Well colour me surprised that we’re not just continuing straight on with the scene that ended the last chapter but going into what seems to be a full-fledged, multi-chapter Reverie flashback. This is not guaranteed of course – most flashbacks end mid-chapter with the black panel gutters fading back to white, but there were also points in Zou where you can see a black-gutter flashback run right to the end of a chapter and the first panel of the next chapter is right back to white gutters and present day. Anything could still happen next week, but it seems like we’ll keep going with this plot thread. This is most likely the seventh chapter of volume 107 though, and the run of cutaways started in the (probable) second chapter. We’re getting dangerously close to spending a whole volume away from the Strawhats and – as I’ve said repeatedly – it feels like we broke from their story mid-sentence. I don’t know if this structure will stand the test of time.

I really enjoyed seeing a more grounded strategic side of the Revolutionaries this week. The steps taken to besiege and starve out the Celestial Dragons make a lot of sense. I can’t imagine it’s easy to grow food in such rocky terrain at such extreme altitudes and that is a perfectly pragmatic thing to take advantage of. I’d be interested to see the mood inside Mariejoa right now, how much the Roswalds and Charloses of the ruling class are leaning on the Elders over reduced rations.

Sabo’s determined acceptance of Cobra’s death as a step toward his idea of the greater good is a surprisingly morally grey choice for his chapter, and one that I think offers a lot of depth to both him and the Revolutionaries as a whole. And it definitely feels like something neither Luffy or Ace would ever have said, which helps him stand out from the shadows of his siblings. I’ve expressed disappointment in the past that writing the Revolutionaries to only be against “bad kings” rather than the monarchist system that enables them kinda defangs their rhetoric and goals, but moments like this – where there is this event that I feel sad about because I knew Cobra and don’t want to see Vivi hurt by his death and we have Sabo taking the unsympathetic stance of ‘I’m okay with that for the sake of my goals’ – that restore that feeling of more complicated politics and help me trust Oda has a plan for it all.

People were getting really worked up over the Holy Knights thing when the spoilers and scans came out for this one. Personally, I’m astonished at how much of a nothingburger they ended up being in the chapter. The silhouettes seem varied enough that I’m guessing Oda has an idea of their designs already. I guess that one in the middle kinda looks like Shanks. More the sword than anything else, I think. Sure, Film Red implied Shanks might be the wayward child of a Celestial Dragon family, and yeah there’s fun theory potential in it being a sibling or something that met with the Elders during the Reverie, but literally none of that is in the chapter. Could still be true, but it’s not here.

The idea of these guys being mobilised as a real threat to the Revolutionaries in the field is an interesting one. From their first mention in chapter 1054 I’d figured this lot was more for mediating disputes between Celestial Dragon families and keeping the peace among the highest authorities in the world, that no one else could possibly keep in line.

I think some people are being a tad premature predicting these guys to be Imu’s boss crew or whatever. A lot of build up with the Marines would need to be thrown aside for these guys to become the main fighting force that represents the World Government against the Strawhats in the endgame, and we’re all getting very presumptuous about the future roles and powers of a group that have literally been mentioned twice in nearly 1100 chapters. Execution is everything, but we don’t even know what Oda’s trying to execute yet! Literally zero information. I’ll wait and see, thanks.

The Revolutionaries get a great showing here. I love Karasu from a power and design perspective. The idea that he’s just got a normal elemental logia but is adept enough at using it that he makes his transformation into theme-fitting crow shapes, which he can even talk out of, is an absolute game-changer. I want to see more logias using their fluid bodies to show of personal animal motifs and other wild forms! This guy is the only one using his logia correctly. I know we like to speculate that logia Awakenings are a permanent shift to the environment, but Karasu is actually out here doing things no one else with his kind of fruit is doing.

Morley is absolutely out of proportion compared to his first appearance here, but the spread is cool enough that I don’t really care. Going back to chapter 1054 to double check that first Holy Knights mention also let me rediscover a panel which makes a fun parallel with the nobles bickering about collateral damage and CP0 musing about the admirals being held back in the latest chapter.

And speaking of, I’m not the biggest fan of all of CP9 making the jump to CP0. It’s not awful, but it might have been more fun to spread them out, some of them ending up in different divisions or even going their own way after Spandam’s betrayal. Kind of like how most of Baroque Works rediscovered their original dreams and left. Oh well.

As final thoughts on the start of this flashback I have to wonder if we’ll learn anything about Bonney and Kuma in this sequence that will tie immediately back into the Egghead plot. It’s certainly a possibility, and I absolutely love Vivi standing up to Lucci here. It does feel like more setup than substance, but that increases my confidence we’ll be exploring this part of the past for at least a couple more chapters. The original Reverie chapters made for one of the most explosive and exciting times to be a One Piece fan back in 2018, feeling like we were getting more plot and lore in one go than we had for years. If we’re really going back for the unabridged version right now the next month or two could be huge. Hopefully next week we’ll get a clear idea of how far down the rabbit hole Oda intends to take us.