Captain M Entertainment

I knew it. I knew we’d be coming back to God Valley later. I feel vindicated for not getting my hopes up too high. Oda does a great job of building up what a massive convergence of big names it was, even if we only get a prelude here. At least the fanbase seems to be taking this blueballing better than they did the similar fastforwarding in Kaido’s flashback last year.

Oda takes the chance to show off what he does best here, introducing a ton of striking one-off character designs for the Holy Knights (very interested in the one with the bull’s skull for a headpiece), the nobles participating in the hunt (with Mannmeyer dropped as potentially the tenth of twenty Celestial Dragon family names) and the various pirate and marine crews coming to fight.

The World Government’s dystopia is in full swing here, with emphasis placed on not even the children being spared, and the cruel lie of salvation in three week’s time. While Ivankov is right about false hope being a useful tool for keeping the spark of life alive in prey, I think he misses its perhaps more pertinent utility of pacifying the fodder to prevent exactly the kind of operation Ivan’s group pulls off. People with hope of things working out don’t take matters into their own hands. People with other options, even slim ones, wouldn’t gamble on a million to one shot of successfully raiding the Most Dangerous Game’s prize pool. If you hear there will be some survivors, your point of view as the protagonist of your own life tells you that the story can’t end here, that you must end up in that small number for things to go on. I don’t think humans are inclined to really see themselves losing a death lottery while other options still exist, even if the odds are against us. A shame we can’t all have an Ivan to guide us from the 0% chance the powers that be said was a 3% chance to the 1% chance that is the actual only hope.

Garp’s presence in this chapter is something I’m torn on. I can’t get a read on if he knows the full details of what the Celestial Dragons are really doing, if he thinks it’s just some inspection or pleasure trip for them. If he suspects only that it’s not good but maintains a plausible deniability of what to keep himself from acting out. I love Garp as a character, but he’s always been a protector and enforcer of this world’s most heinous systems despite his sympathetic motivations. And in these days when Roger is his rival, you would think this is Garp at his most wild and rebellious and willing to disobey orders, but he’d still rather face Roger than deal with the slave hunt.

Maybe if he knew what monsters the Five Elders really were he’d actually be interested in measuring his strength against theirs.

At a guess though, I think he doesn’t know the full story, and will find out about the slave hunt only after arriving. Remember that Sengoku’s recollection of Garp and Roger’s teamup at God Valley was to “protect Celestial Dragons and their slaves,” which is an interesting choice of words to say the least. Why make a point at all of protecting slaves that were already (literally) branded for death? Perhaps the truth is that both were protected, but the Celestial Dragons were protected from Rocks, and the slaves were protected from the Celestial Dragons. I’m sure he could find a way to play off giving the slaves a chance to run as “just protecting your property from getting cut down by Rocks, go after then when it’s over” and pretending he didn’t know better. Remember in chapter 957 that right before talking about the teamup at God Valley Sengoku is reflecting on how much Garp’s personal moral compass disagrees with the Celestial Dragons and how close he’s come to being eliminated for insubordination. I think we’re edging closer to the full picture here, and I hope that’s not just my enjoyment of Garp’s character talking.

The cameos as the battle builds up are amazing to see, really tying in 20 years of continuity to make it all feel connected. From the number of Rocks Pirates that ended up being used for Thriller Bark zombies to Boggard finally showing himself again.

I do wish we got to see a little more of the operation to rob the prize pool, and the how of Kuma’s escape. Did he blast other slaves away in different directions before pawing his own group to the one island, or did the rest of the 500 just leave first? I’m willing to buy a teleporting man escaping from the likes of Saturn without having to watch it more than I would most other characters, but at the very least the moment he’s forced to give up on the idea of taking anyone else and leaves the island would have been good to see to make Kuma’s role in this sequence feel closed off. As it is, the end is pretty abrupt.

That said, the dialogue with Saturn lays out the core themes at play fairly succinctly. A lot of people characterise One Piece is being a story about freedom vs authority, which it is in many ways, but it’s also massively (I might even say moreso) about universal personhood vs selective personhood. The heroes of this story, whether they sail free as pirates or rule as kings, are the ones that accept all people as human beings, while the villains, whether monarchs or pirates, are the ones who think there are certain people undeserving of human rights and human status based on arbitrary and uncontrollable things like their place of birth or bloodline. Doflamingo, who was both a cruel noble and the evil kind of pirate, literally stole the human forms of his society’s underclass, if you want to get really on the nose about it.

(There’s an essay in there somewhere, full of choice villain quotes about ‘discrimination creating solace’ and hero quotes about ‘existing never being a crime’ and the series’ most poignant death scenes ending with words of thanks from the departed for showing them love in a world that would not otherwise have afforded it to someone of their origin)

Getting back on topic, we get an origin for Kuma’s bible-carrying habit. Religion is an interesting topic in the One Piece world. Though the World Nobles are self-styled gods running a technical theocracy in their own name, they aren’t really concerned with worship (beyond paying tribute), and there obviously aren’t any public churches of Nika. This vaguely Christian-looking faith shows up often enough to feel like a widespread belief, but there’s almost nothing we actually know about what they believe, how they worship, and what kind of organisation (if any) the church has.

