You know what? This is enough to satisfy me for a month’s hiatus. It’s plenty. No complaints, and I hope Oda’s recovering smoothly from his eye surgery. Beams and everything.

We’re three for three of really likable Jump covers lately, and I really enjoy seeing characters other than Luffy share these things. I hope all these nice bits of art find their way into the volumes in one form or another. And hey, Luffy’s shorts seem to be a different shade here compared to the Onigashima orange ones. I guess this is the post-Wano outfit. The colour spread is a gorgeous bit of work as well with a lot of cool artistic flexing in the rippling reflections and slick water colour on the raincoats. Beautiful stuff.

The flashback wraps up in fairly short order with some expected confirmations and some big surprises. My read on Wapol’s bit with Morgans is that the king brought the scoops to the bird completely fresh. But if it wasn’t Morgans’ snail in the throne room, how did he get the picture of Sabo? And if it is all based on Wapol’s account (with Vivi’s input) how did Sabo end up blamed? Especially considering Morgans declined to work with Cipher Pol on the two big Reverie controversies. Something about Sabo’s accusation doesn’t add up here.

I really feel for Igaram in the montage of people looking for Vivi and Cobra. It’s a terrible situation and I hope the Alabasta squad didn’t make things worse for themselves in their desperation.

It’s interesting how the Elders note how surrounded by Ds Sabo is. I wonder what they’d think of Luffy trying to give him one when they were kids. But the real meat here, aside from the names and roles (we’re up to nine out of twenty Celestial Dragon names revealed now, but how many of the remaining eleven will there be room for in the story?), is this Mother Frame weapon being a Vegapunk weapon. Depending on who holds the keys, this could be the very thing that justifies such a big cutaway in the middle of the Egghead arc. I was never fully sold on the theories it was an Ancient Weapon, and this being the weapon’s first test firing closes a lot of questions about why such a thing wasn’t used sooner. We also a little later learn it isn’t anything as crazy as an orbital weapon or some long range blast from headquarters. The darkness behind the clouds was just ambiguous enough to leave doubts in chapter 1060, but now we know for certain this is a large, physical thing that has to get in place over its target. I’m caught between a traditional flying saucer and a death star for my design expectations. Maybe leaning toward the saucer based on this one panel from that first chapter.

And the frame/flame translation debate is just another part of this setup to keep an eye on.

The last few Seraphim were not a reveal I expected in the flashback but I’ll take it. Weird for the Crocodile one to still have his scar.

And for all my talk of ambiguous wording last week, we learn fairly completely that Nerona Imu was one of the original monarchs, and is probably a man as well, since he’s described as a king in the history books. Neat. Even though it doesn’t add a ton, I enjoy Sabo, Dragon and Ivan speculating about what it all means. We can sound a lot like that on the forums sometimes, can’t we? The Op Op immortality operation is the first place a lot of us went for Imu so it’s satisfying to see in-universe characters reaching the same conclusion. But that doesn’t mean they’re right! The scene ends with Ivan and Dragon convincing themselves that the new weapon is more likely to be an Ancient Weapon than one of Vegapunk’s machines, even though we the readers have already been told that isn’t the case. I think it’s always a nice humanising factor when characters are allowed to jump to wrong conclusions and get mistaken about their own world’s lore like this.

And then holy shit, that ending. Have to appreciate the historical irony of the Revolutionaries’ supply blockades leaving the nobles with nothing but cake. Let them eat it then. Garling makes quite an impression, both visually and in his ideology. And in being the ruler of God Valley. Since when did Celestial Dragons hold land and titles below those of Mariejoa? File that away as having something special about it we don’t know yet (or being a translation issue, as some are suggesting).

The Holy Knights having enough authority over the Celestial Dragons to execute one is shocking. I mean, I first pegged them as mediators for disputes among the world’s most untouchable group, but this is the next level. Even more shocking is the sentence having already been carried out. Of course in One Piece you have to take these kinds of things with a grain of salt, but that last panel paints a pretty bloody picture. No last words, no Kuma rescue after his climb, this character is gone. And the method as well – a scaffold and two men with blades has been shown as the standard so far, but here’s Mjosgard, crucified on a World Government symbol and seemingly done in by a firing squad. And so, the Celestial Dragons purge the sole redeemable figure from their ranks.

Despite how weighty all of this feels, I don’t think we’re at the end of volume 107 yet. Not until we’ve seen the Strawhats again, even if it’s only on the last page. Shame we couldn’t quite get over the finish line on this one before the hiatus though. If I recall correctly, volume 104 and the last break were the same way. What can you do?

And that’s it I think. A month of downtime, but we should have the volume 106 cover reveal and full release both in the coming weeks, so it’s not like there’ll be no One Piece to talk about. I’m going to try and keep a new review or essay coming out on the blog every Monday like usual, all different topics.