It’s finally happening and it’s even bigger than we thought. It’s been a One Piece thing going all the way back to the very first volume to emphasise that treasure is in the eye of the beholder: family and personal keepsakes rather than silver and gold. How fitting then, that love, lust and family become the motivations for the conflict on which history pivots rather than money or power (give or take the mysterious thing that Garling found).

There’s tragedy in this as well. It’s hard not to imagine a timeline where Roger and Rocks found common ground in saving Shakky and a common foe in the Government instead of somehow ending up clashing. What if Roger had known Rocks’ family was on the line? He’s the pirate’s pirate at this stage of his life, but I don’t think Oda would play him as totally uncaring of something like that. In fact, the idea that Roger apparently sided with Garp over Rocks almost feels even more unrealistic given the stakes, which makes me wonder if there’s one more complication coming that we don’t know about yet. Imu, through Gunko (who we know is there) springing a trap on Rocks and getting him with the Domi Reversi maybe? But maybe that would be too much if we’re just going to see it done a second time to Harald in a few chapters.

Oda wastes no time after the opening montage of Shakky reactions and man, I was asking questions about Garling’s level of affection to this mysterious red-haired woman last week, but I was not prepared for him to outright murder her so coldly. That’s psychotic even by Celestial Dragon standards, but it goes to show how deep the ‘humans are insects’ mindset runs.

What I wasn’t expecting was a young Dragon to be here as well. We really are getting everyone important involved and setting them on their course to be part of the present day’s status quo. That said, ever since we found out Dragon was a former Marine, it’s been kind of a given he’d have witnessed some atrocity or genocide to set him on his Revolutionary path, and this is as good an example as any, if not better. Plus, it saves or at least shortens a future flashback to tie his origin into an established conflict.

Jumping around more, we even get a young Morgans. Even though he’s in bird form here, without showing his human face, knowing that he was already a journalist this early rules about a lot of theories about him secretly being someone we already knew. The balls on him, to already be blackmailing Cipher Pol though! How has he managed to stay alive 40 years operating like this? But it feels odd to me that the World Economic Journal is called a local paper here. I’d kinda figured it was a more long-running publication than that, one of those newspapers that’s been going since your grandparents’ days. For it to have gone from not existing to be a major propaganda arm and distributor of bounty posters in a single lifetime is pretty crazy. Like, the publication responsible for the Sora comic strip that cemented Germa 66’s villain status is younger than Vinsmoke Judge himself. Honestly, more respect needs to be put on Morgan for what he’s built how much impact he’s had on the world in a generation. Obviously other newspapers existed before this (we see a few of them in the opening pages of this chapter) but I thought the news coos were a Morgans invention, what with the bird powers. So how were these older papers distributed?

Neat seeing a young Big Mom scouting out powers for her children already. Wonder when she decided to commit to making them food themed. Come back in six months for hilarious SBS sketches of dragon, hormone and paw-paw Katakuri.

I felt for Rocks during his conversation with Harald. Such bad luck that his family ended up in the position they’re in. If he’d hidden them one island over. If Garling had stopped one island away on his mission. If Shakky had been the prize for any other game. Only one of those things could have stopped God Valley from being what it was and changed the course of history. But one way or another, they’re all conspiring to put Rocks in an unwinnable situation and bring his ambitions crashing down.

And the Davy clan? Davy D? I’m not quite sure where this goes on my corkboard yet, but it’s definitely important. One more point of data for ‘what does the D stand for’ as well. ‘Davy’ was a fairly popular theory for it, but now that’s out of the running. Or is it? We have a Tony Tony Chopper, why couldn’t we have a Davy Davy Xebec?

The competition doesn’t quite get started in the final pages, but it’s coming together quickly. I think it’s a little curious how Celestial Dragons distinguish between slaves and wives, at least when it comes to women from the lower worlds. But maybe it’s one of those distinctions without a difference. The ‘kept in pristine condition’ comment is obviously all kinds of icky, but I do feel a little relieved for Shakky that even in a year of captivity she was likely spared the Ginny treatment.

And finally, Dragon and the Figarland babies. Ain’t that something. Luffy’s father saves his mentor’s life. No relationship between Dragon and Shanks has ever been hinted at that I can remember, though they’d obviously be aware of each other. Does Shanks know? Whether or not the rescue is onscreen now or later, it fills in a big piece of the puzzle about how the twins ended up separated. I wonder if Dragon looks back and wonders if he could have saved both when he sees the person Shamrock was raised to be.

I feel like next week has chapter of the year potential with everything we’re building up to. Oda’s obviously passionate about this sequence and is firing on all cylinders to get it ready. The art feels consistently high quality compared to the handful of unfinished panels seen in recent weeks, so everything is set to make it pop. I’m hyped. It’s happening.