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

Back again for what feels very, very much like the penultimate chapter of Luffy and Kaido’s exhausting battle, moving all the pieces to their final destinations and reminding everyone of the emotional stakes. But first there’s the cover story, which suggests but does not explicitly show the obvious Vinsmoke solution. Interesting. Could be a big misdirect. Still isn’t Blackbeard any way you slice it though.

Kaido’s enormous, seemingly-magma coated final form is an incredible bit of art, one of the coolest things Oda’s drawn. There was a moment where I felt a little disappointed that it’s so similar to King’s final attack, but it actually makes for an interesting show of King’s loyalty to Kaido for saving him, that he would develop moves in his captain’s image. Kaido’s tail burning off the tip of Onigashima’s other horn is a return to symmetry we’re nearly fifty chapters overdue for.

I really like that Luffy’s training with Hyogoro is still relevant in this final stage. The two big upgrades – conqueror coating and Gear Five – that came up during the Onigashima fight quickly overshadowed the skill that it took all of Act 2 to figure out. All those chapters might have felt wasted if we didn’t have a moment here to make it completely clear that projecting haki off your body is a totally unique skill that hasn’t been folded into the CoC coating, and without Kaido pulling out an ultimate move that would slag Luffy’s arm without it. I don’t know if I’ll ever consider Wano to be the series’ most graceful arc structurally, but Oda’s commitment to remembering the fine details and bringing them full circle is forever admirable.

I don’t think there’s much really worth commenting on in the flashbacks here aside from how grim the scene with the noose is. It’s all been shown before. It can feel a little redundant going over it again from a weekly perspective, but every panel adds weight to what’s coming next week. This chapter should breeze by on the reread. It is nice seeing the “fool of a lord” comment turned back on Orochi, if nothing else. I wasn’t even expecting that to come up again, but Oda brings it full circle just the same.

Oden having a son does feel like something Kaido should know, even discounting the likelihood he wouldn’t have been able to hear the face hag’s words in the heat of battle. Maybe it’s a translation issue? Like the original line is less ‘so he has a son’ and more ‘so they’re going for his son,’ both of which could be expressed through just ‘his son, huh?’ and extrapolated. Also on the translation front, it seems weird that sound effect behind the Scabbards as they flee Oden’s execution in the flashback is translated as the dramatic Doom and not the gunshot sound Blam when it seems to be representing Oden getting shot by Kaido.

Orochi being finally slain by Denjiro is what I and many others have been saying for like half this arc. Having the Scabbard who spent years keeping his head down in the monster’s employ be the one to deliver the finishing blow (as he must have dreamed of doing so many times over the decades) is exactly the right ending. Credit where it’s due, though, I’ve been wondering for weeks what the point was in keeping Orochi around as long as he lasted, but timing it alongside the lanterns going upwas the right choice. From a narrative perspective, we all know Kaido is and always was the last boss, but to the people of Wano, Orochi is the face of their oppression. That he falls only after they wish for it makes for a great dramatic moment.

I think this all ends next week. Maybe Kaido’s defeat isn’t confirmed by the narration until 1050, but Oda is leaning too hard on this giant fist for it not to be the finishing move, and there’s no way it’s not coming down next week. Most of the chapter probably focuses on Momo finding his courage and shifting the island, with a page or two to finish the sequence of the water flowing through the castle and out onto the Performance Floor, but then we wrap this bad boy up. Apoo and Inbi and that last CP0 guy can scuttle away and be fully dealt with in the post-battle section, like Caribou was on Fishman Island. Kaido’s flashback, whatever kind of one he gets, can come as he blacks out like it did for King. But all of the story’s momentum right now, especially with this week’s straight up anticipation chapter, is behind that fist and its imminent fall.