 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything one piece. My name is Liam and I have no toast today because I have no bread. I do have Dolph Lamingo though, but unfortunately I can't eat him, or can I? But today we are here to discuss the exciting events of chapter 1018, for which the Out of Context summary is as follows. This banquet is ruined. One 8 year old girl is single-handedly in the process of destroying an emperor of the sea, thus making everyone else look bad. Men in masks have noticed this, and they don't care because they have masks. Meanwhile the household is being destroyed by a fighting fish and a shockingly wide cat. Wide cat then muses over the concept of a god before attempting to poke the fish. That poke did not work and the fish was not impressed. That is indeed the rather dramatic ending of chapter 1018, but if you would like to impress Jinbei then use your finger to press the subscribe button for the Grand Line review. Thus resulting in consistent injections of one piece culture administered directly into your YouTube feed. And just look how happy he is at the very idea for that. So go on, subscribe, and make a fish friend today. 1018 is a bit of a trippy experience though, and that's mostly, almost entirely, due to a singular panel depicting this here goofy image. The Sun God Nika is a thing, and I think it's more of a thing than most casual readers will realize. But to kick this discussion off strong, I want to state that this is not the first time that the Sun God has been mentioned in the series, far from it. It is the first time that we've heard their name, so that is nice and new. But in retrospect, it's not even the first time that the Sun God may have been depicted in one piece either. It looks like one of the sky people. Actually, it also looks like Luffy at the end of Skype here. You know that, uh, Atsino just said that he likes the other fire. So I am hyper aware of this particular panel because it has been cited as Ichiro Oda's third favorite panel in the entire series. And that always struck me as a little bit curious, especially because the imagery here is allegedly what inspired Oda to even draw Skype here to begin with. But if we look closely at the middle, we see Luffy looking extraordinarily similar to our Sun God image in 2018. And that may have not been lost on those present at the time, because Wiper has a very shock and awe style look on his face. Although in the context of the moment, that can also be played as shocked that nobody was fighting, but it is a very curious juxtaposition with what we now know from 2018. The figure here also appears to be dressed in a similar manner to a Shandian tribe member, but that raises a lot of questions surrounding many, many connective ideas. Like, are we implying that Luffy is the Sun God or an incarnation of the Sun God, or is the Sun God Joy Boy and all that sort of rabbit-holy discussion? And it's also not the first time on Wano that Luffy has been specifically compared to a deity, so there is that as well. In terms of being mentioned, my knowledge, the Sun God's name has dropped twice elsewhere in the series, both in flashbacks, mind you. One is Nolan's flashback when Moose claimed that she was going to sacrifice herself to the Sun God, and another was in Big Mom's flashback on Elbeth, when Mother Carmel lied to the giants and claimed that the Sun God had stopped their disaster, rather than her devil fruit abilities. And both of these very cheeky mentions in retrospect, because they honestly mean nothing, nothing at all without this context. They just act as fun flavor to flesh out the civilizations, not necessarily something to be taken seriously, because other gods are also mentioned like rain, earth, and forest, so you really don't pay too much attention to Sun on its own, but we damn well are now. And I really don't want to get lost too deeply down this rabbit hole, because explaining the motif of the Sun in One Piece is a very big task. It really would need its own video that I'll probably make, because both the Sun and the Moon and Light and Darkness have been integral elements of the series from the get-go. But the main takeaway from this chapter in particular, is that we are really amping up the solution to a lot of One Piece mysteries. My interpretation from the chapter combined with what we already know, is that the Sun God is Joy Boy, or perhaps even a being who predates Joy Boy, who may have passed on his inherited will to Joy Boy, and whatever the case may be that will now resides with, and is being carried out by Luffy. And that is a pretty massive conclusion to take from this singular panel, but this is clearly something that Oda has been very sneakily building up over the course of One Piece. So stay tuned to the channel, there will be a much more in-depth look at this topic, because there