Captain M Entertainment

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

This chapter was a pretty good note to end the year on, but I’m gonna keep this brief because I’m pretty wiped from a weekend of Christmas events.

Mads are looking cool on the cover. Something about Vegapunk trying to be tough with that ridiculous head and his eyebrows sitting so high just gets me. I guess Caesar’s silhouette lacking horns a couple of chapters ago was a mistake then? The woman has to be Stussy, she knows too much about Vegapunk’s defenses for the resemblance to be a coincidence.

The big set piece of the chapter’s first half feels good in concept, but the execution isn’t quite there to make leaving Sentomaru behind feel believable. Was it really that tight that all of Luffy’s new powers couldn’t pick the guy up and move him fast. A better sense of the space and timing for the rocket departure point, or a last minute play from Cipher Pol he could sacrifice himself to disrupt, or a moment when we see he and Atlas won’t fit and he says to save the Vegagirl instead might have helped. The elements of the ‘why’ are there, but it could have been just a little clearer. But we can forgive this one being done quickly to set up the back half of the arc, where a safe retreat has cost the heroes the strongest weapons on the island and the Strawhats and Vegapunks have cornered themselves for a siege in the upper lab while Navy reinforcements bear down for their attackers. It’s a scenario One Piece hasn’t really done before, and though I’m not expecting a huge, complicated battle from Egghead, I’m curious to see how it plays out.

I’m not a huge fan of the Love Love power still working so well on the child S-Snake. Yuck. I would say we need a soft retcon of what kind of emotional response can trigger the fruit’s power, but the faces of the government agents don’t leave much up for interpretation. Unless that group was Cipher Pol’s designated gulag squad of degenerates, there should be no reason that many grown men in one place should have that kind of reaction to a literal child.

On the flip side, the talk about artificial devil fruits is fascinating, and the confirmation of abilities being taken down from Impel Down inmates is huge for the kinds of battles we can expect in the final stage of the story. The green blood is especially interesting, since it seems like it can be used to transfer powers without the consumption of a fruit, perhaps even temporarily.

I also loved how Luffy fought with Gear Five this week. Coming off the ropes after turning the environment to rubber was always anticipated for his awakening, but the big funhouse head is a surprise. Manifesting goggles puts a new light on the talk of imagination becoming reality though. I’m gonna wait and see until Oda elaborates or puts some firmer limits on that one.

Vegapunk mentioning near the end that he never intended to betray the World Government, despite his ties to dragon, is a tad disappointing. Be a bit bolder, old man! Help your mate tear down the world’s power structures and set up new ones where the sciences get adequate funding instead of arming fascists because they let you do your experiments!

A real fight with Borsalino isn’t off the table this far into the series, which is amazing to me. How far we’ve come! And I suppose the call to send all available battleships to Egghead is how the new and old faces hanging out at G-14 are going to be entering the arc for real. Helmeppo and Tashigi seeing Luffy and Zoro again should be interesting, especially if the bomb about Koby’s status is dropped.

Merry Christmas all, Happy New Year, and I’ll see you all after the breaks for what’s feeling like a it’ll be a great 2023 for One Piece.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Oh wow, Luffy and Lucci back in the ring after 16 years, how far we’ve come. The year’s shaping up to end on a really high note with this one. Even the cover story’s worthy of note this time. I love seeing unexpected connections like Du Feld funding the original MADS, it makes it feel like there’s always more going on below the surface than we can know. The Lu Feld name is another example of Oda not keeping track of his romanisations though. It was clearly spelled out as Du back in Whole Cake Island. Unless Feld got married and took his partner’s name since the MADS days lol.

I can’t take credit for it, but I saw a reddit post comparing the MADS ship here to the abandoned ship Franky found right before cyborging himself. They’re not an exact match, but it would an extremely cool way to tie things together and put a bow on Franky’s relationship with the scientist.

Kaku being wary of sparking a war against Luffy is a fantastic inversion of the place the crew was at back in Ennies Lobby. From it being a massive deal that a small fry crew would declare war on the World Government to the World Government acting wary of sparking an open war with Luffy. Our boy’s gotten so big! I like the feeling of progression that comes with Luffy now having so much influence that his actions and the fights he picks have global ramifications, whether he chooses to care about those consequences or not. There’s a final war coming, and any move could be the one that sparks it.

So, what happened to Luffy’s outfit when he started fight Lucci? Would have been cool to see a whitened version of his new Egghead one, but I guess he ditched it during the cutaway to New Marineford? Except in chapter 1063 the clothing machines allegedly undress the user to get the new fit on. Or do only the women get that treatment, Oda? You’d think with all the flipping around during the fight with the Kuma cop we’d have seen a glimpse of the shorts under Luffy’s coat if they were still there…

While there is some debate about whether Luffy felt like he needed Gear Five for this bout or if he just does it for the feeling of freedom, I’d like to put forward that he was just mad about Atlas, at least at first. We’ve already seen him half-shift just from being frustrated at holographic food. The euphoria of Nika’s freedom could have taken over after the transformation. There’s so much we don’t know about how this form works yet.

Lucci’s awakening is a great design on its own, but I can’t help feeling the rules about awakenings, especially Zoan ones, are only getting muddier. How far do we read into the wreath of smoke as a sign of awakening, considering Enel and all Gear Four forms also had it? Lucci’s hair is also standing up and burning like Wano’s koma-animals, but Luffy had that back in Snakeman form, and Kaido and Momo’s dragon forms also both have it. I don’t think there’s any one visual trait we can say for sure is meant to indicate an awakened form, particularly when the ones from Impel Down have so little in common with the recent ones (even accounting for Oda changing his awakening plans over time). Well, I’m sure it’ll all get sorted out eventually.

