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

It took a while to get to the crew fights for this arc, and a lot of people were worried after Nami’s clash with Ulti underperformed, but I think it’s safe to say after these past three chapters that it was overall worth the wait. Jinbe, Franky and now Robin’s rights have been delightful, each one making the most of a small amount of screentime, showing off all kinds of interesting and creative powers.

I don’t have much to say on the topic of Yamato’s fruit. I’m not familiar enough with the different mythologies involved to theorise or speculate better than people who’ve already talked about it. It really speaks to his strength to go head to head with Kaido like this for so long. I’ll be interested to see the colours and animation on the breath attack when the anime gets that far, to see how they distinguish it from the fire moves we’ve seen before. Hell, will the wreath of fire on his shoulders also be a different colour?

The hard cut to the illusion move is a strange one. It never gets explained how Black Maria managed this – is it her fruit or something inherent to her, like the illusions sometimes seen alongside Brook’s music? How did she know to make figures from Robin’s past, or is the illusion more hallucinatory in nature, and Robin filled in the gaps herself? It’s also the second time a fake revival has been used in this battle, but at least this one wasn’t an end-of-chapter cliffhanger. Foreshadowing for visions of the dead at the end of the festival in the Capital, perhaps?

Oh well, I still enjoyed Robin’s to-the-point handling of it and the bonding moment with Brook it created.

Tenjo Kudari finally becoming a named character means my Where’s Wally guide is out of date already. Thanks a lot, Oda.

I’m looking forward to the seedy SBS question that asks where Black Maria found the time to cover her chest in the middle of a fight. Snapping a bra on would be one thing, but wrapping it up like that had to have taken some time. Maybe she used her webs.

The choreography of this fight is really fun, with both Robin and Black Maria ending up hanging from the roof with the floor burning. It gives the battle a unique verticality, especially with one of them upside down. And what’s with Robin’s arm in the panel where she first throws out the spider net? It looks like it splits into a bunch of smaller arms instead of having the extra limbs spawn on top of existing skin. Could this be a new application of her power?

Breaking Brook off on his own at this late stage is an interesting choice, especially with no noteworthy opponent for him to take instead. I did like him using his ability to leave his body offensively. Hope the leftover underlings are enough for him to show more new skills, because he definitely deserves that chance.

Robin’s defence of Sanji was a nice show of Strawhat comradery, but that still doesn’t mean I’m happy with Sanji’s performance in that scene or the overall direction of his character. People are making a big deal over the possible translations of the wings line but I can’t see any way they could have captured every nuance of the Japanese version without being extremely awkward. Plus, there’s a much, much funnier translation debate happening in with My Hero Academia this week that’s a lot more fun to focus on.

The giant Robin in the final page of the scene is amazingly cool though, and I can’t wait to see what she does with it in the next chapter.

Absolutely zero shocks in Luffy’s scenes as Momo reveals the obvious way he and Shinobu survived their fall and Luffy demands flight, as has been expected for a long time. A necessary step to have on screen, but it can’t help feeling very obvious. Caribou’s presence is an odd one in the final pages. I have no idea what relevance he could possibly have to what comes next.

The crew battle portion of the arc is developing really well after a slightly rough start. I assume we’re getting the end of Robin and Brook’s battles next week, leaving about half the volume for the rest of the fights. I still think there’s good odds of Oda trying to wrap up at the very least everything except King and Queen’s fights in volume 101 and use most volume 102 to rush toward the conclusion of the battle. It’s rough knowing there’s another break so close after the next chapter but the story feels like it’s got enough momentum at this point that it won’t affect the reading experience too much. Sometimes these periods with break after break have a bad way of lining themselves up in the already long-feeling musical chairs and running around sections of their arcs and dragging them down hard.