Captain M Entertainment

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

Alright, so Luffy has been combined with a legendary sun deity. Short of the One Piece itself, this is the series’ biggest possible reveal, right? A complete recontextualisation of Luffy’s powers, which have been central since literally chapter one. My gut says this isn’t the greatest twist in the world – it’s less of an ‘oh, everything makes sense in hindsight’ and more of a ‘never in a million years would I have said this is where it’s going.’ But that’s not to say this new information has no synnergy at all with what we knew previously.

For example, the idea of the Devil Fruit having a mind of its own and influencing its own fate One Ring-style fits in easily. Zoan fruits can be fed to inanimate objects to create a hybrid with the mind of the animal. Evidence suggests the reason that Zoans were the only fruits that could be imitated in Smile form is because you could use living animals to sythisise them. The old wives tales told about the fruits at Ennies Lobby said they put actual devils inside your body. So if the Elders say the fruit tried to escape on its own, I see that as a logical extension of all these points.

Not mention all the symbolism of lions, sunflowers, suns and Luffy that have been in play for a long time now. There’s not nothing to go on here, although it’s little enough you might be called a crackpot prior to this chapter if you’d try to go all in a theory based on only that.

I’m interested to see what the relationship between Mythical Zoans and the creatures they represent really is. We haven’t seen any evidence in-universe of a phoenix or a natural-born dragon (depending on how canon you want Monsters to be), and no one’s arguing that the Buddha really lived in OP world’s history, so do we say that these creatures only exist in the form of their representative Devil Fruits, and are otherwise fictional? (If the mythological creatures are only extinct, surely they would be Ancient Zoans instead, not that we should be putting too much stock in presumed classifications and names after this week.) And then was it the chicken or the egg when it comes to the fruits and the myths?

In any case, I think the mythological angle spares Luffy from accusations of no longer being himself – or of never having been himself. If the will of the Buddha inside Sengoku’s fruit couldn’t keep him from earning a reputation as a powerful military leader and kept him in the service of an evil empire built on the backs of slaves, it’s safe to say Nika isn’t making Luffy do anything he wouldn’t already want to do. Is it a bit of a cheap coincidence that Luffy so naturally wants freedom and brings joy and just happens to eat the fruit of the god of all that? Sure, but so is a guy called Smoker getting smoke powers and a guy called Orochi getting Orochi powers. It hits a bit different when it’s the main character, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before.

That said, after every other Mythical Zoan was something you could find in real world legends, it’s a tad cheap for this one to be an all new made-up god with the exact traits needed for the prior evidence to make sense – a being of rubber and fire sounds made up to fit the clues, rather than clues being given of its existence. It’s not something that feels guessable, which can be a frustrating experience as a reader.

It’s funny that Kaido talked about Luffy trying to be Joyboy, as if that name was the title, leaving us to assume Nika was perhaps the last person to carry that mantle. But he got it wrong, didn’t he? Nika is the mantle and Joyboy was the last to use it. I wonder if we’ll see how the two names got twisted up, or if it’s just a natural result of the World Government’s attempts to erase history.

What I really would have wanted to see leading up to this twist, in hindsight, is Nika being better established long before Who’s Who brings him up. A scratching of the name or the silhouette carved into a wall in Impel Down, for example, lingered on just long enough by the camera to make it stick out to hardcore fans. I know we’ve had mentions of sun gods since forever (hell, there’s a thread I started on the topic still on the first page of this board) but not enough follow through between them and the ideas of liberty and broken chains and happiness and rubber now being ascribed to them. Maybe that was meant to click into place on its own when Who’s Who named Nika for us i chapter 1018, but that feels like too little too late for my tastes.

I like when I can reread a story and go ‘it was right in front of me all along!’ but my best recollections of One Piece lore still have me clutching at straws to find the build-up to it.

I’m also not sold on what exactly Luffy’s new powers are. I guess we’ll be seeing more fire for obvious reasons, but One Piece has been so cartoony from the start it’ll take a lot for this new imagination-driven toolset to actually stand out. Like yeah, it’s a big shift in tone for Luffy to be able to pick up Kaido and slam him back and forth like he’s a loony tune, but he did that to Oars too. I suppose it could be read as a point in this twist’s favour that it feels so in line with what we’ve seen Luffy do previously – it’s just more blatant about bending the laws of physics for laughs now. We’re probably going to be debating til the end of time what powerups or mid-fight goofball moments were unconscious manifestations of Nika’s powers. To what extent can “the most ridiculous power in the world” actually warp reality to get its user’s way? I’m not going to go too hard on that point though – this chapter was for the big reveal and a spectacle set-piece. Rules and limits come later. But I do want to see them get at least a tiny bit better defined in the future.

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

Just a month ago I was wondering about the logic in putting the fall of Big Mom at the midpoint of volume 103. How could Oda possibly find a volume-ender to top that, I wondered. Well now, on the volume’s eighth chapter, we’re starting to see the end take shape. And it is absolutely going to be a big one. At this rate, volume 103 could be one of the most pivotal (and perhaps controversial) in the series’ run.

Oda really wants to emphasise that Luffy is down after that hit. The “silence” sound effect isn’t often used for living things – and was memorably placed over Cora’s body when he died. And it ties into two different characters saying Luffy’s “voice” has disappeared. That’s scary stuff. Even after being shot four times and going totally limp in Doflamingo’s grip, Law had a faint Voice for Luffy to detect. Pretty worrying for no one to hear even a whisper from him. And even if it wasn’t that, a ten minute haki recharge in the current situation isn’t something Kaido would let him live through. Despite all the signs, I find it a little hard to believe Oda killed Luffy for real here, but either way it’s clear he’s not returning to the battle under his own power.

For the fascist-enabling, fight-interfering bastards that they are, CP0 come across pretty likable in this chapter. The boss has brass balls to stand still and accept Kaido’s wrath with such composure, and his comrade returning the tip of the hat from his room in the castle is pure class. Such professionalism! It’s a lot of characterisation in very little time, and it plays well with them hiding in plain sight in the story until last week like the spies they’re meant to be. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised about how Oda’s handled these guys, now he just needs to give them names, damn it!

I appreciate Kaido not screwing around with locking in his victory this time. Instead of taking the slow way through the castle and getting distracted, he just plunges through the ceiling, declares his victory to the largest gathering of the two armies in person and dares anyone to challenge him on it. The shots of him fulling the airspace of the dome are really impressive pieces of work. The scale of the battle here so cool. And as a bonus spot of continuity, Oda’s remembered to show the damage to the bathhouse from when Marco smashed King into it in chapter 1006.

It’s really satisfying seeing Nami be the one to come out and defy Kaido to his face. We’ve already had a big moment where she declares her faith in her captain to an overwhelming enemy at great personal risk, and now she does it again. And he wasn’t even talking to her directly. Not exactly a pragmatic choice, but I’m all about her bravery.