And the Devil Fruit lore just keeps on rolling with the reveal of their possible origin – an manifestation of people’s desire for change. This remains pretty vague, I’m sure we’re gonig to learn a bit more about this later on, but I think it’s the right way to go, making them something akin to a natural phenomenon. We can see an echo of the Ancient Kingdom’s technology on Egghead, and while it’s sci fi even by real world standards, it doesn’t seem able to recreate the sheer mysticism of Devil Fruit operations. Editing genes to give one person a superpower is fine, but things like Sugar’s ability to erase the memories of people she’s never even seen through a target’s connection to them is literally reality-breaking. That’s not an effect that can be scienced up. While superhuman feats and moments of heightened reality are abundant in One Piece, Devil Fruits remain the lone, one-time exception to its world’s absence of magic. Having them be literally pulled into being against the resistance of regular nature by the collective will of humanity – like any one of the many stories where gods are brought into existence and empowered by man’s belief in them – is a fine evolution of the mythology.

My big lingering questions are when did they start appearing (Toki tells us it must be pre-Void Century) and have any new fruits been brought into being since that first batch. And could a fruit – particularly a mythical zoan – have its powers altered if the lore surrounding the creature changed? On that line of thinking, did Sasaki, King and Queen’s dinosaur powers work the way they did not because it was how dinosaurs hunted, but because this world’s paleontologists are genuinely bad enough that they believed that? Seems to line up with Page One’s tail being retconned purely because the science changed.

So yeah, I’m definitely excited to see were Oda’s going with this.

But I do agree with what’s been said already, that the Nika reveal should have been saved for this scene instead of the Kaido fight. Simply doing the revival and Joyboy comment from Zunesha, then leaving the new form and powers a mystery for a few months before dropping the bomb here I think would have been really effective. Oh well, too late to change that now.

I enjoy the throwback to Luffy and Lucci’s first fight. The paneling certainly isn’t as clean as the first time around, but the context is also different. A major fight against an overwhelming enemy back then is now an enjoyable skirmish intercut with exposition. It would be nice if there was enough room in the chapter to lay it out like the original, but this isn’t a big enough fight to need to breathe the same way.

The arrival of Sentomaru and the Seraphim seems to set up an escalation of the Cipher Pol conflict. We can assume the Strawhats have grown at a much more exponential rate than the agents they fought the first time around, but Oda went out of his way to show us earlier that a single Seraphim is a considerable threat. The authority hierarchy and rule that the commander needs to be present in person set things up for chaos. But… even with Atlas down, there are still six people on the islands who can override Cipher Pol’s orders, plus the possiblity of stealing or damaging the authority chip. A single Vegaclone with a Strawhat bodyguard who knows Cipher Pol will target them is all it will take to turn the tides here, which makes me think even a Seraphim rampage isn’t the final battle or ticking clock for this arc. Or at the very least, Oda’s going to have to rule out a few more solutions first.

Jinbe seems to confirm that S-Shark has the same skin as the others. Lunarian tan overrides Fishman blue. Seems obvious, but I like having confirmation.

Sentomaru’s defeat is the only part of this chapter that doesn’t do it for me. Oh, it’s brutal and shocking and sets up the Seraphim trouble, but after Sabaody, I wanted to see a bit more of how the “most defensive man in the world” stands up to the series’ current skill ceiling. Maybe Oda’s saying Lucci’s just that good, but I would still have liked to see the axe guy’s skills acknowledged first. Maybe there’s more coming, but I can’t help feeling like there just weren’t enough pages in the chapter for him.

To get back on a positive note to out, there was also a log of great humour in this chapter. Luffy getting caught out by Lucci saying Egghead is Government territory was great, and I love Chopper deferring Atlas’s treatment to Franky. Luffy’s Gear Five battle was just as fun and inventive as the first time. You can tell Oda loves drawing this thing.

So we’ve got one chapter left to go this year, if I’m understanding the schedule right, which should be close to the halfway point of volume 106. 2022 is poised to go out on a high note, and if the Egghead momentum keeps going, 2023 could be one of the series’ best years to date.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Egghead Island is escalating surprisingly fast this week, but I’m happy to see Oda doubling down on Vegapunk leaving with the crew. That should give him the chance to spread out the exposition over the course of this last saga instead of doing it all at once here.

The cover page finally shows Vegapunk in the outfit from Kuma’s memories, but there is a question posed here: what does he do with the tongue when he’s working? Can he suck that thing back in, or does he toss it over his shoulder, or does he wrap it up like a scarf, Greninja mode. I’m also curious about the two silhouettes assisting him in the lab back there. Aren’t they just a bit too distinct to be anonymous researchers? Could be nothing, could be a connection we’re jumping out of our seats to point out fifty chapters from now.

We learn that conflict between Vega Punk and the World Government is at a more advanced stage than previously assumed, which makes sense. I remember seeing some people near the start of the arc wondering why the WG would cut ties with their main scientist “so suddenly,” but after multiple dodged investigations and vanished agents, we can see CP0’s presence is a drastic last step.

What’s very interesting about this sequence is the use of the Paw Paw Fruit. The OG Kuma cyborg is still human enough to retain its ability, but it seems to be replicated in S-Bear as well. And he’s fast and accurate enough with it to take not just CP0 but apparently the whole ship’s crew with him onto the island. I don’t need to tell you what a dangerous development that kind of ability is if it can be mass produced, but I’m also assuming that this kind of instant teleportation is limited to close-range applications. Try to go across the world and you get hit with the “three days and three nights” clause. Anything else would be pretty unbalanced. But we’ll see how long it takes OG Kuma to show up and make judgements from that.

Or wait, does it just seem like three days and nights because he can send a person around the world, crossing that many timezones before landing at their destination? I’m probably wrong, but I don’t recall if it was ever said specifically at Amazon Lily that it’s been 72+ hours since the incident at Sabaody, but I can’t be bothered scouring the whole arc to check right now.

Vegapunk’s dream of unlimited free (and presumably clean) energy for the world is a noble goal, but it’s going to take some bigger structural changes to end global conflicts. As Aramaki conveyed back in Wano, tyrants need to create underclasses to survive. There are still plenty of people in positions of power who would reject that kind of opportunity for equality outright.

Big fan of Luffy calling back to his “not a hero” bit from Fishman Island. He ends up incidentally filling the role of hero so often it’s easy to forget that part of his characterisation. Maybe if Vegapunk had phrased not like he was giving away unlimited energy but that he was making a world where his friends could use all the energy they wanted…

It doesn’t shock me that Vegapunk has access to personal stealth tech for his exit. I wonder what Sanji will think of that, especially given he’s managed it without a full-body Raid Suit. Hey it’s Sentomaru too. Was wondering when he’d show up. Things are heating up, but hopefully there’s time to see him get a bit more involved.

