Oda? Hey, listen to me. Oda. Oda. Hey. What’s up with you and stabbing people through the head lately? You know that’s an event that should leave at least one long-term side effect, right? You’ve already got a reputation for not killing off characters who probably should have died and you have got to know this isn’t helping your case.

Anyway. I think I overestimated the amount of useful info we could get out of this flashback. Turns out, these past four chapters are setup to give Brook the motive for a present-day rescue mission which will probably then result in us learning something that turns the tide against Imu. And you know what, that’s okay structurally. Right now, Loki is going toe to toe with Imu and Luffy has just taken the stage at full power. They don’t feel like they need a secret hint yet. This leaves some time for the fight to go south. And it lets us wrap things up without it feeling like Brook has been holding out on the crew.

We learn a little more about Shuri’s birth here but there are still holes in the story. Okay, Gurou is her biological father, but if his goal was to make Bipolar Iris children, why not take the mother back to the Holy Land where she and the child can be kept secure and it won’t take a war to recover them? Why does his encounter with Candelle coincide so closely with Reuven’s father vacating the throne? I still think there’s something suspicious about that. Did Reuven seize power after his father ordered Candelle to serve the visiting Celestial Dragon in whatever obscene way he asked, or simply looked the other way from the Celestial Dragon’s crimes? Of course, we saw through Garling that God Knights can have seemingly consensual affairs while travelling on missions, but I would say there must be some greater pain involved for Reuven to have taken in both mother and child with such fierce protectiveness. I don’t think that Oda is being gratuitous with sensitive subject matter here – frankly as far as the manga world goes he’s treating it fantastically – but I think we’ve had our fill of it as a backstory twist. Plenty of people guessed it for this one (even if I’d personally banked on something more unique) and even more are going to jump to it as a conclusion next time. I’m not saying the idea of sexual violence and resulting children shouldn’t be touched on again, just that it probably can’t be treated as a surprise anymore.

And what is the deal with the eyes? Knowing about Pudding and the Three-Eye Tribe, it’s not unprecedented, but is it connected? And has Gunko in the present “awakened” whatever dormant power the Bipolar Iris represents?

My heart breaks for Brook as the scene plays out. The desperation to be calling for a medic and struggling to stabilise someone who’s clearly already dead is one of those tropes that always works for me. Reversi, as we saw, keeps the personality and knowledge intact for the victim, so Shuri is able to deliver a convincingly cutting reason. And you know what, as weird as it is for Brook to have been stabbed through the head and survived, “I couldn’t trust my memory due to the massive head trauma I received at the time” is a pretty fair explanation for this not coming up before. It must actually have been pretty distressing for Brook to see things he’d spent decades convincing himself were false memories coming to life on Elbaph.

It will be interesting to see what the crew cooks up to break the ice block. I love Strawhat group projects, even if an immobile block of ice isn’t the most thrilling opponent for the climax of an arc. Still, if Imu couldn’t break it, these guys will definitely have to pull out all the stops.

Imu drops some slick hints about the politics and battles of the Void Century, but we lack the context to really put this piece in its place. Just some stray info for the moment. Maybe he was going to elaborate further, but Luffy has to do Luffy things, and leaps in with a very satisfying punch. But wait, was he wearing his sandals under the elbaph outfit boots? We have likely three or four chapters to go in this volume, so it’s a good time for the real fight to pick up. Lets’ go!