What a place to leave off before a two week break. As expected, we have actually arrived in Elbaph and man, the art is worth the years of build-up. This is also the ninth chapter of volume 111, making it the book’s first possible stopping point. It would be a short volume, with a number of reduced page count chapters, but wouldn’t this make an impression to go out on? I’d definitely want to get the next book after seeing it. And it would be nice and neat on Oda’s end to finish a volume then take the break to plan out the next few.

I’m glad to get a little bit more of the other half of the crew’s post-Egghead outfits as we establish they’ll be joining the main plot on Elbaph soon. The cutaways to this group also reveal the purpose of splitting the crew the way Oda did – building tension over Vivi’s status a little longer by keeping the group that would recognise her message from reading the paper. It’s interesting the acknowledgement of how drastically Luffy’s appearance changes in Gear Five that there’s even a question of whether he usually has a mark on his arm (and it only takes a cursory review of any Egghead chapter to be absolutely sure he does not) but Robin gives us the info we need to fill in the gaps. I feel like Oda could have gone a little further in emphasising the blur on the arm against the clarity of the mark in his illustrations, but the point still gets across.

And I do love the Alabasta callback (and a 3D2Y one) all these years later, making such an iconic moment important to the plot in a way that feels really natural rather than a pure nostalgia shoutout.

It’s also fun officially getting inflation as a justification for the extreme bounty inflation you see with the old generations vs the new. That’s the kind of thing you usually see pitched as a headcanon to fill in the gaps, but here it is.

Getting back to the main group, we’re introduced to the real Elbaph and it impresses on every front. The scale and ideas – the island built up in the tiers of Yggdrasil, the non-lego version of Bigstein Castle, that steep, enormous rope bridge. The worldbuilding detail of the slats being too far apart for human travellers (Luffy proves he’s a Crash Bandicoot 1 vet by walking on the railing instead) and the artistic detail in the braided ropes holding it up. Finding out the apparent columns seen in the sky in previous glimpses of the island are waterfalls trailing from the higher branches. This is beautiful. We don’t even see the top of the tree, so it’s possible there’s more above. But there are no waterfalls cascading down into the highest level we can see, so it’s unlikely a hypothetical third tier would be as densely (if at all) populated as the ones below. Oh, and there’s also the name, I guess. I was never much of a believer in the theory that it was meant to be ‘fable’ spelled backwards for some story reason – it’s just never been Oda’s style of wordplay, especially being in English, and I think if it was an intended reading Oda would have provided the romanisation earlier so both Japanese and English readers could figure it out, and if it was that important the correct spelling would probably have been provided to translators and merch producers so we wouldn’t have a replica log pose that reads ‘Elbuff’ – but I did always think the Elbaf spelling was more aesthetically appealing. But canon marches on.

The Elbaph lore and culture is starting to build. The land perhaps stands rudderless – we know that King Harald is dead and neither of his two known official sons has been able to ascend to the throne. Loki for obvious reasons. Hadjurdin for less obvious ones, but he was talking on Dressrosa about wanting to be king of the giants. Is there a third son, official or otherwise, who’s taken charge? An usurper? A queen regent? Or are either the warriors or Elder Jarul simply keeping the peace until the issue of succession can be resolved?

Then there’s Loki himself. Very, very cool design on this one, and I have no idea whether I want to see it put to use more as an ally or as a villain. The ambitious assassination of his father, false Sun God angle and talk of the end of the world sure give off a villainous vibe (and that Doflamingo tongue has a bad association) but that’s only what we’ve been told. There may be more to the story about Harald, more to the role of Sun God and the idea that it will destroy the world (remember the double meaning of Luffy’s Fishman Island prophecy?) and layers to Loki’s personality not yet shown. When he gets free (because obviously he has to) I’ll be waiting to see if his actions back up or contract what we’ve been told.

To fixate on one little part of his appearance, what’s with the blindfold? And the rendering in the last panel revealing the shape of his eye? I would put down a reasonable bet that the devil fruit he stole gives a power somehow related to or activated via the eyes. On the other hand, the loss of an eye is a very Norse mythology thing to include. The missing rendering gives the feeling of an empty socket, and we are still due an important character with an eyepatch. Or it could just be intended to imply Loki is using Observation Haki or some some other advanced sense to “look” at Luffy through his blindfold. I can never be sure how far to overthink these kinds of small details.

This is a great chapter that sets the tone for a great arc, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store when Oda comes back from his well-earned research break. Full arc Egghead review for real next week.