There’s not a lot of new information in CP0’s initial investigation of the island, except for Stussy’s prior experience with the island. Hm, I wonder if she’s worked with Vegapunk on something before. It’s not like there’d be no applications for advanced technology like holograms, gloves that let you touch holograms, and perfectly passing androids for the “Queen of the Pleasure District” but I don’t think Oda would be able to go too deep into something like that. Oh, and what’s with Kaku recognising a space monster and thinking it’s not meant to be “down on this sea”? What does the World Government know about space?

Rob Lucci is an absolute bastard of a man, but he’s also one of my favourite of Luffy’s rivals. It’s an easy contrast, his bloodthirsty seriousness against Luffy’s goofiness, his deference to hierarchy against Luffy’s freedom, but it works like a charm. And from Water Seven to the Reverie to here, these traits make him able to do horrible things that make you cheer for his defeat. In this case, his attack on Atlas, one of the most likable and charmingly designed Vegaclones. The cracked face and eye shorting out make for a surprisingly graphic image to end the chapter. I’d assumed the clones were organic copies, but Atlas at least is much more mechanical than my prediction. Seeing this, I kinda hope the colour versions lean a little harder into the idea of eyes as screens, with a little glow behind them or the irises looking like they’re made up of LEDs. I know it would give away the robotics too soon, but it’s an aesthetic I really like for these kinds of characters.

Anyway, I’m glad to have confirmation Atlas is still alive and functional before the chapter ends. It would be a shape to totally lose her so soon.

I’m not sure what to expect of Luffy VS Lucci redux in the coming chapters. I’m certain Lucci is stronger now than he was at Ennies Lobby, but Luffy’s growth has been exponential, and Gear Five almost feels like cheating. I wouldn’t expect a fair fight between them to go in Lucci’s favour. But he’s the only villain this arc has right now, barring a complete flip of the Seraphim against the Vegapunks and their defenders. Oda doesn’t often do arcs without something to threaten the heroes. Maybe Lucci will fight dirty, with seastone or some new weapon. The fact that he opened with his final secret move from the original fight is a good sign he’s not going to be holding back. There’s story potential in both a curb stomp rematch and an actually challenging one, so I’m really just along the ride.

Only a couple of chapters left before the Christmas/New Years breaks, huh? As exciting as the rising action is, I hope we get at least one big lore or story reveal to chew on before the series goes dark for all those weeks. But there’s a few chapters to go before we really have to start worrying about that, so I’m just going to enjoy the ride.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

We’re pumping the brakes a little here, compared to the last couple of chapters, but that’s okay. We’re in a new volume, one way or another, so things will need to start building up again. It’s a short chapter too, going into the break, but I’ll live.

Judge VS Caesar is an interesting matchup. They used to work together, so the question becomes how well does Judge know Caesar’s hax powers and did he incorporate a breathing apparatus into his Raid suit? I’ll bet on Judge for now, but I’m not sure what to expect to come after this. The upheaval of Caesar winning and presumably trying to usurp the Germa 66, on the other hand, would make a clear path for the next few volumes of this story.

I’m surprised to learn Vegapunk has a devil fruit, but happy that it’s made clear he was already a genius before eating it. You can have all the information in the world but what really matters is how you use it. The real world internet has given us many examples of people who have access to the majority of all human knowledge but no idea how to parse the useful from the irrelevant, the instructional from the cautionary and the entertaining from the factual. (Put a pin in the the internet as a concept for this chapter…) It also plays into what I was saying last week from the books at the bottom of the lake. They’re all publicly available texts, it takes either a team of world class-researchers or a full fledges genius to use that knowledge to even learn about the Ancient Kingdom’s existence through them.

Obviously the Vegaclones don’t need the actual power of the fruit with the Punk Records storage to call back to, but did they inherit the weaknesses to water and seastone from the main body? I’ll be interested to see what the answer is.

The other important implication of the big brain coming from a devil fruit is that Vegapunk is now almost certainly not the first to have that giant head. So the Space Pirates, with their noticeably similar jolly roger, don’t have to have been made in his lifetime.

The whole Punk Records bit is an interesting fantasy take on the internet. Jinbe raises an excellent point about the kind of idealogical bias that can influence the data if you take from too many sources without properly vetting either them or their information. And Vegapunk waves his concerns off before we even get to the real important stuff, the idea from above that people don’t always know how to use information. Getting lots of points of view on an issue or event can be useful, but if the people accessing that data aren’t equipped to think critically about it they can end up being influenced. And that’s not even starting on the shift from biases to agendas. It’s more than possible to deliver factually correct information in a way that leads people who take what you’re saying at face value to draw the wrong conclusion. A good example from the real world internet would be the use of crime statistics in discussions about race, which are used by racists to suggest cultural or even biological predispositions to certain behaviours; when they’re really evidence of systemic issues pushing certain groups of people into more desperate circumstances. And the World Government, with years of experience erasing history and manipulating the media to say what they want, would absolutely start taking advantage of that.

Wow, the politics of information and how it’s presented are complicated, huh? Let’s go back to our silly pirate comic.

Luffy’s stag beetle bit and Vegapunk’s perfectionism are both pretty funny. But how did Vegapunk know what colour the dragon would be before anyone even ate the fruit?

The 900 year old robot that attacked Marie Geoise the year fishmen started acquiring their human rights is a tantalising plot tease, but I’m not expecting a full explanation of why a connection between Ryugu Kingdom and the World Government was so important until the actual Void Century flashback. Maybe a failsafe to keep Poseidon from falling into enemy hands?

Vegapunk asking to leave Egghead has a lot of potential as a plot hook. He has the Elbaf ties to lead the crew there for Robin and Saul’s reunion, among other things. He could want to go somewhere to complete his Devil Fruit reserach. He might just want to know the truth of the Void Century and decide to be the kick in the pants the crew need to start getting into it. Of course it’s far from guaranteed that he’ll actually leave with them (and certainly won’t do so as a full crewmate), but I’m liking the concept for now.

