Oda returns after a two-week gap with Chapter 1017: The Order. A short 17 page chapter which blew our minds with some very interesting revelations. Oda brought back something that was last touched upon over 1000 chapters ago. Some more interesting information about the Gomu Gomu no mi has been revealed. Yes! It ties in all the way back to Chapter 1 where it all began.

The mention of Who’s Who “going through hell” and having seen Jinbei before made me re-read the whole of Impel down again. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any foreshadowing of him here. Fortunately Oda might not be leaving us in the dark for too long as there will be – NO BREAK NEXT WEEK.

Official Chapter can be read at – VIZ

Onigashima is in Chaos!!

Tama finally did it!! We were all waiting for Otama to make her servants do her bidding. All the Beast Pirates that ate her dangos are rebelling against the crew. This sudden betrayal seems to have turned the tides in the favor of the Alliance. If it keeps going on like this, we might see the alliance actually eliminate the numbers advantage that the Beast Pirates had.

Another major problem that we saw this chapter was that in all the big matchups, the huge number of Beast Pirates made it almost impossible for us to see a proper 1 VS 1 fight. So now, with this sudden change we can see some good battles between the commanders on each side *excited laughs*. Jinbei VS Who’s-Who (huhuhu we need to talk about this later), Franky VS Sasaki and Inuarashi VS Jack can finally get some dedicated panels.

We see Momo and Shinobu have survived and Momo is crying out for Kin’emon and Kiku. We also see Luffy spitting out a fountain of water. So yeah, we might see him return in the next few chapters assuming Act III continues.

Queen of the MADS???

Seeing this turn of events because of Otama’s order, Queen tries to attack her. Sanji comes to the rescue with a collier Strike. *still waiting to see Raid Suit and new techniques*. Now yeah, as I said in the previous review, Queen and Judge are related. Turns out they were part of a research team called MADS. Sanji knowing about this might mean that it was active till sometime after Sanji’s birth.

Now what do you think MADS is? *Makers of Artificial Devil Species* 😂. But yeah, based on what we know about Judge we can assume it has something to do with Lineage factors, cyborgs and cloning. What if Queen was the first cyborg? To be honest, his “cyborg equipment” pales in comparison to Pacifistas and even Franky.

Maybe they recruited him and he volunteered to be a part of the experiment. Then, after they “cyborgified” him a bit, they declared him a failed experiment and cast him away. And then somewhere along the line he got his devil fruit and joined the Beast Pirates. This might also explain why he hasn’t modernized his equipment as there is only so much he can do to himself alone.

And then finally for one of the biggest reveals of this chapter, we see Queen’s hybrid form. Things look like they are going to get serious now. Queen’s hybrid form is well … big. What do you think the claws on his hair and tail are for? And he got his sword back. I’m pretty sure Sanji will be pushed to use his Raid Suit finally now that Queen is also getting serious.

Also my predictions for side-effects of the new rumble ball couldn’t be more wrong. 😭. But its fine *goes back to the drawing board*. Seeing Baby Geezer Chopper is worth it. The minks have a medicine that has ultra-regenerative effects temporarily but the user will suffer twice as much later. This sounds vaguely similar to Ivankov’s Emporio Healing Hormone and Emporio Tension Hormone, both of which temporarily grant some form of healing with severe repercussions later. So now Zoro will also be coming back in a few chapters!!

Ex-CP9 agent Who’s Who

Jinbei VS Who’s Who

These were undoubtedly the biggest reveals in this chapter. Who’s who being an ex-CP9 agent who rivalled Rob Lucci and him being the one to lose the Gomu Gomu no mi. As mentioned above, now that the small fries are being taken out by Tama’s orders, the Officers have to get into proper fights. We finally get to see Jinbei VS Who’s Who. We see that he has a sword with a long sheath but he pulls out a dagger from it!? What do you think this means?? *Mihawk intensifies*.

