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

This was another truly great chapter full of really surprising character interactions and some big, intriguing lore developments. It’s strange though, despite the curtains falling two chapters ago, most of these latest chapters has felt more like the post-battle global update and tying up of loose ends than it has the building up of an actual new arc. In my mind, the Wano saga already includes the Reverie as something as a prologue before the first curtain, so maybe the current chapters can be an epilogue after the final one.

(The apparent reintroduction of the crew for a jumping-in point in the last chapter is the one thing that doesn’t totally fit this line of thinking, but that’s what you get trying to break an ongoing story trying to balance appeal to longterm readers with accessibility for new ones – there aren’t always clean breaks that make the starts and ends of arcs fully contained.)

I thought we were done talking about Yamato for a while, but once again I get what I want in the strangest way possible. First he doesn’t join, but the justification is weak and the character arc non-existent. Now, we see the character arc, but it’s wedged in awkwardly long after the fact. And that’s a shame because in a vacuum, I really like the scene. Yamato choosing not to abandon Wano and wanting to put it ahead of his own desire to adventure is exactly the kind of acknowledgement of Oden’s failings I’ve been hoping for. Like Momo waiting for the opportune moment to open the country instead of doing it right away, Yamato can honour his legacy and will without following his exact footsteps.

So I got what I wanted. And future rereads of Wano’s endings are going to go down smoothing knowing what’s coming. But I don’t think the way Oda went about it has paid off. The shock value of the fakeout wasn’t worth the awkward way he had to circle back to the real reasoning, at least in my mind. I wouldn’t have done it this way, in any case.

Marco departing for Sphinx makes me feel like it’s not the Strawhats’ next destination. His goodbye to Luffy, passing on Ace’s pride in him, has the vibe of an exit from the story, at least until the final battle.

Hancock’s flashback here gave me actual Marineford vibes from the sheer chaos of the battle and the amount of big names we see going head to head and showing enormous feats of strength. Even more exciting is that the big names here are characters we know far more personally than most of the Marineford heavy hitters. I don’t think anyone had a three-way battle between Hancock, Koby and Blackbeard on their One Piece bingo cards. It really is something else to see.

The Seraphim are a development I absolutely love. It feels like things that were hinted at for years are finally coming together. Bloodline element research, cloning, autonomous pirate-hunting androids with knock-off devil fruit powers, the gigantification of children, research on Lunarians, the power of the Seven Warlords – all these precedents set across so many shady scientist characters come together to make the Seraphim a logical extension of the existing plot.

And the questions that remain about how these things were set up are even more intriguing. When and how were the Warlords’ bloodline elements collected? Was it done discretely or was it part of the signup? Are samples taken from prisoners in Impel Down as well. Because of Borsalino’s laser, we know high level Navy guys aren’t above making donations, so who else from that group was used? Is Blackbeard on file? We know Vegapunk was able to replicate Kaido’s fruit from his bloodline elements, so presumably he would be able to see any of the Warlords’ fruits in their genetics too, but does that mean he was able to replicate them as well? What are the limits on collecting bloodline elements from corpses? I think it would be smart to make them unable to clone Roger or Ace, for example, but maybe if Rocks’ corpse had been preserved similar Oars’, it could be a fun way to bring him into the story. Whatever Oda has planned, I’m completely on board for the ride.

It stands out to me that Blackbeard instantly recognises the Lunarian traits in the Seraphim. That’s some pretty hush-hush stuff with big historical implications. What does he know?

And speaking of the Seraphim/Lunarian thing, hopefully they retain the tradeoff between durability and speed established in Zoro and King’s fight. Despite all the time spent setting that aspect of the Lunarian race and having Zoro work it out, I didn’t feel like it went anywhere at the time. But if it was laying the groundwork for future Seraphim battles, that’s a lot more interesting.

As fun as his arrival is (and terrifying, with the conversation between Vasco and Devon), I do have to wonder about Blackbeard’s actual plan. Hancock’s fruit has the potential to be incredibly broken in the right hands, but did he really not know he doesn’t have those? He could maybe give it to Maki or Tori, the girls he was hanging with in the first Wano intermission (given that the Vivre Card databook canonised them as members of the crew), they seem cute enough to get a little use out of it. Or maybe, given how easily Hancock would be able to take out two of his officers and so many others, he just wanted to take a powerful fruit out of the hands of any potential rivals. There’s no shortage of next stops for someone who wants to take nigh-unstoppable fruits off the board. Too bad for Sugar in that case.

Rocky Port gets more and more interesting with each mention. We know Law “masterminded” it, but now we’re hearing Blackbeard was involved too. Would Blackbeard consider Law someone who helped him out like he does Koby, or were they on opposite sides of whatever happened? Imagine Blackbeard reaches out to Law for an alliance because of their connection. How’s that for a crackpot teamup for the final stage of the story?

Shakuyaku’s reveal is one of those great ones that fits right into place as soon as it’s mentioned, even though I never saw it guessed. Yeah, we were told the previous empresses died, but it’s such an easy leap of logic to say they faked their deaths to chase love (rather than abdicating and risking Kuja unhappy with the new regime coming to find them and try to drag them back or some other similar issue) that I have a hard time seeing that as a contradiction at all.

Koby’s kidnapping is a very exciting development. Is Blackbeard just planning to sell him to Buggy for the bounty? It would be a good way to start actually showing what the Marines are worth to Cross Guild. But he seemed amicable to him over the way Rocky Port played out. Maybe Blackbeard is trying to recruit a man on the inside or ally with elements of the Navy in some other way for his own plans (not that Koby is likely to play along) or just manipulate the World Government with a hostage.

Oda has been absolutely on a roll since the curtains closed on Wano. I’m looking forward to more of these kinds of unpredictable vignettes of the world at large for at least another chapter before we circle back to Koby or Sabo’s big cliffhangers. I couple of weeks ago, I was disappointed that Oda was being slow setting up the next destination. Now, I just want more of exactly what we’re getting here.