Again, Oda pushes the idea that it’s all over now. Kaido is pissed and offering no quarter. The slavery stuff and demanding Momo surrender personally isn’t really a change from what he said he was going to do before the raid, but expressions here go a long way to sell the threat.

I don’t love Momo suggesting surrender as much. I can only hope he didn’t actually hear what Kaido said above the Performance Floor, because if he’s still giving in and subjecting his country to that it’s a sad move for his character. Yamato gets a good moment out of convincing him to keep going at least. Do they take the long death with no chance of salvation, or the quick one with a small chance of victory? The choice should be obvious. I do like Yamato standing on Momo’s body and grabbing him by the whiskers to make the point. I wish we’d been given a better look at it instead of just the ultra-wide establishing shot and the extreme closeups.

And then, the big finale. I really, really don’t know what to make of this and hate having to wait through a break week for more info. People have been losing their minds since the spoilers hit with so many interpretations flying around, but I’m stuck on this feeling that we don’t know enough yet.

We zoom in on Luffy’s still body. There’s a “Don”-type sound effect. Oda uses these all the time for emphasis, but they can be diagetic as well. So is it drama, or are we hearing Luffy’s heart beat after the silence from before? It is the same sound effect used for Enel’s heart starting back up in chapter 275… The solitary beat becomes a rhythm with music notes and everything and Zunesha calls it the “Drums of Liberation.” Given that the regular Don sound effect, that Oda’s used liberally for every big moment and character introduction from literally chapter one, is often interpreted as something of a punctuating drumbeat, there’s some interesting implications for how the whole series has been framed so far. How often have we heard these Drums of Liberation?

And then the big one. Zunesha calls Luffy Joyboy. Luffy grins. Steam rises from his body and the top of his head seems to bubble up. I think it’s interesting that Luffy’s shirt is only shaded instead of inked in like usual, and with such deep shadows, giving the impression of an intense light on the area. Is that just for the drama, or part of whatever’s awakening here? The framing also keps us from seeing Luffy’s body directly turn to goo. It could be that this thing is enveloping him instead.

It feels to me like a lot of people are being quick to assume the worst about reincarnations and prophecies and all the rest. This is a huge cliffhanger that leaves a lot of questions and next to no answers. No one knows exactly what’s happening with it yet, so assuming any answer, good or bad, is a mistake. I remember when we first learned that the samurai had come through time and how so many people lost their minds talking about how it would ruin the story and create paradoxes and this and that, only for Oda to impose just the right rules on the power to make it work for the story. There were smaller meltdowns over the potential of Tama’s fruit, the appearance of the fake Oden and the awakening of Sanji’s Vinsmoke powers, but all of those turned out fine as well. While every arc has had ups and downs through the middle, I don’t think I’ve ever been left wanting by the endings. Oda’s good at bringing characters and themes and ideas together and making sure it all forms a pleasing final note. The contrast between how gullible and frustrating Dressrosa’s civilians could be during the arc and the power of their redemptive moment when they play up their own apparent naivety to protect the fleet from the Marines comes to mind as an example of Oda sticking the landing at the last moment, long after the readers had given up on on finding anything to like in those guys.

There are good reasons One Piece has lasted nearly 25 years. There are good reasons I’ve been about to stay invested week to week for more than half that time, and why some of our veterans have kept up to date even longer. Whatever’s happening with Luffy right now, I trust Oda to have a plan and know where he’s going with it. His track record has earned him that much.

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

Oh. Didn’t see that coming. Wow.

RIP to the idea of wrapping the fight up in volume 103. Probably…

Drake coming back only to fail to take down the CP0 boss (surely he deserves a name after this one) is a real shame. I was cheering for the guy to get one last shot after all the fighting he’s done – at least a mutual KO. Will he get up again? I mean, Apoo survived a finger pistol to the neck and kept running, but Drake might be pushing even Oda’s limits for second winds if he does the same.

I’m not the biggest fan of these Snakeman attack volleys if I’m honest. They get just a tad samey when you start comparing all the panels of Kaido being hit from multiple directions at once.

So Kaido doesn’t think the Gear Four skillset quite matches the properties of rubber. This mysterious fruit thing gets curiouser and curiouser. While it’s hard to imagine Oda committing to a full renaming of everything to do with the main character’s powers, it’s past time to start making your peace with there being more to the Gum Gum than meets the eye. I don’t think that’s the end of the world.

Kaido drunkenly trying to flirt with Luffy is the bisexual representation we never knew we needed  The love heart in the sound effects does a long way to sell it. All tongue-in-cheek comments aside though, I love that we’re still seeing drunk Kaido. I’d been so sure it was just a one chapter gimmick, but it persists!

I really like Kaido breaking out the future sight and using his serpentine form to twist through the barrage. It’s a creative way to replicate the way logia users with high-level CoO morph their bodies to dodge attacks.

The overhead shot of the island as Kaido flies up with Luffy in his mouth shows how much of the outside has already crumbled away. It begs the question of where the Sunny ended up after Franky concealed it following their landing. Is it still on the island, and will there be an easy way to get it to safety (let alone back to water) when the whole thing drops? But hey, Kaido blasting Luffy straight through the island makes me feel confident of Luffy eventually dunking him straight through and dropping the whole place on his head.

Oda is going a long way to sell the idea that Luffy is out of time and won’t be able to keep fighting if he drops Gear Four again. Are we going to end up with a Doflamingo-style “one more attack” situation after the haki recharge, or are things going to be even more dire than that?

It’s not really clear how long the exchange of blows that covers most of this chapter is meant to take, but CP0 guy climbs a long way through a lot of fire to get where he is at the end. Oda’s been pretty good at keeping locations straight through this battle and not teleporting anyone across the island without giving them enough offscreen time to justify the trip, but CP0 stretches things a little. Still, it makes for a genuinely surprising ending. I never would have foreseen Luffy getting this kind of parallel with Oden. And with Law and Kid making it clear last week they’ve got nothing left in the tank after Big Mom… things are looking bad.

Oda did a great job misleading me into thinking CP0 would be a non-factor in the fight. Oh, they’re just in Wano for the worldbuilding, for their relationship to Orochi. They’re reporting in, not getting involved. They’re a narrative device to show the numbers on the battlefield. No wait, they’re mobilising to give the fightless stragglers someone to confront. And then they come out of nowhere to bring disaster to the hero at a critical moment, right when you had them totally dismissed. Great narrative smoke and mirrors there. And so fitting to have the secret agents hiding in plain sight and striking from the shadows. I know some people think CP9 are too weak in retrospect to hold the rank and importance they were given, but if all of Cipher Pol can act this shrewdly to influence events in the World Government’s favour it goes a long way to explain them not needing to confront high weight class pirates in one on one fights.

