This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Interesting that the official app presents the Stampede poster upright. I figured it would be shown horizontally, as a colour spread, like the ones for chapters 817 and 843. The difference is of course just one page in the official page count, but it’d be good know for sure. Wonder if anyone in a position to see the physical magazine would be able to confirm?

This week the action gets more chaotic as Orochi’s ninja squad steps in. I enjoyed every page, but pure action doesn’t leave much to comment on. We get more of Zoro begging the readers to ask questions about Kyoshiro and more build up of the idea of a Strawhat being captured and interrogated. As the two prison break scenes reach their conclusions, I would expect one or both of those plot threads to start taking the lion’s share of screen time in the later chapters of volume 94.

There are fights I don’t mind cutting away from and only seeing the key moments of, but this new confrontation between Hawkins and Law isn’t one of them. Both characters’ sets of powers lend themselves to creative action, and I can’t wait to see what solution Law finds for the hostage situation. Hawkins is also proving to work a lot better as a villain that I might have expected prior to Wano.

Oh, and my boy Bepo had better be alright! I always enjoyed him as a character, but I’ve been reading His Dark Materials over the last couple weeks and polar bears have climbed a few rungs in my heart as a result.

The Sanji/Zoro moment was great. Exactly what I wanted from them being back together. A thought that occurs for a final thing between them this arc is that each could topple a dinosaur devil fruit user and then compete over whose is bigger, just like their Little Garden dinosaur hunt. I think it might even have been an allosaurus that Sanji beat back then as well. Foreshadowing for years! Where’s the triceratops fruit?

Looks like the Ashura plot thread has been more or less wrapped up, with only the important plot infodump to go. This has been a bit of an odd subplot. It’s so in the background that I’m surprised every time it shows up. It could be good anime filler fodder I suppose. They could make more clear who set fire to the mountain, since different translations seems to have different ideas about that.

And then we have Linlin. That first spread is fantastic – it does a great job of making her look huge and threatening despite how inherently ridiculous she is. That’s always been one of One Piece’s strengths, but it’s still worth commenting on. Queen transforms and looks pretty good. He’s got that same sense of size and same level of silliness in his design, but despite being an actual dinosaur, he doesn’t manage to look quite as threatening as Big Mom did three pages earlier.

I really have no idea at this point how this set piece is going to play out. Luffy trapped in the arena, Kid and Killer in the water, Queen and Big Mom clashing in the middle. Kawamatsu. Caribou and Raizo somewhere. I have no idea how all that comes together and I love it.

This is another great chapter that keeps a strong bit of momentum and two exciting action sequences going. Gonna be a long two weeks waiting for the next installment.