Chapter 664: Master Caesar Clown

Arc: Punk Hazard · Saga: Dressrosa · Released: 2012-02-27

Summary

Still scrambled by Law’s body-swap power — Smoker’s mind trapped in Tashigi’s body, Tashigi’s mind in a bespectacled G-5 soldier’s body, and the G-5 marines shuffled among themselves — “Team Navy” methodically deduces that the recurring shipwreck reports off this stretch of sea are a cover for years of child abductions, and that a mole inside G-5 is rewriting the truth. The Tashigi-mind concludes the kidnappers are on Punk Hazard itself; the Smoker-mind (in Tashigi’s body) orders a third of the men to steal a ship and report, intending to take back his heart and body and expose the operation before the place blows. In Vegapunk’s former lab, the island’s “master” finishes a Den Den Mushi call: his backer Joker will get any deaths “chalked up to an accident,” and he has permission to kill the Straw Hats, G-5, and “Foxfire Kin’emon.” His harpy aide Monet reports the Straw Hats’ total bounty (฿800,000,050) and that the captured centaur boss Brownbeard must be saved. Brownbeard, held by Team Straw Hat, recounts Punk Hazard’s history: once a verdant island turned into Vegapunk’s secret WG weapons-and-chemicals laboratory where prisoners were used as guinea pigs; four years ago a chemical-weapons test exploded, two of three labs were destroyed, and toxic gas wiped out all life, crippling the survivors’ legs. Two years ago “Master” arrived, purified the gas and saved the prisoners as his subordinates; then Warlord Trafalgar Law gave them new animal legs (the centaurs, the bird-woman Monet). The dragon Luffy’s group already ate is revealed to be Vegapunk’s island-guarding artificial life-form. As a test subject dies screaming in the lab, the master rages that his weapon was no “failure” — it killed an entire island — and is unveiled: Master Caesar Clown, former government scientist, ฿300M bounty, Gas-Gas Fruit. Tashigi (in the soldier’s body) names him to the marines as the true culprit who built and set off the incident, escaped custody, and must be stopped before he unleashes something worse.

• Master Caesar Clown is revealed and given his formal introduction card (p. 18): Former government scientist · Bounty ฿300,000,000 · Master Caesar Clown · (Gas-Gas Fruit powers). He is the “master” the island’s subordinates serve and the hidden figure from Ch. 659.
• Punk Hazard’s true history (Brownbeard’s account, pp. 12–16): a once-verdant island that the WG made into Dr. Vegapunk’s laboratory for developing and testing “all manner of weapons and chemicals,” using prisoners as human-experiment subjects instead of imprisoning them.
• The “incident” four years ago: one of Vegapunk’s chemical-weapons tests exploded, two of the three labs were destroyed, and the explosion’s heat and toxicity wiped out all life on the island. The WG workers fled, abandoned the prisoners, and sealed the island; survivors lost the use of their lower bodies to the gas.
• Caesar built and set off that weapon (Tashigi’s account, p. 19) — but as head scientist Vegapunk was held responsible for the accident. Caesar was the #2 man of the Science Division, cruel and constantly at odds with Vegapunk. Caesar was apprehended but escaped the prison transport ship and vanished.
• Caesar’s takeover (~2 years ago): with the Gas-Gas Fruit he purified the island’s gas, gave the gas-dependent prisoners breathable gas, and recruited them as subordinates who worship him as a “merciful god of salvation.”
• Law’s role (a few months ago): Warlord Trafalgar Law gave the leg-crippled prisoners new legs from living animals — the origin of the island’s centaurs and Monet the “bird-woman.” Law also currently controls Smoker’s heart and body.
• Joker is named as Caesar’s powerful off-island backer who can have deaths “chalked up to another accident in the area, as so often happens.” (Named, not shown.)
• Foxfire Kin’emon is named on-page for the first time (p. 8) as one of the kill targets, alongside the Straw Hats and G-5.
• Straw Hat bounties: combined total ฿800,000,050 — Luffy worth ฿400M, the rest ranging from ฿120M down to ฿50 (Monet’s report, p. 9).
• The dragon the crew ate is an artificial life-form created by Vegapunk that guards the island and “can adapt to any environment”; the Celestial Dragons liked it enough to name it (p. 16).
• “Worst Generation”: Brownbeard reveals the Sabaody rookie cohort — the Eleven Supernovas plus Blackbeard — is now known worldwide by this name: “problem children born in the gap between the end of one age and the beginning of another, fated to bring chaos wherever they go” (p. 11).

Foreshadowing seeds planted

Mentions / appearances

Smoker · Tashigi · Luffy · Zoro · Usopp · Nami · Sanji · Franky · Brook · Tony Tony Chopper · Brownbeard · Caesar Clown · Monet · Trafalgar Law (referenced) · Vegapunk (referenced) · Kin’emon (named, not shown) · Joker (named, not shown) · Marines (G-5) · Straw Hat Pirates · Heart Pirates · Seven Warlords of the Sea · Eleven Supernovas · Eleven Supernovas · Celestial Dragons · Gasu Gasu no Mi · Punk Hazard · Sabaody Archipelago (referenced) · New World (referenced)

Notable panels

• Pages 1–2 — Volume title spread for the chapter (“MASTER CAESAR CLOWN” header; stylized “ATTACK!! ONE PIECE” request art of the Straw Hats wielding guns/water-guns on a wave). Decorative/promotional spread — not a cover-story B-plot.
• Page 9 — Monet, the harpy aide, reports the Straw Hats’ bounties; total ฿800,000,050. First clear on-page presence of Monet.
• Page 10 — “Team Straw Hat”: the body-swapped crew have drawn labels/faces on each other to keep track of who is who (“This is ruining Nami’s good looks!!”).
• Page 11 — Brownbeard coins the “Worst Generation” for the reader: the Eleven Supernovas + Blackbeard, the chaos-bringing problem children of the New World.
• Pages 12–16 — Brownbeard’s Punk Hazard backstory flashbacks (Vegapunk’s lab, the gas accident, Caesar’s salvation, Law’s animal legs, the Vegapunk-made dragon).
• Page 17 — A test subject dies under Caesar’s “new medicine”/gas experiment as Caesar coldly checks symptoms (“Rest in peace now”).
• Page 18 — Full dramatic reveal of Master Caesar Clown in gas form; introduction card (former government scientist, ฿300M, Gas-Gas Fruit).
• Page 20 — SBS Question Corner (Vol. 67 SBS) — includes Smoker’s body-swap aside (“I ripped it off. What’s it to ya?”) and Oda’s note on handwritten in-panel comments. (Volume back-matter — route to SBS archivist; not part of the chapter narrative.)
• Page 21 — Bleed-over: opening page of Chapter 665: “Candy” with the cover story From the Decks of the World, Vol. 45: “Impel Down — The Most Trustworthy Man in Hell, New Vice Warden Magellan.” Belongs to Ch. 665, not 664.

Open questions raised

• Who is Joker, the off-island broker powerful enough to disguise mass death as accidents and to give Caesar “permission to kill”?
• What is Caesar Clown actually building now, and for whom — what is the “something even worse” Tashigi fears he’ll unleash?
• Why were children specifically being abducted to this island, and who inside G-5 is the mole covering it up?
• What exactly is Caesar’s “new medicine”/gas being tested on the dying prisoners?
• Was the four-years-ago detonation an accident at all, or did Caesar engineer it deliberately as a live test?