Captain M Entertainment

Find a video version of this review on YouTube here.

Okay, we’re back, and despite the hype of a long-awaited Vivi appearance, this feels like a slow, transitional chapter with a lot of plot threads and mysteries building, but very little in the way of real answers.

It’s good seeing Sentomaru has a little more to do in this arc than be just a one-scene callback, though the origins of the PX-III line’s bubble shields certainly raise some questions. And assuming the original Pacifistas from back then are the MK. I versions, what did the MK. II ones look like? We also definitely need some clarification about whether these Pacifista follow the same authority hierarchy as the Seraphim. Because with 50 of them on the loose, Saturn is going to make this a pretty terrible situation for the crew when he arrives, as many of us have already predicted.

I’m glad Oda’s taking the time to show how much even a brief activation of Gear Five wore Luffy out, even knowing that this effect is probably going to be applied selectively from this point on (and even if we’re pretending he’s just puffed out from running around on foot).

Vegapunk does seem to have well and truly vanished from the lab. Before the break I thought the narration might have just meant the larger group lost track of him while he was with Bonney, but he’s nowhere to be seen when she comes out of the memory bubble. Might be that whoever hijacked the Frontier Dome picked him up. Contrary to most speculation, I don’t think the insider here is going to be one of the Vegapunks. On the assumption that the enemy behind the walls has grabbed the Stella, most of the clones are accounted for during the window of opportunity. Shaka was in the control room with the Strawhats, Atlas was being repaired and Edison and Lilith were rushing to the front to hijack the Seraphim. I think we can also rule Pythagoras out, seeing him attacked at the end of this chapter. York doesn’t have an alibi, but I’m just not convinced.

(Although I will admit Caribou is a compelling alternative culprit for Vegapunk’s disappearance…)

Speaking of Atlas and Pythagoras, I think the former’s quick repair job is reason enough not to worry for the latter. No matter how robotic these clones are and how rough the government gets with them, Oda seems them as human enough to preserve in his usual fashion.

Zoro and Brook getting proper Egghead outfits is nice. The helmet on Brook is fun, but that jacket is a great fit on Zoro. Stussy’s change just serves to reiterate the difference in how male and female character designs are being treated in this arc though. It’s not even a unique pervy outfit, she’s basically just wearing the same thing as Nami. What a choice, for the jacket to be cropped up to her pits so it doesn’t obscure any of that vital sideboob. Her original outfit was a much better design in my opinion.

All that grumbling aside, the panel after the outfit reveals is one of the best in the arc. Because it’s not just a panel, it’s a whole scene playing out in one frame, with something like sixteen characters all doing different things and playing off one another. The compositional awareness to spread so many characters across the fore, middle and background, to lead the eye across the page so that the interactions make sense and play out properly, is just stunning. It’s the kind of spread few artists are willing to try on this scale, and fewer still could actually pull off on the same level.

Loved seeing the crew convincing Zoro to stay behind. Great character interactions. Good laugh.

The start of Kuma’s memories doesn’t offer much more than tantalising hints. I feel like the implication is that he was a slave once. Can’t wait to see how Oda reconciles that with his present day reputation. And the tragedy of ending up right back where he started, assuming that is the case. The cutaway to the Redline seems to suggest that whatever his mission is there, it relates more directly to his past than it does anything that happened at the Reverie or with the Revolutionaries.

A Morgans-Wapol-Vivi teamup was not on my One Piece bingo card, but I’m a fan of it happening. I hope we get to see the circumstances that led to Wapol of all people taking Vivi in instead of handing her over to climb his own ladder. Following the pattern of the last few outside-Egghead cutaways, I’m not expecting any follow-up on this in the near future. But it’s great setup, and good just to know Vivi’s alright.

(The newsgirl with the crush on her in the back is a cute touch too!)