I don’t really get why CP0 uses Iron Body after he grabs Luffy. Is it an armament coating to avoid being hurt by the haki that covers most of his Gear Four body, or just to make himself more rigid to more strongly impede Luffy’s attack or what?

While I was definitely surprised, and I will definitely be on the edge of my seat for the next chapter with no idea what will happen, I’ve meant what I’ve been saying for weeks about having a decent bit of battle fatigue. Just when I was getting used to the idea of getting into the post-fight portion of the arc, this is a huge setback. The Doflamingo version of this development took five chapters to play out to the end of the fight. Two more months on the current schedule. I trust that it’s all part of the plan, and I’m sure I’ll feel different when I can reread the arc as a whole, but god damn does the ending feel far away.

I guess like Kaido himself, I’ve got some pretty mixed feelings about this big moment.

So what next? Well, it’s not looking good for CP0. The face hag didn’t survive interfering with Kaido’s fight, and he was by all appearances sober at the time, so there’s our first order of business. And then I guess Kaido tries to renew his plan to squash the capital, overpowering Momo’s pull on the island. Perhaps then the nine shadows and/or the Momotaro homage rises up to delay him until Luffy staggers back to his feet for the finishing move. I think that covers all the super obvious stuff, but Oda must know how much those points have been talked through already. There’ll be some surprises in how it plays out, or in what exactly plays out, I’m sure.

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

After months of predicting it basically every chapter, we really do seem to finally be in the wrap-up stage of the battle. I’m not sure if Oda will manage to get Kaido’s fall by the end of volume 103, but it’s probably going to be close, the way things are building at the minute. Imagine what a landmark volume it could end up being if two Emperors fell at once though!

Pudding on the cover has surprising strength to punch the Vinsmokes’ metal skin without hurting herself. Maybe we’ve all underestimated her a little. Or maybe it’s a One Piece classic “Fist of Love.” Just leave that hanging there for the shippers.

The Zunesha thing feels a tad drawn out left as it is. We know there’ll be no contest against those tiny ships when it’s given the order, and the Voice of All Things shenanigans going on imply it can communicate with Momo even at this distance. There’s not really a reason to hang on for the next development like there was when it first showed up so suddenly – the outcome from here is obvious. What is interesting is Yamato calling Momo the one to bring the Dawn (a term that definitely deserves its capital D at this stage) and Momo rejecting his father’s will. The certainty of Momo’s role from Yamato is something to remember for everyone operating under the reasonable assumption that Luffy would be the one (even if in the guise of Joyboy, Nika, or whatever else). And then there’s Momo. I’ve got legitimate respect for him making his own assessment of the state of the world and his father’s goals. Oden was flawed and did make a lot of mistakes in his time, leading to the current state of affairs. There is nothing but courage and maturity in being able to see and acknowledge that when you’re only eight years old and your dad’s death was like a month ago. I know some readers will dismiss him as a coward anyway. I also know the narrative will probably make opening Wano’s borders the right thing to do regardless of this scene. But regardless of all that, I think it’s a great scene for Momo.

From my previous review: “Fuku isn’t going to take a full chapter to deal with. I imagine he’s going down basically the next second he’s onscreen.”

“lol,” I say as we smash cut to the narration confirming Fuku is down. “lmao”

Jinbe saving Raizo is great though. And I’m interested in what this plan is that Raizo is talking about. I hope it gives Denjiro and Kawamatsu their moment in the sun, whatever it is. Those two are the only ones left without any obvious finale or solo moment during the raid. But Denjiro was last seen the castle, I think, and Kawamatsu was down on the Performance Floor, so know knows what it could take to bring them together. My guess is that the plan goes with what Hiyori is doing and ends with Orochi’s downfall.

And speaking of, the moment Hiyori reveals herself seems to bring the Orochi plot thread within one scene of being concluded. I still think Denjiro is the most likely to deliver the killing blow, but who knows what could happen. I do like the seaston nails making a comeback though. We know that different levels of seastone purity can affect how weak the victim is made, but Orochi not noticing he’d been stabbed at all suggests to be you can refine seastone to the point of giving no physical weakness or sensation whatsoever besides turning devil fruit powers off. There’s probably not any wider implication to that, but it’s cool that it exists.

I’ll be honest, I really did expect Izo to take care of the CP0 threat in its entirety. It speaks to their strength that he could only manage mutual destruction with a single one (even if they were both likely already wounded to some degree. I hadn’t even noticed until the call came in that the third member of the group hadn’t gone with the others. I must have imagined him being present for their chase after Robin and the clash with Drake and Apoo. Without names, it’s too easy to think of these guys as a collective rather than three individuals that could act on their own. Drake seems set to finish off the leader (good, he deserves a better ending than his unceremonious defeat a few chapters ago) but that third guy remains out of reach. Maybe he’ll be the one to escape and tell the story of what happened to the Government. And then, who’s going to stop Apoo and Inbi?

I’m no longer a naysayer on the Gum Gum being the fruit. Hard to imagine many other reasons for the sudden switch to targeting Luffy. I’m trusting Oda to make whatever’s going on here work with the story. Over more than a dozen years following this story week to week he’s very rarely let me down, so I’m affording him some trust to develop this idea right.

The Elders’ “Worst-case scenario” sounds pretty specific. Could they be referring to the same mysterious event everyone else calls the Dawn of the World, or is it something else entirely? It kinda implies to me that the important devil fruit has a usecase to fulfill, rather than just being symbolic of a former enemy of the Government.

The sword outside the dome is back to being literally ten storeys tall after shrinking to six for a bunch of chapters. It was still way too big for Kid to have used either way, but after it came up in the last chapter’s thread I’m really cued into the size changes.

Franky saving Zoro is a nice touch. With no sign of the reaper figure around, I get the feeling we’ll have to wait until after the battle when Zoro properly recovers before he tells us what he saw and what it means. But with all of CP0 accounted for this week, we can probably rule out it being a living person we know (long odds for Caribou, but still), and say it actually was either a hallucination or a legitimate spiritual entity. And it could be worth remembering that despite looking a tad bloodied, Franky did his main fight inside his mech 90% of the way. Of all the Strawhats, he might just have the most fighting strength to spare at this point.

Hey, Usopp and Nami are hiding out in the place they first got cornered by Ulti and Pageone. I like that Marco’s still playing healer. And hey, that hole in the Performance Floor is a hell of a lot bigger than it we really got to see it being in the last chapter. But it only makes sense given how big Big Mom got. And look how much the destruction is adding up. The right side is almost completely destroyed (which is consistent with the buildings Big Mom got rammed into, stuck to and had dropped on her in the last couple chapters).

The mini flashback certainly makes the end of Kaido feel close, but I’m putting a lot more stock in Luffy’s “final Gear Four” statement. I don’t think Oda’s going to make a liar out of him at this stage. This is it. But will we get a new form if he’s gone Snakeman now? I’m going to say yes. Sure, we’ve never seen him switch between forms after going into the gear before, but that is a low hurdle to handwave away.

