One Piece 1094 introduces a villain whose first image has already made heads explode

Warning: This article contains spoilers for chapter 1094 of the One Piece manga.

Although Kizaru stands up to Luffy Gear 5 in Egghead, we still don’t hold the Admirals in high regard. We can hardly forget Ryokugyu’s embarrassing performance in Wano, where he was nearly defeated by Momonosuke and four crippled Red Scabbards. We trust Akainu and little else, and even the latter we wouldn’t count among Luffy’s final enemies in ‘One Piece’. We have been asking Oda for months to give the Marine a facelift, a power-up to inflate and increase his power, and the Mangaka has responded as always. In chapter 1094 of the manga, the Gorosei has entered the fray with one of the best social presentations of the series.

Who are the Five Elders of One Piece?

First things first. Pick up the duster and remove the dust from the chests of our memories. Dust that has surely been caused by these last months in which the One Piece manga has been put aside a bit by Eiichiro Oda’s surgery and the premiere of the Netflix live-action (of which we already have news about the second season). So first of all, we need to clarify who the hell the Gorosei are, also known as the Five Elders.

As it turns out, Kizaru, Ryokugyu and Akainu are just the hounds of the World Government, the political organization that has controlled the world for more than eight hundred years. And at the top are the so-called Five Elders, whose appearance can play a trick on you. At first glance, they may look like a petanque team, but the truth is that they have not aged a bit in several decades, and they are full of scars and war wounds. In other words, they must know something about fighting. In some places, their height is even comparable to that of an admiral, and if they were inspired by famous actors, the Gorosei are reminiscent of politicians or famous personalities such as Karl Marx and Mikhail Gorbachev. Many of us suspected that the Five Elders were capable of delivering a lot of blows, and after what happened in episode 1095 of the manga, the reality is even worse (and better for us).

Saint Jaygarcia Saturn in Action

Saturn was the first of the Five Elders to flaunt the power of the Five Elders, and he did it without even lifting a finger. The proclaimed “Warrior God of Science and Defense” teleported to Egghead (through what looked like a satanic summoning circle) and turned everything upside down without even opening his mouth.

To begin with, his mere presence has already made the strongest characters on the island (Luffy, Kizaru, Zoro and Rob Lucci) notice his presence and look worried, which is a sign of his power. And to continue, it was enough for Saturn to give a mental order to the Seraphim (those new pacifists with a child-like appearance, a mixture of Shichibukai and Lunarian) to put them at his disposal. Here it was clear who was in charge, and this was only the beginning of his presentation.

The climax came when we saw the shape of Saturn. Not content with the devil fruits and their users, with powers each more crazy than the last, and after creating a world where there is room for animal-shaped characters, giants and dragons, it turns out that Eiichiro Oda wanted to surprise them even more and gave the Five Elders the form of Yokai.

These creatures from Japanese folklore mix animal and human parts and are known for their power (yokai would mean demon or ghost/spirit). If the limit of Gear 5 Luffy is Luffy’s own imagination, the limit of the Five Elders would be Oda’s imagination. They would even be able to make your head explode, as we also saw. “Those below the rank of Commodore are not allowed to look at you!” a Marine would yell to warn his own. Why? Watch out:

The Yokai arrive in One Piece

We can think of few better presentations in the history of One Piece. Kaido’s, which was also impressive, or Blackbeard’s, which is not without symbolism and originality, come to mind, but the explicitness and brutality of Saturn’s can compete with any of them. It is a show of force that tells us that the Straw Hats still have many challenges and dangerous enemies to overcome before their dreams come true. That, and we still don’t know half of the Five Elders, Im Sama, and the Divine Knights.

Regarding Saturn’s appearance, the community is divided between two possibilities. It could be the yokai ushi-oni (a hybrid of a spider and a cow with the face of a demon that populated the coasts of Japan), or the yokai tsuchigumo (an earth spider with horns). The first would be the one on the bottom right in the image below, and the second would be the one on the top left. Which do you think inspired Eiichiro Oda?

So we are full of questions and eager to get our hands on chapter 1095 of the One Piece manga. Who is Saturn fighting in Egghead? The episode ends with Bonney jumping on him and stabbing him, is it that easy to hurt him? What is Gorosei’s relationship to Nika and Kuma? What other forms will the rest of the elders take? Now, reviewing his encounter with Sabo, could we find out about his yokais? Are they mythological zoan, or are they outright demons? And in the case of Im Sama... is it the same?

It is a good time to recall these statements the author made about the Five Elders some years ago: “I don’t think I have failed in the Five Elders’ designs. They have yet to show their ‘true value’”. As if not to repeat our mantra: In Oda we trust.