Jinbei is strong. Strong enough to make Who’s Who use his hybrid form. As a genius on Lucci’s level, he seems to have mastered the Rokushiki and has even developed his own versions like Fang Pistol. This will be a very fun fight to read and watch when it finally gets animated *cries in 1 year wait*. (Also did anyone else notice that Jinbei has fangs coming from his lower jaw and Who’s Who has them from his upper jaw. Clash of the opposites it seems)

Now lets get to the best part of this chapter – The Gomu Gomu no mi. Jinbei mentions that it was strange to see a government secret agent in prison. Who’s Who then reveals that he was imprisoned twelve years ago all for one small mistake. The mistake being he was the one guarding the government ship from which the fruit was stolen. WAIT WHAT!! Something that happened 1000 chapters ago and we mostly ignored came back and hit us like a pistol. *hehehe see what I did there*. Now lets try to analyze this in depth.

Mystery of the Gomu Gomu no mi

The world government priced the Ope-Ope no mi at 5 billion berries. It was a fruit that can grant immortality and can heal even the deadliest of diseases in the right hands. While on the other hand, the World Government was just giving away devil fruits to CP9 members. So clearly even though all devil fruits are rare, they too have a difference in usefulness and worth.

Now, if we take a look at the Gomu Gomu no mi, we see that at the start of the series, it was a very weak fruit. It didn’t help him offensively at all and he could still be stabbed. The fruit didn’t become useful until Luffy trained hard for 10 years and mastered it to a certain extent. So why would the World Government punish Who’s Who so harshly for a weak devil fruit? And promote Lucci and the others to CP0 when they actually lost to a pirate and destroyed Enies Lobby? What exactly does the Gomu Gomu no mi have that makes it so special to the World Government?

Well, I don’t have an answer. We need to wait for Oda to reveal more things to us until we can make further speculations. But I did find some interesting theories and predictions online and I will try to share them with you here.

1. “The World Government wanted the Gomu Gomu no mi as a counter to Whitebeard’s abilities. The rubber can counter the shockwaves from the Gura Gura no mi.” I do not agree with this theory as it just doesn’t make sense to me. The Gomu Gomu user might be resistant to the shockwaves but, Whitebeard is no fool. He has really strong haki as the King of the Seas and he also uses a Supreme Grade blade! We have seen that Whitebeard uses all three of these in battle. Just having this fruit wouldn’t let you beat him, even if given to a skilled user. So this seems highly unlikely to be the reason of the fruits importance.
2. Of course, we can’t ignore the possibility that it might have belonged to the previous Joy Boy and somehow ties into the whole prophecy and stuff. But do you think this might be true? I feel that a master of story writing like Oda wouldn’t go for something so obvious and simple. He never does. It has to be something much more mind-blowing and amazing and I don’t think this is it. Nevertheless, we can’t rule out this one for now.
3. Maybe it belonged to Rocks? But this seems highly unlikely again as ex-Rocks pirates members like Whitebeard , Big Mom and Kaido would have given some sort of reaction to his abilities.

Another big question here would be Shanks getting the devil fruit in the first place. Lucky Roo states that they took it from an enemy ship. Assuming the “enemy ship” meant the government ship, wouldn’t that make Shanks a big target for them? Keep in mind, 12 years ago Shanks wasn’t an Emperor of the Sea. Well he was still strong but the World Government still didn’t take any action. Does this have something to do with Shanks meeting the Gorosei? Was the “certain pirate” Luffy?

Also, I think Act III might be coming to an end soon (but we have been saying this for a long time). Personally, I don’t think there is much left for Act III to go on and the current chapters seem like a perfect time to transition on to the finale. We might see some the Tobi Roppo fights end and Yamato lose to Kaido. Momonosuke and Shinobu (assuming they are on land) can alert the residents of Flower Capital to evacuate as Onigashima comes into view. And Luffy and Zoro might directly come into the fight in Act IV.

We can only wait for the next chapter to be released to confirm our suspicions and give us more information to think about. Let us know your thoughts about this chapter in the comments and follow us on Twitter to get more updates.

And as  Luffy always says, “Kaizoku ou ni ore wa Naru”.