One Piece Anime Hypes Egghead Arc With Vegapunk's Debut

One Piece's anime has been working its way through the Egghead Arc, and the newest episode has broken through a new layer with the introduction of the real Dr. Vegapunk at last! One Piece: Egghead Arc has been spending the first few episodes of the arc thus far steadily introducing Luffy and the Straw Hats to how Dr. Vegapunk's future island laboratory actually works. Throughout all of this, the members of the crew have come across the six different figures that had been calling themselves parts of Dr. Vegapunk in the previous episodes. But now the true identity of the scientist has been revealed. 

One Piece: Egghead Arc has been revealing more of the dark side of Vegapunk's experiments, but it's been a different case for Luffy and Chopper. The two of them (together with Jimbei and Bonney) have been having fun across the island, but came across a massive robot and tried to get it to work. But as the newest episode of the anime was coming to an end, they are surprisingly met with the real Dr. Vegapunk as one of the scientist's experiments goes awry and Luffy needs to suddenly save him. 

Vegapunk’s intro was PEAK

Honestly I think it was a really good decision to reveal his design in current time before the flashback; makes more sense imo

Not much else to say tho I think everything was adapted pretty much perfectly minus the pacing in some parts

8/10 pic.twitter.com/aYa6LpuCrQ

— ⚡️ Soul ⚡️ (@Soul_StormOP) March 3, 2024

One Piece: Who Is Dr. Vegapunk? 

One Piece Episode 1096 sees Shakka speaking with Nico Robin and the other members of Luffy's crew about the destruction of Robin's home of Ohara. Noting that he had a theory that their discovery of a mysterious island in the past led to the Marines wanting to wipe them out completely, he brings up all sorts of rough memories for Robin. But he also tells her that Vegapunk had visited Ohara after its destruction, and was able to recover the books that the Ohara people had sacrificed their lives to save. 

Meanwhile, the real Dr. Vegapunk suddenly teleports inside of the giant robot and needs Luffy's help. Once freed, he notes that he was expecting Luffy to get to the island and also knows of Bonney as well despite the fact that she's out for revenge on the scientist. He's clearly working for the military, and there's something sinister going around the island (we just saw the Straw Hats attacked by a Pacfista after all), but this Dr. Vegapunk seems less threatening than you'd expect. 

But how do you feel about the real Dr. Vegapunk's debut in One Piece's newest episode? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on X (formerly known as Twitter)!