Egghead is OVER and we’re FINALLY going to Elbaf! Which means that everyone’s favorite coward is about to have his time to shine! Move over Zoro!
Get out of here Sanji. We are about to start the YEAR OF GOD USOPP! And of course as we look ahead to Elbaf our expert sniper should play a MASSIVE role in this arc.
But did you know there is even some evidence that we could see him eat a devil fruit, awaken his conqueror’s haki, AND lead an entire army of giants? Who by the way are actually WAY STRONGER than we ever imagined! But more on that later because all of this starts with this panel right here.
Because in chapter one thousand one hundred and twenty three, we clearly see that Usopp is the main straw hat celebrating with the giants. Which just absolutely doubles down on what we’ve seen all throughout the story that Usopp and the giants are kindred spirits. Deep down, Usopp has the heart of a giant warrior despite his somewhat scaredy cat personality.
He has always connected with them whenever they show up in the story. Just like the Giant Captains Dorry and Brogy back on Little Garden or when Usopp befriended these two giants right here and turned them from slaves of the world government into allies. But to top it all off, one of Usopp’s greatest dreams is to visit the land of Elbaf.
So yeah, this HAS TO BE Usopp’s arc, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes another huge step towards fulfilling his true goal of becoming a brave warrior of the sea by the end of the arc. Which is going to take a massive transformation in more ways than one. Because Oda has perfectly set up several incredible power ups that could take Usopp from one of the weakest fighters in the crew to one of the most devastatingly powerful.
The first of these power boosts is actually not for Usopp himself but actually for his Kuro Kabuto slingshot. Because you have to remember that literally every single time that Usopp visits a place with new or advanced technology, he gets an upgraded weapon. It happened after they visited Skypiea where he went from his toy like slingshot to his Kabuto which incorporated the dial technology from Skypiea.
Then during the time skip he developed a smaller version, which is his current weapon that we see him using today plus he got a whole bunch of cool new projectiles to shoot at enemies. So if Usopp can go from basically a toy to a legit ranged weapon with just some shells and plants, CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE what kind of awesome upgrades he could create with the incredible technology from Egghead Island. And the possibilities are really endless here.
Oda please. I want to see heat seeking slingshots bombs. Laser scopes.
Hologram projectiles. I mean the sky is the limit here, especially considering that Lilith is still with the crew and should be able to help Usopp trick out his slingshot. Who knows, maybe his slingshot will become a legendary grade weapon similar to the Twelve Supreme grade swords.
Which Usopp might seriously need if he is going to face off with the person who will be his main rival during Elbaf: his dad, Yasopp. And honestly, I’m not too sure how Usopp will feel when he meets his father. Remember that Yasopp abandoned Usopp and his mother to join Shanks’ crew, and ultimately Usopp’s mother died without his dad ever returning home.
So how will he feel when he sees dear old dad again? Will he be full of hate and resentment? I probably would be.
Or will he just want to prove himself to the man who left him? This is probably the most likely scenario, and it could lead to one awesome snipe off to see who truly is the greatest sniper in the world. However, a buffed up slingshot isn’t the only powerup we could see for Usopp in Elbaf.
And hear me out for this one, because how cool would it be if Usopp ate a devil fruit? And not just any devil fruit, I’m talking specifically about the Human Human fruit Model Giant. That’s right!
What if Usopp could transform into a literal giant? Be a real full circle moment for Usopp and his love of the fearsome giants. I’d certainly love to see it.
However, it is kinda rare to see a giant with a devil fruit. In fact, we’ve only ever seen two in the entire story with these two right here, so maybe devil fruits aren’t much of a thing in Elbaf. That is the exact opposite for haki though because Elbaf is shaping up to a MAJOR haki arc, just like Wano.
Because just listen to all of the important haki moments we were just shown. First, we were blown away by Joy Boy’s ancient haki blast. Which certainly hyped up haki for the entire fanbase.
On top of that we have a character with the current most impressive haki feats waiting in Elbaf with Shanks. But that's not even close to all we have seen because in this chapter it was basically confirmed that the giants are all WAY stronger than we thought. I mean, back in the pre-timeskip the giant captains Dorry and Brogy got wiped out by fairly weak Mr 3, so we never really got a good read on their power levels.
But now, we know they are confirmed to be above Vice Admiral tier haki since they all survived Joy Boy’s haki blast. Plus we got a clear demonstration of observation haki when Dory and Broggy stated that they couldn’t feel the enemies' presence anymore. Plus, they blocked Warcury’s charge, which is an impressive feat on its own.