Ivan ducks out. That might be the last of him for this flashback, but I’m not sure if it’s really the last time he’s seen Kuma. Presumably their paths must cross as Kuma’s ties with the Revolutionaries develop. But will Ginny live for that second encounter? My hopes aren’t high. The happiness that grows through the super-cute scenes at the end of the chapter can’t possibly be built to last. Once again, Oda is setting this flashback up to hurt. Badly.

If I’m honest, I was worried I wouldn’t find much to write about for this chapter. The amount of fanservice at the start had me thinking there’d be little to do except list out the deep cut cameos, something other people online already dead based on the scanlation release that wouldn’t interest me to write. But I was happy to find a lot of meat on its bones when I looked a little closer. This is One Piece firing on all cylinders.

Well that’s an escalation I wasn’t expecting to see for at least a few more chapters. It can’t be emphasised enough how brisk the Egghead Pacing is compared to Wano. A problem for the crew like Bonney being stuck down below is raised in chapter 1092 and by just 1094 she’s been rescued and is already being pulled into more important events. The breaks make it all feel like it’s taking longer than it is, but this kind of thing was taking half a volume worth of one panel at a time updates to get done just a year and a half ago. The binge read of Egghead is going to so refreshing comparatively.

There’s some great art for the Jump cover and colour spread this week. Can you imagine if this spread had come out during Wano though? I can only imagine the theories and headcanons and expectations that would have been raised from it.

The scene of the Pacifistas turning on the Marines actually manages to be pretty intense. Oda’s done a good job of not letting these guys feel like fodder, so I have no problem believing that the ability to control them equals control of the battlefield. It would be easy for the power scale of have slipped enough that you wonder how especially first gen Pacifistas were an effective countermeasure against the Whitebeard Pirates at Marineford (and the ease with which Luffy, Zoro and Sanji wiped out two of them for the Sabaody reunion edged on this) but instead they remain consistently threatening as an army more than a decade on.

Sanji sensing Bonney and Vegapunk questioning the scientific validity of his radar is definitely one of the better jokes the series has made of his womanising nature.

I’m still not expecting a full set of fights for these vice admirals, but glimpsing their different Devil Fruit powers and personalities in scenes like Bonney’s one here helps make the scale of the world feel bigger. Oda doesn’t let his characters get away with being nobodies.

And then it happens. I was expecting a slow arrival for Saturn, escorted carefully onto a secured part of the island with some kind of honourguard, not for him to teleport abruptly into the middle of the action with crazy magic powers. And he kills so casually in his bizarre yet intimidating transformed state. I had reservations about the Five Elders being combatants instead of just politicians, but if this is the kind of appearance and entrance we can expect from them all, then I’m on board. I don’t even know what kind of being to say he even is yet. I’ve seen some possibilities thrown around that seem compelling after googling the names, but after Nika, there’s a precedent for important Zoans being based on in-universe deities with whatever powers Oda needs them to have.

Meanwhile Luffy finally lands a solid hit on Borsalino. It’s definitely not the end of the fight though, not by a long shot, even if Borsalino takes a chapter or two to shake off the hit and make it back from where he’s been thrown. And that’s terrifying, actually. I was expecting Saturn’s arrival to wait until Borsalino was mostly or totally beat, maybe forcing an exhausted Luffy into a retreat. Now we’ve got a seemingly haki-spent Luffy with two high level opponents ready to fight him. He could barely keep Borsalino from breaking off to complete his Vegapunk assassination mission when it was one on one. We haven’t seen enough to for sure if there was any hope of taking them both on together in a straight fight (I doubt it) but when the win condition is more complicated, the odds start to seem impossible.

Finally, we get another little hint at what’s coming in Kuma’s flashback, positining the Elders, or at least Saturn, as the guilty party behind Kuma’s mind being wiped. This offers another compelling reason Kuma might have searched through Marie Geoise and abruptly left, if it’s personal between him and Saturn. His arrival on Egghead with a will to fight could end up being the thing that makes it possible to protect Vegapunk while dealing with Borsalino and Saturn both.

Bonney’s attack feels rash, but I’d be willing to bet she’s saved Vegapunk’s life here. We saw what Saturn can do with a glance. He’s not fucking around here. Which means every moment someone is keeping his attention elsewhere is a better chance of Vegapunk’s head not being exploded. She’s definitely going to need a rescue sooner rather than later next chapter though. Good luck, Sanji!

Moments like this are what really makes the endgame feel like it’s in motion for this series. It gets so hard to predict where we could be in a chapter’s time when so much is happening at once in each chapter. And, as at the end of every installment lately, I hope we’re back onto the normal schedule now so we can all enjoy more of this good stuff while it’s coming.