I’m not sure what to make of Kuma’s awakening at the end. Nothing that happens in the chapter really feels like it could be a trigger that would reach him from so far away. It could be the Vegaclones getting ready for battle, I guess, but I’m not fully sold.

And that’s where this story leaves us for the break. A lot of stuff set up, not much resolved, but you’ve gotta have ones like that sometimes to let the story build, especially when we’re still so relatively early into a new arc.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

The hits just keep on coming. And I thought the last chapter’s talk of the Ancient Kingdom’s technology was a big one, but this week blows it out of the water. The story really is pulling together now.

The Water Seven Saga remains my favourite part of this story, even after all these years, and Robin’s flashback building up to her “I want to live” scene is one of its greatest highlights, so it warms my heart to see Ohara and its legacy made so central to the current plot. Despite what some around the internet are saying, it’s pretty reasonable that both Saul and Ohara’s books would survive. Robin and Vegapunk make it clear this week that it takes exhaustive study of historical reference material from around the world to piece together than the Ancient Kingdom existed and was erased from history. No one book from the massive library they’d compiled was illegal or worthy of destruction. You can imagine the method of research involved hours of poring over texts and comparing records for inconsistencies that could only be explained by a coverup. All the things there that were specifically against the rules were the texts that related directly to the Poneglyphs in the underground chamber – and you can look back to the flashback and see that those are what the Navy was told to seek out and destroy.

It’s easy to imagine the Navy men checking out the island after seeing the lakebed pile of books, including even popular texts like Brag Men, thinking about how quickly they would degrade underwater, and calling it a day, having been told that objectionable material was burned first in the secret room. It’s not suspicious that the scholars would try to save the rest – these are still cultural materials for countless nations that have self-evident value even if you couldn’t piece together the existence of the Ancient Kingdom with them.

We finally learn a tiny little bit more about the conflict of the Void Century. It’s been a given since Ohara that the Ancient Kingdom was annihilated by the World Government, but for the first time here we have the implication that the century was a protracted war rather than a one-sided genocide. We also learn that the World Government’s motives are more to do with erasing the Ancient Kingdom’s ideology than covering up their own crimes, as I had previously assumed. So the next burning question becomes what ideology did this kingdom have that the WG found so objectionable. It would have to be something that would resonate with Luffy and Roger too, I think. So big on freedom, liberty, and worldwide parties.

This also makes me all the more curious about the line from Oden’s flashback that lives rent-free in my head: “It’s not the weapons we’re after, it’s the people who called them weapons.” Maybe we assume now that the Ancient Weapons predate the Ancient Kingdom and it was the war that forced one side or the other to weaponise them.

Saul’s survival, while something I would have bet against a week ago, does make sense considering who “killed” him and how. It was theorised for years. I’m not expecting any other revivals from Ohara though. Olvia and Clover were both inside the burning Tree of Knowledge when it collapsed, and with no way to get off the island alone, Saul must have remained frozen until long after the fires died down and the Navy did that final inspection in which they glimpsed the lakebed pile of books.

And hey, meeting Saul again should be fun. It’ll be a good Robin moment, and his connections with Elbaf and the other giants are going to be interesting to explore. How’d he end up in the Navy? Was he one of Caramel’s trafficked giant kids like John Giant? The (now-totally inevitable) Elbaf arc will be fun.

The first half of the chapter alone could have satisfied me for a week, but then we keep going with the young Vegapunk and a cameo from Dragon. Punk’s design is a certified Oda classic, while Dragon seems to have had a pair of pants he liked so much he got their design as a tattoo. Or maybe it’s a legband with some other meaning, a symbol of the Freedom Fighters perhaps. I’m not sure where to sit on Vegapunk morally, knowing he put the money it would take fully capitalise on his ideas ahead of opposing the tyrannical World Government. But on the other hand, he’s obviously kept in touch with Dragon and still shares his sentiments, and the efforts to reach reasonable voices within the organisation are admirable (if a tad misguided inside a hegemony where those people won’t ever get to be decision-makers).

I love that Ohara turns out to be the spark that ignited the Revolutionary Army. I think the original flashback was one of One Piece’s darkest scenes, and is the moment I think the series well and truly gets political. We’re told in the flashback that the World Government was looking for an excuse to connect Ohara to Poneglyph research so they could make an example of them, and it certainly seems like their efforts had that impact, both in and out of universe.

I’ll be curious, when we get to Dragon, to learn more about the Freedom Fighters and what it was about them that fell short of what he needed to oppose the World Government, and how the Revolutionaries differ.

Robin’s face when she connects the dots that Saul made it out gives me great joy. To repeat myself, Elbaf’s gonna be something else. And still Vegapunk has more to show us…

The final scene is a light and funny introduction to the main body. The perfect follow-up to seeing Vegapunk’s absurd head in the past is seeing that it was apparently sectioned off to make his clone squad. The absurdity of this guy. But the fact that he showed up in an apparent warping experiment is pretty concerning. That would be a rough one for the World Government to get their hands on, especially with the new Seraphim to drop instantly anywhere around the world. But it could also be setup for the Strawhats method of getting everywhere they’ll need to go before the final battle in a reasonable timeframe. Or it could be another one of those things that still doesn’t work outside Egghead’s controlled environment, and I’m overthinking it all. Still one to keep an eye on.

I’ve got nothing else to say. This is exactly the kind of lore and big reveals I’ve been hoping for in a One Piece finale. My hopes for next week are through the freaking roof here.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

We’re back, and right at the possible end of volume 105 for some big reveals and a nice little bit of action to round out the book. That last page has me feeling like mysteries that have been building for most of my lifetime are creeping closer to being resolved.

We get another Film Red colour spread to kick things off. It’s weirdly late from the movie’s release date, but two sets of colour pages has been the standard for movie promos since Film Gold. One for Oda’s illustrated film poster, which we had in the last volume, and another more traditional colour spread featuring characters from the movie. And though the two feel far apart in this case, they’re actually closer together than Film Gold’s poster and spread were, at least in terms of number of chapters. And everything else aside, it actually lines up well with international release dates. Having the spread be just a series of close-up panels definitely feels flat compared to normal One Piece spreads. Some of the character pairings are surprising, but I haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet, so there’s probably stuff I’m missing about who interacts with who during it.

