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

Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this. I thought the month hadn’t been that long up until I started seeing evidence of spoilers floating around, then I realised how hungry I really was for more of this story.

A colour spread for the return from the month off was a given, but we also get a long-awaited new volume cover. I’m honestly not the biggest fan of this one. It’s a decent selection of moments, Big Mom’s absence notwithstanding, but the layout doesn’t quite work for me. It’s too empty in the middle for how busy it is at the bottom. I think it might have worked better if the whole thing was scooched up a few notches until the moon is close to centred on the logo, with Nika Luffy leaping in front of it. Then either space out Kaido, Kid and Law a tad further, or emphasise another character or two.

The image of Nika and the moon has already left a mark on the fanbase’s consciousness, so I get wanting to advertise it and slap some official colours on it as soon as possible, but just don’t think the bottom-heavy layout is all the way there.

The colour spread is pretty tame by Oda’s standards, but its simplicity goes a long way to sell how far Luffy has come. Look at our boy go! Seeing the way these characters are juxtaposed on the halves of the spread helped me realise the two pairs of opposing colours among the Four Emperors. Red and Blue on one side. Black and White on the other. I’ve never doubted that Blackbeard would be the series’ final boss, no matter what Sakazuki was up to or how many Im figures were introduced, and putting him and Luffy in direct opposition like this only makes me more certain.

But it really shouldn’t have been surprising. Oda has been pressing Blackbeard and Luffy as the same but inverted since Jaya.

I don’t think this means Shanks and Buggy will fight though. I’m interested to contrast them in this final stage of the story, given their connected origin, but I’m not vibing real conflict just yet.

Going into the actual chapter, it’s amazing how reliably the party-distracted capital was able to spot Aramaki’s approach and how quickly the Scabbards were able to mobilise. How many people here ho aren’t part of that group would be able to recognise a Navy admiral for the threat he is, given how closed off the nation is. But I suppose they would all be on high alert for any kind of move from the remnants of Kaido’s crew.

Oda uses Aramaki here to turn subtext into text, telling the readers outright the things about the state of the world he’s been hinting at for years. 170 member states out of millions of islands on the sea. Celestial-ranked nobles that operate on an entirely different set of rules even to regular nobility, only 50 world leaders – less than a third of of the World Government’s total membership – get to sit at the Reverie table, and of course we see regular nobles abusing their power over the common man all over the place. The whole world is a towering system of haves and have-nots, where the classes are divided not just by their means, resources and levels of luxury, but what laws and consequences are applied to them. And we can see now that it’s not a natural order, the people at the top are aware of the inequality built into the system and work to keep it there.

It’s easy to keep on living and not be too envious of those who stand above you when you can distract yourself with thoughts of “at least I’m not that guy” but on the flip side, it’s also easy to submit to exorbitant taxation and dehumanising political bargaining when there’s a lingering threat of being made into “that guy”.

Stop me if you’ve already figured out the real world stuff this applies to. Oda’s many things, but subtle isn’t one of them.

I wonder how the World Government feels about one of their top military officials saying the quiet part loud to the people of a nation they’re planning to take control of.

All the politics aside, this is just a magnificent set of pages as well. I absolutely love the two fist trees rising out of the ground here, a great and memorable touch. I’m sure Oda had a great time designing and drawing it all.

Momo’s doing great here. It really sunk in when Luffy asked him what else he could have to fear. And it doesn’t seem to be the only thing he picked up from Luffy. [spinny legs comparison] But dispite Oda making note of improved physical strength in Momo a few chapters ago, the facts laid out during the battle, that adulthood doesn’t instantly give him perfect technique or control over his powers holds true.

Do we dare compare Kaido’s response to Momo’s bite and Aramaki’s? Some will use it for powerlevel trolling, claiming it proves Aramaki is stronger than Kaido. Others will analyse, claiming that Kaido was perhaps struggling to keep his haki all the way up after so much fighting while Aramaki is coming in fresh and all juiced up after draining the wounded Beasts Pirates officers. I’m here to tell you it’s because dragon is super effective against dragon and only neutral against grass. Problem solved.

I’m very curious to see the what logic in asking only Yamato not to fight is. If it were all the Scabbards being asked not to stand down, that could be a new leader trying not to start a war, but I’m scratching my head over why it could be just Yamato.

