Back on three chapters in a row! I was starting to lose hope, so even this chapter’s short length can’t take the shine off this win. Ginny has to win some kind of award for being the chapter that took the shortest amount of time between being introduced and appearing on a chapter cover. Excepting maybe Luffy and Zoro at the very start of the series. It’s also rare for a chapter cover not featuring the Strawhats to feel so closely connected to the content of the chapter. The last time I remember feeling that was that one time Perona showed up right at the time she made her first appearance in years for one of the Wano interludes.

The start of this chapter spends a long time building our sympathy for Kuma. We’ve known for a while that he would be a tragic figure, and the noble goals he expressed in a desperate situation last week made us like him, but here, seeing him take on one of the series’ greatest acts of self-sacrifice again and again we really get what a good and likable person Kuma has grown to be. There’s some fun lore for his fruit here as well, learning that removed suffering would eventually return to its owner. I guess it works differently for his own removed memories though. I think this development also makes it completely clear that Kuma has ended up the way he is in the present as a means of taking on a huge burden for someone else in exactly the same way. The remaining questions are ‘who?’ and what circumstances resulted in sacrificing his mind being the only way to save them.

Despite the obvious-seeming build-up that Kuma and Ginny’s relationship will be the heart of this flashback and her inevitable death will be its climactic moment of heartbreak, Oda leans away from the romance between the pair, with a timejump and a marriage proposal, and a level of ambiguity about whether they’re actually intimately involved at this point at all. Romance has never been Oda’s strong suit so it’s probably smart of him to emphasise the dramatic and desperate circumstances and mutual moral outrage about the state of the world that brought them together instead.

And we go a long time without Bonney here. Maybe those theories about her being mentally and chronologically a child have some weight after all. At minimum she’s younger than she appears, barring a massive misdirect.

The next sequence, at 22 years ago, is peak World Government politics. Money at the heart of it all, loopholes for the ultra-rich to save themselves (or at least their wallets) and the denial of human rights all the way through. No accountability or oversight, no compassion for the common man. No wonder the world needs Revolutionaries.

And that’s exactly who arrives! The drip feed of Dragon info continues with the revelation that he used to be a Marine. I’d love to see any kind of interaction between him and Garp, knowing this. There must be so many complicated feelings between the two of them. And Dragon is 100% in the right. We can see in this very chapter what the Marines defend. There is no justice there.

What surprises me is how much time we’re spending away from Sorbet Kingdom. Some are lamenting the idea that Kuma’s ‘Tyrant’ epithet is just a grandiose name, but we know outright that Kuma is recognised by the public as a ruler of the kingdom. But how (and why) does he become a king after joining up with the Revolutionaries. Does taking the position relate to whatever deal he cut that ended in his cyborg state, or did he seize the country and declare its independence to use as a Revolutionary base and solve their supply issues? Maybe not, considering they’re already using Baltigo at this point in the flashback and will remain there until (almost) the present day.

The final page of the chapter, kind of like the escape from God Valley last week, really rush ahead. It’s a shame not to see more of what the Revolutionaries got up to in the eight years between scenes, but as with God Valley, this is Kuma’s flashback not Dragon’s, and there’ll be time for the important bits of that later. Still sucks to jump around so suddenly, and to feel like we’re ending the chapter mid-scene. I’m glad it’s not a break week, because it would well and truly suck to not know what happened to Ginny and have the last panel focus on Dragon’s reaction to her predicament instead of Kuma’s. Sure, it’s a common Oda move to reveal something shocking out of nowhere then flashback to show how it happened, but the pacing of this one feels off. I imagine the next chapter will save it though, with the flashback and Kuma emotional beats the story needs, and when it comes to the volume read the gap between reveal and explanation should be barely noticeable.

My assumption is that Ginny’s captivity will be the beginning of the end of this flashback. It seems primed to involve Kuma with the Government and manipulate him into being branded a tyrant and giving up his sense of self. This was something of a transitional week, but the next one should be a big pick up. Looking forward to it.