With the next chapter likely to be the end of volume 106, I’m hoping for a big reveal to pay off all this slow building. Maybe a just shift into the Egghead endgame with Borsalino and Saturn’s arrival. And if we’re really lucky we might even get the volume 105 cover alongside the chapter (or its spoilers) and potentially see some canon colours for the island or the new outfits.

Egghead definitely seems to be heating up, but the direction of the arc remains hard to parse with the state of advantage between the Strawhats/Vegapunks and Cipher Pol swinging like a pendulum from chapter to chapter. Will there be an escape sequence? Will we stand and fight against Borsalino’s fleet? Will Cipher Pol slip their bonds and strike back, turning the advantage once again? It’s exciting to feel like we have so little idea of where the story is going.

Vegapunk’s invention on the cover is certainly an interesting way to reference the famous Flower Power moment of the Vietnam War protests, although it’s a little hard to figure from his imagination what exactly the purpose of creating it was meant to be. Ending wars by having it grow in both sides’ munitions, spoiling them as shown? Sounds a little more like a weapon of sabotage to me. And what’s with his expression while he accepts the Mobel Prize?

I love seeing Stussy weaponising seastone in such a clever way – when you think about how effective it is on Devil Fruit users in such small, concealable amounts, it’s almost strange we haven’t seen more moves like this. But given that assassination and covert ops are a big part of the Cipher Pol playbook, it makes sense for it to be showing up here. People have complained that CP9 was too weak before the timeskip, but their job wouldn’t be to get into straight up fights like they had with the Strawhats. Attacking unaware targets from the shadows like Stussy does here shows how the right tools and intel can level the playing field.

Her not being able to override Lucci’s orders even after he’s knocked out though, that feels like it was decided just to get the clash between Zoro and S-Hawk happening. I’m very curious and concerned about what Zoro said about the Seraphim’s humanity though. Mihawk has always seemed relatively chill to me, but is Zoro here hinting at a darkness we haven’t been shown yet?

Oh? Stussy’s been invited too now? Yeah, somehow I don’t think the last stage of this arc will let Vegapunk’s plans come to fruition that easily. I could always be wrong, but it’s going to be a storytelling chore to manage such a huge entourage for the main crew if that just gets to happen with no complications.

Vegapunk vanishing in a way that earns narration boxes is a bit of a shock though. That makes it feel like a huge event, but I wonder if maybe Oda just felt short on page space and decided this was easier than showing Luffy and Chopper checking a dozen places and concluding they can’t find him while he’s just off in a side room dealing with Bonney. Just a strange plot point to throw up so suddenly…

The Sphinx Island cutaway once again shows the cruelty of the World Government to non-member states while bringing Weevil into the fold for real. I appreciate Oda taking the time to set the Miss Buckin/Buckingham Stussy connection in stone so soon, after I was complaining about people still getting the name wrong last week. Can’t miss it now, no matter how casual you are. All these global events being built up though. Sabo’s desperate situation. Law’s fight with Blackbeard. Kid at Elbaf. Kuma climbing the Redline. Garp rescuing Koby. And now a reason for Marco to try and save Weevil. I don’t think we’re going to see all of this play out in parallel and am adjusting my expectations accordingly. More likely it’ll be like the events built up in the intermissions of Wano, left hanging for a long time to be resolved all at once in the Egghead post-arc period.

But the big news is obviously an Elder making his move in the real world. Whatever comes of this will go a long way to show us how the final battle will be. Are the Elders fighters in their own right, or just figures of authority. I’ve always figured the latter, I think it makes a lot more sense, but I’m open to being proven wrong. He’s great theory fodder either way – all the stuff flying around assigning planet names to the others, keeping in mind the Ancient Weapons and Luffy as the Sun God. Imu as the moon, with their space laser from earlier, if you asked me to guess right now. But I’m not going to be too quick to assume anything deeper about their roles or personalities or abilities based just on possible planet names. Like the lackadaisical but ultimately meaningless Flower Power homage on the cover, Oda will sometimes reference things just for the imagery, just to make something in his story share a name with something he thinks is cool in real life. Not because he’s trying to recreate the mythology behind the gods we named the planets for 1:1. Just worth keeping in mind as the theorycrafting really picks up over the break week.

