Episode 1114 of the ONE PIECE anime was released on Sunday, and Monkey D. Garp arrived to show a piece of why he was the Hero of the Marines in his prime. The episode started with Koby cornered and seemingly about to die to a mob of minor characters. As we waited for the main event, some other SWORD members are properly introduced. The first one is Hibari, a commander who uses Vegapunk’s invention Flower Bullets to save Koby. A fun fact is that she uses the Hiroshima dialect, which is also used by Sakazuki Akainu.
The second one is Prince Grus, a rear admiral who has the Glorp-Glorp fruit. His powers seem similar to Trebol, and the fact that he is voiced by Satoshi Hino (Rengoku in Demon Slayer, Ainz in Overlord) makes him seem that much more intimidating as we see him use his golems to fight.
Still, the two don’t really do much here as their introduction was only the preparation for the clear main dish of the episode, Garp. The 78-year-old hero of legend is ridiculous right from the get-go, as he uses the wind generated by his swing to launch the entire ship into the sky and begin the attack. As he declares he’s there to save Koby, we are treated to another impressive sequence for his Galaxy Impact.
It has become common to expect these incredible sequences for every major moment of ONE PIECE, and Toei Animation delivers. From the music to the direction and animation, this sequence fully captured Garp’s entire character and went beyond what we could imagine while reading the manga. The old man is there to save Koby, who he believes to be the future of the Navy, and he is not about to forgive these pirates for kidnapping him. As some of the big shots from Blackbeard’s crew watch, he lands his first named attack in the series so far, Galaxy Impact.
Hazuki Omoya was in charge of the storyboard and direction for ONE PIECE episode 1114, with Katsumi Ishizuka credited for storyboard assistance. Kazuya Kuda and Honehone were the animation directors, and the episode also had Dino Santos as the art director and Ryoya Kaneko as the production manager.
The storyboard for Galaxy Impact was handled by Ishizuka, who shared an illustration of Garp after the episode. The message also says that Honehone handled the animation director for the scene.
Honehone commented that, despite being the animation director for the sequence, the original illustrations were so good that he hardly had to do anything. The animator also says he did 4 key animation cuts, and that he hopes his work matches Ishizuka’s style.
Some more animators left comments on X after the episode. One of them is @anikari01, who was one of the animators that worked on the ‘do you have any idea who you’ve kidnapped’ scene.
The production manager, Ryoya Kaneko, also left a message.
This scene felt like the culmination of the episode and like I was already ready to see the “TO BE CONTINUED” message, so the fact that it was only around the half-way point made it kind of hard for the rest of the episode to live up to it. As the other characters react o the aftermath of Garp’s damage, we are reminded that they did still come to a Yonko’s island. Kuzan prevents a happy ever after ending and we get a quick recap about what happened to him and see the moment he came across Blackbeard.
It was slightly annoying to see Koby still being childish and asking Kuzan to just unfreeze Hibari, but it’s clear that Garp will be the one who will have to fight him, with the other big names yet to show up.
ONE PIECE Episode 1115 & Chapter 1122 Release Date
ONE PIECE anime will continue the clash with episode 1115 on August 11, while the ONE PIECE manga will return from its break and release chapter 1122 later today. You can watch the anime on Crunchyroll, while you can catch up to the latest manga chapter for free on either the VIZ website or the MANGA Plus website.
ONE PIECE also has the upcoming remake by WIT Studio and the 2nd season of the live-action series. The live-action season confirmed that it’s begun production.
If you enjoyed episode 1114, you can vote for ONE PIECE in our weekly ranking.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Eiichiro Oda / Shueisha / Toei Animation
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