Captain M Entertainment

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

If this turns out to be the final chapter of volume 99, it’s a pretty underwhelming note to end on after the extremely artistically impressive and exciting rooftop showdown. If it wouldn’t have made the book too short, I would have said the last one was a perfect place to leave off. Maybe we’re going to get 11 chapters for the first time in a while, just to get a better chapter in the end.

I had to go back to the earlier chapters to check if Tama’s power had always been translated to millet dumplings in the official. Kibi dango had just been too reinforced by the community, I guess. I don’t share the doom and gloom feelings a lot of others have about this development. Its been inevitable for a long time. It seems to only work on Gifters. We’ve been told there are only 500 Gifters, which is less than 2% of the 30,000 enemies on Onigashima. The control doesn’t seem to overwrite the Gifter’s real personality or cast them into some kind of Get Out sunken place, it just shifts their loyalties (which is still a violation, don’t get me wrong, but far from the borderline evil complete mindwipe others are saying it is). It’s a necessary development that brings back and pays off on earlier setup and contributes to the scales gradually tipping in the heroes’ favour. It’s good to see Daifugo again as well. He’s a bit part, but I really like his character design.

Franky’s fight in this chapter didn’t quite work for me. Love seeing the crew fight, but compared to the spectacle and readability of the last few chapters, this is weak. Unlike the Kaido fight, which gives its huge main enemy space to breathe, the panelling here is incredibly cramped and doesn’t always scan well. We don’t see how Tama’s Gifters disengage the armoured squad from Franky’s legs, and as a result I’m not sure who it is that Sasaki charges through on the page 10-11 spread. His own guys? Tama’s ones, who she just kamikaze’d to save Franky? (oh wow maybe there’s more of an ethical image here than I thought) A mix of both as they fought? We almost need a visual clue to tell who’s been dumpling’d and who hasn’t.

Also it looks like Shueisha didn’t scan the page properly. Where did this panel border go?

I liked seeing Nami deal a bit of damage to Ulti. After skipping to her and Usopp already being beaten before, having some of the back and forth onscreen is welcome. The need for stronger lightning implies she wants to take Zeus back, but it’s hard to see that happening now. I’d rather she pull out something new Usopp invented or find something in the environment to use to up her voltage and win the fight that way. Keep Nami fighting smart, not just taking Big Mom’s power again!

Sanji is doing Sanji stuff again. I don’t care for this part of his characterisation, but I’ve said it all before. I’m done hoping for him to get over it. I could live with him not hurting women if he found other ways to dispatch them and worked around the issue, but here he is, easily beaten. Again. At least his vote of confidence in Robin is a good moment. Hell, the idea that Robin might go up against Black Maria is a pretty exciting one. I just wish we didn’t have to go through this to get there.

The location of the Scabbards is really unclear. We’re told “castle exterior” in the same panel they’re placed on the second floor of the castle. Black Maria says her area is connected to where they are, and the castle isn’t connected to any other structures, so in what way can the Scabbards possibly be exterior? Is this a translation issue?

King seems to be fighting at ground level in the middle of the Performance Floor. Likely making good on the threat of the executives wiping out hundreds of samurai at a time.

The obvious solution to for the Scabbards’ helper is Hyori. The size, shape, emotions expressed and choice to use beng instead of doom for the sound effect don’t really allow it to be anyone else. For a moment I had hope it would be the striped-kimono stranger who showed up with Marco and Neko (after having tea with Crocus), but the shape doesn’t look like a match. I honestly can’t tell how many of the people saying Enel are memeing. Some of them seem pretty serious about it.

So yeah, hate to be negative, but this is definitely the weakest chapter we’ve had in a while, and it definitely leaves a bad taste as the potential end of a volume. Fingers crossed we can get back to the high standard set by the last few weeks in the next one.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread. These two chapters were reviewed together because the forum was offline on the week of chapter 1002’s release.

I wouldn’t say I’m here for the fights (it’s absolutely a worldbuilding/long term narrative thing for me) but I’m really enjoying the clashes with Kaido. The artwork for all things to do with his big dragon body is incredibly impressive every time, and the sense of scale is really good. Not since Oars have we seen Luffy up against an enemy this much bigger and more monstrous than himself. It has a great sense of spectacle to it.

I like that Oda’s taking the time to show there’s multiple ways to take on the top tiers as well. Even though we know Luffy’s going to be the last man standing, it’s clear the battle’s not just about who has the bigger haki dick. Throws and slams to rattle the brain, penetrating surgical attacks and sonic blasts are just as viable ways around Kaido’s defences. It really goes a long way toward keeping the fights unpredictable and engaging.

For most of 1002, I had this creeping feeling of dread that the Supernovas were doing a little too well. Like with the Scabbards before them, the other shoe had to drop eventually. And that’s just in their efforts against Kaido. The fact that Big Mom has been almost completely ignored by the young captains while they focus their damage output on Kaido definitely feels like it’s going to bite them in the ass.