At this midpoint of volume 108, we get a short chapter without much to say except how enjoyable this current battle is. Gear Five has really taken the shackles off and goes a long way to silence any who thought the endgame fights would devolve into haki power scaling.

I love Borsalino’s expression as Luffy winds up to throw him away. He really is just down to see what happens next, it’s hilarious. And very interesting to see Luffy has both the power and the mindset to try and end a fight by just lobbing a dude off the island and into the sea. Of course we’ll never see it happen to an enemy who can’t easily make it back, but I still like seeing it.

Things are developing quickly here, which is great to see. It’s easy to think that in an Onigashima chapter we could take a whole week establishing Bonney’s predicament in the lower level and starting to plan a rescue, at minimum, but here it’s all happening at once, and combined with the idea of retaking the Pacifistas. And that last panel suggests this part of the story isn’t finished developing yet. There’s one last move to be made in the Pacifista tug of war yet, and when it comes there’s now a lot more characters that we like in the danger zone. We’ve been shown already how quickly a Pacifista army can turn the tides of a battle.

Zoro’s fight with Lucci sure is… still happening. There’s not enough of it to say anything substantial.

The meat of this chapter, however, is Luffy and Borsalino. The admiral turning into particles is a really cool effect, and the panel of him returning to Luffy, with all the negative space, is really dynamic. And he makes holograms! It’s such a cool use of the fruit. The implied motion of them lining up to attack Luffy like afterimages, only for him to kick through them all at once is really satisfying. I wish I had enough faith in the anime to look forward to its version of this.

And we see exactly how difficult an opponent Borsalino is to protect anything from thanks to the lightspeed movement and the clones. You appreciate far more what Rayleigh did at Sabaody to hold him back having seen how hard it is for Luffy here. In a fight like this, it’s not enough just to match your opponent, you have to threaten him enough to hold his full attention, which is another task entirely.

And I think I spy a parallel with the crew’s last encounter with the guy in that panel with Usopp and Brook. It’s a shame Oda couldn’t have put them in a slightly better position for contrast though…

And then Luffy eats a laser. Because of course he does. I can almost guarantee there’ll be something in the future related to all this Nika stuff that the way he lights up from the iniside here and has beams blasting from his eyes and mouth (and nostrils) feel like foreshadowing. I mean he looks kinda like a human sun in the second panel of the light show anyway, and that might be the whole thing, but my gut reckons there’ll be something that feels like more of this. I don’t know what. But there has to be something. Oh, but Oda should have given him two more beams coming out of his nipples, just to tie Franky into the whole thing.

Speaking of Franky, I like that he trusts Lilith with the General Franky. I wonder what feedback she’ll come back with after getting to pilot it. Could this be the start of the Franky and Vegapunk relationship so many hoped for?

It’s a shame to work up all this energy just to hit another break. Unless we get back to three weeks on, one week off soon I’m going to just stop hoping for it. We could do worse than two on, one off for a new normal, but if definitely rules out the 2025 finish that was probably never on the table to begin with. I’d rather it take longer and be done right, but I also hate waiting…

Things really feel like they’re getting back in gear this week, proving that the last chapter’s burst of energy wasn’t just a one-off. And no more break either, to keep the momentum going.

While it’s not the Egghead material I think many were hoping for, the opening Marie Geoise flashback does show a willingness to return to events parallel to the cutaway sequence in their own random breakaways from the current story. I would guess we need to see this now to be ready for Kuma to burst back into the main story in a few weeks. But why? What is he doing and what is his mission? One theory states that his push can’t send things past the Redline so he had to climb it himself to get to the other side, but that doesn’t explain his choice to attack the Celestial Dragons. If it was just getting over he’d have blipped away as soon as he reached the top. Some say the programming of the giant robot in Egghead has been put in his body and it’s repeating its attack from 200 years ago, but then why give up so quickly, even in the face of Sakazuki? I’d have wanted to see more struggle between the real Kuma and the robot to foreshadow him wrestling control from it. The prediction I’ve liked most is that he came looking for Bonney in her last known location and has bailed after getting enough of a look around to know she’s not there. I don’t think he would have a way to track her specifically, but he’s almost definitely coming to Egghead now, if only just to get repaired before continuing his search.

All I know is that the repeated emphasis on there being no will or mind left inside him makes it all the more certain he’s clung onto himself somehow.

And back at Egghead, in the present, Luffy vs Borsalino is on. I enjoy that Luffy’s lower gears still get to come out despite the marketing dominance of Gear Five following its reveal. And it’s a strong showing for Borsalino as well – if Snakeman’s speed and unpredictability was revealed as a counter to the literal future sight specialist, it backs up the admiral’s lightspeed claims to be able to keep up with it so effectively. The ability to hit and run from such an enormous range really shows how annoying Borsalino’s fruit can be when he gets serious.

