One Piece Chapter 1122 Recap and Spoilers (2024)

For some time now, the One Piece manga has experienced some slow pacing and same-y chapters, with many chapters in a row striving to juggle the ongoing battle for Future Island/Egghead and Dr. Vegapunk's lengthy video message to the entire world. While that juggled narrative did move the story forward, it had some remarkably slow pacing, and juggling those two things did not always work out so well. Chapter 1122 is changing all that, with new plot twists ending Dr. Vegapunk's message and suddenly bringing an end to the battle for Future Island.

By now, Dr. Vegapunk's exposition message has delivered all the shocking news it has to offer -- no major secrets will be revealed at this time. That's why it is no big deal for the video transponder snail in Emet to go permanently dark as the iron giant makes its final stand against the Five Elders with its sacrifice play, and it's just in time to help the manga move on to its next phase. The visit to Future Island has been great fun, but now One Piece readers are about to say goodbye, all while the race for the One Piece starts to heat up. Major parties all strive to either seize Gol D. Roger's famed treasure or keep them from reaching it, and that's definitely something to look forward to.

Major Parties All Get Ready for the One Piece Race

Chapter 1122 does what many chapters of One Piece do: take a few pages to show what some secondary parties in the world are doing while Plot A continues. Other recent chapters also did this, as many people around the world reacted to Dr. Vegapunk's warning about the sinking world, but Chapter 1122 takes it further with parties, including Koby, Admiral Blackbeard, and the Cross Guild organization. The three of them are either probably or definitely going to get involved in the race to Laugh Tale and the waiting One Piece treasure, and it's enticing to see. Interestingly, it's Admiral Blackbeard who's the most cryptic about this, since his scene actually reveals very little more about what he's going to do next. Instead, his brief scene shows the rogue Caribou getting ready to share information with Blackbeard, at the risk of getting shot if his message isn't deemed worthwhile.

The Cross Guild Organization reveals a little more about its current plans and activities. Interestingly, Buggy the Clown has no interest in ruling the world by seizing the One Piece, but his many admirers in the Cross Guild want him to be their glorious king, and Buggy knows that his image means everything for the Cross Guild. Thus, Buggy bows to the will of his subordinates and does a 180, declaring his intent to rule the world with the One Piece. It's now evident that somehow, some way, the leaders of Cross Guild will make a serious play for the One Piece, which will no doubt put them in conflict with the Straw Hat Pirates, the Blackbeard armada, and perhaps the Navy as well.

The third such scene is the most vivid one for One Piece readers, who have a stronger emotional attachment to the character involved. That scene shows Koby reacting poorly to Vegapunk's declaration that whichever pirate seizes the One Piece will rule the world, because as a devoted Marine, Koby doesn't want that to happen. He will not even make an exception for his frenemy Luffy, so readers might say that, unfortunately, Luffy and Koby are now true enemies, and with the stakes so high, there's little to no chance that those young men will ever reconcile their differences. This post-time skip Koby is far more assertive and even more idealistic than his Romance Dawn self, so fans are dealing with a new Koby with a new conflict here. The days of Luffy and Koby facing Lady Alvida seem so innocent and simple compared to this.

Emet Makes Its Last Stand With a Powerful Haki Blast

As for the main plot in Chapter 1122, this chapter could have continued the grueling fight that fans saw in the last handful of chapters, but the narrative is clearly done with that. The battle for Egghead comes to an abrupt end in Chapter 1122, because unless villains like Admiral Kizaru or Rob Lucci of CP0 are about to pop back in, this battle has come to a definite conclusion. Emet the iron giant cannot hold off the Five Elders for much longer with basic melee attacks, so Emet bravely makes a sacrifice play to defeat those Elders at the cost of its own mechanical life. After Emet asks Luffy for his name as the new Joy Boy, Emet pulls a cord and shocks everyone with a devastating display of black Haki. More specifically, Emet is discharging a huge last of Color of the Supreme King/Conquerer's Haki, which the original Joy Boy had stored there centuries earlier.

That great wave of Haki takes immediate effect in Chapter 1122, knocking away the Five Elders and reverting all but Jaygarcia Saturn back to their original human forms. The Five Elders may be the World Government's living weapons, but even they are at the mercy of Haki if they face enough of it, and Emet delivers. Most critically, those Elders aren't just reverted to their harmless original forms -- they're sent all the way back to Marijoa on the Red Line, taking them out of the fight for good. Only Jaygarcia Saturn remains at Egghead, and he alone may not be enough to stop the Straw Hat Pirates from fleeing, especially with the Giant Warriors Pirates backing them up.

While all this is not a 100% guarantee, it feels safe to say that the battle for Future Island is over, or at least, the difficult part is. One Piece fans may feel confident that Luffy's escape has been secured thanks to Emet's brave self-sacrifice, falling apart after discharging Joy Boy's knotted-up Haki like that. Notably, that vast wave of Haki even affects the mysterious Imu at Marijoa, causing Imu to sweat and tremble in pain. That's not much of a clue about who or what Imu is, but it's still satisfying to see that supervillain take a surface-level blow from their symbolic nemesis, Joy Boy. Even if the original Joy Boy, the defender of freedom, has been dead for centuries, he can still stick it to the World Government's leaders as a final act of defiance.

Emet Thinks Back To Its Final Meeting With the Original Joy Boy

Perhaps not surprisingly, Chapter 1122 ends with a sentimental flashback starring two olds friends from centuries past, those being Emet the iron giant and the original Joy Boy, who appears entirely in silhouette form while wearing a straw hat on his head. In that seaside scene, Joy Boy provides some exposition concerning the Color of the Supreme King Haki that he's knotting up inside Emet's chest, saying that the Haki is only to be used when the time is right, leaving it to Emet's judgment to decide when exactly that will be. As Chapter 1122's title states, the final battle for Egghead is the right time. After all, the original Joy Boy promises that he will be there to support Emet and vice versa well into the future, and since Luffy is the new Joy Boy, then that promise has stood the test of time. Emet has no regrets about giving its mechanical life to fight one last time alongside any version of Joy Boy.

That sentimental flashback sequence in Chapter 1122 doesn't reveal much about the mysterious Void Century or what the first Joy Boy was like, but that is not the point. The flashback simply serves to add a sentimental edge to Emet's final sacrifice at Egghead and show that iron giant's soft side, complete with a cute, typical "anime" face as it shares a moment with its best friend. Thus, the shonen values of teamwork, friendship, and trust survived the test of time across the centuries, and that is heartwarming for any reader to see. All this might also remind One Piece fans of characters like Mr. 2 Bon Clay, who befriended Luffy and risked everything for his sake. Granted, Mr. 2 set a remarkably high bar that few characters can clear even after all this time, but Emet tries its best, with the benefit of serious story relevance about the Void Century, Joy Boy, and defying the World Government at any cost.

One Piece

8/ 10

Monkey D. Luffy sets off on an adventure with his pirate crew in hopes of finding the greatest treasure ever, known as the "One Piece."

Author

Eiichiro Oda

Artist

Eiichiro Oda

Release Date

July 22, 1997

Genre

Adventure , Fantasy , Manga

Chapters

1081

Volumes

105

Adaptation

One Piece (1999)

Publisher

Shueisha, Madman Entertainment, Viz Media