Alright, slightly softer week following two big ones. That’s fair. With maybe three or four chapters to go in volume 113, it’s worth taking the time to get everyone aligned and where they need to be for the climax.

Yamato’s cover story lingers, but at least it means we get a Kawamatsu cameo. Given Yamato’s usual tendency toward the masculine, I’m surprised Oda didn’t have them shock everyone by competing in more traditional attire. Maybe that would have been low-hanging fruit even for him.

Oh hey, it’s Kashii! As important as he and Oimo were to the journey to get here, they’ve really been overshadowed by Dorry and Broggy for the crew’s welcome. I’d almost forgotten they were around! Since Kashii at least manages to escape being Reversii’d, maybe they’ll get a time to shine in the fights with the turned giants. There’s a few other interesting things in this scene, like Brogy’s dialogue. He’s not just going for Jarul because he’s been ordered to, he’s found an actual justification that almost makes sense for a lifelong warrior to have. Does Imu’s power bring out suppressed feelings, or does it invent things like this for the victim?

I’m surprised to see the chain capturing continue. I thought it would be a one-off joke last week, but Oda is doubling down. Are we going to see a power that runs on board game rules as a counterpart to Luffy’s comic book rules? I’m not sure how I’d feel about that.

An enjoyable development here is the feedback loop of Imu’s arrival into the kids and the Sleeptids. The haki knocks them out with the last thing they remember being the demonic villain, and their bad dreams about it cause devils to appear. It all goes to increase the feeling that these guys are a threat that only escalates the longer they’re in play. Like most abilities, it’s likely the way around this will be to take out the user. But how can you do that when he’s immortal?

And speaking of Killingham, I don’t think I could possibly have guessed what his human form looks like. It’s really changed my impression of the character. Early Killingham seemed pretty affable as villains went. Doing bad things, obviously, but in kind of a goofball way, being caught by surprise by the summoning, always nodding off or having those half-lidded, sleepy eyes, even keeping the peace between Sommers and Gunko when they discussed music. I’d kinda wanted to like him. But this new Killingham looks like an edgelord and is coming at his cruel work with much more enthusiasm. I wonder it’s a case of the devil fruit influencing the user, the chill qilin sometimes overcoming everyday Killingham. Also, while we’re reassessing this guy, I have to admit, I thought the breathing mask on the front of his bubble was a bulbous nose on the dragon head. Looking back over old chapters, it’s really obvious it’s not, but that’s how it made it into my mind.

Absolutely love that we see the mother who clearly inspired the nightmare mum in the crowd watching the kids. And of course she would withstand the haki blast too. I can’t wait to see what she ends up doing here, especially if it’s fighting her kid’s Sleeptid version of her.

Also, it looks like there’s a Zunesha among the Sleeptids right at the end of this sequence. Knowing that Zunesha lived through the Void Century and knew Joyboy and was given a sentence to walk endlessly for an unknown crime, I wonder if Zunesha features in any ancient texts or drawings that Elbaph might be protecting for a local to learn from.

I could not be more ready for the Harald flashback with Imu’s last line. Imu speaks of Harald like an ally that made a single mistake, but treats Harald’s most famous works, the school and the library, as two of the country’s biggest issues. That’s not a single-day lapse in judgement. Was Harald trying to pull a fast one on Imu before he got turned?

The rest of the chapter jumps back in time to show Luffy’s group getting cued into Imu’s arrival. Oda doesn’t typically like going over the same stretch of time twice, he usually cuts to a new group in the present, in a way that infers they’ve been doing stuff offscreen while the camera was pointed elsewhere. That’s why even though the walk-back is only a couple of minutes, the whole sequence is treated like a flashback with grey panel gutters. The full vertical panel emphasising how far Chopper and Scopper (hey, that rhymes!) fell was a great choice as well. It’s easy to diminish Elbaph’s scale in your mind, but the place truly does stretch on forever.

I’m not sure what to make of Luffy being not sure how he knows Chopper fell. Are we building to some new application of Observation Haki, or is it going to be something more like a Voice of All things angle? Then we have Shaggy’s farewell to Loki. Everything about the framing here seems to support the idea that it’s Jarul. I wonder if him going into battle then falling, probably just as Loki arrives to see it, will be what triggers the inevitable flashback. Aaaaand I really enjoyed Scopper insisting he was the second strongest even in his injured state. Which leads into a hype-building final page as we get ready for the real fight in the next chapter.