While Borsalino’s expression doesn’t change much as all this goes down, the memory of Vegapunk’s pride in Vegaforce 01 speaks to something going on under the surface. I think it’s a shame to see Vegaforce go as well, but I guess we can’t have him overshadowing the arc’s other big robot.

Gotta appreciate Bonney and Franky’s willingness to throw down with an admiral the way they do. Franky especially for boldly choosing to fight lasers with lasers. We get a little more on Bonney’s change of heart as well, that her anger with Vegapunk isn’t gone, only shifted to another target. But who? And where are they? And should we have expected already that Borsalino would act so familiar with her? There are a lot of gaps to fill in with the inevitable flashback when Kuma arrives on the scene.

Ah, but where is Bonney after that kick? Borsalino was able to send Luffy through the impassable barrier, but that was with much more of a wind-up. And if she did make it through instead of being thrown back, the Fabrio-phase is occupied by the Marines currently, so with her laser damage on top of being worn out from the offscreen death game, she could be in a really rough situation.

The last spread is a great bit of Gear Five insanity to take things to the next stage. I’m fine with the giant Luffy big damn hero moment grab becoming a Gear Five icon, but Oda should probably hold back on the next use a while so it doesn’t get run into the ground. At least one arc without it from here, please. It has to give Borsalino some pause to know Luffy can make it in and out of the barrier on his own, so that he can’t just attack safely from outside like he did with that first kick. Sure, Luffy takes damage with each trip, but when has something like that every stopped him?

The robot in the Fabrio-phase powering up is surprise though. It didn’t do that when Luffy and Lucci were fighting. Or at least, we weren’t shown it doing that at the time. Whether or not this is an oversight I guess will depend on if it just lights up while Gear Five is active, waiting for a command, or if it actually moves on its own.

As we shift into the (presumed) back half of volume 108, Oda seems to have his pieces in place for the climax. Luffy and Borsalino have skirmished to test each other, but with the latter’s determination to do his job and the former having seen how quickly he can reach Vegapunk if left alone, the battle can only escalate. Meanwhile Kuma is coming, with more hints being built for the flashback, and Bonney potentially in danger to give him a hero moment. The only outlier is Saturn. Whether he’ll enter the fight to increase the pressure on Luffy, or be the extra opponent that forces the exhausted Strawhats to retreat, or who even knows what. I could see volume 109 being the last of this arc, or at least the last full one, if things go forward quickly enough. But maybe it’s too soon to make such a bold statement… Let’s just see what the next stage of the fight has in store.

Oh wow, it’s happening! And to be completely honest, until Oda started setting up that Borsalino was going straight to where Luffy is in the last chapter, this rematch wasn’t something I’d really seen coming or expected. Sure, Borsalino was instrumental in the crew’s crushing defeat at Sabaody, but even that was overshadowed in the same saga by Sakazuki’s slaying of Ace. In my mind, that put him at the top of the Marines as the boss for Luffy to fight, with the three admirals under him the opponents for Zoro, Sanji and I guess Jinbei. Luffy getting a taster against a single admiral first, like his fight with Blueno before Cipher Pol, or Katakuri before stepping up to the Emperors for real, just hadn’t crossed my mind the same way.

Which is crazy in hindsight, because this chapter goes so far out of its way to impress on the reader how much of an impact that loss had on the Strawhats, and how long coming a shot at redemption has been. Even looking back over Marineford, even though it’s Sakazuki who strikes the final blow to Luffy’s spirit and scars his chest, Borsalino is a much more consistent thorn in the young captain’s side as he tries to cross the battlefield, repeatedly kicking him back and sabotaging his efforts with long-range laser shots. Oda must have known even then that he wanted these two to collide again eventually, and he wanted it to be cathartic when they got there.

But that’s for later. Starting out we have a beautifully cheesy colour spread. Just last chapter we had Luffy and Bonney talking about getting pizzas for the road as they left the island, so I guess Oda’s had a craving lately.

I’m so happy to see as much of the Marine invasion of the island as we do. It’s subtle in black and white, but you can see the flash of light from Borsalino’s attack on Sentomaru from the end of last chapter illuminating the island from the centre, shadowing the tops of the clouds, signalling the wider attack. The spread of the Weaponised Sea Beasts attacking the fleet is gorgeous and chaotic in every way you could want from a vingette of a battle. The lion best with tubes and cables complementing its mane and the visor showing onomatopoeia for its actions is a standout design in a classic Oda way. We technically did see it already, when the crew first met Lilith in chapter 1062, but I didn’t appreciate it enough then.

