At this midpoint of volume 108, we get a short chapter without much to say except how enjoyable this current battle is. Gear Five has really taken the shackles off and goes a long way to silence any who thought the endgame fights would devolve into haki power scaling.

I love Borsalino’s expression as Luffy winds up to throw him away. He really is just down to see what happens next, it’s hilarious. And very interesting to see Luffy has both the power and the mindset to try and end a fight by just lobbing a dude off the island and into the sea. Of course we’ll never see it happen to an enemy who can’t easily make it back, but I still like seeing it.

Things are developing quickly here, which is great to see. It’s easy to think that in an Onigashima chapter we could take a whole week establishing Bonney’s predicament in the lower level and starting to plan a rescue, at minimum, but here it’s all happening at once, and combined with the idea of retaking the Pacifistas. And that last panel suggests this part of the story isn’t finished developing yet. There’s one last move to be made in the Pacifista tug of war yet, and when it comes there’s now a lot more characters that we like in the danger zone. We’ve been shown already how quickly a Pacifista army can turn the tides of a battle.

Zoro’s fight with Lucci sure is… still happening. There’s not enough of it to say anything substantial.

The meat of this chapter, however, is Luffy and Borsalino. The admiral turning into particles is a really cool effect, and the panel of him returning to Luffy, with all the negative space, is really dynamic. And he makes holograms! It’s such a cool use of the fruit. The implied motion of them lining up to attack Luffy like afterimages, only for him to kick through them all at once is really satisfying. I wish I had enough faith in the anime to look forward to its version of this.

And we see exactly how difficult an opponent Borsalino is to protect anything from thanks to the lightspeed movement and the clones. You appreciate far more what Rayleigh did at Sabaody to hold him back having seen how hard it is for Luffy here. In a fight like this, it’s not enough just to match your opponent, you have to threaten him enough to hold his full attention, which is another task entirely.

And I think I spy a parallel with the crew’s last encounter with the guy in that panel with Usopp and Brook. It’s a shame Oda couldn’t have put them in a slightly better position for contrast though…

And then Luffy eats a laser. Because of course he does. I can almost guarantee there’ll be something in the future related to all this Nika stuff that the way he lights up from the iniside here and has beams blasting from his eyes and mouth (and nostrils) feel like foreshadowing. I mean he looks kinda like a human sun in the second panel of the light show anyway, and that might be the whole thing, but my gut reckons there’ll be something that feels like more of this. I don’t know what. But there has to be something. Oh, but Oda should have given him two more beams coming out of his nipples, just to tie Franky into the whole thing.

Speaking of Franky, I like that he trusts Lilith with the General Franky. I wonder what feedback she’ll come back with after getting to pilot it. Could this be the start of the Franky and Vegapunk relationship so many hoped for?

It’s a shame to work up all this energy just to hit another break. Unless we get back to three weeks on, one week off soon I’m going to just stop hoping for it. We could do worse than two on, one off for a new normal, but if definitely rules out the 2025 finish that was probably never on the table to begin with. I’d rather it take longer and be done right, but I also hate waiting…