There are as few as four chapters left in volume 103, or as many as six if Oda wants to stretch it into a really long one. It could really be happening in the next handful of chapters. I’m not going to set my hopes too high for a quick resolution with Orochi, Apoo, Inbi and two members of CP0 still on the board, but it’s definitely feeling achievable. I’m started to feel anxious for it! Not just because we’ve been building toward this moment for so long, but also because the end of Kaido means the end of the series’ penultimate battle. Everything that comes after it will be endgame material, and that’s something I have a lot of conflicted feelings about after having One Piece as a constant in my life for so long.

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

So it wasn’t quite over yet. There’s a fun irony in the cover showing Big Mom kicking ass while she takes her ultimate loss in the chapter, but the cover’ description of her as “a creature beyond the power of science” really drives home the strength she’s showed hanging on this long. I said last week it felt a little like Damned Punk was framed as a finishing move but didn’t quite have the visual impact of one. Maybe I should have guessed there would be one last gasp from Big Mom, but even then, I probably would have limited it to the opening pages, not most of the chapter. Luckily, the events of this chapter feel a lot more in line with what I expected for the fall of an Emperor than the last one.

I really enjoy Kid and Law’s defiance of Big Mom’s ability. Jinbe did it better, but there’s still some great power in their certainty that she’s on her last legs.

The spread of Law cutting Misery in two while Kid blasts Big Mom in the background is absolutely going down as one of Wano’s absolute best pages. I love how Oda managed to frame it so both Kid and Law are in the spotlight, with the two halves of the homie filling the negative space in a memorable way. Absolutely incredible work. I really enjoy Law’s nod to Corazon as well – even if it only further emphasises how random his skillset really is.

I don’t know if I’m totally on board with the logic of Yamato being able to keep the bomb Big Mom touches from setting off the rest of the armoury at point blank range, especially considering how much damage we see it do to the island. But then again, I don’t know if there would have been a more graceful way to blast open the side of the island to let Yamato and Momo talk at the end. The backgrounds showing the whole armoury being iced over certainly helps Oda’s case, but it’s still a lot to justify. It also seems that Kazenbo is ultimately destroyed by one of the bombs it was sent to detonate. The dying scheme of Kanjuro was very, very literally hoist by its own petard. Good job, Oda.

Zoro, concerningly, has been rolled over and left a lot more bloody than when we last saw him. King didn’t really land any hits with his sword on Zoro’s body, so the blood isn’t leftover from the fight. Whatever was looming over him before can’t have been just an illusion or hallucination – it really slashed him! We also see Book still trapped in the castle with Robin, ruling the best guess for friendly reaper. So there’s more to this reaper thing than I thought…

Orochi and Fukurokuju are going forward on the course they’ve had for like 20 chapters now. Of course Raizo endures the fire while Fuku falls. I’m ready for these plot threads to be over in the next chapter.

It speaks to the kind of threat Oda wants these bombs to be that a single one blows out the side of the island, and seemingly another lone bomb creates the huge explosion at the end. Funny that the one we see dropping after her is more of a traditional-looking warhead with no ice on it than the oversized cherry bombs that were front and centre beforehand. Really raises some questions about that nuclear warning sign we saw a couple of chapters back. However, with just a single bomb (and potentially a crate or two of ordinance) dropping, there remains a question about how much of Onigashima’s payload remains in the armoury. Would it feel cheap to still use the bombs to finish off Kaido or destroy the island (as has been speculated) after all of this? Given that Big Mom could just punch through it and trigger an explosion, is the layer of ice enough to keep everyone safe when the island falls? It’s framed like it’s done, but these issues remain.

That said, I do really like the blast as a finishing point for Big Mom. What else to cement the fall of one of the series’ toughest characters than an explosion meant to destroy a whole city? :ninja: But really, it’s big, bombastic and visually memorable, just like you’d want from the last moments of such a major antagonist. Interesting that the it remained silenced though. Oda usually wants the locals to see Luffy overcome the big bad, and the sound of the blast would have been the perfect way to get them looking properly at Onigashima. There’s obviously some part of the bigger picture I’m not seeing yet.

She’s probably not dead, considering this is Oda. I’m definitely not the first to guess it, but a permanent O-Lin conversion and being left behind in Wano feels like a reasonable way to handle her obvious perchant for revenge. It’s hard to say how to break the news to her crew though, or Perospero, if he recovers from his wounds enough to start asking questions. Although, if O-Lin remains and Pero is detained in Wano, it could open the way to Katakuri taking the helm of Big Mom’s empire, which could be very interesting in the long run.

Big Mom’s final lines truly speak to the overgrown and entitled child she is. It reminds me of her exchange with Luffy in chapter 847, when she complained that if only Lola had gotten married she would be King of the Pirates by now, and Luffy tells her off for pushing her unfinished business onto Lola. Now it’s somehow Roger’s fault for setting off a Rube Goldberg Machine of piracy leading to the two Supernovas facing her. His fault for not just giving her the answers she wanted to know right away. She wants her gratification immediately, but can’t let go of other people’s differing goals and opinions. Instead of finding new ways to try again at her dream, she rests on her laurels and rambles bitterly about what could have been if everyone had just danced to her tune.

All Roger did was carry on the will he inherited of Joyboy and whoever else hid the One Piece. Law and Kid fought for their own dreams. Lola put her own happiness first. And, as Luffy observed, Big Mom failed to become King of the Pirates.

Odd wording – “some of it’s in this country too.” No doubt we’re finding big clues in Wano after the battle, but a piece of the actual treasure? We know for sure Roger himself never returned to Wano after getting the treasure (he left the crew before they dropped Oden off in chapter 968), but was Oden allowed to keep something he needed to open the borders? Foreshadowing for a big reveal, or just Big Mom being dramatic?

You can feel the breath that everyone on the Performance Floor had been holding get let out in the page after the explosion. After years of fighting, the main stage of Onigashima finally appears clear of enemies, and there’s a moment to celebrate as Kaido’s castle burns down in the background. phew!

Oda keeps setting us up for big reveals in the post-arc lore dump. He’s just teasing us at this point. Mystery fruits? Zunesha’s crime? Said crime being comitted at the end of the Void Century? Joyboy? Nika? I can’t wait. There’s not really that much new in this last conversation. It’s more of a reminder of what’s coming. I’m not shocked that we’re connecting Zunesha to the Void Century. When we first learned it was over a thousand years old, no one who was paying attention expected anything less. The Lode Ponegyph guarded on its back for generations hinted hard at a Joyboy connection already. But to call it Joyboy’s crew… Hmm…

So let’s look at the Onigashima to-do list.

