The leaks for One Piece Chapter 1198 have been circulating since 3 November, and if they hold, this is the chapter where Elbaf stops being a battle and becomes a problem nobody on the island can solve. Loki finally fights in his full hybrid form. Imu answers by putting him down in a single blow. And Luffy, the one person who should be escalating, goes quiet and stops talking altogether.
Everything below comes from the leak summaries, not from the chapter, which lands on 8 November. Treat it as spoilers and treat the details as unconfirmed until then.
What the leaks say happens in Chapter 1198
The chapter is circulating under the title “The Island of Monsters”, and the sequence reported by the leakers runs like this.
- Loki transforms, at last. After chapters of silhouettes going back to 1193, Loki uses his Mythical Zoan in full hybrid form. The leaks name the fruit as the Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Nidhoggr.
- Imu takes a third form. An enormous creature with an elongated torso, a long neck and massive horns. The leaker Redon calls it the closest any Imu form has come to the devil drawn on the Harley mural.
- Imu asks about the ancient technology. Imu wants to know what Elbaf is holding. Loki says he knows nothing, and Imu praises his strength before ending him in a single blow.
- Imu is on a clock. He says he has to return to Mary Geoise soon or his life will be in danger. That line does more work than the punch.
- Luffy leaves the battlefield. He vanishes mid-fight, and Loki reads the exit as a retreat.
- Luffy comes back as something else. Black hair, a large ape-like nose, a tail, fangs. He is on a rooftop in the giant village watching the Rain God, Zaza MMA, then jumps on her and bites her apart. Gaban’s read is flat. “That kid, he’s a Zoan-type.”
- Sanji finishes Killingham. The continuation of the fight from 1197, “Love is Defense”, with the armour breaking.
The words you need, in plain English
Three terms carry most of this chapter, and most write-ups use them without explaining them.
- Mythical Zoan. A Devil Fruit that turns the user into a mythical creature rather than an ordinary animal. They are the rarest type and usually come with an extra ability beyond the transformation.
- Nidhoggr. A dragon from Norse myth that chews at the roots of the world tree. In Elbaf, a Norse-flavoured arc, that is not a random pick.
- Hybrid form. The half-human, half-beast state a Zoan user fights in. It is usually stronger than the full animal form because the user keeps their technique.
- Nika. The sun god whose fruit Luffy ate. Gear 5 is his awakened form, the cartoon-logic one that turns the ground to rubber.
- Imu. Nerona Imu, the figure on the empty throne who rules the World Government from behind it.
Why the Luffy detail is the one that matters
Imu flattening Loki is a power statement, and it is the sort of thing that gets forgotten once the next reveal lands. The feral Luffy is the part with consequences.
Every Gear so far has been an upgrade he chooses, with a name, a look and a joke attached. A state where he does not speak is not an upgrade. It reads as the fruit taking a turn it has not taken before, and the “incomplete awakening” description fits that. An incomplete anything in One Piece is usually a warning about what the complete version costs.
There is a theory circulating that this is “Black Nika”, a destroyer counterpart to the sun god. That is a theory, not a leak. Nothing in the summaries confirms a second Nika, and the leak itself only says incomplete. Keep the two separate until the chapter draws it.
The Monkey King theory, which is mine and stays a theory
The moment I read the description of the new form, black hair, an ape’s nose, a tail and fangs, the shape that came to mind was Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. That is a theory. Nothing in the leaks says it, and I am not going to pretend a double-page spread confirms it before the chapter is out.
The reasoning, so you can weigh it rather than take it. Nika is a sun god, and the Monkey King is the most famous monkey figure in Asian storytelling, a trickster who fights heaven itself and comes back changed. Luffy has been drawn as a monkey since chapter one, his name is Monkey D. Luffy, and the leaks put him lounging on a roof the way Wukong is always drawn, before he bites a god apart. Gaban’s line, that Luffy is a Zoan-type, points the same way.
The counter-argument is stronger than it looks, and it is worth stating. Nika already has a design, the white hair, the cartoon physics, the grin, and this form breaks it rather than extends it. A black, silent, fanged Luffy is closer to the opposite of Nika than to a new version of him. That is why the incomplete awakening reading fits better than a new god. Whoever this is, it is not a friendly one.
Other people are reading it as Oozaru from Dragon Ball, the giant ape form, and that comparison is circulating widely. Both readings are guesses on the same four details. Mine is Wukong because of the sun god and the myth the arc is already borrowing from.
When Chapter 1198 is out, and what follows
| Region | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Japan (JST) | 9 November 2026 | 12:00 AM |
| United States (ET) | 8 November 2026 | 10:00 AM |
| United Arab Emirates | 8 November 2026 | 7:00 PM |
| India (IST) | 8 November 2026 | 8:30 PM |
Read it on MANGA Plus, which is free and official. The leaks say a break follows, with Chapter 1199 reportedly arriving on 23 November 2026, so this chapter has to carry two weeks of argument on its own.
What I am watching for in 1199
- Whether Luffy speaks at all, and who brings him back if he does not.
- Whether Imu’s third form has a cost, because every World Government power so far has had one.
- Whether Sanji’s win against Killingham is finished on panel or skipped, which tells you how much Oda rates it.
- Whether the owl library thread, Lily’s letter and the Void Century, gets its turn before Elbaf closes.
If this is your first One Piece chapter thread, the older arguments are in the One Piece index, and the whole anime section sits under Anime. The Nika question specifically runs through the five sun gods piece, and the last time a fruit did something to its user rather than for him is in the Blue Planet God post.