Glad to see some lingering questions being tied up in the first scene. I would have loved to have seen the negotiation that bought Caribou his passage on the Sunny, locked up in a barrel. Zoro is also being very pragmatic here. And with Brook around he shouldn’t have too much trouble reaching the others in an emergency. You’d hope so, anyway.

I’m very intrigued by what Lilith said about the island being powered by fire. It definitely seems like she doesn’t mean solar, given the talk of making a sun, and the comment about an eternal flame can only lead me to think of the ancient Lunarians. This is one to stick a pin in.

The Seraphim Jinbe reveal is a great moment, and the fight that follows is a lot of fun. Does Usopp really think Jinbe would have a son he just never mentioned to the crew? And I wonder what colour this thing is actually going to be, splitting the difference between Fishman blue and Lunarian tan for the skin tone. I love seeing the crew go all in with their top level techniques right off the bat. Well, maybe Nami held back a little. But still, I appreciate when former finishing moves can be just a part of a characters’ toolset instead of something they only get access to in special situations. They make a good showing, but I can see now why the World Government was so confident in the Seraphim as a replacement for the Warlords. Lunarian speed/durability buffs, laser beams and additional Devil Fruits are a whole lot of buffs to put on top of clones of already-powerful individuals.

And fake Jinbe seemingly having access to Senor Pink’s fruit is something that has my mind buzzing. Is this another example of Vegapunk replicating a fruit’s ability artificially, like they did with Borsalino’s laser? The holograms and Atlas’s gloves and the door Lilith and the crew just entered through show that they’re experimenting with tangibility, which feels in a similar ballpark to treating any surface like a liquid. But at the same time, Pink was presumably arrested with the rest of the Doflamingo family, so the Government could very easily have access to his fruit if they wanted to execute him for it. I wonder, in that case, how Franky would feel to learn the scientist he looked up to was complicit in the death of the man he promised to share a drink with. And seeing one Seraphim with a devil fruit raises the question of what powers the others will have. The young Hancock showed no sign of her trademark power, but it’s hard to imagine the likes of her, Crocodile or Doflamingo without their abilities. What kind of mixing and matching are we doing to see here?

Another throwaway line that has my attention: the mention of green blood during the monitoring of the Seraphim’s fight. That can’t be something they picked up from the Lunarians, we’d have heard about it during the King fight. When one of these things takes a real hit, is it actually going to be green inside? That’s not going to show particularly well in a black and white manga, is it?

We also get the last handful of Vegaclones this week. Shaka, Edison and Pythagoras are all really likable designs. York is too, but hits way too close to Oda’s standard Nami/Bonney/Lilith looks, even with her rounder cheeks. The interplay between the group is where the idea to split the scientist up really shines. Vegapunk didn’t create six copies of themself, they really are one person split into six parts, with the different pieces taking on bodily functions and emotional regulation for the whole group, allowing the scientist parts to function unimpeded by the human stuff the rest of us have to deal with. It’s a very clever setup.

Love Usopp wondering if he could be a Vegapunk too. Great gag.

But it’s obviously the final spread that steals the show in this one. Advanced technology from the past. Am I shocked? No. Finding out what was up with the robots and ruins on the moon has ranked among my most anticipated One Piece answers for like a decade now. But I’m so excited to finally be talking about it. Finding out with near-certainty that the Ancient Kingdom wiped out by the World Government in the Void Century was the one with the spacefaring tech was always a reasonable guess, but it’s one more thing we can all connect on our corkboards now. And that’s quite a viking-looking machine in the last panel. Something to do with giants, perhaps? But to a giant, that would be more of a power suit than a super robot. The upper arms are too thin for a humanoid of proportionate size to wear it though. So was the robot inspired by the giants, or were the giants inspired by the robots? Whatever the case, the art on this page is absolutely breathtaking.

I can’t wait to see how Oda builds on this all next week as we start moving into the vague ballpark of volume 106.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

What a crazy chapter to leave things on going into a break. Volume 105 is building to its conclusion soon and I’m absolutely buzzing about it. The cover story alone is huge, confirming Kuzan’s status as a full fledged Blackbeard Pirate. I’m willing to believe it too, at this stage. Theories have flown for years about him possibly being a double agent or building up his own agenda for his own sake of justice, but it’s hard to imagine any justification for putting a resource as big as Pudding in Blackbeard’s hands unless you’re all in for his endgame.

I’m pleasantly surprised to see more of Blackbeard and Law fighting right out of the gate. Giving Law’s crew a chance to shine is especially good, they were long overdue for a moment. Having them be underwater specialists goes a bit of a way to justify their lack of big moments on Onigashima but it still would have been nice to see a snippet of them taking out some fodder with surprise attacks from the castle moat or in the bathhouse or something. Better late then never though, and their quick, stealthy operation to hit the raft ship from underwater while the captains clash above gives us a good idea of how this crew usually works together. All that said, it took me a moment to work out what Law was actually doing on the first spread that was so different from his normal operations. I think it’s that he generated his Room around Blackbeard, Doc and Stronger instead of around himself and was able to use his amputation moves without personally going inside it. It’s definitely a step up in threat level from the unawakened version, which you could keep relatively safe from by staying away from the user.

Pretty funny having Doc ask directly if Stronger is dead and then continue assuming he is even after Stronger actually responds to that first question.

I like the different philosophies at play among the high level combatants in the world. Kaido thought that Haki conquered all, but Blackbeard clearly thinks differently. Law has no compunction about exploiting the common weakness of Blackbeard’s specialised crew, which might be part of why he had such a ruthless reputation at his introduction.

Pudding showing up in the actual chapter is super interesting. I don’t think we’ve ever had a cover story play into the main plot so immediately and directly. She still looks pretty scuffed up, so either they’ve been treating her roughly or the Tottoland invasion happened closer to the present than I was picturing. The timeline issues thicken. Oda plays Big Mom’s status close to his chest. Honestly, I think she is dead, but it’s not clear if Pudding was captured before something like that could be confirmed via Vivre Card.

