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

If this turns out to be the final chapter of volume 99, it’s a pretty underwhelming note to end on after the extremely artistically impressive and exciting rooftop showdown. If it wouldn’t have made the book too short, I would have said the last one was a perfect place to leave off. Maybe we’re going to get 11 chapters for the first time in a while, just to get a better chapter in the end.

I had to go back to the earlier chapters to check if Tama’s power had always been translated to millet dumplings in the official. Kibi dango had just been too reinforced by the community, I guess. I don’t share the doom and gloom feelings a lot of others have about this development. Its been inevitable for a long time. It seems to only work on Gifters. We’ve been told there are only 500 Gifters, which is less than 2% of the 30,000 enemies on Onigashima. The control doesn’t seem to overwrite the Gifter’s real personality or cast them into some kind of Get Out sunken place, it just shifts their loyalties (which is still a violation, don’t get me wrong, but far from the borderline evil complete mindwipe others are saying it is). It’s a necessary development that brings back and pays off on earlier setup and contributes to the scales gradually tipping in the heroes’ favour. It’s good to see Daifugo again as well. He’s a bit part, but I really like his character design.

Franky’s fight in this chapter didn’t quite work for me. Love seeing the crew fight, but compared to the spectacle and readability of the last few chapters, this is weak. Unlike the Kaido fight, which gives its huge main enemy space to breathe, the panelling here is incredibly cramped and doesn’t always scan well. We don’t see how Tama’s Gifters disengage the armoured squad from Franky’s legs, and as a result I’m not sure who it is that Sasaki charges through on the page 10-11 spread. His own guys? Tama’s ones, who she just kamikaze’d to save Franky? (oh wow maybe there’s more of an ethical image here than I thought) A mix of both as they fought? We almost need a visual clue to tell who’s been dumpling’d and who hasn’t.

Also it looks like Shueisha didn’t scan the page properly. Where did this panel border go?

I liked seeing Nami deal a bit of damage to Ulti. After skipping to her and Usopp already being beaten before, having some of the back and forth onscreen is welcome. The need for stronger lightning implies she wants to take Zeus back, but it’s hard to see that happening now. I’d rather she pull out something new Usopp invented or find something in the environment to use to up her voltage and win the fight that way. Keep Nami fighting smart, not just taking Big Mom’s power again!

Sanji is doing Sanji stuff again. I don’t care for this part of his characterisation, but I’ve said it all before. I’m done hoping for him to get over it. I could live with him not hurting women if he found other ways to dispatch them and worked around the issue, but here he is, easily beaten. Again. At least his vote of confidence in Robin is a good moment. Hell, the idea that Robin might go up against Black Maria is a pretty exciting one. I just wish we didn’t have to go through this to get there.

The location of the Scabbards is really unclear. We’re told “castle exterior” in the same panel they’re placed on the second floor of the castle. Black Maria says her area is connected to where they are, and the castle isn’t connected to any other structures, so in what way can the Scabbards possibly be exterior? Is this a translation issue?

King seems to be fighting at ground level in the middle of the Performance Floor. Likely making good on the threat of the executives wiping out hundreds of samurai at a time.

The obvious solution to for the Scabbards’ helper is Hyori. The size, shape, emotions expressed and choice to use beng instead of doom for the sound effect don’t really allow it to be anyone else. For a moment I had hope it would be the striped-kimono stranger who showed up with Marco and Neko (after having tea with Crocus), but the shape doesn’t look like a match. I honestly can’t tell how many of the people saying Enel are memeing. Some of them seem pretty serious about it.

So yeah, hate to be negative, but this is definitely the weakest chapter we’ve had in a while, and it definitely leaves a bad taste as the potential end of a volume. Fingers crossed we can get back to the high standard set by the last few weeks in the next one.