Okay so we’re definitely doing God Valley, huh? I wonder if it’ll be the full story, or if there’ll be one last POV to go through to find out how baby Shanks ended up in that chest. It’s agonising to have another setup chapter to get the pieces aligned to do that, but given the unfinished art this week, maybe that’s for the best. You want Oda to be firing on all cylinders going into such a vital sequence.

So the grave in the cover story is someone new? Or one of the bunch of lords who were locked up in that cave with a young Yamato maybe? What is this story doing bringing up new elements nearly 40 stages in? I like Ulti’s snow Kaido in the background though.

It’s really cool seeing how the Rocks Pirates actually worked together in the opening spreads. This era and all of these figures have become so mythical it almost felt like we’d never see the human side of them, only ever getting rumours and implications so that our imaginations could fill in the rest. It’s actually a wonder this crew stayed together as long as it did, especially with Rocks seeming mostly unconcerned by the toxic atmosphere he’s created. I said before and I’ll say again that he’s turning out a lot more likable than I could possibly have predicted as an individual. There’s a lot of truth in the man’s politics. But the thing he lacks that the likes of Roger and Luffy as pirates or Dragon as a revolutionary have is the ability to sway others to his beliefs and genuinely befriend them. These people are only with Rocks because power is part of his ambition, and he thinks that’s all he needs. They’re here because he won them in a game, not because he won over their hearts. I wonder if this distinction is going to be what makes him the loser at God Valley.

We also see Rocks’ ‘blasting’ sword attacks in action here. Visually, they remind me of the ‘Sovereignty’ duo attacks we saw Dory and Broggy and Kaido and Big Mom pull off. But here we see a telltale crackle of Haki around the blast to make it really clear what’s powering the move. So interesting that this particular technique only ever seems to come from people associated with or in admiration of giants.

Article 18 of World Law feels like the kind of thing that seems innocuous but gets brought back and explained in full later. But we’ll see.

Rejoining Harald, we get to see World Government cruelty and propaganda in action. Harald shows the naivety typical of a flashback sacrifice in continuing to work with the WG in any capacity after this, even continuing to buy into the idea of the Marines as a force of good. He’s even facing blatant hypocrisy as the World Government begins accepting Elbaph recruits to the Marines while reasoning behind his back that giants are too dangerous to let be citizens. To hear John Giant come up in this capacity is interesting through – I would have thought he and the wider Marine Giant Squad were all the result of Mother Caramel’s trafficking. It’s also weird Oda wouldn’t take this opportunity to show and name them in this flashback. There’s five spots in the Vivre Card Databook numbering around Marineford that’s still not filled and can really only be the guys from that squad, so there must be some kind of plan for them. When could it come up if not now?

And on the topic of characters the series is suddenly remembering exist, hi Kong! Bye Kong!

A few weeks ago I was really questioning the appearance of the Kujas in this flashback, how we could possibly have gone from Harald and rocks to them. The end of this chapter finds an unexpected way to bring it all full circle, seemingly setting up Shaky to be a pivotal figure to God Vally. I could not have seen that coming. It’s pretty crazy she and Rayleigh both live right under the World Government’s nose in the present. One high value target in that zone is a big deal, but two of them? What kind of system must they have for early alerts for Marine raids or Cipher Pol snooping.

The last line is a big of an odd one though. I mean, it makes sense for the World Government to want to test Harald that way, but it’s not a great cliffhanger when all contemporary evidence suggests Rocks fell at God Valley with Harald nowhere nearby. We know it’s not going to happen. I guess then, does Rocks dying before Harald can reach him lead to the more hands-on Holy Knight operation that ends in the massacre at the castle?

It seems then that the next few weeks are going to be big, and they’re going to make this flashback indispensable to the larger story. Hope Oda’s getting the rest he needs to give the big scenes the love they deserve.