One Piece has ushered in a number of villainous teams for Luffy's crew to contend with, not even counting pirate crews like the Beasts Pirates and the Doflamingo family. CP9, now CP0, and the Five Elders are all dangerous troops for Luffy to fight with, and now there's another one: the Holy Knights. This powerful team, also known as the Knights of God, is symbolic of the arrogant authority and self-indulgence found in the Holy Land of the Red Line.
It didn't take long One Piece's Elbaph Arc to spill the beans on who the God Knights are, their typical duties, and what their fighting powers are like. Already, One Piece the fans have a clear idea of how this team works and what everyone can expect from them. This includes a mix of familiar elements, such as Devil Fruits and high authority, and some new tactics that rival even the strongest Haki on the battlefield.
The god knights have all the depths and abyss alliances
This allows them to teleport around or summon reinforcements
Since some time ago, One Piece have developed parallel combat or “magic” systems to co-exist with the Devil Fruits. Even Devil Fruits can't do it all, and after so many years in publishing, One Piece would expand the supernatural side of the world with new abilities. The God Knights were the perfect group to show off some new abilities, like the Four Covenants. The Shallows type only binds the wearer to Imu's will, while Depths and Abyssal Covenants offer remarkable abilities.
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All full members of the God Knights have the Deep Alliance, along with the Abyssal Alliance in most cases. With these marks in place, God Knights like Shamrock, Gunko, and Sommers can teleport to anywhere in the world, bypassing the need for fast-moving ships. This suggests great urgency on the part of the God Knights, as they both can and must immediately appear wherever Imu needs them for a mission. What's more, these covenants grant the God Knights immortality, allowing them to survive almost any enemy on the battlefield. Only a few combatants, such as Scopper Gaban and Roronoa Zoro, can bypass that immortality with their attacks.
The God Knights usually have powerful Devil Fruits
Arrows, thorns and MMA have defined the fighting style of the god knights until now
This is one of the most predictable yet most exciting parts about the God Knights group. For decades, it has always been assumed that when a powerful new group arrives, at least a few members will have impressive Devil Fruits, possibly with Haki to back it up. God Knights are also like this, with them carrying never-before-seen Devil Fruits. Notably, the fruits' powers aren't as flashy as Big Mom's Soul-Soul Fruit or Kaido's mythical Zoan fruit, but these Devil Fruits still get the job done.
Gunko, for example, terrorized the Straw Hat crew with his Arrow-Arrow Fruit. It can force people to move in whatever direction the arrows are pointing, an effective way to turn a team's combat power against itself. Gunko can also form a bird with his arrows and fly around Elbaph with ease. Then there is St. Sommers, whose Thorn-Thorn Fruit comes in handy for hostages with pointed, invisible thorns to deter the God Knights' enemies. St. Killingham is the one who can turn people's nightmares into reality with his Dragon-Dragon Fruit, forming MMAs that can even keep giant warriors at bay.
God Knights have exemplary teamwork
Other villain groups split up to fight the Straw Hats
Even when groups like Baroque Works and Big Mom Pirates have a numerical advantage over the heroes, it's not often these crews push that particular advantage. Instead of keeping things simple, One Piece will split the team battle into a series of duels. Fans may remember Sanji, Zoro, and Luffy battling the top three Baroque Works agents in the Alabasta Saga, for example. And even in the chaos of the Onigashima raid, fighting was often a matter of duels. Teamwork among the Beasts Pirates was somewhat limited.
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The same is not true of the God Knights, who make teamwork the core of their fighting style. Their Devil Fruit powers and personalities may differ greatly, but these warriors are quite adept at fighting together. Gunko and Sommers mixed their fruit powers to create a tough hostage situation during, say, the Elbaph Arc, all while Killingham's MMA keeps everyone away. The God Knights will also swap members in and out to suit the needs of the mission, such as Sommers and Killingham replacing Shamrock on Elbaph.
The God Knights allow Imu to possess them at any time
Imu appears in all with the right connections
All the God Knights have unwavering loyalty to Imu, and that extends to possession as well. Most of the time, the God Knights are content to simply obey Imu's orders and exercise that creature's authority, but some situations call for more. As One Piece readers have already seen, Imu can directly take command of a God Knight's body to fight his enemies personally, as Imu did with Gunko. In a flashback sequence on God Valley, Imu did something similar to Jaygarcia Saturn.
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This suggests that both the God Knights and the Five Elders are fair game for Imu's possession as they all have advanced covenants. That, and such fighters clearly have the strength and authority to Imu's liking, with it being terribly unlikely that Imu would bother to own the Admirals or Vice Admirals. While possessed, an Elder or God Knight will set aside their own powers for the benefit of the likes of Domi Reversi.
The God Knights police the nobles of the world
Only someone like a God Knight is allowed to judge a Heavenly Dragon
This aspect of God Knights is not often seen on screen since then One PieceThe current narrative favors action and flashback over the desolate political landscape of Marijoa. Still, learning how the God Knights operate in their homeland is enlightening, and speaks volumes for their high authority. So far, One Piece has led fans to believe that the World Nobles can do whatever they want as untouchable elites, but that's not quite true. Admirals cannot order around the Celestial Dragons or judge them, but the God Knights can.
The God Knights police the world elite in the Holy Land, a task no other group could be trusted to perform. The God Knights can punish or even execute a world noble for serious grievances, such as if a noble acts in defense of the common masses. In particular, it is the supreme commander of the God Knights who can pass judgment on celestial dragons, such as Figarland Garling himself.
God Knights have a simple command structure
The Navy has many more ranks
The Navy has the largest and most complex command structure of all One Piecefrom lowly naval grunts to enlisted officers all the way to the vice admirals and admirals. The five elders are also part of the Navy's command structure. Then there are the God Knights, a much smaller group that has no need for so many ranks or loads of admirals.
This is the simplest and most practical aspect of the God Knights, a reflection of how small and cohesive this group is. The God Knights seem to only have eight members in it, so even though they adopted the Navy's ranking system, not all ranks could be filled. Instead, the God Knights have a Supreme Commander, a rank filled by Figarland Garling, along with a Commander rank just below it, held by Shamrock. The other members are simply full-fledged knights who obey both the commander and Imu's will. There are a number of smaller, partial members known as God's Devoted Blades, who serve as basic fighters who can be welcomed into the main group, should they prove themselves worthy.
One Piece
- Release date
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October 20, 1999
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Directors
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Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- Author
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Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
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Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
