Captain M Entertainment

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

While I think it’s a fun novelty to redraw an older colour spread with the full crew (and that it came out great in this case) I hope it’s not an idea Oda gets too attached to I want to keep seeing new settings and activities for this kind of art, not too many retreads. Oh, but speaking of past colour spreads – and this may be a reach – but does Jinbe’s blue tricorn remind anyone of the 20th anniversary colour spread that he missed being a part of? He’d need a new kimono, but that hat would fit right in with what everyone else was wearing then.

Oda will likely never outright confirm that the crew is full. Debates over each island’s new crew candidate drive way too much engagement for the series to ever fully give them up, but this chapter has me feeling stronger than ever that we’re all done. Yamato was the last big tease and he came up short. We see the infamous barrel is occupied. There’s the whole thing with Luffy’s dream I’ll talk about later. And then there’s the colour spread. It wouldn’t make sense to start redoing old spreads to update the crew in them if there was just going to be another recruit in a year or two. I also can’t help noticing Chopper’s shirt outlining him as “No 6.” Debates have raged over whether Luffy saying in the first chapter he wanted a crew of ten included himself or not. Chopper is only number six if Luffy is number one, giving us a full ten as things are. No matter what is teased with the new arrival from the chapter’s last page, I won’t be convinced of any candidate until they’re joining Jinbe on the spreads.

Most of this chapter has a great relaxed atmosphere with crew interactions during some well-deserved downtime. And it’s rare to see the whole group discussing events from the paper so directly. All of the different reactions and opinions were a lot of fun.

I’m glad we get some clarification on the Revolutionary army’s politics from Robin. Even if the answer is that they don’t really have a political position as much as an anti-World Government one. I can respect aiming only for the head of the snake and ensuring focused progress by committing to a single target, but it does feel shortsighted of them to be so outraged about an attack on anyone other than a World Noble. There is plenty of evidence of regular monarchies abusing their power throughout One Piece’s world, with a pertinent current plot thread being the common people rising up against their cruel rulers. What will the Revolutionaries do after unseating Imu and ousting the Celestial Dragons? Rest on their laurels, or move down the chain of authority and properly break apart the systems that enabled the world’s Wapols and Sekis. How many King Cobras must the monarchy create to make one King Doflamingo worth looking the other way from? But I guess a lot of that is me bringing my own opinions into it.

I’m not sure who I support between Luffy and Zoro on the Vivi issue. I respect Luffy being so willing to put his adventure on hold for a friend rather than looking the other way (like a certain samurai did). There are things happening in the world that the crew’s firepower could go a long way in ensuring a good outcome for. But Zoro is right that they wouldn’t be any help in Alabasta and the odds would be against them at New Marineford. Without knowing exactly where they need to go and what actions would help, they could either get in a lot of trouble for nothing, or end up doing more harm than good.

There’s also a likelihood that dropping everything to return to a nation they visited once at the first sign of trouble could expose the crew’s friends to attacks and hostage situations to draw them in. Being too jumpy about this kind of thing exposes a weak point.

That said, I’m not sure how well the argument about Ace holds up, given how things were actually going for Ace at the time… But it’s nice that Zoro has so much faith in Vivi’s strength, even after so long apart.

Brook never hearing about issues with Alabasta’s leadership is worth noting because he probably means from back before he died, giving the Nefeltaris a strong track record. You have to wonder if he actually knows about the civil war his crew got involved in there.

Oda is such a tease, having Robin mention other familiar names in the paper (I have to guess involved in events even us readers don’t know of yet) and Luffy rejecting it all. I love Luffy, but he and I are very different. Give me more news if he doesn’t want it. I wanna knooooooooow!

Luffy telling the crew his dream is a big moment, but there’s not much to say about it. I’m not going to pretend I can Sherlock Holmes the right answer out of the crew’s reactions and I think anyone claiming we do have enough information to solve it definitively is selling snake oil (or maybe their Youtube channel). But it’s a nice scene, and I’m very interested to see what Oda eventually does with this plot point. And this happening now has big implications for the final crew – this hint could have been dropped at any time, but Oda saved it for after Jinbe was aboard. It’s hard to imagine anyone new being added having not heard this (even if they might have found out vial other sources).

I’ll be interested to what Oda does with Caribou after this. He mentioned not being able to hear very well, so he might conveniently have missed it to keep this a symbolic crew only thing. But maybe he’ll leak Luffy’s ultimate goal to the world, for better or worse…

It’s surprising to me that the last Poneglyph is considered the one lost to time with no clues. You would think the one on Zou, in a hidden alcove that the allegedly-cannibalistic locals would guard on pain of death and show only to their closest allies, would be more of a mystery to the outside world. Roger wouldn’t have blabbed about it, so odds are it hasn’t been seen by anyone besides him and the pirate-mink-samurai-ninja alliance in even longer than this fourth one, the trail for which goes cold only 20-something years ago at Fishman Island.

Sabo’s sequence is where things get really interesting. I have so many questions that I know I’ll be waiting a long time for answers to. Is the World Government worried that info about Imu and the Empty Throne being overheard by the Marines’ surveillance division and the Revolutionaries, or are they confident the propaganda they push will be enough to get it all dismissed as Revolutionary lies. Might be a bad play, given how their news manipulator, Morgans, has gone rogue.

I like the detail of Seki threatening impalements. He’s got that vampire look, and we all know about the overlap between Vlad the Impaler and Dracula.

Seeing a whole island destroyed in an instant is pretty shocking, and marks a genuine escalation of One Piece’s power scale. Where the likes of Dragon Ball went fast enough to have planet busters by volume 30, One Piece has done remarkably well sticking with the ceiling it set with Mihawk’s introduction in basically year one. Abilities that could potentially destroy an island, not just depopulate its surface, have been few and far between, and have always seemed like it would still take the user significant time and effort to actually sink a whole landmass. It was, of course, inevitable that things would reach this point by the endgame, but it’s still something else to see it actually happening.

I don’t think Sabo is dead, and I’m skeptical that Oda would slay the number of characters confirmed to reside on Lulusia (six by the wiki’s count) so casually. But how is he going to execute the escape? That explosion seems to go a decent way out to sea as well as covering the whole island. Interestingly, the island doesn’t seem to have been targeted because of Sabo’s presence. So are the other seven kingdoms also in a state of active revolt about to be nuked as well? Or perhaps they already have been.

The final scene is a cool bit of Grand Line chaos, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a bit. And we get Jewelry Bonney! I’m looking forward to seeing what she has to share about the Reverie and the history of the world. This girl’s had too many odd reactions to different things (Whitebeard’s death and Kuma’s enslavement) not to have some lore bombs to drop.

We’re on a decently long run of great, exciting chapters here that really make it feel like the world is moving and the endgame is getting in gear. Can’t wait to see what comes next as things continue ramping up!

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

This was another truly great chapter full of really surprising character interactions and some big, intriguing lore developments. It’s strange though, despite the curtains falling two chapters ago, most of these latest chapters has felt more like the post-battle global update and tying up of loose ends than it has the building up of an actual new arc. In my mind, the Wano saga already includes the Reverie as something as a prologue before the first curtain, so maybe the current chapters can be an epilogue after the final one.

(The apparent reintroduction of the crew for a jumping-in point in the last chapter is the one thing that doesn’t totally fit this line of thinking, but that’s what you get trying to break an ongoing story trying to balance appeal to longterm readers with accessibility for new ones – there aren’t always clean breaks that make the starts and ends of arcs fully contained.)