I don’t feel a strong emotional attachment to Borsalino and Sentomaru’s fight. It’s nice that Sentomaru gets a better chance to show his stuff than the earlier encounter with Lucci allowed. It’s interesting to know that a backstory being summarised in an SBS doesn’t necessarily exclude it from being shown in the story as well (and maybe the SBS’s accidental spoiler on this relationship gives us a hint of how many things Oda holds in his mind at once, insure if he’ll get to put them in the story for real or not. But yeah, as sad as it is on paper for Borsalino to have to take out Sentomaru after training him and knowing him since he was a kid, it takes a little more interaction than just affectionately calling him ‘old man’ to tug at my jaded heartstrings. And speaking of who’s emotionally impacted here, it’s interesting that only Vegapunk Stella has tears to shed for Sentomaru. Obviously the others would have access to the memories of Sentomaru’s upbringing, but I guess the sentimentality didn’t come with them.

Gotta agree with Saturn that it’s a shame to lose the Weaponised Sea Beasts. And I don’t think he and I would agree on much.

There has to be some commentary later on how Lucci ended up uncuffed long enough to pull a move like he does. Even if it’s just something dumb like the crew’s idiots assumed that fighting side by side meant forging some kind of bond. Well, it’s good on Lucci to have been so patient about choosing the moment when his enemies were most distracted to have the best chance of success.

I’m not sure how much of a fight to expect from Lucci and Zoro, but it is technically a loss from back in the day that there was never personal payback for, just like Luffy and Borsalino. Maybe they should’ve brought Kalifa along too, so Sanji can also show how far he’s… what? He hasn’t worked on the shortcomings that lost that fight for him at all? Alright, yeah, let’s just forget that one.

And with that, the fights are on. The vice admirals are going to be invading the mainland unimpeded, but despite their convenient numbers and likable designs I doubt they’re going to make it to the Labophase quick enough to get full, dedicated fights. Maybe a few panels worth of skirmishes while Luffy finishes up with Borsalino and the final preparations to launch are made. Well, however it plays out, just having the significance of Luffy and Borsalino’s rematch sink in fully this week has combined with the live action release to give me a burst of One Piece energy! It’s a great time to be a fan, break week or not.

Well the breaks are killing me and I’ve officially given up on trying to parse Egghead’s structure with all the cutaways, but the larger conflict here is building up in a satisfying way in this (likely) middle stage of volume 108.

Seeing Kuro on the cover is cool! Hopefully the live action has put it in Oda’s head to do more moments like these with the ancient East Blue characters. Give me anything to reassure me that Gin’s still in this thing, Oda, anything.

I really enjoyed the pre-battle atmosphere of this chapter throughout, from the radio negotiations that are more of an excuse to try and trick the enemy into revealing information, to the commanders callously weighing up acceptable losses, to the building tension as the order to go to battle stations moves down the blockade of ships before the operation commences. The part of me that’s been really into Gundam the past few months enjoys the militarism of it all. It makes me excited to see how this battle to take the island plays out, even if we’re more likely to skip most of it in favour of the Frontier Dome’s events.

I’m glad to see Lucci’s just biding his time and doing some spying on the side. It wouldn’t have made sense for him to have had a full on change of heart at this stage. Although why no one thought to cuff him again after the fighting was done is beyond me. Curiously, he seems to confirm that Shaka and Pythagoras are for real dead. I’ll believe it when the Stella says they can’t just be restored for a Punk Records backup. Another really nice moment in this scene is Nami jumping in for Robin’s sake when York mouths off about Ohara. Love to see the crew giving a shit about each other.

The three panel flashback of Luffy and S-Snake is weak coverage of how the death game situation got turned around. I hope there’s more for us to see than that. Especially considering the bubble gun turned out to be the ultimate solution for them after S-Snake shrugged it off so easily the first time. I’m ambivalent about the idea of S-Snake inheriting Hancock’s crush on Luffy. Could probably have seen it coming with S-Shark knowing Fishman Karate, but it was never the funniest gag or most compelling character trait even in Hancock, so eh.

So, Elbaf, at last. We’ve been waiting decades for this one, but I’m also not holding my breath. Fishman Island was the “next destination” for years before we actually got there, and ditto with Wano being signposted as the site of the next big event for so much of the New World. Anything could happen during the battle and escape from Egghead, so I’m not going to get my hopes too high until the crew are actually departing by sea.

Vegapunk’s disbelief of Franky’s cola power is the kind of thing I hope to see more of if the doctor’s actually out to spend some time with the crew. Maybe he embraces the cola power and makes some unsolicited upgrades to the Sunny or the Soldier Dock or even Usopp’s workbench.

Borsalino, last chapter’s ‘cog in the machine,’ surprised me by putting his own spin on the orders here. He’s a hard man to figure out, but so interesting to watch. I don’t think that his respect for Sentomaru’s convictions made for a very long battle though. You can see the light particles coming up past Luffy’s face in the final battle. He’s coming straight up. And I’m excited to see it! We’re two Emperors down, it’s time the Strawhats show what they can do against an Admiral. The Borsalino rematch I think is just the kind of thing to really put some emotional oomph and fan investment back into Egghead after so long away from it.

