第169回：Showing His True Colors

Thanks to Queen’s exposition, we learned a bit more about how Sanji might actually carry some Lunarian blood which would explain why he’s able to create and -in a limited scope- manipulate fire as a pure human, rather than a cyborg like his siblings.

If Lunarians’ origins have anything to do with their name, it would suggest they came from the moon which in turn brings back one of the wildest theories I’ve presented over the years, that Sanji is an alien. Well, at least part alien. Well…maybe he has some alien lineage factors.

Why, oh why did I propose this zany theory years ago? Back before we knew the details of Sanji’s family, I proposed that Sanji may have been related to Vegapunk and that Vegapunk himself might be an ‘alien’ not unlike the space pirates we saw in Enel’s space adventure. Why such a connection between Sanji and space?

Consider the ship he was on at the time of his meeting with Zeff, The Orbit.

For the Chapter 533 cover, Odacchi chose to depict him viewing the sky in search of UFOs.

And here in the Volume 47 flap, Odacchi literally drew a UFO-like Sanji with the label, ‘alien’.

Over the years other incidental coincidences have been noted but these three pillars always seemed to allude to an interstellar connection for our chef. Maybe that’s why his cooking is out of this world?

Although these three imprisoned samurai decide to go nameless, it’s heavily implied that they were the three daimyo of Wano who held out against Kaido and were ultimately executed. Of particular note is this fellow with a striking resemblance to Zoro. It seems almost unthinkable that this is anyone other than Shimotsuki Ushimaru, former daimyo of Ringo and quite possibly Zoro’s grandfather!

The other two daimyo are a little difficult to discern as their features don’t quite match up with the silhouettes we caught a glimpse of in Chapter 965. Using them as only loosely as a reference, it seems reasonable to assume that the man with the onigiri-shaped head is the Fuugetsu family daimyo and the long-faced man could be the Uzuki family daimyo.

The two dragons face each other for the first time and prepare themselves for a battle that will decide Wano’s fate! While these two might be meeting for the first time, this might not be the first time we the readers have seen Momonosuke.

Way back in his colorspread for Chapter 310, Odacchi drew a large and suspiciously pink eastern-style dragon. He also depicted an eastern dragon in Chapter 449, whose features seem much closer to Momonosuke’s final design, but the color scheme is off leading me to believe that although Odacchi probably had the idea for Momonosuke’s role in Wano firmly in place, he spent his time coming up with a design he felt most comfortable with.

Pair this with the bird design on Luffy’s gear which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Kozuki family kamon and one begins to wonder just how early on Odacchi’s plans for Wano were established!

Furthermore, the kanji at the bottom right ‘shibaraku’ is a reference to kabuki but could also have been a direct request to his readers! Shibaraku literally means, ‘for a while’. Was he asking us to wait patiently to see this display in Wano?!

It’s been some time but Odacchi finally gave us a sign that his scuttling and scheming days are far from over. Despite the main crew’s battles winding down, we still have many moving parts and things are only going to get more dangerous and hectic from this point forward so while it might be easy to get caught up in the storm, don’t forget about him!!! And don’t’ underestimate what his knowledge and underhandedness might be able to pull off! He’s just the right type of crazy to pull an actual, “If I can’t have Wano, no one will!”