I thought we were done talking about Yamato for a while, but once again I get what I want in the strangest way possible. First he doesn’t join, but the justification is weak and the character arc non-existent. Now, we see the character arc, but it’s wedged in awkwardly long after the fact. And that’s a shame because in a vacuum, I really like the scene. Yamato choosing not to abandon Wano and wanting to put it ahead of his own desire to adventure is exactly the kind of acknowledgement of Oden’s failings I’ve been hoping for. Like Momo waiting for the opportune moment to open the country instead of doing it right away, Yamato can honour his legacy and will without following his exact footsteps.

So I got what I wanted. And future rereads of Wano’s endings are going to go down smoothing knowing what’s coming. But I don’t think the way Oda went about it has paid off. The shock value of the fakeout wasn’t worth the awkward way he had to circle back to the real reasoning, at least in my mind. I wouldn’t have done it this way, in any case.

Marco departing for Sphinx makes me feel like it’s not the Strawhats’ next destination. His goodbye to Luffy, passing on Ace’s pride in him, has the vibe of an exit from the story, at least until the final battle.

Hancock’s flashback here gave me actual Marineford vibes from the sheer chaos of the battle and the amount of big names we see going head to head and showing enormous feats of strength. Even more exciting is that the big names here are characters we know far more personally than most of the Marineford heavy hitters. I don’t think anyone had a three-way battle between Hancock, Koby and Blackbeard on their One Piece bingo cards. It really is something else to see.

The Seraphim are a development I absolutely love. It feels like things that were hinted at for years are finally coming together. Bloodline element research, cloning, autonomous pirate-hunting androids with knock-off devil fruit powers, the gigantification of children, research on Lunarians, the power of the Seven Warlords – all these precedents set across so many shady scientist characters come together to make the Seraphim a logical extension of the existing plot.

And the questions that remain about how these things were set up are even more intriguing. When and how were the Warlords’ bloodline elements collected? Was it done discretely or was it part of the signup? Are samples taken from prisoners in Impel Down as well. Because of Borsalino’s laser, we know high level Navy guys aren’t above making donations, so who else from that group was used? Is Blackbeard on file? We know Vegapunk was able to replicate Kaido’s fruit from his bloodline elements, so presumably he would be able to see any of the Warlords’ fruits in their genetics too, but does that mean he was able to replicate them as well? What are the limits on collecting bloodline elements from corpses? I think it would be smart to make them unable to clone Roger or Ace, for example, but maybe if Rocks’ corpse had been preserved similar Oars’, it could be a fun way to bring him into the story. Whatever Oda has planned, I’m completely on board for the ride.

It stands out to me that Blackbeard instantly recognises the Lunarian traits in the Seraphim. That’s some pretty hush-hush stuff with big historical implications. What does he know?

And speaking of the Seraphim/Lunarian thing, hopefully they retain the tradeoff between durability and speed established in Zoro and King’s fight. Despite all the time spent setting that aspect of the Lunarian race and having Zoro work it out, I didn’t feel like it went anywhere at the time. But if it was laying the groundwork for future Seraphim battles, that’s a lot more interesting.

As fun as his arrival is (and terrifying, with the conversation between Vasco and Devon), I do have to wonder about Blackbeard’s actual plan. Hancock’s fruit has the potential to be incredibly broken in the right hands, but did he really not know he doesn’t have those? He could maybe give it to Maki or Tori, the girls he was hanging with in the first Wano intermission (given that the Vivre Card databook canonised them as members of the crew), they seem cute enough to get a little use out of it. Or maybe, given how easily Hancock would be able to take out two of his officers and so many others, he just wanted to take a powerful fruit out of the hands of any potential rivals. There’s no shortage of next stops for someone who wants to take nigh-unstoppable fruits off the board. Too bad for Sugar in that case.

Rocky Port gets more and more interesting with each mention. We know Law “masterminded” it, but now we’re hearing Blackbeard was involved too. Would Blackbeard consider Law someone who helped him out like he does Koby, or were they on opposite sides of whatever happened? Imagine Blackbeard reaches out to Law for an alliance because of their connection. How’s that for a crackpot teamup for the final stage of the story?

Shakuyaku’s reveal is one of those great ones that fits right into place as soon as it’s mentioned, even though I never saw it guessed. Yeah, we were told the previous empresses died, but it’s such an easy leap of logic to say they faked their deaths to chase love (rather than abdicating and risking Kuja unhappy with the new regime coming to find them and try to drag them back or some other similar issue) that I have a hard time seeing that as a contradiction at all.

Koby’s kidnapping is a very exciting development. Is Blackbeard just planning to sell him to Buggy for the bounty? It would be a good way to start actually showing what the Marines are worth to Cross Guild. But he seemed amicable to him over the way Rocky Port played out. Maybe Blackbeard is trying to recruit a man on the inside or ally with elements of the Navy in some other way for his own plans (not that Koby is likely to play along) or just manipulate the World Government with a hostage.

Oda has been absolutely on a roll since the curtains closed on Wano. I’m looking forward to more of these kinds of unpredictable vignettes of the world at large for at least another chapter before we circle back to Koby or Sabo’s big cliffhangers. I couple of weeks ago, I was disappointed that Oda was being slow setting up the next destination. Now, I just want more of exactly what we’re getting here.

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

This chapter was a breath of fresh air after the rough place the last one ended. I might be overthinking things, but I’d go as far as saying it feels like a soft reset for series after the crazy continuity creep of Wano. To one extent or another, every new arc takes the series and its cast back to basics, but after four years of Wano, to effect is all the more pronounced. I think also about Oda’s recent comment welcoming people who start reading from the latest chapters, and the liklihood of this being the first chapter of a new volume. It’s a great time to bring new readers in with a reintroduction of the core crew and a showcase of their dynamics and relationships.

It also feels a little like an appeal to older readers, the ones who say post-timeskip has been bogged down with too much focus on side characters, giving them exactly what they want with just the Strawhats and a group of fan-favourite legacy villains from the series’ early years in focus.

Whatever the motive, all this makes for a real crowd-pleaser of a chapter that I loved reading. If I’m ever not excited for a bounty reveal chapter, I’m not excited for One Piece. It’s such classic content.

Jinbe’s addition to the crew is great. I love the way he buys completely into the hype surrounding the other crew members and does it with a totally straight, respectful face. He just straight up thinks so highly of these people that something like Nami displaying Conqueror’s Haki just makes sense to him. Despite the similarities, his version reads very differently to Luffy and Chopper believing Usopp’s lies, or the kind of enthusiastic fanboy hyperbole we would have got if someone like Bartolomeo or Yamato had come aboard. The big guy’s a great fit.

The actual figures on the bounty posters don’t mean that much to me in terms of analysis or power scaling or deciding characters’ worth, but they still tickle that ‘number goes up’ part of the brain, and manage to feel like a celebration of these characters’ accomplishments. Zoro and Sanji’s fight is a highlight, but I’m very interested in what happened with Franky’s photo. Seems like a hard mistake to make, especially considering the Sunny was hidden outside and not a factor in the Onigashima battle. This feels like a future plot point building, but it could just as easily be written off as a gag in the next chapter.

Cross Guild is just as fun as its first reveal suggested, and makes a great way to bring all these classic characters back to relevance for the final act of the story. I wouldn’t say the mix of misunderstandings and being propped up as a figurehead that got Buggy where is are particularly surprising, but they’re still tremendously fun to watch play out.

