Just when fans thought things were beginning to look up for Kuma and Bonney, One Piece‘s latest episode has delivered yet another heart-wrenching twist, revealing that Kuma gave up his memories and turned into a mindless cyborg for Bonney’s sake. That said, besides stomping on fans’ hearts even further, One Piece’s newest episode also includes a fair bit of interesting exposition, particularly the introduction of a whole new secret member of the Seven Warlords that fans have never seen or heard of before.
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Episode 1134 of One Piece finally reveals how Kuma went from being part of the Revolutionary Army to one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, with the episode explaining that this was yet another condition from St. Saturn to justify the cloning and weaponization of Kuma, who was, at that point, essentially still a pirate. The latest episode also reveals that Kuma took the place of a Warlord who’d been defeated by Ace, according to St. Saturn.
One Piece’s Anime Introduces A New Warlord Defeated by Ace
In one particular scene during the episode, Ace, Jimbei, Marco, Whitebeard, and Teech are all seen reacting to the news of Kuma being made into a Warlord when Jinbe reveals the name of this Warlord is Hanafuda. Interestingly enough, Hanafuda was never originally named during this scene in the manga. Oda only gradually revealed Hanafuda’s identity in the SBS sections that followed, making this scene in the anime completely original yet a genius addition.
While fans have been indirectly told about Ace’s accomplishments before in the series, the latest episode marks the first time fans learn about Ace taking down one of the Warlords. Given that Luffy was defeating Warlords one after the other during the first few months of his journey alone, it isn’t all too surprising for Ace to also have one such takedown under his name.
While the events of Episode 1134 take place approximately four years before the present and Ace already seems to be a part of Whitebeard’s crew, it is difficult to pin down when exactly Ace would have defeated Hanafuda. This fight would have most likely taken place around the time of Ace’s visit to Wano, given that St. Saturn states Hanafuda was defeated quite recently and still refers to Ace as a rookie. All that said, seeing as One Piece’s anime isn’t afraid to incorporate aspects of the SBS into the series, hopefully, Hanafuda may just get a chance to make a canon debut through another flashback of sorts as fans are sure to love everything about his character design and it’s a crime to confine him to a singular sketch in the SBS section.
Who is Hanafuda in One Piece?
First formally named in the SBS of Volume 109, all that Oda initially revealed about Hanafuda was his name, his epithet as the “King of Lizards,” and the fact that he collected Ancient Zoan devil fruits as a hobby. This led fans to immediately suspect a connection to Kaido, which was subsequently proven correct in the SBS of Volume 111, wherein Oda confirmed that Kaido and Hanafuda used to be rivals until the latter was impressed by Kaido’s strength and formed an alliance with him. Hanafuda would then supply Kaido with the Ancient Zoan devil fruits he collected, much like Doflamingo, who provided Kaido with artificial ones.
That said, easily the most interesting part about Hanafuda is that he is actually Ulti and Page One’s father, and had left them in Kaido’s care, thus explaining how the brother-sister duo ended up in the crew together. As for Hanafuda’s fate, after being defeated by Ace, the World Government stripped him of his title, and while on his way to reunite with his children, Hanafuda was eventually killed by other pirates.
Overall, it was quite a smart move to mention Hanafuda through a simple added dialogue, as anime-only fans might have never learned about this mysterious Warlord Ace had defeated otherwise. While One Piece’s filler episodes have left much to be desired as of late, credit where it’s due, the series has gotten much more strategic with adding original scenes, not to mention ambitious when it comes to taking artistic liberties, and the anime’s certainly better for it.
One Piece can be streamed on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
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Image courtesy of Netflix