And then we get Shanks! Shaaaanks! Is he making his move at last, or just teasing us again, as he’s been doing for 25 years now. I’ll admit, as exciting as his big declaration at the end is (and the follow up to Barto’s cover story), this is more of a Shanks recap than anything else. We’re not learning all that much new from his perspective of the Gum Gum heist. The dialogue surrounding the fruit remains vague enough that we still can’t know if the fruit is something Shanks was specifically looking for or if he knew its true nature. Remember that even after stealing the fruit, Shanks made at least one more voyage from Luffy’s town and returned, so his work in the East Blue wasn’t done yet.

There are some interesting tidbits here though. Who’s Who’s horns are apparently something he naturally has. What’s up with that? Shank’s ship retains its chapter one appearance, confirming it was upgraded or changed out at some point in the past dozen years. This might have been confirmed in a databook or something previously, but I wouldn’t have questioned it if the design had just been retconned as a relic of the simpler art style of the early days. We also see that not every member of Shanks’s current inner circle was present for chapter one. This makes sense, given how many random crew members we see there that don’t appear in the present and weren’t canonised in the volume 101 SBS. We saw in Oden’s flashback how much Whitebeard’s crew changed over the decades, so it seems fair enough Shanks’s group would shift too.

The need to hunt down Bartolomeo so Shanks can keep his standing is seemingly at odds with his philosophy from the opening chapter. Will we learn that this is just the weight of the years and knowledge on the captain’s shoulders, making the once-cheerful mentor figure cynical? Or will it be that his choice to only act to protect his friends has become more complex, with shows of weakness inviting attacks on his territory and more danger for people in it that he cares about? What will Luffy think of the change in him?

The New Marineford section of the chapter is where the juicy stuff is. We’ve spent three weeks in-universe in a country where no info flows in or out, and it seems we’ve missed a lot. Cobra killed, Kuma rescued, Vivi disappeared, Charlos unfortunately only nearly killed, trials and tribulations in the land of gods, a glimpse of how the Celestial Dragons who live above normal laws deal with conflict among their own. Oda gives us so much new information to chew on but at the same time holds so many details back. I am hungry for more of this.

I think it’s interesting that Cobra’s death would spark so much chaos. Of course the slaying of a Celestial Dragon is the kind of defiant act that spreads like wildfire through your average dystopia, but when Doflamingo revealed that the Nefeltaris were a World Government founding family who neglected to ascend I had figured that was a secret to the world. Like they were fully committed to the idea of the Celestial Dragons being descended from gods, and wouldn’t dare admit they just came from founders who had been normal royalty previously. Maybe the founders became deities in the act of doing the founding. That seems easy enough to make a religion out of.

Many Sabo detractors over the years have claimed with varying levels of fairness that he’s just Ace 2.0, and that the story hadn’t justified him as anything more than a way to partly bring Luffy’s brother back. I never want to hear any of that again. Sabo’s role as the face of a global uprising is one that Ace could never have filled. His legacy as Roger’s child, as much as he raged against it, made him ill-suited to capturing the public’s sympathy the same way. This truly feels like Sabo coming into his own.

And hot damn, catch that guillotine behind Sabo’s hype guy at the end. There’s even a bit of blood on it already, no messing around! We’re doing this revolution the old fashioned way. Given the decidedly french name of the World Government’s holy land, it’s pretty obvious where Oda’s getting his inspiration for the power to the people scenes.

I definitely don’t believe Sabo killed Cobra. I think it all has to do with Im’s attempt to erase a light from history, possibly Vivi. And I think he’s probably with Sabo right now. But that’s all low-hanging fruit as far as theories go.

I really don’t know what to expect from the next chapter. Any other part of the series, I’d tell you outright you’re a fool to think we’re coming back to global events as big as the revolutions or machinations as important as Shanks’s anytime in the next few months, maybe even within the year. Oda draws this kind of worldbuilding out and always leaves us wanting more. But this is the final saga. Maybe it’s time to start following up. Whatever’s to come, I’m so excited for the series to be back, and extremely pleased Oda has such a banger of a chapter waiting to return with.