Semir Jackson ’27
A&E Editor
“One Piece” is an adventure pirate anime that has as many antagonists as there are arcs. Bartholomew Kuma is introduced as an antagonist to the main characters. Over the course of eight episodes, however, the viewers get a deep dive into the events of his past. The direction of “One Piece” episode 1,136 , “Kuma’s Life,” masterfully concluded Kuma’s backstory arc in the series, making way for the present-day events to continue.
Kuma was a slave, pirate, revolutionary, father and friend. Many things could have turned him into the villain he was presumed to be. He, his mother and his father were enslaved just because he and his father had the blood of the Buccaneer tribe, a rare and genetically powerful race. His mother and father were killed, his father right in front of him. His childhood best friend and lover, Ginny, was taken by the World Government to become the wife of a Celestial Dragon, descendants of the establishers of the World Government. While there, she contracts a seemingly incurable disease, leading to her eventual passing. This leaves Kuma to raise Ginny’s daughter, Bonney, who has the same disease as her mother.
Kuma reaches out to a governmental scientist named Dr. Vegapunk, in hopes that he knows of a cure for the disease, which he does. St. Jaygarcia Saturn, one of the five people who sit at the top of the World Government, finds out about Kuma and Vegapunk’s meeting. He makes the condition that if Bonney gets cured, Kuma has to let his body be robotically modified to become a weapon for the World Government’s use. The modifications would make him lose all his free will, essentially killing him. Knowing all of this, Kuma accepts the terms without a second thought. These and many other instances gave Kuma every right to become a villain, but he didn’t. He remained kind until the end, always caring about those he held dear without a second thought.
Episode 1,136 starts with a flashback from two years ago. Bonney and her pirate crew are searching for Kuma, who was told that he could not see her anymore after her disease was cured by Dr. Vegapunk. The following scene shows Kuma overhearing a conversation between Vegapunk and Saturn. Saturn insists that Vegapunk install a kill switch into Kuma in case he runs wild and no one can stop him. Vegapunk objects to this, but Saturn doesn’t care. Kuma overhears this conversation, cracking a joke about Vegapunk giving him superhuman hearing. We move forward to Vegapunk and Kuma in a lab, with Vegapunk saying it was the last modification he was going through, stripping Kuma of his free will. Before this, Kuma uses his Devil Fruit power to repel a copy of his memories for Vegapunk to use for research.
The episode then moves to an animation sequence of Kuma’s memories, highlighting every moment that made Kuma who he was.The viewers go through moments of Kuma’s life as a child, teenager, young adult, and end as an adult, when he is surrounded by the people who meant the most to him. At the end of this sequence, it transitions into Vegapunk crying and saying, “Indeed, to live is to cause others trouble. Your death will be trouble for everyone who loves you.” After thanking him, Kuma asks Vegapunk to tell Bonney “Happy tenth birthday.” The camera then pans down to Bonney crying in front of where Kuma repelled his memories, revealing that the entire flashback was the viewers experiencing Kuma’s memories through Bonney’s perspective.
Among the 1,136 episodes of “One Piece” that were available at the time of its mid-July release this year, this was, and still is, the highest-rated episode. The episode’s pacing didn’t feel rushed or slowed, as many “One Piece” episodes often do. The transitions to different points in time were handled extremely well. Diving into the animation made me feel like I was going through Kuma’s memories with Bonney and seeing how he views the people in his life as only having smiles on their faces. The music matching the climactic points in this final sequence added a depressing feeling that, without it, wouldn’t have hit as hard. The emotional direction and riveting storytelling speaks volumes as to why it is the highest rated episode of “One Piece” to date.