Kaido
B̶i̶g̶ ̶M̶o̶m̶
Orochi
Fukurokuju
CP0
K̶a̶z̶e̶n̶b̶o̶
Apoo
Inbi
Grim Reaper
D̶i̶s̶a̶r̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶m̶b̶s̶
Evacuate the castle/island

Fuku isn’t going to take a full chapter to deal with. I imagine he’s going down basically the next second he’s onscreen. Big Mom was the last real threat and final truely plot-important remainder before this chapter. The way is clear to focus on Kaido, with small asides to wrap up those final hanging threads. I don’t think there’s quite enough room left in volume 103 to wrap everything up and give Kaido a satisfying defeat, but we could definitely see it ending in the front half of the next volume. That’s a satisfying point to leave us on before break week, knowing that shit is going to absolutely get in gear for the next set of chapters.

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

Welp, it seems like he’s gone and done it. Oda’s finally let an Emperor fall at the hands of the up and coming generation. Big Mom’s defeat isn’t totally confirmed, but it’s hard to deny how this chapter makes it look. We start with a gorgeously adventurous colour spread, ad then it’s right into proving wrong all the musing I jotted down last week about saving this moment to be more or less simultaneous with Luffy’s conquest of Kaido. It’s going to be interesting to see how it feels on a reread to have Big Mom, first put into the seat of a main antagonist 20 volumes ago, five and a half years ago in real time, to be brought down in the first half of a volume, and with Orochi, Fukurokuju, Kazenbo, Apoo, Inbi and CP0 still to wrap up. I’ll be honest, this final hit feels, as a gut reaction, too similar to how King and Queen’s fights were structured and concluded, like she’s just another executive. But it may be the reaction of the world, or even just the people on Onigashima in the next chapter, that sells the gravitas of an Emperor’s defeat.

In the chapter’s one cutaway from the main fight, Momo is almost definitely hearing Zunesha talk to him. Maybe the big elephant still needs his permission to attack the ships off the coast after all, which could explain why it didn’t act against the Big Mom pirates on either of their attempts to get in. It also looks like Momo’s moved Onigashima decently far back from the capital by this stage. Even if the bombs were to go off, it probably wouldn’t cause the kind of mass slaughter threatened previously. That is to say, the island could drop at almost any point from now on.

The first panel on the Performance Floor illustrates exactly what I wrote last week about Corna Dio (does anyone else keep writing Corona Dio for some reason?) needing a better establishing shot. It’s so much larger than I’ve been picturing it! It’s also cool that we can see the castle burning in the background here.

The banter between Kid and Law is a highlight here, as is Big Mom using her power on the inside of her own body to heal broken bones. It makes me wish we could have gone a little deeper into the possibilities and limits of this kind of skill. You have to wonder if these soul buffs did any heavy lifting to keep her body operational and her children safe, considering she will have been pregnant for most of her pirating career.

Is Misery meant to be purely an attack with a life of its own or some unholy fusion of Hera and Prometheus? She’s got Hera’s face but there are a lot of flame effects coming off her body. Either way she looks pretty damn cool.

You know what’s some really cool continuity? The section of building Law uses to hit Big Mom from above is the top of the tower cut by Zoro when he first showed up for the raid all the way back in chapter 980. It all comes full circle.

I actually want to share some screencaps to illustrate this point because I do really enjoy that it happened.

Here’s the towerfall in chapter 980:

The severed tower persists as a background element in a lot of Performance Floor shots over the next nearly-60 chapters, but here’s one good overhead shot from chapter 1006:

And here we are with it breaking over Big Mom’s head. Even the underside of it matches the chapter 1006 overhead shot!

It’s this kind of attention to detail that makes me absolutely fall in love with a story.

Although in looking all this up I found a small continuity goof in chapter 1030 when Kid uses his Awakening on Big Mom – that tower is shown at its full height, even though Oda’s been really consistent with the damage on it previously. Maybe he thought no one would notice if he did it to make a more appealing symmetrical shot. Or maybe it’ll be fixed in the volume version.

I’ll be honest, Law’s Awakening still isn’t totally clear to me. How the growing sword relates to his operation theming or what he gets out of making it that long hasn’t been well-enough communicated. I get that it’s a big deal, but I don’t really get why or how. Props to Law for taking so many point blank and haki-clad blows from Big Mom undefended though.

I think it’s interesting that there’s a hole in the ceiling of the Performance Floor leading to the roof, and there’s now a hole in the Performance Floor going all the way through the island and out the bottom. While I doubt the two line up that well (the ceiling hole should be a lot closer to the castle than this one) but it might be a cool end for Kaido if Luffy managed to literally dunk him through the whole island. And as a bonus, if that’s the finishing blow, it means the Flame Clouds fade and all of Onigashima comes crashing down on top of him right after. It probably doesn’t tick every box a Kaido defeat should and I wouldn’t put money on it, but it’s a fun idea for a memorable finish, don’t you think? Or it could just be a convenient bomb disposal chute like everyone else is saying. That makes a lot more sense, honestly.

And finally, Kid makes what I can only assume is a railgun. The natural endpoint for any character with magnet powers. It really is framed as a finishing move, but the panel doesn’t have quite the oomph I was expecting for one. It looks like the beam is exploding against the front of Big Mom’s body, like they still aren’t quite getting under her skin. Compare and contrast Franky’s beam hitting Sasaki and seeming to go right through him, with the blast coming out the back. Of course Big Mom and Sasaki are very different targets and Kid’s electromagnetic attack is different from a laser. Maybe we’ll get a better perspective of how this thing is hitting and why it’s the end in the opening pages of next chapter.

It’s so good to have the forum back in time for such a landmark moment in the story. I feel like I’ve been saying this for months now, but the time has come for Oda to hit the gas and have the final dominoes fall one after the other. We’re less than halfway through volume 103 now, so there’s a very real chance that Kaido will be the last enemy standing by the time it’s done.

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

I’m pleasantly surprised to see some real fallout and consequences from the sea battle from the end of Whole Cake Island. Now this cover story has my attention. Will Judge go back for Niji and Yonji? How will the timeline for a rescue mission line up with Big Mom’s departure for Wano, which should be only a couple of days after the fight? I’ll be waiting eagerly for the next part.

