I’m still editing the full Egghead review I pitched after the last chapter. I ended up having a lot of thoughts and real life has been busy, but it’s coming.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a packed early arc chapter to play with here. It’s fun to see how everyone was a little right and a little wrong about the mysterious kingdom in our weeks of speculation. A lot of people hit the right cues to notice the people weren’t giant size, and of course this place wasn’t actually meant to be a retconned design of the central Elbaf village we’d seen in the past. But with the full picture of it being basically a terrarium and the surrounding room having stone walls and an actual giant present, I’m much more inclined now to say we’re somewhere on the island proper.

The much-speculated inconsistencies with outfit pieces turn out to just be mistakes. I might not have fully ruled out the possibility, but I was always skeptical they were intended to mean anything. I’ll be very interested to see how far the corrections go when volume 111 comes out.

But if I may nitpick, even in this chapter we can see the Lego castle crumbling like brick and mortar instead of plastic construction materials. Despite being told that they’re all synthetic materials that smell funny when they burn. It’s a missed opportunity not to draw them like what they’re meant to be. A decent adaptation could go the extra mile with this kind of thing, maybe do a CGI physics sim of a Lego wall coming apart and the pieces scattering realistically instead of the standard cloud of dust environmental destruction we’re getting here.

This week’s Jump cover and colour spread make a great first impression. The painted style Oda’s used for a handful of recent covers has been awesome, and I love the details of the colour spread. Franky’s souped up broom bike – absolutely radical. And of course Zoro just sits casually on the dragon’s head. And the forced perspective on Luffy’s broomstick coming right up to the camera gives it all such a dynamic, active composition.

The chapter builds fantastically to the key reveal as Luffy’s group descend into the town and meet the locals, with little hints like the lack of wind after they hit the ground. Nami making the suggestion that the crew could have been gigantified is a funny if you remember chapter 410 (titled Giant Nami, and in which Kalifa mistakenly assumes Nami has transformed into a giant after seeing Chopper’s Monster Point) but that’s probably a coincidence rather than a deep cut. I’m actually surprised in hindsight I didn’t see anyone theorising the crew turned giant (or shrank) as a way to reconcile the size issues of last chapter…

I like Luffy calling out Usopp’s handling of the cat. Calling attention to his weakness so directly feels like setup for a character arc, instead of it just being another instance of a running gag. I’m less enthused with the standard set of Sanji gags, particularly the idea of setting up a two-way mirror in the womens’ bedroom. But what’s new? Better humour is the reactions and expressions of the crew when confronted about the sacred animals they just beat up. And Nami extorting Chopper after saving him. It’s classic Strawhat humour all the way down, the bad and the good all together.

The scale of the reveal shot after Luffy hits the mirror (another great gag) is jaw-dropping. And I love the expectations play that this isn’t a toyroom or child’s play place but a fully enclosed human terrarium by what has to be an adult hobbyist who’s sewing clothes for his miniatures and everything. His craft room is well-stocked, and he cares enough to call it a temple. I’ve done a decent few model ships and Gunpla in my time, so I see and respect where that comes from. I’d be pretty miffed too if those 1/144 pilot figures broke out of the display cabinet and set my study on fire too.

The page leading into the Sun God’s arrival (love the headgear btw, is it hard to sew at a mini scale while looking out of that thing?) is a lot of fun. The slow build up of the suspicious noises and snippets of offscreen dialogue. The smoke under the door as he reaches it. The door flying open to the battle already in progress. It all makes me very happy.

If I may nitpick again though, I still don’t like how Luffy’s outfits are working with Gear Five. The Egghead one vanished entirely and came back when he left the form. The Egghead cape stays and turns white, but the boots and axe vanish, and the helmet fuses into his hair somehow? You can see the horns turned white and still sticking out, even with the rest of it gone. That’s going to bug me for days. And of course it all returns to normal when he leaves Gear Five in a few pages. I don’t understand or like how this works. Just keep the outfit, turn it white. It’s like Oda is trying to treat the Gear Five design as too iconic to change and is putting the reversion to it over the story’s continuity.

As the chapter wraps, the plan to bust through the opposite mirror and the wall behind it becomes a tiny bit questionable when we consider that said wall will be built to giant proportions, orders of magnitude thicker and denser than the crew must be picturing. But it’s the monster trio there, so if anyone can do it…

I know it’s the new arc honeymoon phase, but man this one was a fun ride. Creative ideas, mostly funny gags, the mystery of who and where and how building with every new detail. My nitpicks can’t bring down the joy of exploration that comes with the opening of each new story in this series. Can’t wait to see where it goes next.