Welcome To ‘One Piece’s Final Saga

See, last week I told you. I told you.

Episode 1112 of One Piece is a historic occasion—and not just because IMBd users rated it the best episode of anime of the year so far, even over Demon Slayer‘s jaw-dropping season finale. But “Clash! Shanks vs. Eutass Kid” was just as jaw-dropping. Even as someone who has read the manga and knew what was coming, it was a tense watch. I screamed at my TV several times.

For one, the episode marks Shanks’ return to the series in earnest. Except for the very first episodes of the series, a cameo at Marineford, and an even quicker cameo during the Reverie, Shanks has not been in the series. He’s a character whose presence is profoundly felt, all the time, but whose actual screen time is laughably low for a series with 1112 episodes. That’s precisely what makes him such a potent character. This is the most time we’ve spent with him outside of Film: Red since literally episode one.

I’ll divulge that we’ve yet to see him again in the manga, but there’s a general feeling in the air that it’s only a matter of time before he pops back up.

But of course, Shanks’ mere appearance just scratches the surface of why the episode is monumental. Unless you count Luffy vs. Usopp back in Water 7, the Shanks vs. Kid fight is the first time in all of One Piece that two protagonists have fought each other. It’s certainly the first time in the series that two protagonists, each with dedicated fanbases, have fought each other with the intent to kill.

Welcome to One Piece‘s final saga.

RIP?

Spoilers ahead for One Piece episode 1112

Earlier this year, I chatted with a One Piece fan who immediately told me her favorite character was Eustass “Captain” Kid. “I’m still in Wano, though,” she said.

“Ah,” I replied.

Once you’ve seen the outcome of the Shanks vs. Kid fight, you lose what to say to someone who hasn’t gotten there yet. And that was from the manga chapter alone. The anime episode is even more stunning. Single panels are drawn out into horrifying scenes. Episode 1112 is a riveting combination of uncomfortable and thrilling that’s more reminiscent of something like Game of Thrones than a typical episode of One Piece.

The episode does a hell of a job reminding you that Kid is a rascal. And by “rascal,” I mean he and his pirate crew have a history of killing civilians. In a typical shonen, Kid allying with our hero Monkey D. Luffy would mean that he would learn the error of his ways. His days of wanton slaughter would be over.

But Kid demonstrates very clearly in this episode that body counts still don’t bother him. Granted, he’s fighting what appears to be the Grand Fleet of one of the Four Emperors. On the other hand, he figured out at a glance that most of them are harmless.

On the opposite side of the aisle, we have Shanks. In the first part of the episode, he’s almost teddy bear-like. We see him breaking into a grin as he gets showered with love and praise from those very weaklings he protects. And then, in a fleeting moment, he transforms. After Shanks sends Kid on the fast track to hell and sets his ship on fire with one swing of his sword, he wordlessly walks towards Kids’ crew. In this moment, for the first time ever, Shanks is truly terrifying.

Watching Kid’s crew desperately beg for their lives is rough. Shanks’ lack of response and overwhelmingly powerful presence is haunting. The scene is so stark, so grim, that all the theories that Shanks is actually a villain start to gain weight. Shanks was justified in defending his fleet, yes. But on the deck of the Kid Pirates’ ship, we see a streak of mercilessness in him that good guys don’t typically possess.

He doesn’t bother to kill the rest of the crew, because he knows Dory and Broggy are about to. And then we get the narrator’s telling choice of words: the Kid Pirates were “destroyed.” Not “defeated,” as a different pirate crew will soon be. “Destroyed.”

When’s the next episode?

Typically, new episodes of One Piece premiere in Japan on Sunday mornings. However, on July 21st, there’s a special program airing in One Piece‘s usual slot. That means that the One Piece anime is off this week. We’ll get a new episode and see what Koby’s up to on July 28 in Japan, or around 8:30 ET on the night of Saturday, July 27.