It’s a treat to be back with a 19 page chapter, a colour spread and a Jump cover. Not to mention an out-of-nowhere Brook flashback! I’m a little disappointed that Oda didn’t take the chance to give us colour art of Imu, but I recognise that was always kind of a longshot. Oda has never rushed to establish colour schemes in the past, and he’s probably not about to start.

I’m not the biggest soccer/football guy, so I don’t feel much from the FIFA collab on the Jump cover, but it’s a surprise to see even the strawhat recoloured. Oda regularly does palette swaps of canon clothes for non-canon art (you can find an example of the sash around Luffy’s waist randomly being a pink on this chapter’s colour spread) but certain accessories like Luffy and Chopper’s hats, Zoro’s swords and Brook’s guitar very rarely get to change. The colour spread is fine. Not a bad ensemble piece, but I feel like it’s lacking a certain wow factor that the best ones bring. The colouring on the sea down below looks really nice though.

As the battle with Loki rages, Imu punctuates the action with tantalising lore hints. He talks about Loki and Luffy (now using their names instead of “Joyboy” and “Nidhoggr”) like not falling for Domi Reversi was a willful act of defiance rather than an innate immunity. And which of our growing number of ancient figures is Douzan meant to be? The real name of the Warrior God, or someone new entirely?

The Zaza scene is brief, but I love how much versatility her liquid body gets in just two pages. Captives moving around inside it, high pressure blasts of water, absorbing physical attacks like a pre-haki logia. I’m really keen to see how the real fight with her plays out.

Loki wasn’t kidding about that ice being unbreakable, huh? It’s cool how you can still see the shaft in the middle where Imu’s shadow body was at the moment of freezing. Love that attention to detail. And I also enjoy seeing the Strawhats get to talk out the situation and share info to decide their next move. It functions as a bit of a recap for all the previous Shuri hints (which were months ago for us weekly readers and will be in the previous book for future volume readers) but also gives a sense of the Strawhats acting as a comprehensive unit. And it serves as characterisation for Brook as well. Oda’s dropped enough hints for us to be sure basically since he joined up that there was something going on with his pre-piracy life and it would be in the nature of Book for it to be pretty tragic. But you can see him working through as he tells it how all the demonic possession of this arc is reframing his memories. What sense of betrayal, or what guilt – about a red flag missed or a loved one going down a dark path that he failed to help – is about to be lifted from Brook’s weary soul?

Jinbei is remarkably cold asking if they should finish the job, but then, he’s spent more time as a professional, yakuza-coded pirate than anyone else here save maybe Brook, so maybe that kind of bluntness is to be expected. How does he think they’re going to get in there to kill her if that’s what they decide though? If that explosion couldn’t do it…

And the flashback begins. I thought we’d be getting some Brook lore through Gunko, but later, certainly not in the middle of the big fights. At a guess, she’s going to have some info that makes it possible to fend off Imu, and that’s why going through the whole memory and thought process to Brook releasing her needs to be treated importantly. It strikes pretty close to using Hajrudin’s decision to free Loki as the lead-in for the previous flashback though, doesn’t it?

I like the callback to the old Festival Night illusion as an establishing scene, although it feels weird to see Brook’s music not being universally loved. Even if it is 4:00am. Brook’s scene with the young Shuri is very cute though, and you can tell that even as a guard he acts like a member of the family to her and the king. Reuven’s threats of death sentences and accusations of an assassination plot made me worry for a moment, but the scene ends in laughter, so I think that’s just how familiar they are. The king is drawn the way Oda tends to draw scumbags though. Is he being set up to take a turn, or am I being prejudiced to judge him on that? No, I think the king has to remain good, no matter how he looks or what he jokes about. Remember, we learned already that Shuri is going to kill him and it will break Brook’s heart.

The Moulon Rogues is a wonderful gang name for a music-themed country. Very inspired pun. I don’t know if it translates directly enough to credit Oda or Stephen for the work, but either way it made me smile. And extrapolating Brook’s classic Three Pace Slash into something that takes the whole morning to activate is so ridiculous you have to laugh. Only in One Piece could you push the trope that far.

But where does Queen Candelle fit into the story being told? Brook obviously loves her here, but she didn’t figure into his tirade at Gunko when he recognised her in the present. If I had to spitball, I would guess that their relationship will sour. Perhaps she comes to blame Brook for Shuri being seduced by the God Knights, manipulated into killing Rowan and ascending to the Holy Land; then she exiles him to start his pirate career. Or instead she encourages her daughter to cosy up to Celestial Dragons because she wants to climb the ladder, and Brook distances himself after seeing her true colours. Oda would definitely catch a lot of casual readers off-guard if he introduced a scummy-looking king and a beautiful, popular princess and made the latter the villain and the former the victim.

I think for the sake of the arc’s pacing and the final battle’s momentum, this needs to be a quicker flashback than the last, as interested as I am in it. Something more in the ballpark of Big Mom’s one at the wedding party (but maybe a smidge longer) than another Loki or Oden.

We learned last week that the upcoming volume 115 would be a near-unprecedented 248 pages long (tying vol 69 for the series’ longest volume) and potentially fit 13 chapters instead of the normal 11ish. That changes the structural math for where we are in volume 116 from the middle to the start. I still think Oda is going to aim to finish Sanji and Zoro’s fights in this book, but being further back in the pages leaves room for a quick flashback before jumping back to the present for the climax.

But you know, I don’t think I saw a single person speculate a Brook flashback starting this week. I love that nearly 30 years in One Piece can still absolutely blindside us with a move like this. I’m excited to see where Oda’s going to take it.