Egghead Arc Is the Monkey-Crab Battle
The Wano Arc is a riff on Momotaro. The Fishman Island Arc channels Urashima Taro. Little Garden echoes The Demon Who Cried. ONE PIECE is littered with fairytale homages.
This time I want to make the case that the Egghead Arc is a homage to the Monkey-Crab Battle — and I think the evidence now holds up.
The Monkey-Crab Battle is a story about a crab whose mother was killed by a monkey. The young crab teams up with friends to punish the monkey.
The cast includes the parent and child crabs, the villainous monkey, a chestnut, a bee, cow dung, and a mortar. Compare that to the cover image above — every character except the dead mother crab is accounted for.
Let’s map them onto the Egghead Arc characters:
Dead mother crab → Ginny / Kuma / Vegapunk | Young crab → Bonney | Monkey → Kizaru | Cow dung → Caribou | Mortar → the Giants | Bee → Devon | Chestnut → Noland | Robot → the Iron Giant
Devon as the bee: when Devon delivered the finishing blow to Whitebeard, she used a spear — which moves like a bee’s stinger.
Noland as the chestnut: Noland himself doesn’t appear, but Vegapunk’s revelation about the world sinking matches the sunken-island legend that got Noland executed.
One more clue: the chapter on that cover image is titled “Liar” — and Noland’s iconic nickname is “Liar Noland.”
Vegapunk’s sinking-world bombshell → echoes Noland’s dying words → “Liar Noland” → the cover of the chapter titled “Liar” features Noland’s trademark chestnut → all the other characters fit too.
The clincher is the connection between Chapter 856 (that cover) and the Egghead Arc.
Kizaru Is Sanji
Chapter 856, “Liar,” is the chapter where:
Sanji is trapped — Baratie and Germa are held hostage, so he has no choice but to comply. He’s desperate to get back to the Sunny but too scared of what’ll happen if he does. He hides his true feelings and pushes Luffy away with excuses — then Luffy punches him anyway. Once he finally speaks his mind, everything changes.
A genuinely moving chapter. And the emotional state of Sanji in this chapter maps almost perfectly onto Kizaru in the Egghead Arc.
Kizaru, Who Must Hide His True Feelings
Kizaru’s inner monologue (from his soliloquy where no one can hear him): “I can’t protect them all — guess I’m just a company drone.” “The thing I really can’t hurt… is my best friend.” “It’s not like I want to kill you.”
He whispered his true feelings to no one — because he had no choice. The Five Elders’ orders can’t be defied. The mission is suffocating and he wants it over. If he has to kill his best friend, at least he doesn’t want him to suffer.
He hoped, faintly, that he could save Vegapunk’s friends — especially little Bonney.
That hope ended the moment Kuma punched Saint Saturn.
With Saturn half-wounding his best friend, Kizaru chose to deliver the killing blow himself — to end his friend’s suffering as fast as possible.
It was the only choice available to him. Still, it must have been agonizing.
The feeling inside Kizaru at that moment felt to me like a mirror of Sanji during his fight with Luffy.
Sanji’s situation: if he ran, his benefactors at the Baratie would be killed. His whole crew would become Big Mom’s targets. The only way out was to make Luffy give up. His own sacrifice would save everyone else.
Sanji was desperate to get back to the Sunny — but he hid that truth and did the opposite, because what choice did he have?
Luffy saw right through him. Sanji felt exposed — too weak to trust his captain enough to run away together.
The only thing he could do was be unable to act on his own feelings and flee the scene.
But then, later — they reunite, Luffy punches him, and says: “Say what you really mean.” “You want to save everyone even though you can’t do it alone.” “That’s who you are. We’re here.”
An unforgettable scene.
Kizaru in the Egghead Arc is now in the exact same position as Sanji in that moment.
He wanted all his friends to live. But he’s been placed in the role of the one who has to kill them.
And right now he’s lying there after being punched by Luffy.
Applied to Sanji’s arc: it’s the unbearable moment where the urge to go back and the reasons he can’t are spinning in circles with nowhere to go.
If he gets up now, he has to take the life of Bonney — the person his best friend gave everything to protect.
But in his heart: he doesn’t want anyone he knows to die anymore. He doesn’t want to kill.
Chapter 1116’s title, “Anguish,” doesn’t belong to any character explicitly named in the chapter — I think it was written for Kizaru.
He’s in the middle of enormous anguish right now.
And the result of that anguish might be…
The Monkey-Crab Battle’s Ending: “The Monkey’s Reformation”
In the original folktale, the monkey who was punished says “I’ll never do wrong again” — a change of heart. The story ends happily.
If Egghead is a Monkey-Crab Battle homage, the monkey who reforms is Kizaru.
Kizaru’s reformation means: betraying the Five Elders who only ever ordered him to do terrible things, and following his own true heart.
→ Teaming up with Luffy to protect Bonney.
After that, he probably resigns from the Navy — there’d be no place left for him there.
He Won’t Need Sunglasses Anymore
Navy admirals are directly subordinate to the World Nobles.
Because of that, Kizaru has had to witness all sorts of unreasonable, unconscionable things — things he could only look at through sunglasses.
But the current of events is shifting.
If Vegapunk’s full broadcast exposes everything — the World Government’s crimes, the Celestial Dragons’ atrocities — then the world’s enemy becomes the World Government itself.
Would the Navy turn against the Celestial Dragons? If so, Kizaru could finally ignore orders and act on his true feelings.
And in that world, he might not need sunglasses anymore.
So — the Egghead Arc is a Monkey-Crab Battle homage, and its ending is the monkey’s reformation.
That’s my theory.
P.S.: The image of the crab riding a robot is also a foreshadowing of Nika piloting the Iron Giant — a homage to Thriller Bark’s Oars. I’m drafting that article now, so stay tuned.
