Usopp Launches the Merry Beyond Jonathan’s Checkmate

Bottom line: G-8 ends by making the fortress itself Jonathan’s final weapon

One Piece Episode 206 gives Jonathan the checkmate he has been building since the Going Merry fell into Navarone. At nine o’clock, the harbor drains. The ship strikes exposed rock, tears the hull, and settles where cannons can surround every side. No stronger Marine was hiding behind the gate. The base’s own water was waiting.

The Straw Hats escape because everything Skypiea gave them returns at once: Usopp’s Dials, the octopus balloon, Nami’s understanding of unfamiliar tools, and a crew willing to launch a wounded ship back into the sky. G-8 does not end by overpowering Navarone. G-8 ends by becoming impossible for Navarone to predict one last time.

Episode facts

Japanese broadcast: October 10, 2004
Script: Junki Takegami
Direction: Takahiro Imamura
Animation director: Naoki Tate
Art: Miyuki Sato and Kumiko Fukuzawa

The official guide identifies the nine-o’clock ebb tide as “Navarone’s Sea Fangs,” grounds the Merry on reef, surrounds the crew, and places Usopp’s Dials at the center of their reversal.

The nine-o’clock trap was present before the crew arrived

Jonathan does not create the tide. He understands the harbor well enough to schedule pursuit around the natural change. Knowledge turns geography into a weapon without changing one stone.

That is his greatest strategic advantage across the arc. The Straw Hats improvise brilliantly inside Navarone. Jonathan knows what Navarone will do next.

The Sea Fangs punish speed instead of stopping speed

Luffy orders full speed toward escape. The lowered water exposes rock beneath the route, and the Merry’s hull tears against the reef.

The trap works because urgency supplies the impact. Jonathan does not block the ship with another gate. He lets the crew accelerate into terrain their map did not explain.

The hull damage makes Mekao’s warning impossible to ignore

The Merry was already carrying structural pain after Skypiea. Episode 206 adds a fresh wound while the ship is stranded under Marine guns.

Usopp immediately works on the damage because escape means nothing if the hull cannot survive open water. Water 7 is coming, and G-8 refuses to let the audience forget the cost before the diagnosis.

Low tide turns a harbor into a prison without bars

As the water withdraws, the Merry loses movement. Mud, reef, and distance replace the Seastone cage. Every crew member can stand on deck together and still be physically contained.

Jonathan finally achieves the one-target arrangement he wanted. No scattered disguises. No separate rescue teams. One ship, one crew, one exposed basin.

Jonathan offers surrender because the position deserves respect

He speaks through a megaphone and tells the Straw Hats they are captured. The message is not empty villain theater. Navarone has cannons, elevation, personnel, and a grounded target.

A commander should offer surrender before destroying a ship full of people. His restraint remains consistent with the Marines G-8 has shown us.

Checkmate is accurate until Usopp changes the board

Within the ordinary rules of ships and harbors, Jonathan has won. The Merry cannot sail without water. The crew cannot fight every cannon while repairing the hull.

Usopp’s answer comes from outside those rules. Skypiea placed technology aboard the ship that no Navarone tide chart could include.

The Impact Dial makes a wounded ship jump

Usopp uses stored force to launch the Merry from the drained basin. The Dial does not repair the hull or refill the harbor. The Dial creates a violent instant where the ship no longer needs either.

This is invention under pressure, not magic without setup. Dials have been carried, mislabeled, tested, and used throughout G-8. The finale combines that continuity into propulsion.

The risk deserves emphasis. An Impact Dial releases force harsh enough to injure the person using the shell. Applying that force to a damaged wooden ship is not gentle engineering. Usopp chooses the option because remaining on the reef guarantees capture. The plan trades structural safety for a narrow chance at freedom, and then asks his own repair work to absorb whatever the launch breaks.

The octopus balloon returns as the perfect bookend

The giant octopus that lowered the crew from Skypiea becomes the device that lifts them out of Navarone. The arc begins with a descent nobody controls and ends with an ascent the crew deliberately builds.

That symmetry makes G-8 feel attached to Skypiea rather than wedged between canon arcs. The object that delivered the problem becomes part of the solution.

The reversal also changes the crew’s relationship with the absurd. During the fall, the shrinking balloon leaves them helpless above an unknown base. During the escape, they understand what the octopus can do, know which Dials can restore lift, and choose the moment of ascent. Knowledge turns the same ridiculous image from panic into agency.

Breath and Flame Dials turn memory into engineering

The crew uses Breath and Flame Dials to inflate the octopus balloon. Stored air and heat become tools inside a desperate launch system.

Usopp’s collection matters because he kept strange objects before knowing every future use. Curiosity creates an inventory that strategy can draw from later.

Nami trusts an escape nobody could place on a normal chart.

A navigator usually keeps a ship connected to water. Here, Nami helps the crew commit to leaving the harbor vertically.

Skypiea expanded her sense of what a route can be. After sailing into clouds and riding a Waver, a temporary flight over fortress walls belongs inside her world of possible movement.

Luffy treats the impossible plan like the obvious plan.

Luffy does not need a safety presentation before agreeing to launch the Merry with Dials and an octopus. The plan points toward freedom and uses tools his crew understands.

His confidence helps everybody act before low tide and Marine fire close the remaining window. Somebody has to believe hard enough for engineering to become momentum.

