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

Don’t take this as too much of a detriment to the Wano arc, but chapter 1062 is one of the most exciting and enjoyable One Piece releases I’ve seen in years. Oda is clearly having the time of his life being free from the confines of Wano and Onigashima to design new characters and environments in a whole other style. The weaponised sea beasts and children’s toyboy sci fi world they live in are the kind of thing that have been exculsive to altered reality of colour spreads for so much of the series’ run, but can now be unleashed in actual panels. Even the cover story provides a huge and intriging development in the probable presence of Kuzan in Tottoland a few weeks ago. Germa’s Emotionless Excursion had been fun enough so far, but now I’m all in.

Franky’s wide-eyed enthusiasm at Vegapunk’s arrival is wonderful to see. The opening scene as a whole is great, both for deepening the Vegapunk mystery, giving us these increadible sea beasts, and giving some credit to the crew’s increasingly fearsome reputation. I love seeing Zoro and Robin recognised for the high level threats they are, especially when you can look back over the scene and see how ready for action they look even before it’s mentioned. But what, I wonder, is Zoro planning to demand of Vegapunk? Is it just to let them go and/or take them to Luffy’s group, or does he have something more specific in mind? I can’t think of anytime he’d shown an interest in technology previously, so could it have something to do with him being the Strawhat who interacted the most with Kuma back in the day? Or maybe something he picked up during the timeskip or in the offscreen portion of Wano’s epilogue. Most likely, it’s him just taking control of the situation.

But the real meat of the chapter is obviously what Luffy’s group gets up to. What can you even say about this scene. It’s gorgeously drawn, it’s funny, it’s creative, it doesn’t look like anything else coming out in the shonen world right now. I might have liked to see more from Jinbe throughout, but Bonney’s chemistry with Luffy and Chopper more than makes up for it.

I’d love for volume 105 to have a cover that draws on the spread of the island’s interior, like an updated version of what volume 83 did for Whole Cake Island’s environment. We’re about in the middle of this volume now, but I’d also be willing to go all in on “Adventure in the Land of Science” as the book’s title.

And then there’s the man of the hour, Vegapunk. Everything about this scientist raises more questions. Even working out how to refer to them is difficult. The fact that two out of six bodies drawn so far lean feminine might have suggested they were a woman all along, but Robin’s dialogue suggests Vegapunk is known (or at least presumed) to the world at large to be a man. While Lilith tries to act like an enemy, the larger story seems to be positioning them as an ally to the crew in the long term (and despite all the World Government atrocities their technology has enabled). Atlas even manages to drop some interesting philosophical arguments about the subjectiveness of reality. I’m really digging the number of levels this character is operating on.

Oh, and design-wise, I could take or leave Lilith as a standard Oda pretty girl design, but the Astro Boy vibes coming off of Atlas (hey didn’t old mate Atom actually have a character called Atlas too?) are top notch.

But what’s with the name and number discrepancy between the chapter and the explanation? I thought this would be one of those things like the recent bounty where a typo in the print release was fixed up for digital editions, but there it remains. Weird. A volume edition correction is a long way away. So maybe Oda’s actually setting something up here, some kind of Vega-clone switcharoo. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Finally, there’s Cipher Pol. I’m curious to see what the World Government’s reasons for cutting ties with Vegapunk are. We’ve known for a long time that they didn’t start out working for the Government, that their research was only assimilated after the arrest of MADS, so is it just that time is up on the deal they made then? Or did they discover something they shouldn’t have? Gone rogue? Or just outlived their usefulness? The World Government is pulling out stops it never has before and is showing an uncharacteristic willingness to upset the status quo in this post-Reverie world. All this said, I’m not convinced that Lucci is going to be the final boss of this arc. I’m curious to see how far he’s come since Ennies Lobby, but I can’t think of any reason to bet on him in a rematch. Only Stussy is untested, but she alone isn’t enough to carry an arc’s endgame battle.

The Seraphim might have been a candidate, but Lucci talks about the Kuma one like it’s somehow malfunctioning. Curious too that it looks so much older than the Hancock and Mihawk ones did. Like Kuma to the Pacifistas, he must be a prototype, or at least the first production model of the Seraphim. But that would mean these things can actually age and grow and mature, which is seemingly unlike their first-generation counterparts.

There’s a lot of lore and information to come in this arc, about Vegapunk, about the Seraphim, and about Devil Fruits and secrets of the world. I’m getting the vibe of something a little like Zou, a short arc with a ton of exposition and no real traditional final boss fight. Wherever it goes, this arc already has me in love with its setting and fascinated by its main supporting character in just a couple of chapters. I’m so excited to see where it all goes next.