New year, new Piece, let’s go! We kick off with a pleasant surprise of Tama taking charge in the cover story. Good for her. Holdem’s dropped sword taking out the lion on the way down is a fun detail.

There’s a mix of highs and lows in this first week of the year, Oda doubling down on some of his more offputting ways of handling children, but also some gorgeous art and character design, and the threat of not-Shanks and his friend ramping up.

As a reader, I’m not quite seeing the vision for this thread about Elbaph’s youths yet. On one hand, we have Luffy and Usopp reinforcing again that this isn’t what they wanted to see in Elbaph and treating it like a let-down or a broken promise. On the other, we’ve yet to see any giants object to or lament the state of their youngsters, even the members of the old warrior groups – even the ones who’ve been offshore for most of the time this reform was happening. But then we have Collun being portrayed as closer to Luffy’s ideal, teased by the other kids for being a brute and encouraged only by Miss Ripley, who by her own admission teaches by negative example. Well, I asked for nuance, didn’t I?

The one point I will outright dock at this stage is for the repetition of the pervy brat gag, which wore out its welcome with Momo several arcs ago.

For plot build-up that is coming together cleanly, I’m liking what Oda’s done with Collun so far, the way he storms in and makes an impression on Luffy, establishing just the kind of outsider status to his society that just about all the Strawhats have experienced at some point. Add on Shanks’ interest in him and his mysterious (but apparently locally based) human father and you’ve got a recipe for a character to keep an eye on.

All story stuff aside, the art here is awesome from start to finish. The scenes in the Owl Library are marked with a persistent wood grain detail, and Oda uses a bunch of creative perspective shots to emphasise the scale of the setting, whether we’re looking down from Biblo’s perch or the end of the swing’s arc, or looking up from among the furniture or between blades of grass to see humans, giant children and giant adults each towering over the other in turn. I hope Oda’s able to keep up this change in framing for the whole arc.

There’s also a new batch of Elbaph outfits for the crew that just arrived. I think the Elbaph designs are a much more consistently good set than the Egghead ones. Now that everyone’s got one, I can say with confidence there’s no losers this time around.

I’m unsure what to make of the revelation that there’s multiple Adam trees. You would think, given the crazy scale of it and the magnitude of the reveal that Oda would want to keep the Elbaph one feeling as special as possible. Does this mean there’s more than one Eve tree as well? There has to be something more here he’s setting up to circle back to.

The structure of the back half of the chapter feels a little odd to me. Jarul’s reveal is a funny bit, but not the kind of cliffhanger panel Oda usually likes to go out on. It feels like the cutaway to the invaders in the castle might have been intended as the final scene, but moved to the middle after Oda realised it was too similar to the last chapter’s end point; or it was moved up because he decided he wanted a scene break to justify the amount of time that passes between the Owl Library and feast scene.

Regardless, the scene serves to set up the newcomers as threats, as if there was any doubt. Oda likes to treat new powers with a bit of mystery when they’re first used, hiding the details so that things just seem to happen. Go back to the early chapters and watch how the framing suggests Buggy is lifting an underling with his mind before the Chop Chop reveal, or Robin seeming to telekinetically steal the hat off Luffy’s head at Wiskey Peak before the Flower Flower explanation. Look at how Haki was portrayed before the timeskip. At a glance, you might think the same thing is happening here as the giant guard collapses in agony, but a closer inspection shows ribbons or bandages like the ones covering the stranger’s face appear to constrict his arms and legs between frames. Some kind of fabric manipulation power then? But is it a Devil Fruit, or like the Five Elders can we guess the ability comes from another source?

The last scene does a good job reminding us just how much of the series has been pointing toward Elbaph. So many giants with reasons to celebrate the Strawhats already, and this is before the actual arc plays out and gives them the chance to save the whole island. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a welcome like this before. I’m as surprised as anyone that Luffy actually recognises Stansen, but I love the detail of his arm stretching through the background of the refresher panel to punch Charloss. Top notch.