is a lot more to say. Back to this chapter though, I was actually pretty captivated simply from the title. Jinbei versus Husu? Ah yeah, we got a matchup title. This raid is going to succeed. So if you're a newer fan, by which I mean you may have started reading over the course of the last, uh, four years or so. Firstly, welcome, but secondly matchup titles are generally a bit of a big deal. They happen at the action-packed climaxes of big arcs, and they often signify a very locked focus. For example, if you go back to any slobby, each of the straw hats got two or three chapters for their matchups against CP9, and the first of those chapters was always called someone versus someone, like Zora versus Kaku, Nami versus Kalifar, Sanji versus Jabra and so on and so forth. So with that in mind, I would say that 1019 will probably continue the focus on Jinbei versus Husu, and we'll play that match out until the ultimate defeat of Mr Kitty Cat. And no, that's obviously not guaranteed, that's just my educated guess going by Otis Trends, and it would be my best bet. And then afterwards, we'll start getting more versus title chapters to focus on those, like say Frankie versus Sasaki. In terms of Jinbei versus Husu, this is such a weird fight from an artistic perspective. The whole Rokushiki versus Fishman Karate aspect has made this quite aesthetically unique for one piece, and the increasing width of Husu has made it rather hilarious. I mean, just look at this panel of Husu trying to nom on Jinbei. This is a stupidly wide cat. Something fun to note is that Jinbei appears to go full armament haki in one of these exchanges. You can see his face covered in haki as well, so we are really showcasing Jinbei's mastery here, which for whatever reason, he did not possess pre-timeskip, or if he did, he didn't use it. The fight itself is more of a secondary feature, though it acts as a backdrop for Husu to just sort of ramble on about his experiences as a prisoner, which is actually pretty great, because as cool as straight action can be, in a one piece chapter, I have to say it does often fall a bit flat compared to others, because Otis' greatest strength is in writing, and I like that he's using this fight scene to also give us some very relevant information. And one thing that I guess I didn't mention about the sun god, Jinbei clearly knows more about this matter than he is willing to divulge, but there's also the sun pirates, who at this point are almost certainly named after the legacy of this legendary figure. So everything's really coming together, and stuff like this is what makes arcs like Fishman Island and Skypey are significantly more valuable in retrospect. Other than Long Ring Long Land, I think those are the two arcs that people tend to promote skipping, because they're perceived as not adding a whole lot to one piece, almost like canon filler arcs, I suppose. But the people who advocate for those ideas could not be more wrong, even if something doesn't seem wildly relevant at the time, everything is a part of this big one piece machine. And furthermore, to someone who did skip Fishman Island, Skypey or both, then this chapter is probably a very kind of experience, because they don't have those connections to make. In short, don't arc skip, at least not in one piece. Speaking of nostalgic Fishman Island though, we also got a taste of one of its major themes here, because who's who, whether it was intentional or not, and it probably was, well he makes a bit of a racist faux pas, and Jinbei's reaction to it is, and it's pretty brilliant. It's like he's talking to his old racist grandfather, like sir, it is 2021, that is no longer an acceptable thing to say. And then instead of continuing the fight, what we do is we cut to who's who being cancelled on Twitter, which also adds another small layer to this pairing as a whole. Oda has managed to make this a matchup that really does showcase a full spectrum of both Jinbei and who's who. There is a very strong juxtaposing dynamic at play, and that is a lot harder to do than Oda makes it seem. He needs to plan insanely far in advance to have these characters with these traits and backstories, and then set them up on a stage perfectly for them to conflict and have dialogue like this. And he has to do this for every character on Unigashima, not every character, like at least the major ones though, of which there are a lot. But every opponent of the straw hats on their allies needs to be an individual who can highlight the strengths of our heroes and expand on their stories. Otherwise it would just end up being meaningless action, and we would get fatigued very, very quickly. It's almost like dating really. You need to find the right person to hit it off with. Now imagine that Jinbei was fighting Ulti. That would be absolutely terrible because the two have nothing in