The Merry carries one more impossible departure

The ship blasts upward while damaged, disguised, and overloaded with every person and recovered object the crew refused to leave behind.

This is why the Merry’s later story hurts. She keeps doing things a ship in her condition should not be asked to do, and love keeps sounding like proof that she can do one more.

Jonathan orders a warning shot at the balloon

The commander still attempts to stop the escape, but his order reflects control. A warning shot targets the mechanism without turning the entire battery into indiscriminate destruction.

He wants to capture the crew. He does not need to massacre them to protect his pride.

Shepherd aims for glory and destroys Marine firepower

Shepherd ignores the discipline around him, fires the bazooka at the balloon, misses, and destroys a Marine cannon instead.

The outsider who claims Navarone is useless becomes the most immediate danger to Navarone. His final contribution to the pursuit is friendly sabotage powered by ego.

Jonathan knows when the game is over

Once the Merry clears the fortress, Jonathan orders Drake to cease fire. Continuing would waste ammunition and risk damage without a credible capture path.

Acceptance protects his dignity more than rage could. He recognizes the Straw Hats produced a solution outside his forecast and credits the result.

The ceasefire is the final proof that Jonathan belongs in this arc

He can lose without becoming smaller. The commander built the right traps, adapted repeatedly, and forced the crew to use almost every resource they carried.

Defeat does not erase competence. That choice is a major reason fans remember G-8 as a story rather than a delay between manga arcs.

Jonathan also refuses the cheap emotional move of hating the crew for being clever. He wanted to test Navarone against a real threat, and the pirates exposed exactly where routines had become soft. His disappointment remains professional. His interest remains genuine. That combination makes the farewell feel like two capable sides recognizing the contest they just survived.

Jessica gives Shepherd the consequence Jonathan will not.

Shepherd threatens to have G-8 decommissioned after the pirates escape. Jessica answers with a punch.

The moment lands because Shepherd has insulted the base, endangered personnel, obstructed competent command, and now wants institutional punishment for the outcome he helped create. Somebody needed to close that account.

Navarone became stronger because the Straw Hats arrived

Jonathan tells Jessica the crisis brought the base together and gave everyone needed exercise. The pirates exposed weak communication, complacency, and the danger of assuming routine would continue forever.

That assessment does not excuse the intrusion. The commander simply refuses to waste the lesson because the target escaped.

G-8 respects Marines as workers and people

Cooks, doctors, shipwrights, guards, officers, and commanders all shape the arc. Navarone is not populated only by obstacles waiting for Luffy to punch.

The finale protects that complexity. The Straw Hats win. The base remains functional, human, and capable of learning.

Usopp repairs the damage while everybody celebrates.

The ship floats toward sunset, but Usopp continues working on the hole. Freedom does not close the wound caused by the reef.

That small labor keeps celebration honest. The Merry escaped. The Merry is still hurt. A shipwright fund cannot become a shipwright until the crew reaches one.

The final flight belongs to the whole Skypiea-to-G-8 transition

Gold, Dials, Waver, octopus, and a damaged Merry all travel out together. G-8 tested everything the previous arc placed aboard the ship.

Rather than resetting the crew after Skypiea, the anime-only story asks how those new resources behave in a military fortress. That continuity is why the arc feels unusually seamless.

The ending even carries forward the wrong kind of certainty. The crew believes a skilled shipwright and enough gold can restore the Merry. G-8 lets that hope leave the fortress intact because the next story must be the one that challenges the belief. Filler rarely understands where to hand canon back the emotional baton. This arc does.

What worked

The environmental trap pays off Jonathan’s local knowledge. The Dial launch rewards Usopp’s curiosity. The octopus return closes the arc with visual and thematic symmetry. Jonathan’s ceasefire lets a respected opponent remain respected.

Jessica punching Shepherd is also correct. I have no notes for Jessica.

What held the episode back

The final engineering comes together quickly for a plan involving multiple Dials, a damaged hull, and a giant balloon. More visible assembly would give Usopp’s solution even greater weight.

The crew’s altitude and landing risk receive little attention once they clear the wall. The sunset image is strong enough to carry the emotion, but the Merry still has to return safely to water.

What changed every time I replayed the episode

The first viewing belongs to the octopus balloon and Shepherd wrecking his own side. On replay, the new hole in the Merry dominates. Usopp repairs while everyone else breathes, and the approaching Water 7 conflict feels much closer.

I also appreciate Jonathan’s ceasefire more each time. He knows that command includes recognizing when further force has no responsible purpose.

The final image changes too. A ship flying into sunset should feel weightless, but the Merry carries a new hole, older fractures, bags of gold meant for repairs, and the hope of every person celebrating on deck. The balloon lifts all of that for one beautiful moment. Freedom is real. Damage is real. One Piece allows both truths to share the sky without forcing the finale to become a funeral before the story reaches the place where that grief belongs.

RaeRae’s verdict

Episode 206 gives G-8 the ending the arc earned. Jonathan turns tide, reef, and timing into checkmate. Usopp responds with stored impact, stored breath, stored flame, and one giant octopus nobody put in the fortress manual.

The Straw Hats escape with their crew, gold, Waver, and wounded ship. Navarone keeps its dignity. Shepherd keeps a bruise. Everybody receives the ending they worked for.

Official source and routes

Official ONE PIECE Episode 206 guide
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G-8 Episodes 196-206 Directory