Hopefully this is the last break before we get back on a normal schedule. There’s a lot of potential in the next few chapters, we just need them at a steady pace like they used to be. This post was honestly a challenging one to write, even with a lot of things I like in the chapter, just because I’m so out of my One Piece rhythm.

But hey, the live action drops before the next chapter, so that’s something to discourse about in the meantime.

This was a cool way to bring things back to the “main” plot, however we’re quantifying that at this stage of the story. It’s a very recappy chapter, but it uses the time it’s taking to go over everything to set up and subvert the reader’s expectations. I think we all knew we weren’t going to come back to Egghead exactly where we left off. Even as far back as Dressrosa it’s been apparent that when Oda does back and forth cuts, time continues to pass offscreen and fights develop even while we’re not looking at them, and through Wano it was extremely obvious. The mix-up here is that where I think most of us were expecting to come back to a worst case scenario, we instead find the Strawhats completely on top of things. York’s message builds up the expected scenario, walking through her villainous demands like she’s got her way. The only hint something’s amiss is the blood and dirt on her face in the close-up. And then we twist it around and show the reality of things. It’s genuinely very well executed.

But I have structural questions. Because don’t I always. Is there still going to be an escape (the Stella still has his backpack ready to go), or is the bigger picture for this arc to stand and fight? I still don’t see why the cutaway happened at the moment it did. It feels random. Where it would make sense to change scenes and build suspense at a darkest hour, only Franky’s group and Vegapunk Stella were truly in dire straights when we last saw them. I’m trying to pin down what mood, or what emotional impact Oda was going for when he chose that point to spend a volume away from that moment and I’m still coming up blank.

But I feel confident we’ll be getting at least a dot point version of the Strawhats’ lost day in the coming chapters. Questions like why Lucci is still on their side and what happened with Bonney in Kuma’s memory beg answers, even if we’re not going to see the full Seraphim battles play out.

And from the perspective of volumes, this wouldn’t make a bad opener for volume 108, should the previous one stretch out to 12 chapters. But I’m still not betting on it. It works just as well as a reintroduction to Egghead after so long away, whether at the front of a book or not.

Anyway, it’s always nice seeing more of the world and the ways they react to the bigger picture stuff. In particular because there’s more going on than just a bounty update. And I’m a big fan of showing explicitly that the WG’s eleventh hour super weapon has devastating global consequences that will follow ever single use of it from now on. That’s good, stakes raising stuff. Gives a way to threaten all the scattered locations we’ve become attached to all at once. And hey! An explanation for the Ennies Lobby ocean hole! I was so ready to write that off as just a piece of One Piece weirdness, but all these years later we’re starting to see the deal with it.

Now, the claim from its arc that Ennies Lobby has stood for centuries rules out it being the former site of God Valley, which is an easy first connection to make. But we can also rule out God Valley’s disappearance being a Mother Flame (hey, Viz updated their translation here, wonder if they got word from above) thing at all, given that the narration confirms the earthquakes resulting of Lulusia’s destruction are unparalleled in recorded history. So there’s another way to get rid of an island out there. Oh, and the one big difference between Ennies Lobby and Lulusia: the eternal day. I wonder if that represents some inherent difference between Vegapunk’s version and the way this weapon was used in the Void Century.

It’s not lost on me that the World Nobles, high up on the Redline, are more or less immune to the results of their own weapon. The sea level won’t reach them without thousands of activations, and we can see in Imu’s panel that the reverberating earthquakes are more of a light trembling.

It comes to mind, especially with Momonosuke’s panel in the chapter, that old Wano’s walls might not have been to repel invaders as much as they were to future proof against the rising sea. What irony then, that they ended up flooded by the very barriers designed to keep their feet dry.

The vice admirals that have shown up here are a fun bunch of designs. Everyone online loves Doll and the chin guy, but I’m a big fan of the dude with the stripe in his beard, especially seeing his… uh… headpiece? Franky-style haircut? Half a chakram just lodged up there? Hope there’s room in the arc to give these guys some screentime and personalities to match their appearances.

Borsalino’s little flashback gives us another strange example of a One Piece character whose hair has darkened as they age instead of lightened. First Kin’emon in Oden’s flashback, and now him. Could be that they both decided to dye it, but is blackening hair really that far outside suspension of disbelief for a world like this? Either way, Borsalino remains true to his motto of lazy justice. He has to know the scenario is unfair. He has to feel something about being ordered to kill Vegapunk and Sentomaru. But to openly care, to make yourself into something other than the order-following blunt instrument of tyrants, means putting the effort in to stand up and speak up, and living a harder life unsupported by the system. True justice is hard work. It takes the effort of thought and interpretation just to decide what you think it’s meant to be. Justice bound by the word of the law rather than the spirit, and directed by higher authorities with no room for interpretation by its enforcers? Well, that’s easy. Don’t even have to think about it, just have to do it as directed.

