Another Jump cover that doesn’t show Imu? Fine, we’re celebrating Luffy’s WT100 win. Makes sense, but such a foregone conclusion I could have lived without a whole cover dedicated to it. I hope we don’t have to wait for the vol 116 drop (in presumably the ballpark of November) to see Imu’s colours. And speaking of volumes, I think my gut is saying this should be the start of a new one. You get kind of a slow build into the battle restarting over the opening pages, with a lot of dialogue that reiterates recent events. But we’ll see what Oda does with the next chapter to be sure. I like the colour spread though, these are some very fun vibes, lots of interesting shapes and patterns.

Luffy starts out asking the question we all have at this point. Interesting to see it confirmed that the Nika form is keeping him going. They say zoans are meant to be naturally durable, but is this that, or some property of the ‘god’ body that’s keeping him from dropping? I’m noticing that the rubberised environment part of the Nika power seems to be turned off, which might be a demonstration of Luffy saving all the energy he has to stay transformed. We also get some clarity on who ended up where after the last flurry of attacks. Seeing Luffy and Scopper both looking so ragged while Imu is barely bloodied and popping a new form goes a long way to sell the hopeless of it all. Surely it’s meaningful for someone on Scopper’s level to acknowledge you as a god.

Chopper’s scene is such a tease. There’s no new forward movement here, just a reminder that something is starting to happen. I’m very keen to see what it ends up being.

Imu’s transformation looks great. He’s got even more of a JRPG final boss vibe than before. It cannot be easy to draw that thing every single panel. It’s very fun that at a glance you think his arms have turned black but on a closer inspection you can see a fur trim around the shoulders and the chain holding up the skulls going underneath it. Those are shirtless sleeves if I ever saw a set (assuming the symbol from the cape moving to one of them didn’t give it away); what a final boss fashion choice!

As much as I like Scopper’s one-liner about applause, it’s the next few panels that bring a truly new dynamic. We’ve seen Luffy asked for help before. We’ve seen him be pushed away by people who think they need to handle things on their own. We’ve seen him told he can’t help by people either underestimating him or overestimating their enemy. We’ve never seen anyone ask him to stop helping because he’s been proven not strong enough. Not ‘my enemy has set themself up in my mind as so strong I don’t believe anyone could beat them’ but ‘you’ve tried and failed, get out of the way.’ It definitely seems to light a fire under him, at least in the moment, but I wonder if this is going to spark a longer term character arc or training regiment. But of course, we have to get out of Elbaph alive first.

The story is coming together for Hajrudin and Loki. It’s been a flaw up to this point that even through the flashbacks very little time was spared to develop their relationship. There’s the political intersection over the throne, there’s the obvious grudge about Harald’s death, but it all feels very surface level. Still, it is technically the conclusion of a character arc that he’s gone from hating Loki to being willing to fight alongside him and even entrust the nation to him should he fall. It just would have been nice if more of the steps toward that conclusion had been onscreen. Still, hard to complain about a hero moment for a Grand Fleet member, those guys have been waiting in the wings for like a decade now.

Can I be completely for real for a minute? I don’t really care for the Sovereignty attacks. I didn’t mind them at first, but I think they’ve been overused as the signature move of Elbaph. I don’t like how they’re single-swing attacks that seem to create these continuous shockwave beams that pour into the target. The first couple of instances, going back to Little Garden and Whole Cake Island, were done with bladed weapons and treated as super quick moments, akin to flying slashes, but I still struggle to visualise how Zoro delaying Big Mom and Kaido’s one at Onigashima even worked unless there was an ongoing slow-moving, churning wave of energy coming off that one movement. These kinds of things take a level of physicality out of the fights, and that lessens the impact of what should be the arc-defining moment of Luffy, Loki and Hajrudin finally working together.

But I don’t want to sound grumpier than I actually am. We’re obviously going to get more attacks that will hopefully be more unique as the fight plays out. But is it going to be enough? Even in this scene, Hajrudin isn’t showing the electric marks of Conqueror’s Haki like the other two, and the framing keeps Imu so far away that we have no idea if he’s blocking or just no-selling the whole thing back there. But I’m expecting to spend some time with Zoro and Sanji before we go much deeper here.

And that’s about it. The break schedule the last couple of months has been unfortunate but hopefully there’s a light at the end of the tunnel after the current one. If there’s any part of this arc you’d want to have momentum for it’s here.