Raizo and Fukurokuju is proceeding basically exactly as expected. Raizo will endure the flames until their heat makes Fuku drop his jutsu, allowing Raizo to go in for the kill. The only surprise is that it isn’t over yet. This is a lot of anticipation for a pretty obvious conclusion. Maybe Oda will find a left-field resolution to the fight instead…

Jinbe’s moment holding up the ceiling is pretty cool. It’s a small beat, but Jinbe joining so late needs as many of those as he can get. It also shows Oda committing hard to the castle coming down. If a whole floor’s caved in already, the rest can’t be far behind. It also makes for a great panel. There’s a few good shots of the burning and crumbling structure throughout this chapter (the room where Izo had been fighting is another standout). I really enjoy the sense of space we’ve had for Onigashima, and that kind of build-up makes its destruction all the more satisfying.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this Zoro grim reaper sequence is setting up a gag. I only wonder which one Oda will go with. Brook all along? Or Zoro being strough enough to fight off death, or just being shown the path to the other side and getting lose when asked to walk down it. I’d have a great time seeing this Dr McNinja bit played out by Zoro. Oh, and if it turns out Death is real, does that mean we’ll eventually be part of the Vivre Card databook? I wonder what kind of trivia there’ll be for him…

Izo fighting CP0 is one of those “sure, why not” kinds of developments. Certaninly would tie off the CP0 loose end for them to get taken out this way, but it’s way too late in the game to get invested in it as a long-term fight. Maybe Drake gets back up and helps him finish them off? I feel like that could be played with enough gravity to make a satisfying ending to the subplot.

After eight chapters, the saga of Yamato and Kazenbo is finally coming to a head. I was actually close to complaining a lot harder about how long it’s gone on, but the December and January breaks have really skewed my perception of time. I think it’ll be smoother on a binge reread. The armoury is another really great bit of environmental design. Such a detailed background! But wait, are those radiation warning symbols on some of those boxes? Under that pallet of cannon balls? Does the One Piece universe have nuclear weapons? That certainly ups the stakes if it’s true (which it probably isn’t). I bet Vegapunk had a hand in this…

And then the centrepiece scene, the eponymous battle with Big Mom. Oda’s flagging hard that she’ll be going down this arc one way or the other, but this chapter definitely isn’t the one. I don’t see Oda shortchanging her by ending the fight while enemies like Orochi, Fukurokujo, CP0 and Apoo are still running around. She has to be going down either immediately before Kaido or at the same time as him, so while it might look like Law and Kid are making their final push, they’ll have to last a bit longer for the sake of dramatic timing. I’m very curious to see what the finishing blow looks like – how to give it the same, raw knuckle-to-face intensity as if Luffy had done it himself while still letting Law and Kid share the spotlight equally. Big Mom is basically the only arc antagonist to go unbeaten, and will likely be the first Emperor to fall since Whitebeard. That moment needs a bit of gravity behind it!

This is another chapter where the final spread feels hurt by the 17 page limit. Kid’s Punk Corna Dio would probably have had a bit more an impact (and the big spread panel would have read easier) if Oda had found the space to actually show us its appearance unobscured first.

I like that we see a bit more of Kid’s crew than just Heat and Wire again. Wonder if they’ll get names in an SBS at some point. The flip side of the crews’ moment is that a lot of Law’s guys in this scene were last seen on the ground. I’m guessing we’ll get an SBS saying that this one scribble is them clinging to Momo’s tail or something.

Whatever comes next, I’m honestly just happy to be back on consistent chapters for a couple weeks. Looking forward to Oda bringing Onigashima to its finale!

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

The opening pages here cast some doubt on my prediction that 1036 was the start of a new volume. Oda’s opened both volumes 101 and 102 with cutaways to the festival down below, so what’s one more? It’s a good way to lead into the battle, showing what’s at stake. But is it better than the last chapter’s soft recap of character positions and potential failure consequences?

I’m interested to see where these floating lanterns are going. Up, presumably, but will they be contrasted with Kaido’s fall? Or lead the eyes of the populace to the sky to see the final blow? Or will they just reach Onigashima in time to give someone like Momo a second wind at a critical moment?

Back on the roof, I’m feeling pretty vindicated. I’ve said a few times now in a couple of different threads that I think Kaido can be kinda dull personality-wise. For so much of this arc he’s been a grim, stony-faced brick shithouse. And ever time I complained about that, I said he was a lot more vibrant in his post-Zou and early Wano scenes as a sloppy, over-emotional drunkard, and it’s a shame that he never gets to interact with out heroes in that state. He takes one good hit, says it sobered him up, and goes back to normal. Well now Kaido gets snookered mid-fight and gets to take Luffy on a journey through his mood swings and it’s everything I’ve been asking for all this time!

A shame it’s probably only for this chapter, but still great to see it happen at least once. How has One Piece kept me as a dedicated weekly reader for nearly 15 years? Because Oda always comes through eventually.

And what else can you say about this chapter? I’m not one to try to analyse which moves are the strongest, or say what kind of Haki was used where, or try to unravel the whole story through double meanings in attack names. What I’m focused here is how freaking spectacular the art is and how well the choreography flows. This is a great bit of action with some incredible panels showing motion and impact. Kaido’s opening blow on Luffy sells the power and pain perfectly. Hybrid-mode Kaido looks better than ever, jetting forward with his tail undulating behind him. The moment of implied slowmo as Luffy vaults over his club to get that face kick in is exquisite. The not-even-touching headbutt, so intense. Oda gets so creative making the end of Kaido’s club into a volley of spiked balls countering Luffy’s Third Gear assault. He definitely takes artistic licence with the size and shape of it to make that visual work, but it’s impossible to argue with the results.

One Piece, to me, is adventure and worldbuilding over action, but there’s no going past how good some of the action in Wano has been. I thought the Supernovas vs Emperors fight set a benchmark with its sense of scale, but Oda’s hit the mark all over again with the ferocious intensity of this exchange.

Another interesting note here is how quickly Kaido snaps between his hybrid and serpentine form and back again. Even with such a crazy change in mass, the transformation is all but instantaneous. King was doing the same thing between panels of his fight. The time Zoans take to transform has never been a huge deal in a fight, but it feels so much quicker in Wano than it’s ever been before. There could be interesting animation potential in depicting how these flash changes work. I really want the anime to make good on this chapter, since even in manga form you can see it in motion so easily. But unfortunately, I can’t hold my breath about it. Even if they can do it without adding Dragonball auras to the participants or strobing lights to every blow, the need to make each chapter last at least a whole episode will rob the sequence of the bam-bam-bam back and forth atmosphere of the manga version.

And then we have the final two pages. Really it’s just a lot of vague hinting at things we want to know about. The talk of erasing names makes me think of “the light to be erased from history” from the Reverie. I have to wonder what other lights have been erased in the past, and if the fruit belonged to one of them. Despite the framing (and the Elders having up to date enough reports to know CP0 is going after Robin) it doesn’t seem like the elders are speaking directly with the fleet outside Wano as Zunesha appears, so the discussion of a mysterious Devil Fruit is definitely not a reaction to the big elephant’s appearance. If you pay attention to how Oda uses split panels to mark scene transitions, you can see these are two separate scenes being cut back and forth between.

So what Devil Fruit is it? I don’t think we have enough info to say. Luffy’s, Big Mom’s and Kaido’s are all too specific to be renamed. Law’s powers are abstract enough that you could probably rename the fruit without creating problems, and we know from Doflamingo that it has some relevance to the World Government… That would be my best guess, barring some out there, shot in the dark justification like the Elders changing their topic of conversation between the scene breaks and it’s not someone on Wano at all. Maybe Blackbeard, in that case. But even then, why is the fruit only just now, and so suddenly a huge concern? Or it might be a totally new fruit we haven’t seen yet. That’s probably the safest guess, given how nothing currently in play really seems to tick every box the conversation sets up.