The last scene with the Revolutionaries really makes me realise how much we still don’t know about this group. It seems strange for Dragon to be so against the murder of an influential World Government king. Does he have insider knowledge that Cobra is one of the good ones? Is he privy to some lore about the Nefeltari family’s connections to ancient secrets, like the Poneglyph they were keeping hidden in their crypts? Or is the coup, when it comes, to be nonviolent? Dragon has been a presence in the story for so long I’m really looking forward to seeing what he’s all about. Hopefully the next chapter picks up Sabo’s call where it leaves off and gives us some more to work with.

The only complaint I could possibly level at this chapter is there being no hint at all of the next destination, and that one’s completely up to my own impatience. It’s a fantastic starting point for the final saga and I can’t wait to see what’s next. There’s even the digital version of volume 103 and the colour version of volume 99 coming out at the end of the week to soften the blow of the break. I’m happy to be a One Piece fan right now.

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

It’s over! And I hate to say it, but the final chapter is definitely one of Wano’s weakest. There definitely seem to be a few things missing from this post-battle portion of the arc, and whether that’s because of Film Red, a desire to finish things off in volume 104 (bold to end a volume with a chapter called “The End” when the series is still ongoing), or just because Oda was ready to move on I can’t say. If we look at other big arcs, Dressrosa took 10 chapters to wrap up following Doflamingo’s ultimate defeat. The Water Seven Saga lasted a full 14 chapters from the last hit on Rob Lucci. Wano, longer than both of those arcs by a significant margin, is given just 8 chapters from Kaido’s fall. My ultimate impression of the arc is positive – I did a full reread of it during the month break and there’s some incredibly strong material throughout – but this was a rough way to end it.

Before we even get to the obvious talking points of Yamato and the Kurozumis, there have been some truly strange omissions in this last portion of the arc that should have been easy point scoring for Oda. Not things that break the story by their absence, but still bizarre to not do. The dawn, for example. I know the references to dawns are a long-term thing being built up, not literally the break of day after the battle, but the symbolism of showing the latter as a step toward the former is such an obvious moment. Jinbe’s welcome too – it doesn’t need to be spelled out that the party of the last few chapters is as much his welcome as it is a celebration of Wano’s freedom, but again, showing the toast from his abandoned first welcome being picked back up and completed would have cost literally nothing and earned so much goodwill from the fanbase that the mind boggles it not being done. Zoro and Ryuma’s grave too I guess, but that one I can see being saved for a flashback to go with his next-arc powerup. I can see it getting old trying to do the sheer number of goodbyes there could have been to say, from Hyogoro to Marco to Carrot and to everyone else a crewmate had a significant interaction with, but if this is to be the final chapter, at least those three characters should have had a panel to show what kind of lives they were settling into now that the fighting’s done. We don’t need these things, but they would have given enough fans enough happiness that their exclusion is baffling.

I’ll suck it up though. Wano is obviously important to the series’ endgame, and we’ll definitely be going back to it in the next couple of years. The story isn’t over yet. Just because some of the arc’s characters weren’t given their closure at this seemingly-opportune moment it doesn’t mean it’ll never happen.

That was a pretty negative opening, and there’s more criticism to come, but let’s take a break and look at the stuff that works here. The three captains bickering and challenging each other as they set sail is beautiful wonderful and entertaining. The real star of the chapter, however, has to be Momo. It’s great attention to detail that he has to run to the coast – his ability to fly has been built up in this arc as an emblem of bravery and adulthood, so for him to lose it in this moment of weakness, when his doubts about the future are overwhelming him, is right in line with that. I felt for the kid when he broke down crying near the end. Of course it was never about Luffy snubbing him by leaving without saying goodbye, he’s just pretty reasonably scared. Even when he tried to take on Aramaki himself, there was the knowledge that Luffy and co were still there, just out of sight, as backup. It’s setting in for real now that Wano will be on its own. Anyone would be anxious in his shoes, let alone an eight year old forced to grow up way too fast.

I’m a big fan of Luffy leaving the flag, an offer to sail together again, and calling Momo a little brother as a way to resolve the scene. It sells the bond they’ve made since Punk Hazard and lets Luffy protect Wano in a way without limiting his or their independence. It’s also pretty funny that Momo now has a little sister that’s (chronologically) older than him and a big brother who’s (biologically) younger than him.

And now we go from the pure positives to something I have mixed feelings about: Yamato. I was never fully on board with Yamato as part of the crew. It didn’t feel right. He should have at least been built up from the start of Wano rather than the start of Onigashima regardless of where he was going to end up. The way he shot from non-existent to essential over the course of a couple of volumes and started dominating Jump covers and merch ahead of characters with far greater legacies never sat right with me. And it’s not that I dislike his character in a vacuum, he’s interesting and entertaining and has a compelling backstory and connections to the lore, but going from nowhere to everywhere that quick gave me kind of a Poochie vibe.

So yeah, I’m happy he’s not joining the crew. The main characters we have now have been established over such a long period of time that an addition as hurried as Yamato could only have felt out of place, and the time it would have taken to properly let him settle in and find a place in the character dynamics would have been at odds with the story accelerating into its endgame.

But that means I got the Yamato ending I was hoping for. Why am I building this up as a partial complaint then?

Because this ending – the right one for the larger story – genuinely doesn’t feel like the end of the story Oda’s been telling for the past couple of years. As someone who didn’t want Yamato sticking around, I was looking for reasons for his story to change course, I loved Jinbe saying “that’s the captain’s decision,” and was hoping for anything else to suggest his mentality changing. But after the Aramaki fight, even I was making my peace with Yamato’s presence. As much as I wanted this, it’s too sudden of a swerve to feel like the story naturally built up to it.

Now, there wasn’t nothing in the story leading to Yamato staying behind. As much as he liked to tell us he would be going to sea, what we were shown from his actions and Oda’s framing of events was a far quicker partnership and deeper bond with Momo than any of the Strawhats. I also think staying in Wano makes more sense for the Oden shtick than it initially seemed. Oden may have felt stifled when he was confined to Wano, but Yamato has spent 20 years confined to just Onigashima. The outside world to him is as much Wano as it is anywhere else. It’s genuinely a good idea of him to get to know the country of the man he idolises firsthand, not just through a journal. And it does give the nation a bit of extra insurance while Momo finds his feet and organises his defences. Oden’s flaws – his selfishness and gullibility – were instrumental in Kaido and Orochi’s rise to power, particularly when the former drove him to abandon the country and his responsibilities to pursue adventure twice, so it would be powerful for the self-proclaimed new Kozuki Oden to learn from the first and do right where he failed.

Buuuuut I wish all those factors had led to a more gradual and visible shifting of Yamato’s mentality over time. At the very least, Yamato should have been allowed to participate in the Aramaki fight, rather than framing it as something Momo was doing in part to show him he could be free. Just a single panel of suggestion that he’d reconsidered some stuff during his vigil over Luffy and Zoro would have gone a long way.

I kind of wish I’d saved my reread for after the final curtain now. I really want to review Yamato’s scenes to see if there’s any more build-up for his actual ending I can see with the benefit of hindsight, but it’s way too soon after just doing it during the break.

And then there’s the goddamn Kurozumi thing. Yikes, this is a bad one. Even with the Oden panel there to make it as clear as possible it’s meant to parallel him joking that his name destined him to boil, it feels wrong. Some people online have definitely taken it a bit far and made it seem worse than it actually is, acting like Hiyori is some kind of genocide-advocating nazi, which she absolutely is not. Making generalisations about a bloodline, especially one that every (known) living member of which has been a complete and willful bastard, isn’t the same as generalising about a race. I wouldn’t blink twice at some kind of “they’re all dickheads who can go burn for all I care” blanket statement about, say, the Trump family, for example, but something about the portrayal here still manages to feel at odds with the series’ philosophies up to this point.

