I’m on around my third chapter’s worth of saying let’s get back to Egghead already, but Oda keeps giving me things I’m not asking for that manage to greatly entertain me regardless. I’m starting to wonder how much of volume 107 we’re going to spend away from the main plot at this point. If volume 106 balloons to 12 chapters we could see this one having a single chapter of Egghead for the York reveal, followed by at least half a volume’s worth of the rest of the world.

How typical of Oda, to tease at Jump festa this idea of “I hope no one dies!” as he starts setting up this huge endgame with big name characters making their moves, and the first one to bite it is… T Bone! I don’t think anyone could have seen that coming. It has a similar energy to Ashura and Izo’s deaths, but feels like far, far less of a copout. Still, T Bone was pretty likable as Marines went, and a long-haul character who’s kept making cameos past his first appearance for longer than I’ve been reading the series. I appreciate Sengoku and Tsuru’s conversation on the topic, with the self-awareness about the purpose of bounties inspiring betrayal by the common folk, especially in impoverished areas. What they miss is the high likelihood of the World Government’s Heavenly Tribute creating so much of the poverty that made this tactic so effective in the first place. But if they could connect those dots they might stop being Marines, right?

What’s with the black line across T Bone’s pic in the paper though? I could see it being just a weirldly drawn fold in the page, and it’s not really how I think Oda would depict an attack happening in a still photograph.

The man we see with Cross Guild in the next scene doesn’t look like a match for a Vice Admiral in regular circumstances (which I know has some thinking T Bone faked his death to give him the reward, but that feels cheap to me) but Sengoku alluded repeatedly to backstabbing before, and it would be just like what we know of T Bone to trust in the good in people and let his guard down. I’m inclined to think he really did it, but the line about the cause of death being withheld early in the chapter gives me pause. Perhaps they just didn’t want it to get out that he’d been assassinated by a civilian and give Cross Guild the advertising. If it did happen, the method would have to have been completely without honour, but when you look at the panel of his starving family, you can see how much of a hard choice that would make for the guy.

It’s very interesting to me that Buggy says the guy who killed T-Bone has made himself into a “champion of evil” (or “charisma of evil” if you want a more awkward translation that I don’t think uses the word ‘charisma’ properly in English but whatever), which you might remember being the same thing Trebol claimed he and the other executives raised Doflamingo to be after they recognised his potential as a boy.

You have to wonder where Buggy picked up the phrase from.

The Buggy gags are fun, but they lead into a pleasantly surprising moment of character growth for the guy as he, out of all the pirates present, becomes the one to remember the importance of ambitious dreams. We see explicitly that despite all the bickering Buggy’s affection for Shanks was genuine, which led into real disappointment when their pirating goals diverged. And I think he actually does prove himself as the leader he’s been made out to be in this way that he manipulates the far stronger former Warlords into following his agenda instead of their own using his sway over the crew. Very piratey move.

I feel as we get further in that Oda is using these cutaways to set up each of the Emperors’ runs at the One Piece. Shanks and Blackbeard get decisive wins over the captains with the Poneglyph rubbings. Buggy gets to renew his determination and get us all thinking about how much second-hand info he might have picked up from being so close to the last guy who claimed the throne. This is Oda putting pieces where they need to be for the final race to the treasure.

The question becomes if the Egghead Incident will give Luffy his own chance to fully declare his candidacy to the world, or if we’re taking the defeat of Kaido to be that moment for him.

The newly named Revolutionaries (only newly named, they’ve been hidden in the background of older chapters) are a set of fun designs. I think Ahiru is my favourite. You have to wonder what kinds of weapons are in that arm. And if maybe Lindbergh built it for her, despite her not being his subordinate. Jiron is seen literally eating a telescope, which makes me wonder if he’s got a Devil Fruit power to be revealed at a later date. Something similar to Wapol’s powers, apparently. Far from the first adjacent ability.

Sabo’s reunion with Koala is a sweet moment, and I’m happy to see poor Moda made it out alive. That Lulusian explosion was big enough I was actually wondering if the bit parts from the island were gone forever, but Oda will do as he does.

It took me a bit of looking to find the “three noise” signal Sabo references here. I was expecting to find it floating through the air like normal sound effects, so the first couple of times I scoured chapters 1058 and 1060 for it I totally missed it being right there in Sabo’s speech bubble, with Dragon reacting to it and everything. The official release’s typesetting also makes it look more like two noises than three, but the original Japanese has the sounds looking more intentionally distinct from each other.

I’ve given up on trying to say with any confidence where the story is headed next week, but I know I’m not holding my breath for Sabo’s full Marijoa explanation right away. It sure could happen, I’d love to see it after having this event sitting in the background for so long, but it would be very like Oda to leave us hanging again. But even if we are cutting back to Egghead, that’s still giving me something I’ve been wanting, so that’s cool too. We’ve been getting the Reverie in drips and drabs since 2018, we can wait another few months to get back to this scene if we have to.