This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread. These two chapters were reviewed together because the forum was offline on the week of chapter 976’s release.

We’ve missed two whole chapter discussions and the most exciting new event is Jinbe’s return! The crew is (probably) complete and all together at last! I predicted back when the Arashi colour spread dropped that Jinbe would show up pretty soon after the flashback ended, because it was so obviously meant as a marketing thing that would need a longer shelf life than the standard colour spread, but I didn’t think he’d show up quite so soon… Or quite so easily.

My expectations for Jinbe’s reintroduction included things like a sidequest to free him from the brig of the Queen Mama Chanter or some serious injury or appearance change. You have to really justify a cliffhanger that big that lasted that long. Instead he’s just kind of here all of a sudden, only one tiny new scar. Even his outfit is almost identical to his pre-timeskip one, just with the blacks and whites inverted. Suffice to say, I would be underwhelmed by the way his return was handled… if I thought we’d heard the whole story. Oda really glosses over the details of Jinbe’s escape from a truly desperate situation which makes me think we’ll be getting a surprise when we do hear about it. It could be as simple as it being the Vinsmokes in the brig instead of the Sun Pirates, or it could be something more.

I’ve proposed in the past that the answer could be old man Jinbe. Big Mom’s soul stealing doesn’t seem to instantly affect outward appearance, so Jinbe could be missing most of his lifespan without us knowing it. This could make it a driving conflict to take down Big Mom as soon as possible to get it back, but I think the more interesting route would be if there was no way at all to ever return Jinbe’s life. If he only had, say, one year left, the knowledge that Luffy has to sail for Laugh Tale now or risk not making it with all the crew intact would be a fantastic way to fling him into the endgame and make sure he hits the ground with his feet moving.

As an aside, even though it was over quickly, I loved seeing another naval combat sequence. Oda seems to really be working out what he’s doing with those.

Kaido’s son (sons maybe, I think I read that the raw could be seen as singular or plural) is a big surprise. I do still like the idea of it being a Charlotte, even a specific set of triplets, but that one interview (would Oda lie outright if he was really put on the spot live with a question he didn’t want to answer yet? Someone ask Greg lmao) and the fact that none of them inherited those distinct horns, despite all the other visual matches. Out side of that seemingly-debunked option, I don’t think there’s any real candidates among the existing cast. He’s probably going to be someone new.

I know I can’t be alone in this, but I’m reading a ton of death flags on the Scabbards. Oda’s put a lot of work into emphasising that they don’t belong in this time. They’re already dead. They’re ghosts haunting the landscape. Their luck has run out but they have one last thing they need to do. It’s not Oda’s style at all, and yet it feels like it would be fitting for some of them to fall during the battle, fading peacefully into a death they dodged by twenty years knowing their work would be completed. I think in reality the odds of an actual party wipe, even just for the time travelling half of the squad, are extremely low, but the build up alone is going to have me on the edge of my seat when these guys’ fights start to go bad for them.

I’m expecting a big time setup chapter next week. Lots of character introductions. Oda’s been playing with his arc structure keeping so much of Kaido’s core crew under wraps until this late in the game. Time will tell if it pays off, but it’s odd to be so close to the big fight with so few specific clashes to anticipate, so few skillsets and powers seeded and so few bad guy personalities to want to see taken down (though it’s kind of a quality over quantity thing when you consider Orochi and Kanjuro being in there). Next week seems like it could be the last chance to start setting these guys up if he doesn’t want to juggle that work with the chaos of the battle unfolding. Excited as always to see the master at work.