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

Jump cover! Nice looking, but plain. Interesting that the dragon in the parasol has Kaido’s long shape, but more of Orochi’s colours. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but it’s a thing that’s there.

The colour spread has a sick palette with all that neon lighting and lots of little details and bits of English lettering to zoom in on. It’s a huge tease that there’s still no Jinbei, but Oda will do as he wants. At a glance, I thought Nami was wearing a shirt with a picture of herself on it, which would have been very on brand. Probably not quite that, after a zoom in, but it still tickled me. Luffy’s holding a record that says Binks’ Sake, which is slightly unfortunate for the English version, which had to swap out “sake” to fit the melody of the line and keep a rhyme scheme going. I always feel bad for them when Oda drops a new romanisation that contradicts a decision from a decade ago that can’t be changed now. The official release gets enough flack for every little deviation from what people expect. That said, now that the “Binks’ Sake” romanisation that comes up most among fans as been validated (a previous spread used “Binks of Liquor” so we won’t call it 100% locked in), I’d be interested to see if anyone has ever suggested a version of that first line that keeps “sake” but also rhymes and sticks to the original melody. “Binks’ sake is underway, delivered over ocean spray” or something like that.

Basically everything is made up and the romanisations don’t matter.

Moving into the chapter proper, there’s a few more Meltan in Kid’s arm. I hope the people who make Pokemon teams for fictional characters are paying attention to this. I love that it’s Meltan of all Pokemon that’s struck such a chord with Oda though.

I really don’t know what to make of the Numbers at this point. Haccha has a pretty mundane design compared to the silhouettes, but also we never saw a full set of ten silhouettes and I don’t think he matches any of the ones we did see. There’s obviously something special about these guys beyond just their size, but we don’t have enough information to say what yet. I’m sure there’ll be some payoff to Haccha’s anticlimax in the future.

Who’s Who is shaping up to be the star Tobi Roppo, and I’m 100% on board for it.

I’m going to file away Nami’s enthusiasm for infiltrating the pleasure house in my “lesbian headcanon” folder. I don’t need to be told it’s unrealistic to think Oda would actually go that way, I know it. This is just for me.

The infiltration sequence ends with Chopper and O-Lin reunited. Is Big Mom going to snap back to her old personality? I can see her flip-flopping as a great way to create chaos throughout the battle.

And finally, Cat, Izo and Marco arrive! I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this so soon. Actually, I’m really struggling to picture the structure of this coming battle. The obvious setup going in was that Luffy and co would rush in half-cocked and end up in a bad spot, then one of the many extra groups with a stake would show up in a grand cavalry charge leading into the final stage. It’s a tried, true and very satisfying formula, and with Kid, Jinbei and Marco all acting as possible candidates for the big rescue there was plenty to speculate on. But here we are, things are still going pretty well for the alliance, and the backup crews just keep showing up. First Kid was recruited offscreen and there at the start, then Jinbei just kind of appears before they even land, and now Marco casually makes his entrance. It feels like Oda’s put all his cards on the table too soon. Things aren’t going to go the obvious attack>tragedy>cavalry charge route, so I’m very interested to see what Oda’s got waiting up his sleeve.

It is a little sad that Marco’s dialogue implies the Big Mom pirates won’t make it into Wano until the battle is either over or mostly over. I hope Perospero puts the effort in to prove him wrong on that point. It’d be a shame to bring them all this way and bar them from getting involved for real.

And no break next week! A small bit of good news in these dark and uncertain times. I’ll take all the good I can get at the minute.