I’ve never been a big believer in the theories that the pre and post timeskips will mirror each other too exactly. I think you have to really stretch to make it work beyond superficial stuff like the first saga having fishmen in it, the second one being about saving a kingdom (news flash, most arcs are about saving a kingdom!) and so on. But I’d put down reasonable odds at this stage of Egghead concluding with Luffy kicking off a global war by clocking one of the Five Elders in an escalation of Sabaody. I’ll take the loss up front if it comes to that. Things aren’t always the same as other things, but sometimes they are.

It hurts to have another break after such a strong chapter, and so soon after the new years’ off period, but Oda’s health and energy levels matter. At least we’ve got a lot to chew on while we’re waiting.

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

The synergy between the cover story and the main chapter is something I’m really enjoying lately. There’s a great contrast between the scientists working to mass-produce weapons of slaughter on the cover and Vegapunk’s commentary calling it the “lab for peace” on the next page. No wonder that group couldn’t stick together. You do have to wonder how the anime is going to handle the cover stories getting more and more important with their current choice to ignore them entirely.

I think we’re being set up for some tragedy surrounding Bonney and Kuma soon. While Oda jumps aroudn from scene to scene a lot, he doesn’t usually play two in parallel the way he does this week, cutting back and forth between them so rapidly. Bonney is desperately doing what she thinks will save her father, all the while his real body attempts its doomed ascent of the Redline, only to get torn down by the Marines. Kuma’s tough, but he’s obviously not functioning at 100% here. I’m not betting in favour of his plan. And then we’re set up to see Bonney absorbing his memories and seeing the truth – the reasons he made a deal with the Government after they made him out to be a tyrant, why he abandoned Bonney, and what he’s ultimately aiming for – right before his main body is either detained or outright destroyed.

Getting abstract with the Paw Paw Fruit’s powers has some great storytelling potential. My first thoughts were of “feeding” devil fruits to inanimate objects – could the ability factor be pushed between the fruit or a user and the item? – and of a way to show the Void Century and Ancient Kingdom directly – did an ancient user of the fruit leave their own memories behind to be found?

The traitor/ally mystery deepens with Shaka claiming the dome only malfunctioned and the suggestion that it was Stussy that Vegapunk called into action. While she obviously has some insider knowledge of Egghead systems, we can see her with the Cipher Pol group at the moment the dome goes down, looking as surprised as anyone, so we can be pretty sure she didn’t do it. There might be more here, but honestly I could still see Oda saying it genuinely was a malfunction that happened just to keep the plot moving.

Sneaking the Seraphim up is a little cheap either way though. There’s not technically a contraction in it, we don’t see them down the bottom after the dome flickers, but there still should have been some suggestion they were moving in one of the wider shots of Lucci’s group flying up.

Lilith and Edison’s plan to regain control of the Seraphim feels reckless to me. After what happened to Atlas, I don’t like their odds. But it’s still so hard to say what direction this arc is going to go for its climax, I wouldn’t want to commit to any one answer on the Seraphim’s role.

Okay, Kaku is awakened. Sure, why not. We definitely need to learn a bit mroe about what awakening is and what benefits it actually grants in the near future, especially for Zoans. The choice to give them flaming koma-hair and wreaths of black fire is probably going to come around to bite Oda. He got away with leaving haki a mystery then acting like everyone always had it because it was invisible to those not in the know. The reader could fill in the blanks of who they thought it made the most sense to have or not have it before the timeskip. Awakening does not allow the same benefit of the doubt. Adding a visual cue quashes theories that it’s just a strength boost and the Beasts Pirates were using theirs without talking about it. The wreath of flames/smoke muddies things as well. Oda’s used them too often as a plain signifier of power. Luffy wasn’t Awakened yet for Gear Four, but had a smoke one for Boundman and a flaming one for Snakeman. Enel and Caesar, off the top of my head, used them in their elemental forms. Plus Paramythia Awakenings not having any visual of their own that we know of. It’s all just a bit messy in my opinion.