I was wondering what Zunesha’s role in the battle was going to be. Too much setup for it not to make an appearance. But what triggered it to move inward and defend Wano’s waters, then? It couldn’t be a standing order from Momo, even if he had the confidence to do such a thing, because it made no moves against Big Mom’s crew.

I’ve got nothing to add for an outro. Just great action and big mysteries. What more could you want?

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

First things first, what the heck is going on with the Jump cover? There’s something about that bread Luffy (call him Loafy) that’s just incredibly offputting. I very much love the the colour spread though – the city of tall buildings flooded and frozen over with the towers protruding from the ice is a beautiful setting. It’s far from the first time we’ve seen these puffer jackets in a cold weather colour spread. Hell, it’s not even the first time in Wano, But damned if they don’t look good. Loving Jinbe’s kimono as well!

We’re back for the probable start of volume 103 and King is confirmed to be down. His little flashback is some cool confirmation of what was hinted by Kaido’s lines after tossing Luffy from the roof: that Joyboy isn’t just a figure, it’s a role that needs to be played, and that Kaido thought it would be him. What I’m interested to know is what new information he was able to find after the Rocks era that confirmed this for him. I wonder if it has to do with the reasons Wano is so important. I’m so ready for the post-battle lore dump. So ready! But I’m trying not to dwell on that, lest I set myself up for frustration with the minimum full volume’s worth of fighting still to go.

A whole double page near the start of this chapter is a recap of character positions and stakes, which is a big part of why I’m reading it as the start of a new volume. It may be worthy of note that the recap makes it clear that Kaido’s defeat will result in Onigashima falling. Momo is focusing only on moving it away from the Capital, not holding it up himself. So here’s an out there theory: perhaps when Luffy beats Kaido, he does so by dunking him off Onigashima, sending him plummeting into a Kaido-shaped hole in the ground, in a mirror to his introduction, before the whole island comes crashing down on top of him. Being stuck under all of that (with it felt ambiguous whether he’s alive at all) might be a fun way to make good on his deathwish without making Luffy an outright murderer.

At last, the final Number is revealed, and he’s another goofy-looking one like most of the pack have been. Interestingly, this leaves one silhouette from the Numbers’ introduction that doesn’t seem to have an exact match in the final designs. Newcomer Rokki has the straight horns and flat head of this last figure, but lacks the underbite and has a much stouter body. Just a yet-to-be finalised design (most likely), or evidence of a secret zeroth Number (tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theory)?

I really enjoy seeing Usopp get to make a stand for Kin’s sake given that he was robbed of a big moment against Pageone. Also good that there are some Gifters in the crowd he’s facing off against – it makes sense that word of Tama’s control would start to go around and the smarter ones would avoid her (or that she just wouldn’t be able to reach every corner of this huge fortress), and pushes back against the idea that the dango were a free win for the good guys. And I actually enjoyed Usopp and Izo’s pushback against samurai culture as well. Ideas of harakiri and honourable/redeeming deaths show up a lot in Japanese media and while I get it it’s also something I’ve never been able to sincerely empathise with. People should live! You can do more for your cause, fix more mistakes and help more people over the course of a lifetime than you ever could with most deaths. Dying is a one-off – fighting on is something you can do in perpetuity. Even if you can only take small steps forward, living means that you can keep taking them until they add up! But I’m getting sidetracked. I think the bottom line here is that it’s cool how Oda has written and drawn a huge love letter to Japan and its culture and history but still isn’t afraid to use his main characters to challenge ideas he disagrees with.

I think this ends the idea of any of the samurai dying during the raid. A lot of readers won’t like that, but it’s the message Oda’s decided on. They all came to Onigashima expecting to die, ghosts choosing to join their lord in death, but the point of Luffy’s presence is to derail that narrative. That’s how it goes on every island. The locals and villains think the story is going to go a certain way, and the crew arrives and breaks the script. This can create thematic contradictions across arcs – for example the difference between Vivi thinking she’s found an easy way out of the civil war and Luffy giving her the reality check that she’ll have to struggle and sacrifice to reach the root of the issue, compared to the samurai coming prepared for sacrifice and being made to live on after the crew protects them – but it makes for strong storytelling and dynamic interactions with the heroes and villains of the individual arcs.

So needless to say I’m not one bit worried by Raizo starting to catch fire in the next scene. Not one bit.

It’s also nice attention to detail that Usopp wouldn’t know that Izo is here yet, and a fun touch that Izo calls him by the name on his wanted poster.

As we flash past a few more scenes, it’s a good time to note we’ve had great art this week. Zoro falling with smoke and lightning coming off his blades was cool, as is the low angle shot of Apoo and Inbi running side by side, and that’s not even to mention the final spread. But Izo’s arrival during Usopp’s scene is a great highlight of Oda’s ability to do a lot with a single frame. In the second-last panel of page 11, Izo is seen jumping in from such a difference he’s barely recognisable. And then, in a single panel, he’s landed and spun 360 degrees shooting two guns, mowing down countless minions while Usopp dives for cover. The ring of gunshot flashes and smoke puffs is such a simple effect, but it’s more than evocative enough to get your brain to fill in a lot of action in a very natural-feeling way. Where other mangaka might have used four panels for the landing, shooting, mooks reacting and Usopp fleeing, Oda packs a lot of information into a very litte space.

I’ll feel pretty bad for Drake if he doesn’t manage to pick himself back up for one last attack after this. The guy started out the night getting attacked by Queen, Who’s Who and Hawkins, toppled a Number, parried a hit from Zoro, fought Apoo in one of the arc’s longest fights by chapter count (even if it was mainly offscreen) and managed to leave his CP0 opponent bloodied before seemingly biting the dust here. The man’s put a crazy amount of effort in and it would be a shame for his story to end like this.

I’ve read a couple of concerns about Luffy laughing with Kaido at the end, wondering where the anger and desire to avenge Wano has gone. But my read of the situation is that Luffy sees all that serious stuff as paid for. As shown in Whole Cake Island, even something as serious as shooting a friend can be paid for with a good smack in the face.

Think back to the punch that ended chapter 1000 and the series of Scabbards-centric flashback panels that led into it. That was the moment that answered for the personal harm Kaido did. While the fight has to continue until he can do no more damage to Wano, having the emotional payback sorted up front has given Luffy the freedom to fight the rest of battle for himself – with all the freedom to enjoy the challenge and use it as a proving ground for new techniques that implies.

