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

The synergy between the cover story and the main chapter is something I’m really enjoying lately. There’s a great contrast between the scientists working to mass-produce weapons of slaughter on the cover and Vegapunk’s commentary calling it the “lab for peace” on the next page. No wonder that group couldn’t stick together. You do have to wonder how the anime is going to handle the cover stories getting more and more important with their current choice to ignore them entirely.

I think we’re being set up for some tragedy surrounding Bonney and Kuma soon. While Oda jumps aroudn from scene to scene a lot, he doesn’t usually play two in parallel the way he does this week, cutting back and forth between them so rapidly. Bonney is desperately doing what she thinks will save her father, all the while his real body attempts its doomed ascent of the Redline, only to get torn down by the Marines. Kuma’s tough, but he’s obviously not functioning at 100% here. I’m not betting in favour of his plan. And then we’re set up to see Bonney absorbing his memories and seeing the truth – the reasons he made a deal with the Government after they made him out to be a tyrant, why he abandoned Bonney, and what he’s ultimately aiming for – right before his main body is either detained or outright destroyed.

Getting abstract with the Paw Paw Fruit’s powers has some great storytelling potential. My first thoughts were of “feeding” devil fruits to inanimate objects – could the ability factor be pushed between the fruit or a user and the item? – and of a way to show the Void Century and Ancient Kingdom directly – did an ancient user of the fruit leave their own memories behind to be found?

The traitor/ally mystery deepens with Shaka claiming the dome only malfunctioned and the suggestion that it was Stussy that Vegapunk called into action. While she obviously has some insider knowledge of Egghead systems, we can see her with the Cipher Pol group at the moment the dome goes down, looking as surprised as anyone, so we can be pretty sure she didn’t do it. There might be more here, but honestly I could still see Oda saying it genuinely was a malfunction that happened just to keep the plot moving.

Sneaking the Seraphim up is a little cheap either way though. There’s not technically a contraction in it, we don’t see them down the bottom after the dome flickers, but there still should have been some suggestion they were moving in one of the wider shots of Lucci’s group flying up.

Lilith and Edison’s plan to regain control of the Seraphim feels reckless to me. After what happened to Atlas, I don’t like their odds. But it’s still so hard to say what direction this arc is going to go for its climax, I wouldn’t want to commit to any one answer on the Seraphim’s role.

Okay, Kaku is awakened. Sure, why not. We definitely need to learn a bit mroe about what awakening is and what benefits it actually grants in the near future, especially for Zoans. The choice to give them flaming koma-hair and wreaths of black fire is probably going to come around to bite Oda. He got away with leaving haki a mystery then acting like everyone always had it because it was invisible to those not in the know. The reader could fill in the blanks of who they thought it made the most sense to have or not have it before the timeskip. Awakening does not allow the same benefit of the doubt. Adding a visual cue quashes theories that it’s just a strength boost and the Beasts Pirates were using theirs without talking about it. The wreath of flames/smoke muddies things as well. Oda’s used them too often as a plain signifier of power. Luffy wasn’t Awakened yet for Gear Four, but had a smoke one for Boundman and a flaming one for Snakeman. Enel and Caesar, off the top of my head, used them in their elemental forms. Plus Paramythia Awakenings not having any visual of their own that we know of. It’s all just a bit messy in my opinion.

The Stussy reveal is cool though. I’ve thought for years that Patrick Redfield’s Vampire Model Bat Bat Fruit was too fun an idea to stay locked away in the non-canon videogame world. She’s been a fascinating presence since her Whole Cake Island introduction, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s done with her now that there’s an even more fascinating clone backstory attached.

The amount of people still tying Bakkin in comment sections across the internet when the context here makes it crystal clear that the name was meant to be Buckin all along (with the official release even getting it right from the start) is a show that most fans care more about which translation they saw first than they actually do about accuracy. I think if there’d been even one early scan that went with Zolo over Zoro we wouldn’t be able to get people to stop saying it today.

Anyway, really great chapter to come back on after the break with some cool reveals that set up even cooler ones in the coming weeks. Hopefully we get a few chapters in a row now that the new year break season’s over.