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

Pretty light chapter this week, albeit one with incredible art.

It was easy to expect Marco to be a deus ex machina for the ice oni plot, bring a fire doctor dealing with an ice virus, but thankfully he’s just being used to add some minutes on the timer rather than resolve things completely. Chopper may still get to do something for the plot! His attack name, Phoenix Pyreapple is an inspired pun as well. Unfortunately, Marco’s spread is by far the weakest one of the volume. Marco is drawn too small and sketchy to work as a focal point, so aside from the infected pirates in the foreground the page just looks like a vague spread of swirly lines. Doesn’t look bad, there’s just hard to read anything other than negative space out of most of it. I think this is one that will improve significantly in the colour version, where they can play with different hues in the flame and empashise the lighting.

The panel with Drake is a great show of the Onigashima battle damage continuity I talked about when I mapped the Performance Floor a few chapters ago. In the background of that one panel you can see the tower Zoro cut down when he first appeared, the hole in the wall Big Mom burst through when she arrived and the place where King and Sanji crashed during their little clash, all exactly where they’re meant to be relative to each other. Always love being able to catch this kind of attention to detail!

Jinbe overestimating the crew’s ability to not get lost, not start trouble and prioritise dangerous opponents over women has been a fantastic gag so far. His unwavering faith in the team despite how unfamiliar with them he is warms my heart.

Franky seems to have brought out the General Shield in his battle. Wonder if it was any more use against Sasaki’s goons than it was against Baby 5. It’s starting to look like we’re getting confirmed battle matchups as Sasaki reveals his devil fruit against Franky. An armoured dinosaur against an armoured pirate. Fits well enough. Not much more you can say besides that the art for the reveal is fantastic, and that’s going to be a reoccurring theme.

Black Maria looks great in her hybrid form. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the text introducing her fruit seems really light and hard to read. Just one or two shades of grey darker would make a big difference here. I have no comment on how Sanji’s handling himself so far. All I can do is hope Oda’s got a plan for this.

The fourth floor as a giant cat cafe is brilliant design-wise, and I’ll be interested to see what role that design plays in Jinbe’s fight against Who’s Who. All those very cat toy-like climbing perches we see in the bit with Jinbe and Luffy would give a cat a lot of mobility and highground advantage against someone like Jinbe, who thus far has seemed really heavyset and grounded. Who’s Who looks great in his cat form as well. The hint that he’s someone Jinbe’s seen before has interesting implications, but I’m not yet convinced he’s someone we the audience has met. He just doesn’t physically match up with anyone unaccounted for.

Ulti and Page One have made it outside the dome, but it’s not yet clear where they’ve burst through, why they think Usopp and Nami are out there, and where those two actually are relative to them. This is the only other kinda weak spread besides Marco’s one. These dinosaurs aren’t anything new, and for a pair of ancient monsters bursting through a wall, it’s not the most dynamic of panels. More space could maybe have been given to the panel showing a fallen Hihimaru. I’ve still got no idea what part of his body I’m meant to be seeing in that shot.

Yamato starts building up Ace’s time in Wano again. I guess it wouldn’t be too bad for the chapter 1000 event to centre around that. It looks like at least some of chapter 999 will be this flashback, given the creeping blackness in the gutters around that last panel. Maybe we get a chapter of flashback and in chapter 1000 we go back to the present just in time for Luffy to reach Kaido, or the battle matchups to be fully locked in with Odaboxes.

We’re so close to the big milestone! Assuming the site I used to use for getting things from Japan as opened up international shipping again, I might try to get my hands on the next two issues of Jump for my collection. Can’t wait!