I’m not going to pat myself on the back for calling the idea of the future version SBS asks being canonised by Bonney’s fruit because honestly it was low-hanging fruit, but I still love seeing it. Curious that Luffy looks at his bad future counterpart instead of the good one. I suppose he’s only on the good track after he becomes King of the Pirates, right?

Jinbe’s summary of Kuma’s life is curious in its contrast to what we’ve been shown previously. Neither the childhood Kuma from the SBS or Bonney’s flashback from last chapter showed him in the royal regalia of Jinbe’s mental image, in fact he looked quite poor. I think we’ve got a bit more still to learn about Kuma’s life and the way the World Government (presumably) massaged his image into that of a tyrant to discredit his opposition to them. All that alongside the deal made to give up his life and be a cyborg, which Oda is hinting will be relevant soon. Bonney may think he was coerced or tricked into doing it, but after seeing the way Kuma made the long term play in separating the Straw Hats at Sabaody and was able to work with Vegapunk to have his final mission to protect the Sunny programmed in, I think we’ll find Kuma submitted to in some way serve a greater good.

And then there’s the special people comment. Oda doesn’t draw Kuma with any distinct skin tone, and he lacks anything like wings (as does Bonney), so what is it that makes his race special? It would have to be an ability of some kind, or a symbolic heritage being passed down (maybe in the form of a unique, secret special initial, if I really want to take a shot in the dark.)

Bonney getting a lightsaber is a really fun development. Hope she gets at least one decent fight with it.

We get a little more Egghead worldbuilding as the crew are carried up to the lab, and it’s still cool and vibrant and interesting. Good attention to detail having Franky setting foot on sky island clouds for the first time.

I would say it’s a shame to have Zoro and Brook sidelined so soon, but when have the characters who remain on the ship ever been totally left out of the plot? Short of Zoro sleeping through Gaimon’s chapter in the series’ first year and Franky spending most of Punk Hazard bringing the ship around the island, the stay-behind group always gets drawn in one way or another. The only real loss is not getting new outfits for them alongside the rest.

And speaking of, they’re an interesting lot. It’s a tiny personal thing, but I appreciate the levers on the boots being given an actual function. After mistaking them for number 6-related design elements during the whole Atlas number mixup it feels like closure to have Oda telling me what they’re for. For the rest of it, they certainly fit the mood of the arc, but are a little mixed to my personal aesthetic tastes. Is Sanji’s top a Hawaiian shirt with a hood? What a fashion statement! I like Usopp’s jacket, but the full length bodysuit looks a little too featureless on him. Needs a seam or some more creases to break it up. (Lilith’s design has a similar issue and an equally cool jacket). Franky looks great in his visor and the clockwork key in his head is fun. Will it turn out to be a hat, or his new hairstyle?

And then there’s Nami and Robin in pure fanservice mode. Nami’s getup has a hood, a high neck and a plush looking trim on some of the edges, making it look suited for the island’s natural winter climate, until you look at the bare arms and legs. But hey, Sanji’s shirt has a similar contradiction, so maybe it’s intentional. Kinda fits with the setting being a winter island with tropical air conditioning, right? I love Robin’s jacket and its chunky arms but is that a goddamn suspender bikini bottom underneath? The future’s fashion is wild. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the looks cool, regardless of their practicality.

Interesting that everyone has an earpiece with an antenna now. Are we going to have the crew be more in-contact than ever, even during the split-up portions of this arc? Oh no, Zoro’s going to be one of the only ones without one. Was his guard the ship choice just a play to get him wandering the island with no one to guide him?

Is it just me, or has Oda been leaning hard on the fanservice lately? Black Maria fighting topless, Robin’s ultimate move coming out naked despite her other full body clones having clothes, the post-battle bathhouse scene, Bonney wringing out her shirt, and now her, Robin and Nami all set up to spend the coming arc casually pantsless. The ass-emphasising camera angle in Bonney’s last panel this chapter also stands out. Oda’s never skimped on drawing female characters in a way that appeals to him and playing with suggestive outfits. We’ve had one-off bath scenes in a couple of past arcs too. But I can’t recall him using this much nudity over so many characters in such a short amount of time. I don’t want to sound like some horrible puritan who thinks artists shouldn’t draw things they’re attracted to just to enjoy looking at them, or that they shouldn’t write societies with looser nudity taboos than the real world, or that readers can’t enjoy it when they do or anything dumb like that – all those things can work or fall flat based on execution and consistency of tone – I’m just making an observation that things seem a little hornier around here than they used to be.

You probably shouldn’t try to get away with calling a leotard combat gear though. Not fooling anyone with that one, Oda.

The final scene puts Vegapunk in league with the Revolutionaries, which is a really cool development that makes a lot of sense in hindsight, given the Kuma stuff. If this has come out, it explains Cipher Pol’s sudden decision to kill the scientists as well. I’m not expecting this to be a full on Revolutionaries arc, just due to Dragon being on the other side of the world, but all new details are welcome. I’m most interested to see where Vegapunk’s personal politics end up sitting, given how much harm he’s helped the World Government cause. It’s hard to picture him as a full-on Revolutionary, but I got a sense of familiarity from his exchange with Dragon, so it doesn’t feel like this is a new association.

I’m having a fantastic time in this new arc and hope to see things heat up further as we go into the final few chapters of this volume after the break.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Oda explored the idea of cutting away to global events during an ongoing arc using Wano’s intermissions but even those were made distinct and separate from the arc surrounding them. For the final saga, he takes it further. Any scene break could lead to anywhere in the world and any kind of event. The rule of saving these things for the post-battle portion no longer applies. We’re in unexplored territory.

And on that topic, the cover story is showing some pretty extreme relevance to current events this time around, strongly suggesting another piece of Blackbeard’s plans. Usually these things take years to come back around. A shame for the anime-onlies, not being able to see that extra layer unfold, unless something changes by the time the series gets to here. Anyway, I was a big denier of the two figures who showed up at Chocolate Town being from the Blackbeard Pirates, but I have been proven sorely mistaken. Even last week I was thinking that Kuzan, not being an official member of the crew, might be acting on some other agenda. But there’s no mistaking the intent behind Pudding’s kidnapping. At some point I want to try and pin down the timeline of all of Blackbeard’s recent moves relative to current events. The part where said he would go claim something during Wano’s first intermission was around day four of the Reverie, which by my reckoning should be long after when this cover story is taking place. I have a gut feeling that it’s going to be hard to make events fully line up. Blackbeard making a move on Tottoland is something the Marines should have mentioned during the Reverie arc if it happened in that timeframe. The crew seems to have moved around a lot in a relatively short amount of time as well, but given Van Auger’s new fruit, that might be a feature instead of a bug.