I don’t have much to make of Saturn’s dismissal of Bonney, but I’m sure it’s sunk a few theories about her heritage or true age or plans to use her fruit to be immortal or something. But wait, what benefit did she have for them before?

We covered York’s message and the reveal in the opening paragraphs, so I just want to close by acknowledging what a great final spread we have here. It does a great job of painting a picture of an arc coming to its end, even though there hasn’t even been an arc yet. Really well composed and drawn.

I’m really happy to be back with the Strawhats from next chapter, whether we’re pushing forward with the battle against the Government or flashing back to see how we got where we are now. And I’m very much looking forward to being far enough into this arc to look back and have a better understanding of why it’s been cut and broken up the way it was.

This is more the kind of chapter I expected to come back from the break on. Colour spread. Jump cover. A meaty 19 pages. The climax and conclusion to the cutaway sequence and a promise of seeing the Strawhats in the next chapter. What else could you want?

While this would make a fantastic finale to a volume, the full 12 chapters just doesn’t feel likely given the breaks and how much they must push releases back. But seeing how the battleship bags paid off across two chapters, I don’t think it would be right to split this chapter up from the previous one. We’ll see though. Volume 107 is a long way away, no matter what chapters it’s meant to hold.

The colour spread is a great throwback. Is it wrong to hope for the live action series’ success just to see more spreads that tribute past sagas like this. Actually, Oda should do more of these whether the live action version succeeds or not. I guess this confirms Krieg really is gone though, just like the trailer suggested. It’s cool seeing the early character designs redone in Oda’s current style. Luffy and Sanji in particular actually look a lot younger here than they do in the present day manga, which is fun.

While he’s certainly not gone for good, this chapter still feels like a sendoff for Garp, and it all happens in true Garp fashion – the man is sometimes hard to agree with, but he’s always easy to like. Take the opening flashback to his lecture, Garp’s “right” answer feels cruel and overly utilitarian compared to Koby’s heroic ideals, and I personally can’t get behind his thinking on it. But at the same time, Garp comes across far less hypocritical than his fellow officer that tries to claim they see all lives as equal. The Marines’ bosses higher up in the World Government sure as hell don’t, any of their underlings pretending otherwise are lying to themselves. Garp at least wants to channel the inequality in a way he thinks benefits future generations. And most importantly, he puts his money where his mouth is. When it comes time to choose between the geezer and the youth at the end of the chapter, he sacrifices himself without a second thought, laughing as he does it. You just can’t hate this guy.

This isn’t just Garp’s chapter though, it’s also Koby’s. Just like in the exercise from the lecture, Koby decides the heroic thing is to save everyone except himself. The Amazon Lily scene demonstrates the use of SWORD and the frustrations the regular Marines face over the bureaucracy involved in picking a fight with an Emperor. It’s a good follow-up to the SWORD explanation from a few chapters ago, giving a practical example to make it clearer. Something I’m not seeing Koby being given enough credit for here is how hard he played Blackbeard in this hostage exchange. On a surface level, trading 800 nobodies from the rank and file for a big shot hero must seem like a great deal for Blackbeard, but Koby being SWORD makes him useless as a hostage and bargaining chip. Eight hundred Marines who haven’t signed resignations, who the Government would have a harder time writing off, would actually have given him more to work with. Well, it would have been a smart play, but Koby didn’t count on Garp coming to act out his own philosophies in the real world.

The action here, as we build up to Koby’s really, really big moment, is beautifully drawn and clearly panelled. The spread with Garp punching open the island’s skull has to be one of the best of the year. We get to see a little more of the difference between Pizarro and Pica’s powers here when he takes real damage from the island being hit. Definitely feels like more of a weakness than a boon, but I’m still glad to get more distinctions.

Another flashback brings the battleship bags full circle, and I love how Oda has handled these over the past two weeks. We get them once at the start of the last chapter to hype up Garp and Kuzan’s strength, then a repeat near the end of the chapter that instead uses them to show how the pair’s relationship grew. And that would be enough for a one-chapter gimmick idea. Good enough that you figure they’re done. But then, rule of threes, we get them a final time to show how Koby is on the same path as the two monsters who were fighting last week. And you realise that’s what they were really introduced for and it finally feels truly complete. It’s just good storytelling.

And yeah, Koby smashes Pizarro’s hand and it’s very cool and well drawn. Great moment for his character. The line about living up to his expectations is a banger. Love that Garp can only laugh about it. But the biggest highlight has to be Helmeppo diving in so desperately to save him after. Genuinely very sweet considering how their relationship started.

While Garp’s final scene here looks pretty damn bad, the lack of obvious blood on the icicle makes me wonder if he’s truly impaled on it. And of course he’s just “missing in action.” People seem to be mad about this, adding it to the list of Oda’s frustrating fakeout deaths and whatever. But come on. He couldn’t have done more to tell us that Garp isn’t dead short of an editorial line specifically promising the dude’s return. Where’s the fakeout meant to be? I don’t love how Oda handles death either but this is one of the most honest character sendoffs of the series.

