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

Welp, that’s not where I expected the cover story to go. Pretty funny twist, but I’m stilling waiting on the big plot or lore thing that makes it all worthwhile. Lola and Chiffon’s reunion alone doesn’t feel like enough.

The handling of Kanjuro so completely offscreen is an odd choice. I’m not going to say he needed a particularly drawn out battle, but there could have been a way to show a bit more of it. Maybe instead of a group of random Beasts Pirates, Kan confronts the Scabbards either alone or with just his own paintings, so the montage of the gang fighting in the last chapter could have been more focussed on him. And you know, cut back in to the final hit landing rather than it already being done. Just changing that first panel of the chapter to one of Kiku coming through on the far side of him, the final attack just landed, or putting more evidence of it in the panels with her crying last chapter instead of using them for a cheap cliffhanger would make it feel a lot more like the battle really happened. But the bottom line is that Kanjuro was never shown as a fighter, not even when we did see him as an ally, and his part in the story is pretty close to done. If these are all the panels Oda can spare for him, so be it.

It’s hard to say if Kanjuro or Orochi will be back at this point. The opening acts of Wano were so Kurozumi-focussed it was easy to see them as the real villains rather than Kaido. Would it cheapen the real boss’s takeover to have them holding on. I could see something along the lines of Orochi’s extra heads going berserk without the influence of the main one and acting as a background source of chaos and threat to fodder while the right fights happen. Maybe an injured Kanjuro swoops in to finish him in a mutually-assured moment of death, closing the curtain on the Kurozumi dynasty once and for all. But that’s just a spitball idea for an arc that already has more than enough going on.

The Nami and Carrot moment is another one that has been handled oddly over the last two chapters. Last week it was really ambiguous whether they’d been beaten and left behind somewhere, or whether they were being dragged behind O-Lin or what. A panel or two might have been saved if they were shown in the hands of the Homies like this last week instead of making a mystery of it.

We spend the next few pages in what I assume will be the last bit of downtime for a while, building up to Momo’s big moment and making sure everyone is where they need to be for the big battle (while leaving a few like Sanji, Franky and Brook ambiguous so they can be played as wildcards when needed). How in-character that even with a mech to protect them, Usopp and Chopper have ended up in a storeroom, presumably to hide.

Momo’s memory of Luffy seems to reference chapter 701, but his talons getting in Luffy’s mouth wasn’t onscreen in the manga, and the wording is slightly different. “I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates one day” in chapter 701 vs “one day, I’m gonna be King of the Pirates” here. Oda’s mistake, or a quirk of the translation? I wonder if it’ll be changed for the volume release.

I don’t love Yamao as Luffy’s nickname for Yamato. It’s not quite different enough from his actual name, and doesn’t fir the English release’s stylings for Luffy’s other big nicknames. Traffy and Jaggy should make Yamato “Yammy” shouldn’t it? That said, I do feel validated that the Japanese behind the nickname suggests Luffy is respecting Yamato’s self-image and talking about him in masculine terms. Good on him.

And finally Momo gets his moment, shows his confidence and really starts becoming the man he was meant to be. From that moment on, Kaido’s fate is sealed, because we know there’s nothing that gets Luffy going more than a sincere show of conviction from someone without the strength to follow through personally. We know he’s gonna get right in there to back up the young Shogun’s words when no one else can. But as he explains to Yamato, it isn’t his fight. There’s others who’ve earned the chance to try first. And try they do. I really love how the Sunacchi thing has come together. It seemed like a throwaway moment early on, even with Kiku reacting in such a strong way when Momo said it, but bringing back the “surrender your name” part of the meaning right as Momo refuses to surrender his own is beautiful storytelling. Props to Oda. Of all the things in early Wano I was expecting to be super impressed by the payoff for, this was not one of them. Not much I can say about the final spread except that it’s absolutely gorgeous. Both in terms of story payoff and of the actual art with so many characters and moving objects all at once.

The ending obviously starts the battle, but leaves it wide open as to how it will progress. Kaido falling all the way to the party floor and starting to brawl side by side with Big Mom feels just as likely as him transforming mid-fall and flying around the roof with the Scabbards clinging to his back, spitting death as he circles. Either way, shit’s going down.