The scheduling makes January such a hard time of year to be a One Piece fan, especially when it rolls around just as the series penultimate arc reaches its climax. If nothing else, it’s comforting to know the year ahead will be a big one, with the toppling of Emperors and the probable reveal of series-spanning mysteries as Oda starts to set up his endgame. I absolutely cannot wait to see where this story has left to go.

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

Another fight down, and very likely another volume as well, although I guess there’s a nonzero chance it’ll run one more chapter to full confirm King’s defeat and maybe wrap up the Orochi thread as well. And I think with both Queen and seemingly King falling off the island after being beaten, we can finally put to rest the theories that Kaido’s officers will get back up via Awakening or some other nonsense. The bigwigs aren’t just down, they’re gone. Not on the island and not equipped to come back. The end is close at hand for the battle of Onigashima.

The new cover story is a pleasant surprise. Showing the aftermath of the naval battle off Cacao Island though… I was kinda hoping we’d see more of that in a Jinbe flashback later. The Vinsmokes and Jinbe both getting to just sail off, even after Big Mom returned to the fray, feels a little to easy. The long wait for more on the battle had me expecting some kind of a secret cost that hadn’t been revealed yet. Someone dying offscreen wouldn’t be Oda, but someone captured or short a chunk of their lifespan would have been nice. I guess we haven’t seen who’s actually on these Germa ships yet, but I doubt they’d be pulling back if anyone major had been captured. It does also seem to be the morning after the battle already, so I imagine, like Bege’s escape, the cover story will about what the Vinsmokes do next, not the battle. Twenty installments of silliness as they take on a new contract followed by a tantalising plot hook right at the end sounds about right. Given that this is back before the Reverie, I wonder if the last-minute tie-in could involve the SSG or the big moves the World Government is making on the Warlords and other big name pirates.

But that’s getting way ahead of ourselves…

Alright, so Queen is done and dusted, as expected. Some people wanted more back and forth between him and Sanji before it was done, but this battle was a mental one for Sanji, and he won it already. There wouldn’t be any substance in more hitting. The callback to Sanji feeding mice as a kid is a really nice bookend to him choosing his humanity in this bout. There is a question as to what kind of damage Sanji has actually taken, knowing his broken bones heal on their own. Is his collapse just exhaustion, or is there other internal damage not covered by the healing?

Zoro and King’s fighting is flowing a lot better than last time we followed the two of them, with some incredibly well drawn fire and magma effects now in the mix. I’m really looking forward to seeing this one in colour in a few years, all of the clashing with explosions in the background and flaming dragons twisting around. But a feeling lingers that the fight-ending solution doesn’t really gel with the choreography up to this point. I still don’t have a good idea of how the stretchy-headed Imperial Deep Pride Stake is meant to work. The moment in chapter 1033 where King seems to explode entirely because Zoro stabbed the right spot also doesn’t feel like it was ever fully explained. I can appreciate that looking back over the fight we can see the fire going on and off King’s back just like Zoro notices here, but maybe we could have used some moments where Zoro wonders about things that actually play into the solution, like “he bled when I hit him before but he shrugged the last one off, is his durability fluctuating” or “damn, he just got a lot faster all of a sudden.” I really go like how the section of the fight right after the flasback goes, but the battle as a whole can’t help feeling like it wasn’t planned all the way in advance.

We get a little more on Lunarians here, confirming that the World Government is specifically hunting for them. Given the similarities – the World Nobles styling themselves as dragons compared to King’s use of a dragon motif in his fire attacks, Lunarians being known as gods in the past and the Celestial Dragons calling themselves the descendents of gods today, and of course both groups seemingly having inhabited the Redline – it’s becoming clear that the World Government usurped and exterminated the Lunarians. What remains to be seen is whether the Lunarian civilisation is the same important one alluded to by Clover, if they’re the same group that hid the One Piece and the Poneglyphs, and if they’re the same group that gave the world Joyboy back in the day…

King’s subordinates being tempted by the hundred million for a tipoff brings up an angle on bounties that I hadn’t really considered. It’s often noted that there don’t seem to be any bounty hunters at the higher levels, raising the question of “why bother giving bounties that high at all?” But here we see that a fraction of King’s actual bounty in exchange for a tip-off is enough to present a real threat of betrayal. High level bounties pit pirates against each other. And while it doesn’t seem common for pirates to cash in on the bounties of other pirates, we have seen Blackbeard and Law approach the government directly to exchange wanted men for things they want, so we know the government is willing to look the other way if a big enough threat is taken out of the picture.

I loved seeing a flash of Punk Hazard in the past. The first thought I had was whether these old experiments on King were where Judge got whatever Lunarian liniage factor went into Sanji, but I don’t think Judge was ever directly employed by the World Government as a scientist (MADS was before Vegapunk was recruited by them and was broken up by the World Government) and thus he probably wouldn’t be at Punk Hazard. And of course, if it wasn’t Judge getting Sanji’s flaming feet from these experiments, who was working on them and what did they get out of it?

I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear of Lunarians and World Government science…

Kaido looks bloody weird without his beard. It’s not surprising he has confidence in his ability to change the world though – it seems he picked up enough important info about the One Piece and the the true history of the world through his position in Rocks’ crew long before he started chasing it himself.

It’s also cool to get King’s real name and confirmation that the card themeing in the Beasts Pirates is all codenames. It’s a shame the Vivre Cards for this lot have come and gone already, we could have had a huge dump of new info like when the Baroque Works agents’ true names dropped. They also missed out on some great lore and killer panels by doing the databook in the middle of the arc like they did. Oh well, maybe in the SBS instead…

And the fight ends on another fairly brutal note with King’s wing being cut off. Between this, King’s arm, Jinbe curshing Who’s Who’s hands and Robin’s assault on Black Maria’s spine, we’ve had some pretty full-on takedowns for the Wano villains. And as I said above, the fact that this has happened to King while he’s off the side of the island is a strong sign he’s not coming back.

The next steps for this arc, as we go into volume 103 and the new year, have to be the resolution of Orochi, Fukurokuju, CP0 and the armoury clusterfuck, but the armoury is the only one of those I think will actually need more than a chapter to wrap up. The two Emperors are a bit more complicated though. A few weeks ago I would have said Big Mom was next on the chopping block after Orochi, but lately I’ve been giving her more thought. It’s tough to picture the arc ending without Big Mom and Kaido both falling, but the first outright defeat of an Emperor of the Sea in the whole series (and who knows how many in-universe years) is going to be such a game-changing moment. Is Oda going to let Law and Kid take the honour of the first Emperor victory from Luffy? Is the arc going to be able to keep its momentum if Big Mom is still fighting after Kaido falls? Or will Oda contrive a way to make their defeats all but simultaneous (leaving room for the three captains to argue about who actually was the first to conquor an Emperor)?

Between the strong action beats, great art and interesting lore snippets, this has turned out to be a great chapter to close out the year with. I’m looking forward to the final battle and post-arc worldbuilding dump in the coming months.