The Kurozumi family persecution was always an odd lingering thread in the Wano mythos. Initially, I was interested in Oda’s portrayal of the Wano in Oden’s flashback as flawed, exhibiting xenophobia, poverty, organised crime bosses with political influence and a whole lawless state in Kuri. And, of course, the vigilante mob that terrorised the disenfranchised Kurozumis. It seemed like an obvious point to demonstrate change in the rebuilt nation. Would Momo as shogun implement some kind of social change so the embers of resentment would never again be fanned into a fire? Would it be made clear that Higurashi and Orochi exaggerated what had been done by a small, unsanctioned minority of the population and projected that hatred onto the whole country? We aren’t sticking aroung long enough to see what Momo is going to change as a ruler (at least it was made clear that he wasn’t planning to follow his father blindly) but the play feels like a poor start to me.

It’s also a missed opportunity that Raizo wasn’t handsomed up and allowed to be popular by Aramaki’s attack, but that’s small potatoes compared to the last thing.

And that’s it. The final shot of Momo and his retainers as a group and the curtains sliding closed sure are satisfying to see after all this time. I’m glad to be moving on from it. It’s been a wild ride, but I want to see a new setting and new story build up.

I want to drop a review of the arc as a whole in the Wano thread soon, but the summary here is that it was an arc of tremendous highs and abyssal lows. Act One and the first half of Act Three have some of the series’ strongest material, but Act Two and the latter half of Act Three, while definitely having their moments, were bloated and muddled and showcased some of Oda’s greatest flaws as a writer. A few major fights not quite hitting home and the epilogue not quite sticking the landing are going to leave a bad taste in the fanbase’s mouth for a while, but I think new readers who catch up from here and don’t have to wait for the story to inch forward week by week will have a much kinder perspective. The broader opinion on Wano will soften as time goes on, but it’s never going to be the best of One Piece’s big battle arcs.

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

Wano and the pirate alliance both really are ending, huh? It’s truly an era of One Piece wrapping up before our eyes, and what an era it’s been. This chapter finally takes us back to the Germa cover story, after close to two months between breaks and colour spreads. I assume Caesar’s going to save the siblings, with an outside chance of Pekoms (and slim odds of Pedro if Oda wants to burn even more goodwill surrounding character deaths. Looks like Oda forgot to ink in Katakuri’s knee spike also.

This is a pretty chill chapter overall, with a lot of standing around and talking. It definitely feels like a send-off for the Wano group giving Kin the chance to settle down with his wife, letting the leaders of Wano take back their roles as retainers, and wrapping up the Sukiyaki reveal (though it’s a bit strange that he was so certain he wouldn’t reveal his identity to Momo and Hiyori two chapters ago, just to do it now). I really enjoyed Kin being the only one not to have figured it out, that was hilarious.

Carrot being named the new leader of Zou feels a tad off to me. I can kinda see the in-universe justification – if previously isolated kingdoms like Zou and Wano are going to be making contact with the world in new ways it does make sense to appoint people who’ve actually experienced travel and dealt with forgeiners to positions of authority, but Carrot is just so young and never really demonstrated any desire to rule or aptitude for leadership, nor was she being groomed for the position. Our other young ruler of recent chapters, Momo, was clearly shown with some training and a desire to live up to the shogunate’s legacy before he ascended to the throne. It almost feels like something done to appease the crowd that voted her to the top of the WT100 poll than it does a planned end of her character arc.

That’s all assuming she agrees and sticks with it anyway, but there doesn’t seem to be time for anything else. Well, I look forward to seeing her leading the minks during the final war.

It’s a classic Luffy moment to just not give a shit about Pluton so casually. I still want to see it though. He and I have very different priorities. I wonder if Franky’s disappointed to be leaving without seeing in person what those old blueprints could create, but maybe he’s just a good enough shipwright that he can visualise it just fine from the documents without having to see anything else.

Shinobu getting de-aged and starting to dress in the same ninja outfit Kin gave Nami instead of her old practical one that Nami had been initially expecting is pretty funny, and I’m a big fan of Tama becoming her apprentice. Great place to leave the character at, and you can just imagine the potential of her ability to enhance her ninja skills on the job.

Going back to Log Poses and actually making the three domes on the New World version relevant is a breath of fresh air after being in Wano so long. I’m a big fan of heavily serialised stories, but even I have to admit I’m pretty excited to have no concrete idea of the next destination (even if there is a pretty narrow shortlist this late in the story). What’s curious about this page is the knowledge that Wano isn’t even halfway through the New World, if a northward course is still considered a forward movement.

Buggy’s new organisation is such a great development. The idea to put bounties on Marines is such a power move, and the presence of Mihawk and Crocodile just raises more and more questions about how this setup came to be. I’m so excited to see more of this group. I wonder if they picked up any of the other former warlords? What really gets me going is that Buggy and Mihawk were both characters from the first year of the series’ run. Well, give or take a week for Mihawk, but they’ve both been around a long time. One was a throwaway, comdic starter villain for the main character, the other was our first preview of the world’s strength ceiling. Can you imagine telling someone reading Mihawk’s introduction in 1998 that in 24 real-world years that guy would be working for Buggy? Twenty-five years, and these supporting characters from the first year are still relevant.

Kid getting a copy of the Lode Poneglyph is something I certainly didn’t expect, alongside the revelation that he got a copy of Big Mom’s in his attack on her territory. Man, if Luffy and co had known Big Mom’s commanders were just sailing around with copies, they might have saved a bit of trouble getting all the way into her treasury to copy it directly. I wonder how many Poneglyph rubbings have made their way around the world’s black markets, and how many fakes there would have to be, considering how hard it would be to certify the real ones. I wonder if Kid was allowed a copy of Zou’s Lode Poneglyph too. We didn’t see Law make his copy of that one, or have Big Mom’s one shared with him but it’s a safe bet he’s got it. Luffy would be willing to share in the spirit of competition, giving us three captains at 75% of the way to Laugh Tale. How exciting!

The chapter also reminds us of an yet unknown player – Caribou’s mysterious contact – and introduces a new one – Kid’s burned man, who Law and Robin seem familiar with.

It really does seem like the next chapter is going to be Wano’s last. Departures are set, a final emotional goodbye for Momo and Kin are being set up, as is whatever the hell the plan for Yamato is going to be. Next chapter is going to be a damn big one. I’m sure no matter what happens it’s going to break a few hearts, but there’s just so much to look forward to after those Wano curtains draw closed a final time.

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

It’s weird to think that this is the third colour spread we’ve gotten in a row, and the second of that group to just be a promo for a spinoff project. Having the spread just be Oda’s Film Red poster that was revealed at minimum weeks ago is kind of a letdown though. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that the Film Gold and Stampede posters got the same treatment, but I feel like them showing up as colour spreads was their actual first reveal, lettimg them be a tad more exciting.

This chapter cuts back and forth between two sequences – the conclusion of Aramaki’s fight on the surface, and the lore deep dive further below.

Aramaki’s bit is definitely the weaker of the two, and not just because I’m biased toward learning the world’s secrets and history over seeing fights. The big narrative takeaway of Momo telling Yamato to stand down and let the defenders of Wano prove they’ll be alright on their own is seriously undercut by them having minimum success and being saved by Shanks. It’s probably a factor that all the Scabbards are likely still not at 100% after the Kaido fight, and Momo’s mid-battle level up makes the outcome without Shanks’ interference far from certain, but it still feels a tad messy. I hope we get a little bit of follow-up in the next chapter or two, as least showing how the Wano locals plan to learn from this encounter.

