Manga: Chapter 603 (SPOILERS!)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Don’t panic guys! Read One Piece from Viz here!

After 2 years of training, the Straw Hats have now set sail for a brand new adventure to Fishman Island! If you thought last chapter was fantastical and sentimental, wait until you see this week’s installment.

We start off by seeing Coribou, Caribou and their goons getting ready to bury Black’s men alive in the ground for revenge. Needless to say, Caribou is feeling pissed off while they beg and plead for their lives. Caribou proceeds to grab fake Sanji and his arm turns to liquid and begins to engulf the imposter. Fake Sogeking tries to stop him with a cannonball, but he just absorbs it. All Caribou wanted was to join the Straw Hats so that they can kill them from the inside. So yes, our first villain since the timeskip is a Logia Devil Fruit user, who happens to be bloody crazy. Also since he identified the real Luffy, I’m going to assume that they’re going to chase the real Straw Hats.

Caribou should’ve taken his crazy pills this morning

We quickly cut to Grove 46 where we see Sentoumaru reporting to the Marines via Snail Phone. Although they captured the fake Straw Hat’s recruits, they couldn’t get the real Luffy since Rayleigh was there and would’ve stopped them easily. Interestingly enough, the 2 Pacifistas Luffy, Zorro and Sanji took down a couple of chapters ago were the prototypes Sentoumaru used 2 years ago, he concludes by stating how much more powerful the newly revived Straw Hats are. We go to Rayleigh looking at the sea and Shakky comes over commenting on how improved the Straw Hats have really become. Rayleigh recalls back to when he was a young man. Another boy comes over and compliments Rayleigh’s small ship…which he stole of course since his house burnt down (he may have been an orphan). The boy introduces himself as none other than Roger. Not only that, but he’s wearing the famous Straw Hat itself. Now this is very interesting. It explains why some people think Luffy reminds of the old King of the Pirates and also it indicates that Shanks must’ve been given the Straw Hat back when he was a cabin boy (or possibly before) which lead to of course the hat being passed onto Luffy. Yet we don’t see his full face even though we know what he looked like as an adult. Young Roger asks Rayleigh if he wants to “overturn the world” with him, which of course Young Rayleigh laughs at. Back in the present, Rayleigh sheds another tear and states that everything that’s happened has been inevitable, Luffy has truly become a man and is well fitted to wear the famous straw hat and of course he wants to live to see Luffy achieve his dream.

Now we can all truly see why Luffy is pretty much destined to become the new King of the Pirates

We go back underwater where everyone is admiring the beauty of the ocean. We also see a MASSIVE mangrove root which is pretty much how the Sabaody Archipelago can stand. By the way, the underwater art is beautiful with great use of shading and light. Luffy and Zorro stupidly try to poke/slash open the bubble to catch some fish but they get knocked out by Usopp and Chopper (which I don’t think has happened before), Sanji asks Nami to explain the coating, but apparently Nami’s magnificent cleavage is too much for him and his nosebleed causes him to skyrocket so far, that he passes through the bubble (without popping it) out to sea. Poor Sanji isn’t going to survive Fishman Island once he sees all the beautiful mermaids (unless they all look like Kokoro with some exceptions). Luffy manages to grab Sanji and pull him back. Back to Nami, the bubble can stretch to a certain limit of course, but anything stronger than it will just pass through so they can even fire cannonballs. But the only way it could sink is if there is a lot of holes.

The-not-so-manly-as-I-thought Usopp recalls that Hachi was supposed to lead them to Fishman Island, Franky explains that Hachi is still healing from the wound Saint Charloss inflicted on him 2 years ago, the same with Duval (for other reasons of course). But another person was also guarding the Sunny who happens to be…Bartholomew Kuma. A couple days ago when Franky arrived to the Sunny, Kuma was heavily damaged. If you recall, Kuma is a Revolutionary and sent the Straw Hats flying to keep them safe (obviously under Dragon’s influence). It also turns out that he was a guinea pig for the Marines experiments which overtime, made him into a cyborg. Before the Summit War, he made a deal with Dr Vegapunk to erase his personality for having the sole mission of protecting the pirate ship until the Straw Hats returned to it, programmed into his body. By doing this, he has no memory of the past 2 years, only the sole mission he remembered. Even though they all greatly indebted to him, Kuma is now a heartless powerful weapon, meaning that he may still be an obstacle to the Straw Hats in the near future possibly.

Its pretty sad to know that Kuma may still be an enemy now, despite his noble actions

The chapter ends with the Caribou Pirates right behind the Straw Hats (like I predicted), getting ready to ask to join the crew (by that I mean, getting ready to kill them). Like I said, this chapter was full of suprises, the biggest of course being the fact that Roger also wore the Straw Hat. The Kuma one was hinted at quite a bit, but at least now we know for sure. I can’t wait to see our favourite pirates take down these nutters.

See you all next time!