Well the breaks are killing me and I’ve officially given up on trying to parse Egghead’s structure with all the cutaways, but the larger conflict here is building up in a satisfying way in this (likely) middle stage of volume 108.

Seeing Kuro on the cover is cool! Hopefully the live action has put it in Oda’s head to do more moments like these with the ancient East Blue characters. Give me anything to reassure me that Gin’s still in this thing, Oda, anything.

I really enjoyed the pre-battle atmosphere of this chapter throughout, from the radio negotiations that are more of an excuse to try and trick the enemy into revealing information, to the commanders callously weighing up acceptable losses, to the building tension as the order to go to battle stations moves down the blockade of ships before the operation commences. The part of me that’s been really into Gundam the past few months enjoys the militarism of it all. It makes me excited to see how this battle to take the island plays out, even if we’re more likely to skip most of it in favour of the Frontier Dome’s events.

I’m glad to see Lucci’s just biding his time and doing some spying on the side. It wouldn’t have made sense for him to have had a full on change of heart at this stage. Although why no one thought to cuff him again after the fighting was done is beyond me. Curiously, he seems to confirm that Shaka and Pythagoras are for real dead. I’ll believe it when the Stella says they can’t just be restored for a Punk Records backup. Another really nice moment in this scene is Nami jumping in for Robin’s sake when York mouths off about Ohara. Love to see the crew giving a shit about each other.

The three panel flashback of Luffy and S-Snake is weak coverage of how the death game situation got turned around. I hope there’s more for us to see than that. Especially considering the bubble gun turned out to be the ultimate solution for them after S-Snake shrugged it off so easily the first time. I’m ambivalent about the idea of S-Snake inheriting Hancock’s crush on Luffy. Could probably have seen it coming with S-Shark knowing Fishman Karate, but it was never the funniest gag or most compelling character trait even in Hancock, so eh.

So, Elbaf, at last. We’ve been waiting decades for this one, but I’m also not holding my breath. Fishman Island was the “next destination” for years before we actually got there, and ditto with Wano being signposted as the site of the next big event for so much of the New World. Anything could happen during the battle and escape from Egghead, so I’m not going to get my hopes too high until the crew are actually departing by sea.

Vegapunk’s disbelief of Franky’s cola power is the kind of thing I hope to see more of if the doctor’s actually out to spend some time with the crew. Maybe he embraces the cola power and makes some unsolicited upgrades to the Sunny or the Soldier Dock or even Usopp’s workbench.

Borsalino, last chapter’s ‘cog in the machine,’ surprised me by putting his own spin on the orders here. He’s a hard man to figure out, but so interesting to watch. I don’t think that his respect for Sentomaru’s convictions made for a very long battle though. You can see the light particles coming up past Luffy’s face in the final battle. He’s coming straight up. And I’m excited to see it! We’re two Emperors down, it’s time the Strawhats show what they can do against an Admiral. The Borsalino rematch I think is just the kind of thing to really put some emotional oomph and fan investment back into Egghead after so long away from it.

Hopefully this is the last break before we get back on a normal schedule. There’s a lot of potential in the next few chapters, we just need them at a steady pace like they used to be. This post was honestly a challenging one to write, even with a lot of things I like in the chapter, just because I’m so out of my One Piece rhythm.

But hey, the live action drops before the next chapter, so that’s something to discourse about in the meantime.