Getting into the actual chapter, I like the new outfits for Luffy’s group (despite the questionable practicality of Bonney’s ‘combat gear’ and I’m looking forward to seeing how the lab actually functions, with the locals appearing from nowhere and Atlas’s job seemingly being to cause chaos. How does that fit into the science? The Recycollie is a great addition as well. And it makes sense for the lab to be harsh on thieves, given what we learned from Lilith about their funding.

Something about the sequence of panels where the Pacifista spots Luffy and charges had me thinking on my first look that the he’d run in the opposite direction instead of charging. The camera breaks the 180 degree rule of staging, making for a slightly awkward sequence on the first look. The action that follows is pretty cool though. I love the panel of Luffy and Jinbe making cool landings while Chopper just faceplants.

It’s interesting that Luffy is so confident the Kuma here is just a Pacifista. Of course, we know he’s right and the real one is with the Revolutionaries, but can he sense something about the copy that gives it away? Maybe this is a sign that Luffy’s Observation Haki is that much better than Bonney’s, or maybe she was (understandably) just too overwhelmed with emotion to reach out rationally with her senses.

Hard cut to Law in battle with the Blackbeard Pirates, which is honestly and truly the last thing I expected to see in this chapter. I would have put money on Law not showing up til the post-arc section at least, or there even being years before his next appearance. It really feels like Blackbeard is disrupting the status quo here, moving around and hunting down fan favourite characters personally in a way the other high level adversaries, even the pirate-hunting Marines, never really get to. The man is dangerous and he could be anywhere. The endgame really does feel close when you’ve got the presumed final boss mobilising like this.

Fem Law sure is something. So thanks to the Seraphim being childlike versions of the Warlords, we’re seeing the ‘draw so and so as a kid’ SBS asks being gradually canonised, now we get one of the gender ones too. I have to wonder if Bonney’s powers will be used to put the aged-up versions of different characters from recent volumes in the manga as well. It’s great how Oda can weave these things into the story. Personally, I’m not bothered by the Feminization Disease, at least for being what it is. This is a series where hormonal manipulation can result in on-the-spot sex changes, giant heads and bodies rewired to unpoison themselves. Plenty of real world diseases throw the body’s hormones out of balance. It’s not out of line for someone with a disease fruit to be able to do this kind of thing.

Where I do take issue is it being kind of a boring way to use such a high-potential fruit. Maybe Oda just didn’t want to repeat the grim, zombie-like progression of mummy and ice oni viruses from the last arc, but it still doesn’t feel like a power being used to its maximum potential.

Actually, all the Blackbeard Pirates’ new powers have this issue. Burgess has a strength related power? Given how strong humans in this world can get through training alone, I have to ask what the point of that is. Think of the iceberg Jozu through, or Garp’s iron ball weapon. Law’s powers were able to levitate a mountain far larger than what Burgess lifts here all the way back at Punk Hazard. Burgess needs an attack with at least the gravitas of the (allegedly) Emperor-felling King Punch (which was done fruitless by Elizabello) to justify a power like that. A warping fruit? Either Kuma or Law’s powers offer similar benefits with far more utility. And a pegasus zoan given to a horse? Come on, that’s just a flight fruit with nothing else to offer. Give it to a human they might get horse stamina, deadly hooves or powerful back leg kicks, but Stronger should have already had all of that. All he gets is the wings. These are strange choices, truly.

Part of me wants to have faith that there’s a plan for these underwhelming reveals, that the crew has min-maxed in some way around their basic powers. A sniper with a warping power and a doctor who can make diseases feel like decent starting points. Another part thinks Oda may have pinned down the powers he wanted the final pirate enemies to have early on and hasn’t changed them as the other fruits shown got crazier and crazier. I lean toward the positive interpretation. One Piece so rarely lets me down.

Despite his recent feats, I’m not seeing much chance of Law coming out on top of this one. He probably won’t die, as One Piece characters rarely do, but he’s not winning. He’s probably not getting away with his Poneglyph rubbings either. This plus the Pudding bit from the cover really give off the feeling of Blackbeard’s plans coming together, really making him a rival for the home stretch. The only question is, has he glimpsed that missing final Poneglpyph already, or will there be a race to reach it?

Despite its short length, this was another incredibly compelling chapter that’s likely to turn out pivotal for the final act of the story. As always, strongly looking forward to the next chapter and all the unknown territories it could sail into.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Don’t take this as too much of a detriment to the Wano arc, but chapter 1062 is one of the most exciting and enjoyable One Piece releases I’ve seen in years. Oda is clearly having the time of his life being free from the confines of Wano and Onigashima to design new characters and environments in a whole other style. The weaponised sea beasts and children’s toyboy sci fi world they live in are the kind of thing that have been exculsive to altered reality of colour spreads for so much of the series’ run, but can now be unleashed in actual panels. Even the cover story provides a huge and intriging development in the probable presence of Kuzan in Tottoland a few weeks ago. Germa’s Emotionless Excursion had been fun enough so far, but now I’m all in.

Franky’s wide-eyed enthusiasm at Vegapunk’s arrival is wonderful to see. The opening scene as a whole is great, both for deepening the Vegapunk mystery, giving us these increadible sea beasts, and giving some credit to the crew’s increasingly fearsome reputation. I love seeing Zoro and Robin recognised for the high level threats they are, especially when you can look back over the scene and see how ready for action they look even before it’s mentioned. But what, I wonder, is Zoro planning to demand of Vegapunk? Is it just to let them go and/or take them to Luffy’s group, or does he have something more specific in mind? I can’t think of anytime he’d shown an interest in technology previously, so could it have something to do with him being the Strawhat who interacted the most with Kuma back in the day? Or maybe something he picked up during the timeskip or in the offscreen portion of Wano’s epilogue. Most likely, it’s him just taking control of the situation.

