One Piece Chapter 1009

Cover

Color Spread of the Straw Hat Pirates, Front Page Request: “O-Tama, Komachiyo, and the Straw Hats place woven Amigasa hats on Jizo statues to protect them from the snow” by Honey Nameko. A video of the double page sketching process was uploaded on the official Twitter channel.

Storyline

Onigashima, inside Kaidou’s castle: In their search for Momonosuke, the remaining seven Akazaya suddenly encounter Kurozumi Orochi and Fukurokuju. With this, the Shogun finally realizes that the prophecy has come true, whereupon the leader of the Orochi secret agents advises him to flee for the time being. The cryptid-zoan user, however, wants to finally defeat his tormentors himself and transforms into his Yamata no OrochiJust as the samurai draw their swords and cut off the eight-headed dragon’s heads without further ado! While six of them hurriedly move on, Raizo stays behind to face Fukurokuju…

Meanwhile, on the rooftop: To put their plan to separate the two emperors into action, Eustass Kid wants to use Trafalgar Law’s devil powers, but the latter retorts that he would never get close enough due to their enemies’ powerful Hakis. Immediately, the alliance around Luffy seems to have another plan…

Before that, however, Kaidou and Charlotte Linlin, to the horror of their opponents, quickly launch a combo attack called “Hakai”, in which they send a massive blast wave at their opponents with their brandished weapons. This discharges powerfully far beyond the borders of the flying island, but Zoro has opposed the energy beam with all the strength of his three swords, which in turn allows his four comrades-in-arms to escape unharmed. Taking advantage of the situation, Luffy immediately takes to the skies to attack Kaidou, the Emperor dodging his outstretched fist, proving to the rubber boy that the last attacks must have caused him significant pain. Enraged by this, Kaidou swings his club in return and rams Luffy into the ground devastatingly using his “Kosanze Ragnaraku” technique. So while the “most powerful creature in the world” is busy with the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, the others can confront Big Mom. To do this, the Kid suddenly forms a metal box, whereupon Law goes in for his “Shambles” attack. This surprisingly transports Zeus inside the box, as Zoro and Killer grab their blades and launch a joint surprise attack. In a flash, Zoro uses his new skills to cut Prometheus into several pieces, while Killer has no trouble dealing with Napoleon. Now rid of their homies, Kid Linlin wants to take on them and attacks them with his “Punk Pistols”, but the Empress is completely unimpressed. Instead, she just forcefully knocks the former supernova to the ground. Shortly after, however, the latter starts laughing, as he only wanted to get close enough to be able to use his “Repel” technique. Thus, carried by pieces of metal, he finally transports Big Mom into the air, when Law already joins in and additionally attacks her with a flying rock. Although the empress doesn’t directly guess the calculation of this attack, she soon has to realize that she is carried over the edge of the island by the projectiles: Screaming, she ultimately falls down, straight towards the open sea, while the trapped Zeus is unable to help her…!

Miscellaneous

• For once, Oda does not use the Japanese jigoku (地獄) for “hell” for the chapter title, but naraku. While this also translates to “hell”, in Japanese it also describes the Sanskrit wordNaraka“The name of hell in the four religions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. After death, the souls end up there temporarily and have to serve their misdeeds committed during their lifetime before they can be reborn.
• Kṣitigarbha are often found in cemeteries in Japan. In Japanese Buddhism, they are said to accompany souls on their way to the underworld.

Oda’s comment

I ate a banana with the peel on. It was like a crunchy banana! I could get addicted to it.