And then, finally finally finally, we make it back to Egghead for the next chapter. I’m so excited to see how the situation’s developed there and see the crew again. Haven’t had a canonical Strawhat appearance since freaking March and I miss them! Looking forward to seeing you all there after the break.

It is well and truly good to be back! May we never have to go so long between chapters again. There’s nothing particularly special about this return chapter – only 15 pages, no colour spread to save it for the anniversary next week – it really just picks up where the series last left off and moves forward in exactly the way it had already been. Which means yes, the cutaway sequence is still oddly placed in the Egghead story, and I’m still itching to see the Strawhats again, and it’s very weird to get to the (likely) end of volume 107 without checking in with them. Actually I don’t know where my gut lands on volume 107 currently. It’s never safe to bet on 12 chapters, but the 9, 10 and now 11 chapter marks haven’t felt like they’re wrapping things up or establishing that big ‘come back next volume’ moment to close on.

But on the other hand. Garp VS Kuzan for real! Look at them go!

I forget what rank Jango’s meant to be now, but damn, he’s doing well for himself to be having a casual chat with Brandnew (the guy so high up he sets the bounties) and trading gossip about figures as important as Garp and Kuzan. It’s definitely interesting that Kuzan is being set up as such a bruiser here. He’s a really skinny guy and always has been! You’d kinda think that was what Haki was for, but it turns out he can arch the keel of a battleship with just his physical strength alone. But sure, why not? Far from the weirdest thing One Piece asks readers to swallow. It’s also worth remembering that despite the illusion of equality the opening panels give, Garp and Kuzan did not start on their battleship bags at the same time and we don’t know how long they took to reach their final state relative to each other. It also seems that Kuzan is using both Haki and his Devil Fruit in the chapter’s climactic cross counter, so there’s definitely some mitigating factors to keep me from thinking Kuzan has just been magically jumped up to Garp levels of raw, unaided might all of a sudden.

What is nice here is Brandnew throwing out that the kind of strength it takes to compete at this level goes beyond what anyone is born with, you still have to train and earn it. Should appease some concerns that areas of the fanbase have picked up around special birth powers and destinies as of late.

There seems to have been a small retcon on the effects of the Isle Isle Fruit here, with the great big Fullalead skull now having more detailed teeth and actual eyes in the sockets when Pizarro controls it. I wonder if we’ll see at least the eyes edited for chapters 1080 and 1081 when the volume release comes around?

Whatever the case, Garp’s devil may care attitude to the pirates’ attacks is a joy in the early pages of this chapter. Enough that I’m not too concerned about how his ship got out to sea. Given everything else we’ve seen, I’m totally ready to believe he picked it up and chucked it. I want to see a Boggard scene though. Just a little acknowledgement of the dude. Look at the panel where Garp, Grus, Koby and Helmeppo line up. Wouldn’t it have been more balanced with two guys on either side of Garp? Missed opportunity!

The parallel with Whiteboard in Garp’s injury is hard to miss. I wasn’t convinced we were really going to see the death of a legend so soon, but now I’m starting to wonder.

Debates will rage (and have been raging since the spoilers) on the topic of Observation Haki and Shiryu’s cheap hit, but it’s not like Garp is taken completely off-guard here. We can see him with his hands firmly on Shiryu at the same moment he takes the hit, before the invisible pirate is revealed. It’s not a stab and then a quick reaction before Shiryu can retreat, the stab and the grab are information given to us at the same time. Of course there is ambiguity in that, as reading a manga is always going to involve some level of personal interpretation to fill in the movements between panels, but in my mind the need to shield Koby was a bigger factor than the invisibility in making this trick a success.

A little more Cross Guild operational info is nice. I’d been wondering about how the crowns compared to the stars. People are making a big deal about Garp directly calling Dragon his son, but I always felt the idea that he wasn’t was conspiracy theory territory anyway. I think we’re well and truly giving up on the idea of Kuzan as a SWORD plant as well. I was having my doubts back when we saw how he joined the crew, but this parting of ways with Garp feels real.

The final spread is gorgeous, and while Pizarro’s powers borrow a lot from Pica both conceptually and in how Oda has detailed and shaded the giant reaching hand, but the bulbous head and twisted up bundle of limbs he’s made the island into give this version enough of its own flavour to keep me quiet. At least for the moment.

I think we have to see the end of this sequence next week, whether justice truly will prevail or not (“of course it will!” thanks, Doflamingo) because it just wouldn’t do to have an anniversary chapter without getting at least a glimpse of the main crew. I’ve missed them, and I genuinely want to explore more of Egghead and learn the different things Vegapunk’s been working on. I want to see how inanimate objects are made to eat Devil Fruits, damn it! Well whatever happens, I’m just happy to have my (almost) weekly dose coming in again.