See, all you people who ask why we don’t see more of Smoker, all you have to do to make him appear is write a decade-long bestselling rival manga. If you wanted it that bad you’d be doing it already, so get cracking!

In all actual seriousness though, Hero Aca had a strong run and Oda’s tributes to hit both on the cover and in his author comment, are very sweet. Horikoshi has earned a big rest and break after all he’s done, but as much as Oda has too, there’s still obviously a lot of One Piece to go.

This is overall a pretty standard winding down chapter, hitting all the expected beats of powering down the broadcast, giving Emet its moment in the spotlight with the secret weapon and putting the Strawhats and the giants on the open sea, outside the Marine blockade, and ready to sail for the next island. I think we’ll be getting at least one chapter of cooldown between now and Elbaf, probably focusing on the World Government’s efforts to put out the fires Vegapunk just started, or the other Emperors and main players we haven’t seen yet (like most of the Strawhat Grand Fleet) getting their ducks in a row surrounding all this new info.

Koby’s choice to get between Luffy and his dream is very interesting. The question is, who would he have take the One Piece and decide the fate of the world instead? Given his presence on the last chapter’s final spread, could he be planning to get it personally and reform the Marines to his preference?

We get a rare moment of Buggy showing actual competence rather than just failing upward. He’s playing the crowd perfectly to maximise loyalty and morale. Which makes you wonder what Crocodile’s so upset about. Probably because he’s generating loyalty to himself only, leaving out the other two leaders.

I’m happy to see Emet realise the distinction between Luffy and Joyboy. They’re not the same person, and it would get old fast (and do nothing for accusations of reincarnation/time travel) if everything from the ancient past was permanently calling Luffy by the wrong name. Very curious about the idea of making Joyboy a king through. Will this turn out to be the entymology of the current day’s pirate king title?

And I love the panel of the Elders leaping at the Sunny and the giants’ longboat. The sense of scale is incredible.

The longterm stored Haki is an interesting concept. One of the first things we learned about Armament Haki is that it can be made to linger in an object after the user lets it go, enough to loose a powerful Haki arrow, so it tracks to be able to scale that up and make it linger longterm, especially having learned that Conqueror’s Haki can be used the same way as Armament. I wouldn’t want ancient Haki storage to become too regular of a thing from this point, but it’s definitely being set up for one more future maccguffin or deus ex machina, and I can live with that.

What I’m not as much of a fan of, as it appears here, is the Haki blast erasing the Elders’ demonic forms. Haki has never previously been a lockout thing. We’re shown back on Amazon Lily that raw speed and power can overcome Haki, and even with the addition of using it for coating in Wano, Conqueror’s was more of a dickmeasuring thing between the super ambitious than a necessary skill. If the one in a million bonus ability turns out to be a necessary weapon against otherwise invincible demons, I will very disappointed. Worse, at no point in the skirmishes with the Elders up to this point, can I see the trademark lightning crackle of Conqueror’s Haki on Luffy’s attacks. It would be hard to justify him just not using the one technique that would have worked through the whole arc just to keep these guys feeling menacing.

But look. We don’t know what the deal is yet. It does no good for anyone’s mental health or the quality of discussions to imagine the worst case scenario and get mad at it before it’s confirmed. I can wait.

For example, on the topic of not having the full picture yet, there’s the teleporting. I don’t think Emet’s attack forced them to go back, because if it did Saturn would be back on his ship instead of remaining on the island, but I don’t think the situation for the others was dire enough that they would have chosen to retreat. Maybe their recall had to do with Imu’s distress. Mysteries remain about these guys.

And then a Joyboy flashback. That was really unexpected at this point, although the hat and coat in the silhouette are not all that surprising. Scale in One Piece is tricky and not always consistent, but he definitely looks too small to be a giant, and probably too small to wear the Marie Geoise frozen strawhat as well. The X mark on Emet’s arm is a sweet touch, recalling the Strawhats at Alabasta. The way the two speak here make me feel like we’re in for a real tragedy when we finally get their full story and the way they failed. We know Oda doesn’t hold back on the flashbacks.

So that’s probably the full stop on Egghead. At least a semicolon, depending on if the between-island cutaways lean Egghead or Elbaf. The first half of this arc was a breath of fresh air, the second half treated very unkindly by breaks. I’m looking forward to doing my reread and seeing how much things change when I don’t have to wait. But above all else, I’m thrilled to have Elbaf so close on the horizon.