Yamato’s Cover Page Series: The Final Chapter
Yamato’s Kin’inahori Proxy Pilgrimage, Final Chapter: “Dear Luffy — Wano is at peace today as well.” Yamato’s journey around Wano is complete. I expected her to gather a large crew along the way, like Oden did, but she ended up with only two companions. That’s probably fine — it makes more sense for Yamato to travel light and join up with Luffy somewhere beyond Elbaf, maybe hitching a ride on another pirate’s ship the way Oden once boarded Whitebeard’s and then Roger’s. (Maybe she picks up Law, Bepo, Kid, Moria, and Perona along the way and makes them her retainers?)
This cover page is also a Skypiea homage — specifically, it echoes the final panel of Enel’s cover page series.
Yamato is in Wano, home of the Ancient Weapon Pluton, while Enel possesses the power to activate it. If these two cover pages are being layered intentionally because of that ancient weapon connection, it’s deeply meaningful.
The Octopus Element
Rocks carrying Eris to safety, cradling her in his arm — I’ve seen this before. It’s a Sabaody Archipelago homage: Hachi and Keimi. The composition is unmistakable.
If that’s the connection, then Eris is probably a fishman — and specifically, I’d love for her to be an octopus fishman. Here’s why: if Eris is an octopus fishman, that would explain how Teach can eat two Devil Fruits. Octopuses have three hearts. If Devil Fruit power resides in the heart, Teach could theoretically hold up to three fruits. Whitebeard’s line at Marineford — “One person, one heart” — may have been deliberately setting up that Blackbeard is the exception, because he has three.
The Line That Must Not Be Crossed
Rocks and Eris. Shanks and Makino. Rayleigh and Shakky. Hachi and Keimi. The Sabaody homages keep coming — and this scene in particular mirrors Rayleigh watching Luffy set sail. There’s a warmth to all these moments, and a line between them that no one is allowed to cross.
Teach’s Bloodline
The Davy clan are Buccaneers. Buccaneers are a people who carry the blood of giants — possibly the offspring of a giant and a human. In the story, a child born of a giant woman (Ripley) and a human man (Gaban) was a full giant. That suggests the reverse combination — a giant man and a human woman — could produce a Buccaneer (the half-human hybrid). Worth noting that Rocks’s father and Kuma’s father were both enormous, which may mean that giant blood in Buccaneers only manifests strongly in males.
Rocks himself is on the smaller side for a Buccaneer, but he still carries that blood. And Eris is probably an octopus fishman. That would make Teach the child of a Buccaneer father (giant blood) and an octopus fishman mother — a combination even rarer than a Mink. Could the exchange between Devon and Saturn at Egghead have been hinting at exactly this?
Granting the Uo Uo no Mi
You can’t be a pirate unless you’re brazen enough to call something a lifetime debt after giving it away. That’s exactly the kind of shamelessness it takes.
That’s all for this chapter. See you next week!