Highlights
- One Piece chapter 1088 focuses on Garp's ideology and last stand against the Blackbeard Pirates, highlighting his belief in the potential of youth and his determination to fight despite heavy injuries.
- Garp's last stand showcases his incredible power, as he overwhelms Kuzan, splits the skull on the Pirate Island with ease, and gives the Navy an opportunity to act as the saviors of the people.
- Koby, Princess Grus, and Helmeppo play crucial roles in the chapter, with Koby showing his training progress, stopping Pizarro's arm with a powerful technique, and Prince Grus using his abilities to create a giant spider web to protect the Navy ship. The chapter ends with intense developments regarding Garp's fate and the upcoming Egghead Incident on Egghead Island.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for chapter 1088 of One Piece, "Final Lesson," by Eiichiro Oda, translated by Stephen Paul, and lettered by Vanessa Satone, now available in English from MangaPlus.
One Piece chapter 1088 dropped recently and fans are delighted to see yet another incredible chapter added to the already phenomenal Egghead Island arc. As expected, this chapter's events focused on Pirate Island throughout its entirety and concluded the war between the Marines and the Blackbeard Pirates.
Fans hoped that Oda did not cut away to a different scene and, thankfully, he didn't. A lot of focus was thrown at Garp and, later on, also the next generation of the Marines in One Piece chapter 1088.
Garp's Ideology
Oda did phenomenally well to show fans the ideology of the character that is Garp in the very opening of One Piece chapter 1088. It appears that this flashback is from a time when Koby was very new to the Marines and on this day, Garp decided to give them a lesson. Garp posed an interesting question to the up-and-coming generation of Marines. He wanted to know what they would do if they had one boat and had to save an old man and a baby. Koby, being kind as he always is, mentioned that he would send the old man and the baby on the boat and stay behind himself. According to Garp, that would've been the wrong decision. Garp believes that the potential of youth is limitless and that in a situation such as this one, the old man should be left behind while the young Marine and the baby should sail to safety.
While Garp proceeds to get quite a heavy scolding for teaching the young Marines this, it is something that he truly believes from the bottom of his heart and fans get to see that later on in the chapter, when Garp put this into effect during his last stand against the Blackbeard Pirates. In the present timeline, fans got to see Garp stand up and fight once again. Despite being heavily injured already, Garp is a legendary figure and it's expected of him to continue fighting when most characters would simply fall to their knees.
Garp's Last Stand
Oda absolutely loves to give the old characters in his series some serious power to back up their legendary status. He did so with Whitebeard in the Marineford arc and now, he's doing the exact same with Garp on the Pirate Island. Despite carrying heavy injuries, Garp got up once again and decided to give an opening for the Marines to act. The main fighters in his plan were Helmeppo, Koby, and Prince Grus. Kobe was to destroy the hand that was headed towards the Navy ship, while Prince Grus was to prevent any falling debris from hitting the vessel. At the same time, Helmeppo's job was to prevent anyone from pursuing these two.
Meanwhile, Garp himself would give them an opening to act and that is exactly where Oda decided to give Garp some more shine. For all the fans who expected Garp to continue and fight, this was an unbelievable moment to witness. Despite already being weakened, Garp managed to completely overwhelm Kuzan, blaze through the island, and hit Pizarro with an incredibly overpowered strike known as Galaxy Divide. He was able to split the skull on the Pirate Island with ease and it must be remembered that this skull itself is the size of an island. Managing to split it, he gave the Navy an opportunity to act and do their jobs as the saviors of the people and that is precisely what they ended up doing.
The Future Of The Marines Act
All three characters of Koby, Princess Grus, and Helmeppo did incredibly well in the chapter. While Helmeppo prevented any pursuers from getting to Kobe and Prince, the latter took the stage and did incredible things. Koby managed to copy Garp in his movement and although not nearly as good as him, he did manage to stop Pizarro in his tracks. It was revealed to the fans that secretly, Koby had been training even harder to get stronger, and knowing that Garp used Battleship Bags to increase his strength, he did the same. This led to Koby getting tremendously powerful and his punches becoming worthy of a man known as the Hero.
Koby managed to stop Pizarro's arm with a ferocious technique known as Honesty Impact. This technique appears to be coated in the Color of Armament and while some may confuse it for Supreme King Haki, that does not seem to be the case at the moment. Nonetheless, the power of this technique was ferocious enough to blow the entire arm to smithereens. This gave Prince Grus an opportunity to follow suit and use his Gunyo Gunyo no Mi to create a giant spider web and stop the debris from falling on the ship. Both of them did an incredible job and Helmeppo then went on to rescue Koby from falling into the ocean. The three made it safely to the Navy ship and successfully completed the mission that the Navy had come to pull off.
Return To Egghead
The last page of the chapter was, undoubtedly, one of the most intense ones that fans have seen in the story for quite a while. Garp, who put up an incredible fight against the Blackbeard Pirates, was pierced right through the chest by Kuzan and frozen to a near-death state. Before his eventual freezing, Garp declared that all of the Marines, including the likes of Kujaku, Hibari, and Tashigi, among others, are the future of the Navy and that this incident would, in the future, send shivers down the spine of all the pirates in the world. With that, Garp was frozen and his current fate remains unknown. The next morning's newspaper was then mentioned by the narrator and it was revealed to carry the news regarding the disappearance of the Hero of the Navy, Garp, following his invasion of the Pirate Island.
Another incredible news that the paper carries is Emperor Straw Hat Luffy facing a protracted siege on the island of the future, Egghead. At the very end of the chapter, fans finally got to see a glimpse of Egghead Island. It appears that all the naval ships that Kizaru leads, along with Saturn, are finally on Egghead and the war against the Navy, which is termed the Egghead Incident, is going to be triggered, starting from the very next chapter. Fans cannot be more excited about this event unfolding and the excitement is already through the roof, as expected.