Twenty-eight years. Ain’t that something. Makes you wonder what you could achieve working nonstop on one project for that long. As is traditional, we get a Jump cover and a colour spread. The sense of scale and level of detail in the cityscape for the colour spread is awesome even if there’s not a lot that’s noteworthy about it outside of that. I like the Zoro penguin and appreciate that Gera Five Luffy only appears as an Easter egg wanted billboard instead of dominating the piece.

We see more of how Loki builds and sees relationships this week. Obviously we’d known that at some point he would be savagely beaten by Rocks, but I didn’t think it would start within pages of their first meeting and that Loki could still think of him as an idol after. Does it not break your heart that little Loki can’t believe his dad would come back after hearing he’s injured, even after it happened? (Maybe someone should have noticed his wounds weren’t consistent with a fall, but a superstitious healer could have not cared, and Harald would then have taken them at their word of what’s under the bandages.) Love just doesn’t make sense to him. Abuse of power is all he’s been shown, and Rocks stakes his claim on more of it than anyone. No wonder Loki found that enchanting. And of course his opinion wasn’t swayed by the beatings; how different could they be to the abuse and neglect he’s been shown by everyone else in his life?

But the real meat here is Rocks at the Reverie, something I wasn’t expecting to circle back to so soon. And to open with the bombshell that he made it to the Flower Chamber and saw Imu directly. Huge. Unmatched audacity. I’m really curious about what they saw in each other though. Rocks doesn’t seem the type to back down from a fight, even a challenging one, so how does he know he can do know more? Was his goal just to verify Imu’s existence? Was he sure of that going in, or did he only realise it after confronting Imu? And that fact that he does get away, when we know Imu isn’t lacking in power and powerful servants (Gunko is literally right there). Did Imu hesitate, or was he forced to restrain himself to avoid spilling secrets to the kings at the Reverie, allowing Rocks to make a clean exit.

Harald being on fire before his clash with Rocks is weird. Maybe if he’d been the one fighting the admiral we could theorise about a former user of the Flame Flame or Magma Magma fruit, but the records don’t show him in combat with anyone but Rocks. Could ordinary Celestial Dragon bodyguards (of the kind the Strawhats beat effortlessly at Sabaody) do that? Or could it have been Cipher Pol?

Okay, so. Last week, a lot of people online were comparing Rocks’ face to Buggy’s as well as Blackbeard’s. I didn’t exactly post about it a whole lot, but I thought that was pretty stupid. The kind of reaching, conspiratorial fan theory not worth putting stock in. The kind of thinking that props almost everyone up to and including freaking Crocodile as Luffy’s mum. So why now is Rocks doing the same pose as Buggy on his bounty poster? That’s way too much of a similarity to ignore. I went and double checked: Buggy is just barely old enough to have been born before God Valley too. Oh god, I’m actually starting to believe there could be a connection there. Argh, what if the red nose actually is fake and he’s got the Rocks/Blackbeard schnoz underneath? That would be an insane twist after all these years. I may have been wrong as a naysayer (potentially, nothing is confirmed from just the poster) but I’m not going to feel bad about waiting for more evidence before jumping on board with a farfetched theory.

The Davy Back Fight coming back as a way for Rocks to build his crew sure is something. As is Rocks namedropping Davy Jones when he speaks to Imu. I’m not sure what thing it is, but it’s a thing for sure.

Despite being set up as a villainous force, Rocks almost manages to come across as likeable in this chapter. Give or take the child abuse. I think he makes some decent points that cut to the heart of the Harald’s issues with the Government. Maybe Harald doesn’t know the worst details yet, but it’s undeniable the Government is in the wrong and should be stopped, and it’s probably going to take force to do it. The underhanded pragmatism he takes to his plans is fun to watch as well (you can see where Blackbeard gets it from). Of course, he loses me when he says he’ll simply make himself king instead of destroying the system just to have it gone. I wonder if he thinks the comment about no authority lasting forever will apply to his own future dynasty as well…

This was a great chapter for the 28th anniversary to land on, setting up all kinds of awesome stuff. I don’t dare hope for more Rocks next week. It doesn’t seem like there’s much more to do with him until God Valley, and somehow I think Oda’s going to keep banking that one. I’m sure we’ll see Loki reacting to the news that he fell there – not unlike Oden getting news of Roger’s execution in his flashback. If this is truly the end of the Rocks portion of the flashback, it could make a decent volume ender as well, trailing off onto Rocks’ pirating career and resetting to Loki at the start of the next book.