And that’s not even mentioning the way they OBLITERATED the Kid pirate's ship. So yeah, these giants are WAY stronger than we thought. What’s even more impressive though is that these two giant captains seem so familiar with conqueror's haki that they were able to classify Joy Boy’s conqueror's as stronger than Shanks’ haki.
Which isn’t confirmation that the giants have conquerors, but they definitely seem familiar with conquerors which is important enough on its own. But let me bring all this back around to Usopp because there are a few hints about Usopp and conqueror’s haki that we just have to address. First, we should all know by now that Usopp’s lies often come true.
And one of his most famous lies was that he is going to lead an army of eight thousand men. And while that obviously hasn’t happened yet, what better time and place for Usopp to lead an army than the arc that he has been waiting so long for? But if Usopp is going to lead an army of giants, then he’s probably going to have to level up his own haki and possibly even awaken conqueror’s .
Which sounds absurd, I know. Usopp with conqueror’s haki? Usually you’d never think it would happen, but then we have this scene right here from Wano where he claims Big Mom's conqueror's blast as his own.
And as we just discussed, Usopp’s lies have a habit of coming true, so I wouldn’t be surprised one bit to see Usopp awaken the Haki of the Supreme King. And how hilarious would it be if Usopp awakened Conqueror’s before Sanji? Sign me up for that.
Seriously though, since Luffy had a whole haki training arc during Wano, Elbaf could be the time that the rest of the crew levels up their haki by training with the Giants. That’s not to say Luffy doesn't need training though because with the demonstration of Joy Boy’s haki we can clearly see that Luffy has a ways to go if he wants to be the strongest. And before he can even think about Joy Boy’s level he needs to pass his mentor Shanks’ haki levels.
Which uhh, good luck with that. And the clash between mentor and protege is one I’m ABSOLUTELY DYING to see, but that’s far from the only conflict we can expect on Elbaf because there are a few other characters that we can expect to make moves in the land of the giants. First, have you forgotten about this guy?
Yeah, I wouldn’t blame you because he is the only Supernova to not play a meaningful role in the story so far. However, Elbaf is the perfect time for him to appear because let’s not forget that Urouge is from the Sky Island Birka. So with that, plus the fact that we suspect that Elbaf has a way to get up into the Sky Islands, I am almost positive that we will see Urouge play a role in whatever conflict we get on Elbaf.
At least that’s if he doesn't get wiped out by Enel first, who could also make his return in the land of the giants. And this would be the perfect time to return because we’ve recently had all the connections between Vegapunk’s Mother Flame and the mysterious sun drawings from his cover story. So perhaps Enel actually knows more about the mother flame at this point than anyone else.
But let’s shift gears a bit here because we’ve spent almost this whole time talking about Elbaf and what we hope to see, but now let’s talk about an INSANE TEASER that Oda snuck into this chapter which has made me come up with a theory that might explain how Luffy eventually saves the world. Now obviously we got a TON of MIND BLOWING lore drops during the Egghead island arc, and you might have thought we were all done with that, but you can’t forget that Oda is a very sneaky guy. And I’m here to tell you that IN THIS VERY CHAPTER he might have hinted at how Luffy will eventually save the world.
Let’s break down what I’m going to call the Island Cloud Theory. And it all starts with the fact that according to Vegapunk, the world is going to flood again very soon. We won’t get into too much detail here, but essentially this is because the use of the ancient weapons - or at least this one right here - causes the sea levels to rise all around the world.
And he is predicting that these ancient weapons will be used frequently in the future resulting in a WORLD WIDE flood that could wipe out literally EVERYONE! Except for the people in the sky, but we’ll get to that in just a moment. So, we have our end of story world destruction device, and the next question we have to ask is how will Luffy stop it.
Well, the simplest answer is that Luffy and the crew would simply defeat Imu and the Gorosei before the flood even occurs. But come on! We know Oda is going to milk every last ounce of drama he can, and when he uses these ticking time bomb plot devices they usually go until it seems like there is no hope left.
So in this case I would bet EVERYTHING - even my teenage cat Gojo who now suddenly just wants to sleep all the time - that we will see some massive flood threaten the entire world. Which of course means that Luffy will have to stop it. But how?
Well, the answer might have been shown to us in this very chapter because check out this thing right here. You see this thing right here is the key to everything, and in the flashback of the current chapter Vegapunk even highlights that this machine is just as important as the Mother Flame. In fact, he even drops the hint that this machine is the key to saving the world if a flood does occur.