Cool of Oda to show in no uncertain terms that Aramaki’s fruit has some actual Logia defensive properties. He may have used the word ‘logia’ in his self-description last week, but up until this point his powers seemed far more paramecia. It’s a unique logia, feeling more regenerative (like Marco) than fluid, but I’m willing to accept it as one.

Shanks at the end shows us a very new application for Conqueror’s Haki. In every other use I can think of, the lightning that signifies the Colour of the Supreme King has just sparked randomly off, more aesthetic than functional. Shanks’ haki seems to arc directly toward and over Aramaki from a great distance. There’s a ton of little things here that get my mind racing. How are we meant to read the way it splits these panels here? Have Aramaki and Shanks met, and if not, how did he know from the Haki who was there. Hell, he identifies the whole Red Haired crew, even though it’s only Shanks’s Haki being blasted out. Aramaki’s reactions make it seem like Shanks really is talking to him directly purely through his Haki.

Oda’s showing us here how much we have to learn about Conqueror’s Haki and its uses, leaving Luffy some room to develop a little further over the final saga. I’m glad to see it – simply using Conqueror’s like Armament would have been a pretty underwhelming last Haki revelation.

I’m not reading Aramaki’s retreat as any kind of a loss of face. Marineford’s whole defence force including three Admirals and five Warlords, plus Blackbeard’s newly bolstered crew all declined to fight Shanks. However you slice the powerscaling, Aramaki has less firepower than that enormous force, and since he disobeyed orders to pick a fight in a hostile nation, he’s got no hope of calling for reinforcements. Retreat is a smart option, especially after Momo proved his dragon form was being underestimated.

Regardless of if the issue of Wano’s self-defence gets brought up again, the final scene of Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Jinbe watching over the battle, just in case they had to step in, is a really nice end to this sequence.

The meat of the chapter, at least to me, is the journey underground and the revelation that there’s a whole other Wano at the bottom of the huge basin the country is situated upon. That is such a cool recontextualisation, that everything we’ve seen so far, this huge, diverse and well-developed nation, is all a plateau halfway up the mountain that seemed to tower over it. This is One Piece worldbuilding at its absolute finest! The wording that the walls sprung up is interesting, implying that the people of Wano didn’t build them or choose to have them built, and are thus excused from being called stupid for the lack of irrigation leading to the flooding. It makes the most sense if a certain elephant, or perhaps a dim but well-meaning ancient giant like Oars built them up on the hasty or misinterpreted words of a well-meaning outsider. Or maybe they did have irrigation initially, but debris after an unexpectedly heavy rainfall plugged the system and created a domino effect of flooding that couldn’t be undone…

Personally, I like the Zunesha angle. We all wondered a little why the great beast showed up only to leave so anticlimactically when Momo decided to leave the borders as they were for now. Well now we know – Zunesha wanting to be there for the country’s opening and not feeling needed if that wasn’t happened was completely literal. It was likely planning to pull down the wall itself as soon as Momo gave the order.

While it makes sense to keep the World Government out a little longer and save the unleashing of Pluton for the final battle, I can’t help imagining the version of the Wano Arc where Zunesha smashed the wall open, drained the sea and revealed Old Wano all at once during the climax of the battle. Man that would have been a lot to take in at once!

The idea that Pluton is hidden even further down is a strange one. Kaido’s crew, having sent Jack down, would have found the legendary battleship if it were just moored somewhere and sucked underwater by its own anchorage during the flooding. Sukiyaki is also quite confident that unleashing it would be easy after the walls came down – that even after 800 years it would require no repairs or upkeep (good, since Wano isn’t known for its shipwrights). But I also feel like Pluton couldn’t be anything too mystical, and certainly not anything alive and literally sleeping; having blueprints for it passed down through generations wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

One thing worth remembering is that Wano was described as a country of gold in the past, but we haven’t seen much evidence of that in the present. Could it be that the Atlantisian Old Wano was the one with the rich gold seams, and they simply didn’t reach high enough up Mount Fuji to be mined the same way by the present generation. And could ancient gold mines be the justification for Pluton being hidden further below?

In typical fashion, every answer here raises two new questions, the start of a rabbit hole of connecting threads that we might not come back to for years. These parts, truly, are my favourite bits of One Piece. It’s bizarre thinking that we might be getting complete and final answers after being strung along for so many years. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself if there aren’t One Piece lore mysteries to wonder on. We’re definitely near the end of Wano now – only a handful of things left that either need to be done or would feel like a real missed opportunity to leave without looking at. That and the crewmate debate. I’m not the biggest fan of Yamato joining up, but Momo’s bits this week are evidence stacking up against me. But we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

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

Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this. I thought the month hadn’t been that long up until I started seeing evidence of spoilers floating around, then I realised how hungry I really was for more of this story.

A colour spread for the return from the month off was a given, but we also get a long-awaited new volume cover. I’m honestly not the biggest fan of this one. It’s a decent selection of moments, Big Mom’s absence notwithstanding, but the layout doesn’t quite work for me. It’s too empty in the middle for how busy it is at the bottom. I think it might have worked better if the whole thing was scooched up a few notches until the moon is close to centred on the logo, with Nika Luffy leaping in front of it. Then either space out Kaido, Kid and Law a tad further, or emphasise another character or two.

The image of Nika and the moon has already left a mark on the fanbase’s consciousness, so I get wanting to advertise it and slap some official colours on it as soon as possible, but just don’t think the bottom-heavy layout is all the way there.

The colour spread is pretty tame by Oda’s standards, but its simplicity goes a long way to sell how far Luffy has come. Look at our boy go! Seeing the way these characters are juxtaposed on the halves of the spread helped me realise the two pairs of opposing colours among the Four Emperors. Red and Blue on one side. Black and White on the other. I’ve never doubted that Blackbeard would be the series’ final boss, no matter what Sakazuki was up to or how many Im figures were introduced, and putting him and Luffy in direct opposition like this only makes me more certain.

But it really shouldn’t have been surprising. Oda has been pressing Blackbeard and Luffy as the same but inverted since Jaya.

I don’t think this means Shanks and Buggy will fight though. I’m interested to contrast them in this final stage of the story, given their connected origin, but I’m not vibing real conflict just yet.

Going into the actual chapter, it’s amazing how reliably the party-distracted capital was able to spot Aramaki’s approach and how quickly the Scabbards were able to mobilise. How many people here ho aren’t part of that group would be able to recognise a Navy admiral for the threat he is, given how closed off the nation is. But I suppose they would all be on high alert for any kind of move from the remnants of Kaido’s crew.

Oda uses Aramaki here to turn subtext into text, telling the readers outright the things about the state of the world he’s been hinting at for years. 170 member states out of millions of islands on the sea. Celestial-ranked nobles that operate on an entirely different set of rules even to regular nobility, only 50 world leaders – less than a third of of the World Government’s total membership – get to sit at the Reverie table, and of course we see regular nobles abusing their power over the common man all over the place. The whole world is a towering system of haves and have-nots, where the classes are divided not just by their means, resources and levels of luxury, but what laws and consequences are applied to them. And we can see now that it’s not a natural order, the people at the top are aware of the inequality built into the system and work to keep it there.

It’s easy to keep on living and not be too envious of those who stand above you when you can distract yourself with thoughts of “at least I’m not that guy” but on the flip side, it’s also easy to submit to exorbitant taxation and dehumanising political bargaining when there’s a lingering threat of being made into “that guy”.

Stop me if you’ve already figured out the real world stuff this applies to. Oda’s many things, but subtle isn’t one of them.

