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

As expected, we’re back in the present for the final chapter of volume 96! As much as I loved Oden and our time with him, I’ve been starting to feel desperate for my boy Luffy after all these months. The flashback was hurt badly by the number of breaks that came up in its publication, but as I said a while back, I think volumes 95 and 96 will be looked back on fondly as one of the highest points of the series just for the sheer amount of lore and drama packed into those two books.

Starting out, we get a resolution to Hyori and Denjiro faked Komurasaki’s death and it’s… kinda unsatisfying. Blood bags under her clothes? Really? How did that not get discovered? During that one big feast in volumes 92 and 93 we see that Orochi isn’t shy about putting his arms around her and pulling her close, and neither Hyori nor Denjiro take any drastic steps to enforce a hands-off policy.

Even under all those layers, it would be hard for her to be sure he wouldn’t feel or hear a big bag of blood sloshing around. It’s a super risky contingency to have committed to. And I don’t want to get too deep into the debate about whether or not a woman in Hyori’s position with her title would realistically be sleeping with her clients, but if any part of her job does involve taking her clothes off, this scheme gets twice as hard to conceal all over again! I would have preferred Denjiro to have picked up a devil fruit to facilitate the ruse or using a trick sword with a blunt edge and pump connected to a blood bag on his far less likely to be touched body.

Underwhelming, but not the end of the world.

Next up, we close the last lingering apparent inconsistency between the flashback and the present by showing Kaido make it clear he has questions about the One Piece for the Kozuki survivors. I mentioned when I was talking about last week’s chapter that the wording in the official translation could be read to suggest that it was only an issue after the timejump, and that absolutely is the case. Good to have that squared away.

Then we address the traitor at long last! I saw a few people suggesting the traitor’s origin/motive would be a commitment to Wano’s closed borders, but very few suggesting the Kurozumi persecution as a background. It’s a good angle, I think. Giving the Kozuki Dynasty some blood on its hands is a nice change of pace from the totally idealised, squeaky-clean monarchies of other One Piece nations. A whole lot of fantasy falls into the trap of “monarchy good if you have the right monarch,” so deviations are always appreciated. While Orochi and Kanjuro are scum, the things they’ve been put through early in their lives are inexcusable.

What makes Kanjuro interesting, but also kinda flat, is the fact that he doesn’t seem to hold any hatred about his circumstances at all. It’s not that Orochi’s cause resonated him, it’s just that Orochi was the first person to find him and give him purpose – a role to commit his theatre skills to. Shiebs’ Kandra comparison feels very apt (and I have to shout out a Mistborn reference when I see one).

Kanjuro shows some of his own personality after the reveal, but mostly he seems proud of how perfect his act was and how it fooled everyone, even getting frustrated that no one saw the holes in the act (maybe he should have visited some One Piece forums, a lot of people here figured it out). There’s actually more emotion here than I expected from him after he spoke about not hating them or meaning them harm and the way the inkblot form used to hide his identity before the reveal suggested some kind of tabula rasa.

The best part of the Kanjuro reveal will be spotting all the clues on a reread. It’s been extremely well seeded, even by One Piece’s high foreshadowing standards. I love these moments where almost a decade’s worth of little details all come together. People who wanted something more out of left field will never know these joys.

Loved the art for the arrival of Kaido’s ships. A great spread.

And then we get the volume finale moment. Luffy, Law and Kid fighting side by side after about 12 years. What an incredibly hype thing to end it on. Nothing to say but fuuuuuuck yeeeeah!

I hope Oda keeps this momentum going in the next chapter. There’ll be a temptation, I’m sure, to jump into the past again and show how the Sunny survived the bombing and what play Denjiro has made to keep the plan in motion despite Orochi’s sabotage, but I think unless it can be done in less than two pages, that can wait. After so long in the past already, it would be better to let this naval engagement play out in full and give us the catharsis of a good fight rather than try to explain everything right away. Either way, I can’t wait to see where we go from here.