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

What a beautiful chapter this was! I’m not usually one to focus on powerlevels or the characters’ apparent strength, but this strikes me as a good time to have a think about it, since we’ve likely just seen what the absolute power ceiling looks like. We’ve got so much haki it visibly flows off the weapons. There’s projected advanced armament several feet away from the end of the blade. The lightning and physical shockwave we’ve seen before though not on this scale, but the dazzling white light is new – and looks spectacular! I do wonder if this moment will end up being a little less special in the anime because of the ways they’ve exaggerated things in the past. A shockwave so big it shakes the ocean far off the island? In the anime, King Kong Gun clashing with Doflamingo caused that. A dazzling white light? In the anime, Luffy pushing Kaido’s head into the ground just did that, among a number of other bright flashy things. None of these things will be unprecedented in quite the same way there. But that’s the anime, and this is a manga discussion thread. Time to get back on topic.

Bege’s cover story is all over the place and I have no idea where it’s going to be honest. Is that a member of his crew falling down unconscious in the bottom right of the panel? Who did that if the Navy is coming up from the other direction?

I’m glad to see a bit of weakness from Oden this week. Obviously he’s still an absolute beast in a fight, but he’s not really on the level of Roger or Whitebeard when they’re fighting seriously. We wouldn’t want Oden to be too perfect, after all. (and again, it’s good for the long-awaited fight between the big boys to be something only they could achieve.) Oh, and great attention to detail showing all of the Moby Dick’s furled sails being blown upside down by the shockwave. Feels like the kind of thing a lesser artist might easily overlook.

The next spread has two great examples of things I brought up in the ongoing Mangaplus debates over in the thread for that. An up-to-date translation for a series so driven by lore and secrets is a constantly moving target. The first is Blackbeard’s strange wakefulness. I think Luffy’s talk about people who don’t sleep in Drum still holds up to the reveal, but the current interpretation of Ace’s words to him before their fight absolutely does not. (even the fan translations I’ve seen wrote it as being to do with Blackbeard’s actual age, not his extra time awake, because how could anyone have known?) The other thing is, of course, Lodestar Island. Great name for a place, given its relevance to the lore, but it means the Road Poneglyphs were obviously intended to be Lode Poneglyphs. Feels so obvious now that we have the context, but I don’t think a single person guessed it. At this point I almost expect the Rio Poneglyph to be carved into the shape of a lion and turn out to have been the Leo Poneglyph all along  But yes, this kind of thing is why no one wants to commit to a translation rewrite. I said it in the other thread and I’ll say it here as well. If a revised translation came out in full 13 months ago, fans would have insisted it had Shilliew instead of Shiryu. Eight months ago, there was no way of knowing Mighty Blade was meant to be a reoccurring term. Four months ago and it still wouldn’t have had Laugh Tale. And if it had come out just one week ago, it would still have gotten Blackbeard wrong and we still wouldn’t have Lode Poneglyphs. I think internal consistency is a virtue for any release to have, and I’m not going to boycott or tear down a release if its consistent glossary is out of date just because of how impossible it is to be up to date.

I don’t really know what to say about the Blackbeard reveal. He’s still a very mysterious figure. We’re getting him one piece at a time, but we still don’t have enough for a clear picture. What I do think is that between this and Luffy’s assertion that if he sleeps he will die, we can make a safe guess that his story will probably end, no matter how chaotic the battles leading up to it, with him quietly closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep for the first time in his life. I think that has the potential to be quite the beautiful death.

Also on the lore front, it seems we have confirmation that the One Piece is something Roger found on Laugh Tale, not something he hid there. We definitely knew this previously, but I think it was just from interviews and author/editor comments. It’s good to have it locked into the actual comic.

Given that Roger sailed to the end of the Grand Line already, that basically means he’s on his New Game + run, doesn’t it? No wonder he’s so strong, he’s been thrown back to the starting area with maxed out stats and gear, and this time he’s trying for the good ending!

You almost feel bad for Whitebeard seeing how hard he took Oden’s departure. Poor guy. I hope they got that last chance to meet and exchange stories before Oden died. Gonna be real sad if this is the last time they saw each other.

The message on the Skypiea Poneglyph is a fun callback and nice to have squared away. There’s not exactly any new info in this sequence besides a little hint at the limit of the Voice of All Things, but it just wouldn’t have felt complete without showing it. Next chapter, I have no idea what to expect. Vingettes of places on the Grand Line we’ve seen? The stealing of Big Mom and Kaido’s Lode Poneglyphs? (and which one does Roger have already?) Laugh Tale itself? Or will we just cut back to Wano and get to the meat of the nation’s tragedy?

Frankly, every option is a good one. They’ve all got things I would love to see. This is such a painful time for the Christmas and New Years breaks to come up!