I wonder how the World Government feels about one of their top military officials saying the quiet part loud to the people of a nation they’re planning to take control of.

All the politics aside, this is just a magnificent set of pages as well. I absolutely love the two fist trees rising out of the ground here, a great and memorable touch. I’m sure Oda had a great time designing and drawing it all.

Momo’s doing great here. It really sunk in when Luffy asked him what else he could have to fear. And it doesn’t seem to be the only thing he picked up from Luffy. [spinny legs comparison] But dispite Oda making note of improved physical strength in Momo a few chapters ago, the facts laid out during the battle, that adulthood doesn’t instantly give him perfect technique or control over his powers holds true.

Do we dare compare Kaido’s response to Momo’s bite and Aramaki’s? Some will use it for powerlevel trolling, claiming it proves Aramaki is stronger than Kaido. Others will analyse, claiming that Kaido was perhaps struggling to keep his haki all the way up after so much fighting while Aramaki is coming in fresh and all juiced up after draining the wounded Beasts Pirates officers. I’m here to tell you it’s because dragon is super effective against dragon and only neutral against grass. Problem solved.

I’m very curious to see the what logic in asking only Yamato not to fight is. If it were all the Scabbards being asked not to stand down, that could be a new leader trying not to start a war, but I’m scratching my head over why it could be just Yamato.

And then we get Shanks! Shaaaanks! Is he making his move at last, or just teasing us again, as he’s been doing for 25 years now. I’ll admit, as exciting as his big declaration at the end is (and the follow up to Barto’s cover story), this is more of a Shanks recap than anything else. We’re not learning all that much new from his perspective of the Gum Gum heist. The dialogue surrounding the fruit remains vague enough that we still can’t know if the fruit is something Shanks was specifically looking for or if he knew its true nature. Remember that even after stealing the fruit, Shanks made at least one more voyage from Luffy’s town and returned, so his work in the East Blue wasn’t done yet.

There are some interesting tidbits here though. Who’s Who’s horns are apparently something he naturally has. What’s up with that? Shank’s ship retains its chapter one appearance, confirming it was upgraded or changed out at some point in the past dozen years. This might have been confirmed in a databook or something previously, but I wouldn’t have questioned it if the design had just been retconned as a relic of the simpler art style of the early days. We also see that not every member of Shanks’s current inner circle was present for chapter one. This makes sense, given how many random crew members we see there that don’t appear in the present and weren’t canonised in the volume 101 SBS. We saw in Oden’s flashback how much Whitebeard’s crew changed over the decades, so it seems fair enough Shanks’s group would shift too.

The need to hunt down Bartolomeo so Shanks can keep his standing is seemingly at odds with his philosophy from the opening chapter. Will we learn that this is just the weight of the years and knowledge on the captain’s shoulders, making the once-cheerful mentor figure cynical? Or will it be that his choice to only act to protect his friends has become more complex, with shows of weakness inviting attacks on his territory and more danger for people in it that he cares about? What will Luffy think of the change in him?

The New Marineford section of the chapter is where the juicy stuff is. We’ve spent three weeks in-universe in a country where no info flows in or out, and it seems we’ve missed a lot. Cobra killed, Kuma rescued, Vivi disappeared, Charlos unfortunately only nearly killed, trials and tribulations in the land of gods, a glimpse of how the Celestial Dragons who live above normal laws deal with conflict among their own. Oda gives us so much new information to chew on but at the same time holds so many details back. I am hungry for more of this.

I think it’s interesting that Cobra’s death would spark so much chaos. Of course the slaying of a Celestial Dragon is the kind of defiant act that spreads like wildfire through your average dystopia, but when Doflamingo revealed that the Nefeltaris were a World Government founding family who neglected to ascend I had figured that was a secret to the world. Like they were fully committed to the idea of the Celestial Dragons being descended from gods, and wouldn’t dare admit they just came from founders who had been normal royalty previously. Maybe the founders became deities in the act of doing the founding. That seems easy enough to make a religion out of.

Many Sabo detractors over the years have claimed with varying levels of fairness that he’s just Ace 2.0, and that the story hadn’t justified him as anything more than a way to partly bring Luffy’s brother back. I never want to hear any of that again. Sabo’s role as the face of a global uprising is one that Ace could never have filled. His legacy as Roger’s child, as much as he raged against it, made him ill-suited to capturing the public’s sympathy the same way. This truly feels like Sabo coming into his own.

And hot damn, catch that guillotine behind Sabo’s hype guy at the end. There’s even a bit of blood on it already, no messing around! We’re doing this revolution the old fashioned way. Given the decidedly french name of the World Government’s holy land, it’s pretty obvious where Oda’s getting his inspiration for the power to the people scenes.

I definitely don’t believe Sabo killed Cobra. I think it all has to do with Im’s attempt to erase a light from history, possibly Vivi. And I think he’s probably with Sabo right now. But that’s all low-hanging fruit as far as theories go.

I really don’t know what to expect from the next chapter. Any other part of the series, I’d tell you outright you’re a fool to think we’re coming back to global events as big as the revolutions or machinations as important as Shanks’s anytime in the next few months, maybe even within the year. Oda draws this kind of worldbuilding out and always leaves us wanting more. But this is the final saga. Maybe it’s time to start following up. Whatever’s to come, I’m so excited for the series to be back, and extremely pleased Oda has such a banger of a chapter waiting to return with.

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

I’m glad we get at least one chapter of proper post-arc before the break. It’s so refreshing to be back in this phase of Oda’s story structure and I’m glad to know there’s more of One Piece’s best on the horizon. I had the impression going in that this week’s colour spread would be Oda’s recently revealed Film Red poster, in much the same way his Stampede poster opened chapter 945, but we get a full spread for the Odyssey game instead? Neat! Interesting that Odyssey gets this treatment when other titles Oda contributed character designs to like Unlimited World Red and World Seeker didn’t. Maybe Oda just wanted to show off his monster designs. Can’t really blame him for that.

I’m loving that Morgans is now totally rogue after his falling out with Cipher Pol over the Reverie’s details in chapter 956. Given how quick and easy it was for the World Government to alter the news as part of Doflamingo’s scheme at the start of Dressrosa, we can assume that Morgans was the Government’s mouthpiece for a long time before the past few weeks. We don’t often circle back to Luffy’s greatest strength being his ability to win people over to his side, but this is a super underrated example of it, him unintentionally drawing in the best hype man he could have hoped for.

It’s also cool to see the Government trying to give Luffy the same treatment they gave Roger – subtley retconning the D initial out of the public consciousness. It’s obviously not illegal to have a D, though some families definitely choose to keep it secret, but it makes sense to see the downplay it if someone starts to too much embody the folklore about bringing forth a storm.

Oda’s also doing a quick job of wrapping up the loose ends people have been talking about. What happened to Big Mom’s crew? They crossed paths with the incoming World Government fleet and had a little bit of a battle. That’s pretty logical considering the pieces in play and where they all were, I’m surprised I didn’t see it pop up more often as a theory.

Three billion each for the captains, with some great new pictures to boot. I guess the random panel of Guernica fleeing Onigashima in chapter 1049 was to set up him having been in the right place at the right time for that picture. I’m a little surprised not to see four billion, given the number of the Film Red tie in volume, but who’s to know the mind of Oda. It’s cool that Luffy, Law and Kid get to remain rivals in at least some sense here.

I almost feel a little bad for Jinbe having his fancy meal alone waiting for the others. But he seems happy, so I guess festivals just aren’t his thing. I hope the events at the end of the chapter don’t keep them from reaching him. Cool detail: this seems to be the same room from Orochi’s introduction scene in chapter 929, the start of the party at which Hiyori and Denjiro would eventually fake Komurasaki’s death.