But the real meat of the chapter is obviously what Luffy’s group gets up to. What can you even say about this scene. It’s gorgeously drawn, it’s funny, it’s creative, it doesn’t look like anything else coming out in the shonen world right now. I might have liked to see more from Jinbe throughout, but Bonney’s chemistry with Luffy and Chopper more than makes up for it.

I’d love for volume 105 to have a cover that draws on the spread of the island’s interior, like an updated version of what volume 83 did for Whole Cake Island’s environment. We’re about in the middle of this volume now, but I’d also be willing to go all in on “Adventure in the Land of Science” as the book’s title.

And then there’s the man of the hour, Vegapunk. Everything about this scientist raises more questions. Even working out how to refer to them is difficult. The fact that two out of six bodies drawn so far lean feminine might have suggested they were a woman all along, but Robin’s dialogue suggests Vegapunk is known (or at least presumed) to the world at large to be a man. While Lilith tries to act like an enemy, the larger story seems to be positioning them as an ally to the crew in the long term (and despite all the World Government atrocities their technology has enabled). Atlas even manages to drop some interesting philosophical arguments about the subjectiveness of reality. I’m really digging the number of levels this character is operating on.

Oh, and design-wise, I could take or leave Lilith as a standard Oda pretty girl design, but the Astro Boy vibes coming off of Atlas (hey didn’t old mate Atom actually have a character called Atlas too?) are top notch.

But what’s with the name and number discrepancy between the chapter and the explanation? I thought this would be one of those things like the recent bounty where a typo in the print release was fixed up for digital editions, but there it remains. Weird. A volume edition correction is a long way away. So maybe Oda’s actually setting something up here, some kind of Vega-clone switcharoo. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Finally, there’s Cipher Pol. I’m curious to see what the World Government’s reasons for cutting ties with Vegapunk are. We’ve known for a long time that they didn’t start out working for the Government, that their research was only assimilated after the arrest of MADS, so is it just that time is up on the deal they made then? Or did they discover something they shouldn’t have? Gone rogue? Or just outlived their usefulness? The World Government is pulling out stops it never has before and is showing an uncharacteristic willingness to upset the status quo in this post-Reverie world. All this said, I’m not convinced that Lucci is going to be the final boss of this arc. I’m curious to see how far he’s come since Ennies Lobby, but I can’t think of any reason to bet on him in a rematch. Only Stussy is untested, but she alone isn’t enough to carry an arc’s endgame battle.

The Seraphim might have been a candidate, but Lucci talks about the Kuma one like it’s somehow malfunctioning. Curious too that it looks so much older than the Hancock and Mihawk ones did. Like Kuma to the Pacifistas, he must be a prototype, or at least the first production model of the Seraphim. But that would mean these things can actually age and grow and mature, which is seemingly unlike their first-generation counterparts.

There’s a lot of lore and information to come in this arc, about Vegapunk, about the Seraphim, and about Devil Fruits and secrets of the world. I’m getting the vibe of something a little like Zou, a short arc with a ton of exposition and no real traditional final boss fight. Wherever it goes, this arc already has me in love with its setting and fascinated by its main supporting character in just a couple of chapters. I’m so excited to see where it all goes next.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

Ah man, that new arc feeling. It’s been a long time, but Oda keeps the hot streak of the last few chapters going. The chapter starts with one of the most memorable spreads in possibly the whole series’ history. That shark coming up from below is a pure artistic flex on Oda’s part, absolutely stunning.

After things got dense and heavy and serious in the later stages of Wano, you can fell Oda’s having a great time doing a lower-stakes but more off the wall action sequence. From the shark’s design to the Sunny’s new gadgets to the mecha at the end, the man is back doing the things he loves most, and the passion shows. There’s not much to analyse here, it’s just fun action. Love seeing Jinbe show off his utility as well.

The new Marine character designs for G-14 are really cool, and it’s nice seeing Tashigi and the Punk Hazard kids again after all this time. Hopefully Tashigi gets a bit more to do this arc instead of being sidelined again. The Koby issue raises a lot of questions about where things are going next. Will the crew get caught up in this rescue mission, or is this just a tease and we’re in for a decent stay on Egghead? I also think the balloons flying over the base in the establishing shot are curious. Are they just for the children’s benefit (they do seem to have build a replica Biscuits Room with clouds and hills painted on the walls and rainbows over the doorways), or is there more to how these Marines operate?

Stephen did a pretty graceful job with the bit about Fullalead’s name. I wonder if the choice to adapt it the way he did would have been different if an actual use of a bee metaphor that ties into the Japanese name had been closer to the island’s introduction.

Bonney and Luffy are instantly a great pair, I’m looking forward to seeing how they interact going forward. I wouldn’t want Oda to try and make her another Law this late in the series, but she’s got a lot of potential as an Egghead arc character. The fact that she came alone suggests that she’s on a personal mission, and given her apparent ties to Kuma and his ties to Vegapunk, there’s a few ways that could go, all of them interesting.

I don’t believe for one second that the girl from the end of the chapter is the real Vegapunk. Or at least, the original Vegapunk. We’ve seen and heard too much that this doesn’t line up with, unless it’s an outright retcon of Oda’s previous depictions of him.

The “PUNK 02” on her bodysuit stands out. I wonder if all Vegapunk creations are collected under one naming scheme, like the Battle Franky line. The shark has a 3 on it, the mech a 12. Punk Hazard’s big dragon was designated 13 in its Vivre Card. Although, he was responsible for the Pacifistas, which obviously have their own PX numbering, and the mech has a “Vegaforce” label none of the others have had, so it could be that animal robots, dragons, mechs and whatever the girl is are all individual lines with multiple iterations.

I was on team Elbaf for the next arc. I’ll definitely be a little upset if Oda can’t find time in the series’ final years to visit it outside of flashbacks, so the idea of landing something else and setting up a further distraction via Koby has me worried. But that doesn’t seem to matter as much actually reading the chapter and getting caught up in Vegapunk speculation and crazy robot designs and Luffy’s back and forth with Bonney. Say what you will about the past year or so of Wano fatigue, but the magic is clearly still here.