Now you might be wondering well, how does this thing actually work? Well, without getting into too many details we do know that it produces “Island Clouds” which are the same as the fluffy, yet solid, clouds that make up the Sky Islands. And as we see, these clouds are strong enough to hold up the massive LaboSphere, so it’s safe to say that they are pretty dang strong.
Which is pretty impressive on its own, but clearly one island sized cloud is not nearly enough to save the world from a giant flood. Here’s where things get a bit more interesting, and where we have to dive headfirst into theory world. Because while we are ever told this, we can assume that the Island Cloud Machine is powered by the Mother Flame technology that Vegapunk created as a super energy source.
However, as we already know and Vegapunk even repeated in this chapter, the Mother Flame is not a perfect energy source. In fact, even though much of Vegapunk’s technology is based on things he discovered from the ancient past, his Mother Flame is not even close to being the perfect Energy source that we call the Eternal Flame. And this Eternal Flame was so powerful that it was said to power ALL of the Ancient Kingdom’s advanced technology.
Which is just INSANE to think about. One single power source literally feeding everything. So can you JUST IMAGINE if you take that perfect power source and plug it into this island cloud machine?
Like forget an island sized cloud, how about a continent sized cloud! ? Or an entire world sized cloud!
Which actually might not be the greatest idea because it could block out the sun and all that, but still, there’s potential here to create enough clouds of big enough size to save everyone from a flood. Of course, there are some MAJOR issues though. The first is that no one knows what happened to the Eternal Flame and even Vegapunk couldn’t recreate it perfectly.
Luckily though, we have some hints as to how to rekindle this legendary power source. And it all comes back to Luffy. Because if we turn back to chapter one thousand one hundred and six, we see the Giant Robot Emeth awaken for the first time.
And of course, it only awakened when Luffy used his Gear 5 transformation. And bear with me as I connect these dots here. But this is super important because as we know from another giant creature, Luffy’s Gear 5 transformation sends out this wild rhythm called the Drms of Liberation.
So the theory goes that since Luffy’s Drms of Liberation was enough to power up Emeth, then this power must have something to do with the ancient Eternal Flame. I mean it just makes too much sense. Emeth is ancient technology and he is only awakened by Luffy’s Drms of Liberation.
And we assume this rhythm hasn’t been heard since the Void Century. So it is entirely possible that Luffy literally is the Eternal Flame, and once he masters his Gear 5 powers he will be a perfect energy source for the entire world. Literally a shining sun bursting with power.
However, it is probably not that simple. There is no doubt though that Luffy seems to be the key to reviving the Eternal Flame. So bringing this all back to the island cloud machine, if Luffy could somehow supercharge its cloud producing abilities then he could save the entire world from the catastrophic flood.
There are a few other drawbacks to this idea though. For one, we know that island clouds don’t usually keep their solid form when they are down close to the ocean. Even Vegapunk had to create a climate controlled area within Egghead Island, which allows the Island Clouds to function properly.
However, based on this panel right here they clearly had plans to be able to expand this ideal climate to the whole world. So sure, creating world saving clouds to save everyone from a flood is a bit of an insane theory, but so far it’s the best idea I’ve had for how Luffy could stop a world wide flood. But of course, even if it isn’t used on such a large scale, this island cloud machine could be used on a smaller scale.
And one perfect use I can think of should be relevant again very soon. Because remember Urouge home island Birka was completely wiped out by Enel. So since we do expect Urogue to reappear during the Elbaf arc then a perfect use for the island cloud machine could be to repair Birka to its original state.
Otherwise it could be used to help reach the giants’ Prince Loki who presumably lives up in the clouds as well. But we are forgetting one very important issue here: How the heck would the straw hats use the machine if it is still located on Egghead Island? And honestly, yeah, that’s a great point.
Except for this detail that you might have missed right here. Because here we see that Jinbe had packed up some sort of luggage to take to the Sunny. And then Jinbe just kinda vanishes.
Yeah, we don’t see much of him at all for around ten chapters. So just what exactly was he doing? Maybe carrying some super top secret technology onto Sunny?
We don’t know quite yet, but that’s just one of dozens of INSANE details that you likely missed during the Egghead Island arc, and if you want to see all of those, you can watch this video right here. And of course we also have to thank all of our wonderful viewers who are supporting the channel on patreon. They are getting access to a ton of new perks related to the channel.
And you can also join the party by joining the patreon using the link in the description. As always, Shanks so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.