The Stussy reveal is cool though. I’ve thought for years that Patrick Redfield’s Vampire Model Bat Bat Fruit was too fun an idea to stay locked away in the non-canon videogame world. She’s been a fascinating presence since her Whole Cake Island introduction, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s done with her now that there’s an even more fascinating clone backstory attached.

The amount of people still tying Bakkin in comment sections across the internet when the context here makes it crystal clear that the name was meant to be Buckin all along (with the official release even getting it right from the start) is a show that most fans care more about which translation they saw first than they actually do about accuracy. I think if there’d been even one early scan that went with Zolo over Zoro we wouldn’t be able to get people to stop saying it today.

Anyway, really great chapter to come back on after the break with some cool reveals that set up even cooler ones in the coming weeks. Hopefully we get a few chapters in a row now that the new year break season’s over.

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

While the colour spread is nice-looking artistically (the red and white is a great palette) I can’t be alone in feeling a tad Uta’d out. Three of the last five colour pages have featured her or Film Red, not even thinking of Jump covers. I vaguely recall a report of Oda saying he didn’t want to milk the movie by having its theatrical run last forever, which seems a little at odds with all of this here.

Kuma’s arrival at Red Port is an unexpected development, although evidence suggests it might not have been his intended destination. The explosion and the lack of the paw-shaped crater that accompanied Luffy’s landing make this seem like a miscalculation in his power’s use. But that brings us back to the question from when he first teleported: where is he going? Egghead would make sense, but the Red Port would mean he was flying in the wrong direction, right? Maybe he was aiming for the top of the Red Line instead. But for vengeance or because his old masters’ programming was too strong, I can’t say.

With Atlas already down and Shaka saying the satellites’ duty is to defend the main body, I wonder if we’re going to see more of the clones get hurt in the escape. There’s definitely a sense that they’re being built up to be expendable despite their individualities, but I just don’t see Oda following all the way through on that kind of idea. I also don’t see him actually letting the whole pack of them come on the Sunny too. Someone has to stay behind to do whatever needs to be done to keep Punk Records functioning, so there’s probably a third solution we aren’t seeing yet.

I’m not sure what to make of the switching off of the Frontier Dome. People are being quick to say there’s a traitor in the lab, but it stays off just long enough for Lucci, Kaku and Stussy to separate themselves from the larger Cipher Pol force, and the powerful Seraphim. The mysterious stranger Vegapunk called for help might be trying to divide and conquer.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by a Kid check-in after we got Law so soon, but I definitely didn’t expect him to be given Elbaf. You could maybe do the things that need to be done with Elbaf, Loki and the giants story-wise with them being led into the final battle by a third party, but I’d still rather see the Strawhats actually visit the place. But nothing about the post-Egghead era is certain at that point. Garp and Helmeppo setting up a Koby rescue mission to Fullalead from such a nearby base could be a compelling reason for Luffy to go that way, and there’s a high likelihood that Pudding and Law will also end up there. Meanwhile Vegapunk’s research and Saul’s presence point to Elbaf and Kid. It’s probably not the right answer to split the crew again, but there’s multiple flashpoints popping up and I want to see Luffy involved in all of them!

Egghead will probably start building to a conclusion soon, what with Bonney and Vegapunk set to have their actual confrontation about Kuma and Borsalino’s fleet inbound. This (probably) won’t be a big one. But the next stage for One Piece, be it Fullalead, Elbaf or a third location, has so much exciting potential. Looking forward to seeing the final saga continue to escalate over the new year!

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.