common and therefore nothing to talk about. Ulti would just keep headbutting her food in Jinbei while he'd reluctantly pay the bill and leave, whilst deeply regretting his life choices. So I just want to give Oda that credit here for masterfully planning and juggling these eventual interactions. Also within this chapter are the other intriguing CP0, and they give us what I am now going to refer to as the CP0 battle report. With Tama's new recruits also apparently came a bunch of other Beast Pirate members who just sort of decided to switch sides of their own accord. And the numbers are now 16,000 versus 9,000, which is big because the Beast Pirates don't even have a two to one advantage anymore. With that said, it's still not quite the tide turning action that we need to push things completely in our favor. There still needs to be at least one big event to either flip or demoralize the Beast Pirates, and that might be something like announcing the defeat of all of the Tobirapo or top officers doing dumb stuff like Queen did. And, you know, actively turning their own soldiers against them. Feels like we still need, you know, one big push, and Onigashima effectively belongs to the Allied forces. With just Kaido, Big Mom, King, Queen, and Jack left to deal with. And CP0 are actually starting to see this as a possibility because they're no longer saying stuff like, well, Kaido's gonna win anyway, so whatever. Now they're more like, I don't know who's gonna win, but it doesn't matter because that's not what we're here to do because they've switched their focus to talking about who's who in this chapter, which appears to be the reason why they may have been sent to Wano in the first place or at least part of the reason, because come to think that I have no idea why they were here in the first place. Yes, they were negotiating with Archie, and apparently they gave him a battleship, but I don't know what that was in exchange for. So maybe that whole negotiation was just a clever ruse for them to eventually access who's who. By the way, I can't believe I've neglected to mention this, but that is almost certainly why who's who wears a mask, right? He doesn't want to be recognized by the world government, and his name, who's who, is Gasp, probably not his real name, and if it is, then his parents need serious questioning. And I imagine that their names are House, Howe, and Where's Where. The CP-Zero stuff does actually complicate the who's who story though, because now he can't simply be defeated by Jin Bay and we just wash our hands of the character. CP-Zero have a clear mission to eliminate him, so there are now all sorts of scenarios that can spawn from that, maybe even stuff like a potential team-up of who's who and Dears Drake, because they're both distinct enemies of CP-Zero. Maybe at a certain point, who's who just says effort and actually joins the Allied forces? No, no, many things. Many things are possible. But even after his inevitable defeat at the hands of Jin Bay, it seems like who's who was going to remain somewhat relevant, which was unexpected actually. I didn't think that any of the Tobiropo Bar Drake would have much purpose beyond losing in a fight on Nagashima. Speaking of the Tobiropo though, let's take a look at this here beautiful cover page. This is probably one of my favorite cover pages in a very long time because it's just so damn cute. All T in page one might be out of this conflict, but they are both still well and truly active within my heart. And the fun thing to take note of is that all of the stuff toys around them are animals that correspond to the zoan forms of Kaido's top officers. Oh no, so there's Kaido. Look at him up there just looming so adorably as a stuffed dragon. He actually looks kind of like Momonosuke's actual form. And in miscellaneous news, Nami and Zeus had a nice bonding moment in 2018. Zeus is not going to continue life as Nami's cloud-based servant, which I think is actually rather appropriate, considering the rest of the chapter spoke a lot about slavery. So it actually thematically blends in somewhat. We're making sure that there's no servitude here. And as for Tama, Usopp and Nami both note that she has quite the amazing ability, which yes, we know. But it shouldn't be something all that new to them. That's just kind of what the straw hats always do. Luffy makes new allies out of enemies, as do both Usopp and Nami actually, and Zeus would be a prime example of that. But also stuff like how in any sluggy, Usopp turned both Oimo and Kashi into allies. So Tama's power is more of a straightforward version of this innate talent that all of the straw hats seem to have. And the great talent you have is the ability to click another video. There is always more to learn, discuss, and enjoy about One Piece, so check this bad boy out, and I look forward to seeing you there.