Luffy’s new kimono and Jinbe’s new cape have pretty similar motifs with the hexagons. That’s a cute detail. Wonder if the colours will match too.

The kokeshi dolls and the Poneglyph under the palace were first mentioned by Brook back in chapter 934 after he scoped out the place in soul form. It’s important to remember that this isn’t the country’s Lode Poneglyph – but I imagine it’s being kept alongside Pluton, wherever that is. Hitetsu’s identity is one we were definitely given enough information to guess. The question of where he was all those years and why he didn’t seek out Oden is immediately answered with the revelation he was imprisoned until after Orochi had fully consolidated his power. I feel like I saw at some point that something in the Vivre Card databook made this reveal impossible, like it gave Hitetsu and Sukiyaki different birthdays or made Hitetsu too old or something, but when I look back over the information we had I can’t find anything that could possibly have brought anyone to that conclusion. It might feel a little cheap to have Sukiyaki alive after all this time, but since Momonosuke was never taught the art of crafting Poneglyphs or writing in the language used for them and Sukiyaki presumably was, there’s a very good narrative reason to have kept him around.

Aramaki makes a commanding first impression for the series’ final admiral. I’m not even talking about him attacking the leftover Beasts Pirates, just look at the establishing shot of the prison mine. Compare the environment around it to how it all looked in chapter 946. That would be a tremendous and terrifying amount of power even without all the pirates he beat.

He’s got a fantastic, memorable design as well, but it strikes fear into my heart that he seems so dead set on capturing Luffy and winning Sakazuki’s approval. I don’t think Wano has another full-scale fight in it and I don’t think anyone wants to see Aramaki beaten by the combined powers of the alliance immediately after his introduction. So what’s happening? Will he be talked down? Driven back for political reasons by the new shogun standing up to him and declaring Wano’s sovreignity and protection of the pirates? Or maybe something out of left field like Luffy fleeing all over Wano, leading him around so his out of control plant powers can bring greenery back to the land.

It’s cool to see Luffy sticking with his not being a hero thing even now. It’s obviously as much for Momo’s sake as it is self-serving, letting the new dynasty start with a win the citizens can feel their new leader is responsible for, but it’s still nice. Goes a long way in justifying not putting Kaido’s defeat where the citizens can see, something a lot of people were expecting.

Absolutely loving the spread of Luffy and Kid dancing under the fireworks. That’s a moneyshot as far as post-arc party scenes go. It’s gorgeous! I can’t wait to see the colour version! And so great to see all the crew and their allies celebrating alongside them, including Kin’emon and Otsuru reunited at last. It’s one small panel for the last two, but it’s surprisingly heartwarming after all this time.

And then the end of chapter stingers – the new Emperors and the admiral’s approach. It must suck for Law and Kid feeling left out like that, but it makes sense. The Emperor position isn’t just about might, it’s about territory and influence. Luffy, having claimed Fishman Island, invaded Tottoland and inspired the Straw Hat Grand Fleet (including Bartolomeo running around trying to conquor other Emperors’ territory in Luffy’s name in his cover story) is legitimately much more representative of an Emperor than the other Supernova captains, who’ve kept their sights much more squarely on Kaido without getting distracted. Buggy is… well I saw people speculating it during the week, but I never thought they could be right. The obvious answer is that he somehow united the other betrayed Warlords behind him, but I’m very interested to see the truth. Aramaki hints again that the status quo outside has been shaken up big by the Reverie and the aftermath of the World Government’s attack on the Warlords. I’m so excited to see what that means, and so hurt for a month off to happen here of all places.

So what’s next? I can’t wait to see what Pluton really looks like and confirm another Lode Poneglyph for the set! I want to see the new geopolitics! I’m looking forward to seeing how the crew and the locals handle Aramaki! This is such a massive, frustrating cliffhanger for a month off. And given the next chapter is likely the last of volume 104 it’s all the more reason to be on the edge of our seats for it.

Horrible place for a break, but at the same time maybe the best time for it. I know my hype is going to stay strong during the gap after this banger chapter, rather than the lingering concerns of a few weeks ago when the end of the fight didn’t quite touch the series’ other emotional peaks and it was starting to feel like the post-battle lore dump would never come. Better to be left on a high note than a low one I guess is what I’m saying. Looking foward to seeing what Jump fills the next four weeks with, doing a reread of Wano up to this point during the interrim and of course getting back to Aramaki and the festival in a month!

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

Okay, we’re officially in the postarc! We made it, no more room for doubts! I’m glad to be here, but it’s hard to keep the break and final saga announcements from overshadowing this milestone and sowing concern that the long-awaited lore dump will be cut short.

My prediction is that the next chapter will end with the Act Three concluding and curtains closing on the shogun and samurai of Wano now that their arcs are all more or less concluded, but we’ll remain in Wano after the end of the play for the focus to shift back to the Strawhats and their interests. The start of the final leg of the story will be the Wano lore and poneglyph setup. I think we’re fooling outselves if we expect every lore and worldbuilding question raised by Wano to be answered in Wano, because One Piece has never, ever, ever worked like that, but I’d be surprised if the crew is ready to leave after just one more chapter.

Pictured below: how Oda answers lore questions:

People seem to have high expectations for Wano wrapping up absolutely everything, but it’s easy to forget that One Piece lore has always come in the form of like one sentence worth of concrete information per arc alongside a lot of vague implications leaving us to piece together everything we know like a drip fed puzzle over the course of 25 years.

But anyway, the chapter. I’m very interested to see why the Five Elders thing the timing is bad for the Emperors to start falling. Did their Order 66-ing of the Warlords not turn out so well? Is the big thing with deaths and Revolutionary attacks at the Reverie trigger some political strife? Is Imu’s command to erase a light from history likely to create a delicate public relations situation?

Zunesha vanishing without even driving off the WG ships is a bit of a disappointment. Oda could have put a tiny bit more effort into at least pretending there was something going on there besides confirming the Joyboy thing. Hell, with the Five Elders cutaway during the fight to namedrop Nika, even that probably wasn’t necessary. I’ve seen it suggested by someone here that Gear Five should have been left a mystery during the fight, giving us months of time to predict how it fits in and what it means, with those confirmation scenes saved until around this time, and I have to say that does currently feel like it would be better.

That said, Zunesha’s disappearance seems to confirm to the Elders that Wano will stay closed. Interesting. I wonder if we’re going to find out a little more about what opening the borders actually entails – if Zunesha has a role to play in maybe tearing down the rock walls or opening a more convenient way up than the waterfall. If the World Government was expecting the country to literally open in that kind of way, it explains why they’ve brought a fleet only to hold it back. Big Mom’s crew showed us twice how dangerous a contested waterfall ascent can be. The WG feared the worst, but thought it would give them an easier way up, and don’t want to risk the casualties of doing it the other way.

Ordinarily I would have rolled my eyes at Hawkins seeming to die in the immediate aftermath of the fight, but in the same chapter that confirmed the demises of Izo and Ashura, with every sign pointing to Orochi and Kanjuro also staying down, I’m willing to actually believe it. Hell, a part of me wonders if Drake is supposed to be succumbing to his injuries here as well.

I really like Oda circling back to the kids of Wano being taught propoganda in school and showing that one of the first things done under the new regime is to start correcting that.

Hey so how’d the people of Wano hear the name Joyboy? As far as I remember, it’s only come up between Momo and Zunesha since we’ve arrived. Who’s spreading the story?

