#gunko

even when you're just an apprentice, you get marked on your arm and it's implied that imu still has some sort of link to you. it's very likely that the only way to break that link is by losing your arm like shanks did.

then as soon as you become a full-fledged knight, you 1) gain the ability to regenerate/automatically heal from wounds, and 2) imu gets full control over your mind and body to use as they see fit whenever they feel like it.

at that point, there is NO WAY to back out anymore. even if you somehow manage to escape imu's notice and chop off your own arm without them stopping you, it'll just grow back. you can no longer break the pact. the only way out (which is the way harald is about to take) is death. and even that's near-impossible, because what are the chances of you being able to find someone strong enough to bypass the immortality and kill you?

gunko’s name is very interesting to me. first of all, her name is rendered in kanji, as 軍子.

it’s very uncommon for oda to use kanji when writing the names of characters; normally he uses katakana, with a minority (usually female characters with names that are native japanese words, like kuina and tsuru) given in hiragana. the main place i remember seeing kanji used in names is wano, as part of the broader characterization of characters from that place as more anachronistic and associated with traditional japanese culture. i’m pretty sure oda has said he makes these sort of choices on a pretty vibes-based basis so i’m not saying this is necessarily a significant detail, but it is unusual.

her name itself is also unusual, because it translates quite bluntly. 軍/gun means ‘army,’ while 子/ko means ‘child’ and is a common feminine name component (as in names like asako, morning child, or aiko, love child). so gunko parses as a girl’s name, but a quite strange and militaristic one. it reads like a feminine version of 軍人/gunjin, ‘soldier.’

y'know when you make a plan and you're about to execute that plan but then stuff happens and all of sudden you have to upload doodles instead of a finished drawing?