know I said this last week, but my God, he is a beast. The chapter actually began with a continuation of the impactful landing of Saturn at Egghead and he wasted no time showcasing his abilities. Completely unaffected by Bonnie's attack, the wound healing automatically, taking Sanji down with one quick attack, grabbing Bonnie while keeping everyone frozen using an unconfirmed force of pressure, all in quick succession to display the insurmountable difference in the power levels between Saturn and everyone else. His comment to Kizaru about Kizaru taking longer than expected furthers the impression that the Gorossae are definitely more superior than the admirals and not just status wise. But Luffy and Kizaru ending in a stalemate solidifies the idea that Luffy in gear fifth form is now at least as strong as a single admiral, which I think is a great way to showcase his progression and where he currently sits amongst the series' top fighters. But having Saturn's threatening presence is showing that Luffy will still need help in taking down more powerful enemies and that at least at this point requires help from those who are on par with gear fifth. But back to Saturn's abilities though, because I really want to go into depth about a few of the things he displayed in this chapter. First of all, Saturn healing his own wounds might add even further weight to the speculations that the Gorossae are immortal, which again seems to be heavily hinted in this chapter. Saturn also displayed an ability to subdue multiple people when Sanji, Frankie and Vegapunk were unable to move. The three commenting that they were being held down by some sort of pressure, which is then hinted to be possibly due to his devil fruit, which makes me wonder how Sabo managed to escape not one, but five of these Gorossae plus Imu supposing that they are all indeed capable of holding down proven fighters without even touching them. I guess we could say that this is simply because Sanji and Frankie haven't reached the same power level of Sabo yet and Vegapunk has never been portrayed to be a physical fighter. But that still leaves the question of how five Gorossae members were unable to stop one single Sabo carrying a cobra away. The other explanation could be that Oda simply went with it for the sake of the story, even if it doesn't make complete sense. But if we're using the logic of the series, which I think makes for a more interesting discussion, then the Gorossae choosing not to use that sort of ability on Sabo because Imu and the Panjia Castle are too sacred to release a combination of such an ungodly amount of pressure that might put Marijwa at risk is one example I can think of because after all these Gorossae are figures that place a lot of value in the hierarchy of things. And Satan, at the very least, seems to place a level of weight or importance on destiny and fate. I found his comment that he would like to see Luffy and Bonnie escape from the island very interesting. To be honest, I reread this line a number of times and I still might not be completely absorbing those words, largely due to the fact that this is the most I've seen of Satan so I still have very little understanding of his character. But his words, which would usually sound like a challenge, like, I'd like to see you try, sounded more like he's genuinely filled with curiosity rather than confidence in his inevitable victory. As a massive straw hat and Frankie lover, of course I am very glad at his successful saving of his captain and even felt giddy at the sight of Satan commenting that Luffy has a pretty strong crew. And speaking of crew and tying all of this back together, the more I see of Bonnie and now with Kuma's flashback, revealing his interest in the Sun God Nika, I am more and more wanting Bonnie to join the crew. I know that this is a dilemma that we get into with every arc, but come on. After seeing what Kuma went through and the one hope that he's maintained being in the legendary Sun God Nika, it would only be right that although he may never realize it himself, his daughter would be part of the crew of the Sun God, joining the legendary hero to free all people. Because if that's not poetic justice, I don't know what is. We should mention that Vega Punk has again referred to Bonnie as a child and at this point it actually almost feels like Bonnie is confirmed to be a young girl. But there are so many more questions and hints and mysteries and so on and so forth that I haven't even begun to touch on. But we do have a break week, so you best believe that we will be carrying on this conversation. So on that note, make sure to subscribe. Please like the video. Thank you for listening to another one of my ramblings. Thank you to all of our patreon and channel members and this is Joygirl and I'll see you again soon.