Izo and Ashura’s deaths are surprising and sad, but also emblematic of Oda’s odd handling of death. Kiku and Kin got near-perfect dramatic death scenes with big, memorable last stands, but still pulled through. Ashura and Izo died fighting, but not in ways you’d expect a character’s final scene to play out. In some ways this still manages to enhance the feeling of an all-out war. When you have so many people wagering their lives in so many different skirmishes, with so much chaos and the spread of information so difficult, you’re not going to find out everyone who lost the ultimate gamble until after things calm down and the casualties are tallied. There’s a grounded sense of randomness to who gets to come back from the battle and who doesn’t. Even having seen as much as we did thanks to our omniscient viewpoint as readers, it feels somehow like we missed Izo and Ashura’s deaths due to our inability to be everywhere on the battlefield at once.

We go straight from that somber scene into a whole lot of humour and fanservice. I’m not massive on Momo suddenly being super resistant to physical blows after the last chapter’s narration tried to sell the idea of his strength being nothing to write home about, but I’ll let it slide for the gag. Luffy and Zoro not recongising Momo is great, but Momo trying to be a perv using his age as a defence is a very played out kind of manga humour. And I like Luffy taking Yamato’s “prayer” at face value. Still don’t know if I’m sold on the crewmate angle, but every good interaction between Yams and the crew helps. The highlight of the scene has to be Zoro immediately attacking Sanji based on their last conversation.

The bath scene, while blatant fanservice, is legitimately so much more inclusive than I usually expect to see. No one has an issue with Kiku and Yamato bathing in the area that reflects their identity.

Although Yamato’s identity really is only complicated after the Vivre Card emphasising that he’s a woman with him continuing to introduce himself as a son last chapter and joining the men’s bath this week. My stance remains that if someone introduced themselves to me like Yamato typically does and used the men’s bath like this, I would guess they want to seen as a man and base the language I use for them around that. It’s really hard to say what Oda’s perception of Yamato is meant to be with all this in mind, or what the plan for his development out of the Oden phase is (if one even exists).

It’s cool to see the time being taken for repairs after the battle, although I’m not really sure when the Polar Tang would have taken damage. Kid’s ship also didn’t get hit onscreen, but it’s easier to believe it could have happened during the initial sea battle. I would have liked to see how the Sunny and Kid’s ship got from the bay of Onigashima back to the oceans though.

Man, Apoo’s gotten off real easy for all his betrayals and the damage he did as an enemy. I have the impression he skuttled off after Onigashima landed and this is the first he’s been seen since then. The lack of concern about is presence is mostly because he wouldn’t stand much of a chance against everyone at that port anyway, even with Inbi backing him up. He hinted during the battle that he has ties to the media, and now he seems so proud of how his reports ended up. I wonder if we’re being set up for some kind of a fakeout where Apoo downplayed or embellished the actions of certain groups to fit his own agenda…

Ryokugyu at the end is a fun surprise. The theories about plant powers were reasonable enough, but I never really thought the theories tying him to Wano were based on anything solid. I guess we’ll find out shortly how personal his presence is. Oda definitely seems to setting up a character who could help or hinder the crew next week.

I feel like we’re unlikely to hit as natural a stopping point as the timeskip before the break starts after the next chapter, but I’m glad it’s confirmed we’ll at least see bounties and who the world sees as having Emperor status before that. Should give us a lot to chew on a speculate about for a month. It’s also rough to have a month off right when I was getting excited to move onto the post-battle stuff – but I’m trying to keep in mind that this only has to be dealt with once. The arc will flow smoothly over this gap on every reread.

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

This week we continue out post-battle wind-down with the necessary crowning of the shogun and conclusion of Momo’s decade-long character arc from the scared and starving child who ate a devil fruit accidentally in an attempt to steal food on Punk Hazard to a grown man (at least in appearance) offering abundant food and water to an entire nation. He’s still not my favourite ever One Piece character, but it’s hard not to feel proud of the kid making inroads on the titanic legacy Oda set him up for.

The Scabbards seem to be mostly alright despite the battle damage some of them took, but I don’t think I’ve found Ashura Doji anywhere in the chapter, strangely enough. Denjiro and Hiyori ended their bit of the battle near where he fell, and we’ve established that she has some first aid talent, so they should have been able to fix him up… as long as he was still alive. I’m not holding my breath for a casualty, but the absence sure does stand out.

Yamato is still introducing himself as Kaido’s son, and later Kozuki Oden, even with the battle over and the need for an Oden extinguished. I’m seeing a lot of people very excited about his declaration that he’ll join the crew, but I think Jinbe has the right of it: it’s not settled until Luffy says so, and Luffy has not said so. Robin reacting with a heart in her dialogue is pretty unusual. Not unheard of, but I definitely wouldn’t have expected it from her here. Personally, I’m not huge on the idea of Yamato joining longterm yet. There’s just something kinda lacking here. At the very least, I want the scene where Luffy demands Yamato be his own man before things are settled.

Introducing a new character to the crew’s dynamic at 25 years in is a huge deal. Even Jinbe needed to spend multiple arcs as a supporting character/honourary crewmate cementing himself in the group before he got to officially and permanently join up. I don’t care how big his tits are or how well it fits anyone’s powerscaling mentality to have another fighter that could stand up to Kaido on board, or any of the other reasons people are for him, there simply hasn’t been enough screentime to justify him sticking around full time.

I definitely feel like I’m in the minority on this one, but the bottom line will be Luffy’s reaction when he gets up.

Tama’s scenes were surprisingly cute here. I wonder if Oda got any messages from people concerned about the morality of her brainwashing that he wanted to respond to. Nice of Speed to choose to stay, though I hope she’ll have the chance to think it over between doses of dango. I doubt it’ll convince any of the people who claim that Tama is doing a slavery and actually evil, but I think it works as a way to tie off the loose end.

Also Tama says the turn of the lunar cycle is the time limit for her power, and Usopp confirms that to be a month. Interesting, given that the time between the Whole Cake Island and Wano full moons is a little over two weeks. While Oda uses real world months and dates in the SBS, I don’t think they’ve been used in-universe (aside from the Baroque Works day of the week code names) so it could be that the One Piece world has a different perception of a month based on their faster lunar callendar. (or I just care about the phases of the moon more than Oda does, which is completely reasonable)

Remember the theory that Tama was a secret Kurozumi descendant? Her flashback here seems to put that one to rest. It was never particularly strong evidence-wise, but I liked what it might have added to Wano’s themes. Oh well. But the mystery of Hitetsu’s identity deepens…

Adult Momo looks really damn good. Not sure where he got such a stylish kimono in his size at such short notice, but he’s certainly pulling it off. And hey, is it just me, or do the spirals and flames at the bottom look incredibly similar to the way Oda drew the fire under Oden’s execution pot? I think it’s important that the narration reminds us that he’s still only eight years of age, and that he’s not gotten strength for free from the ripening process. There’s something bittersweet in a boy so young needing in so many ways to be a great man, carrying so much duty on his shoulders. That could be a whole story of its own, but the narrator also makes it clear to us that one way or the other, he’ll manage to pull it off. The future of the Wano shogunate is secure.

The final page feels like a great place to break away from this scene and either show what’s happening in the outside world or jump forward to Luffy’s awakening and the crew’s celebration feast. I’m almost certain it’s the right time, but after all the emphasis that’s been placed on the dawn – Toki’s prophecy, Oden’s fall and Kaido and Orochi’s rise starting out with a sunset, the day following the Fire Festival marking a return to the life of slavery – it would be odd to end this sequence without the sun rising. Oda might be saving it for something later, but without it I’m not getting my hopes up too high.