Wonder if we’re gonna see that horn Zoro cut off again. Is it blocking the side path on the outside of the dome now? Did it fall into Wano? Are we even over Wano at all yet, or is it all sea down below? How fast is Onigashima moving anyway?

Chapter 1002 really feels like it could have benefited from the extra spread available when chapters were 19 pages long instead of 17. The amazing panel of Big Mom and Kaido watching on as the lightning falls and the big moment of Luffy enduring a Blast Breath through force of will alone are battling over some fairly limited pagespace. These kinds of panels need more room to breathe than they got here.

1003 delivers more breathtaking spreads – I love the one with the dragon twisters moving around Kaido’s body – and an increase in tension as the Emperors start unleasing more and more devastating attacks while exhaustion mounts on the Supernovas. It wouldn’t shock me if there’s no one else (or close to no one else) left standing by the time Luffy recovers his Haki, leaving him alone to capitalise on the damage done so far and finish the fight.

The CP0 scene was a good, and likely necessary, recap for the rest of the battle. When you’re dealing with a warzone filled with literally thousands of battling troops on each side it can be difficult to conceptualise casualty rates and how quick each force is being depleted without an excuse to just lay the numbers out directly. The comment about the officers being able to eliminate hundreds of soldiers at a time is a big part of why I think the Pirate Warriors series was a good choice for One Piece games. They don’t nail every aspect of the series, and there’s a few big flaws inherent to the Musuo framework, but they’re a great fit for size of the fodder armies and the strength of the big name fighters in the manga currently.

The Yamato and Momo panel is the most interesting of the montage of in-progress fights. They’re obviously still in the storeroom they were in a few chapters ago, but it looks like something’s happening. Did someone find them? If so, who? There’s not so many enemies left unaccounted for that I’d expect to worry Yamato.

(also, I really don’t know where I stand on the pronoun/gender issue for Yamato anymore. The reinforcing of “Kaido’s daughter” in the volume 98 cast page and the whole shojo magazine heroines spread (which I understand to be an official promo bit) are painting a picture of what Oda and his editorial staff have as canon, and we really don’t know that much about how Yamato handles the dual identities of Yamato and Oden, due to them being introduced in the middle of a battle with much more pressing priorities than explaining what their whole deal is. I hope in the volume 99 SBS someone is able to ask directly what the hell is up with the mentions of Kaido’s son before the big reveal if it’s all getting turned around now.)

Next chapter is very likely the end of volume 99. Oda’s going to have to go big for it not to be overshadowed by so many back to back action chapters so high in the holy shit factor. We’ll see what happens. The new hybrid form and the potential damage it could do are a very exciting prospect.

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

Chapter 1000 was great, and the start of the Kaido and Big Mom fight is unquestionably a momentous event, but there was, in hindsight, a feeling that the chapter wasn’t completely for us, the up-to-date dedicated readers. Oda chose to restate important themes and goals for the series, the Will of the D, the rise of the next generation and Luffy aiming to be King of the Pirates in a way that was fitting and appropriate, yeah, but also likely went a long to illustrate to new readers who flipped through to see what was going on with all the chapter 1000 hype what the heart of the series is, and remind readers who fell off the bandwagon before but checked back in for the milestone that it hadn’t lost sight of what it was always meant to be. It was a great story showcase chapter, which was a good choice for one that would get so much attention. Chapter 1001 on the other hand, is pure action fanservice for the longtime fans from start to finish.

Strange seeing Kaido so happy for most of this chapter. With the moustache there, some of the close-ups of his mouth were giving me Roger vibes. It’s good seeing him show a bit more personality as well. The strong guy who gets caught up in the thrill of the battle and even encourages his opponents when they pose a challenge is hardly a new anime archetype, but it definitely suits One Piece more than the stony-faced immovable object Kaido has been for most of this arc.

Zoro stealing Kin’s move was a nice throwback to Punk Hazard. I wonder if we’ll see him go up against Kaido’s blast breath as well. Also loved the bickering between the three captains.

I’m not as huge a fan of Kaido asking Big Mom to stand back for half the chapter. I’m curious to see more of this fight as a real multi-threat team-up battle. It’ll be a lot less exciting if one of the big hitters is literally just waiting her turn on the sideline. Hopefully it’s just for the power showcase in this chapter though.

And what a showcase it is! The art is pretty unclear about how much damage Zoro and Killer were actually able to do, but from pained grunt and subsequent congratulation on the next page, I’d say they managed cause him pain, even if they weren’t able to break the skin. Could end up being like Luffy vs Katakuri, where they’re on the cusp of developing the skills they need and pull themselves up over the course of the fight. Kid and Law have their own approaches to Kaido’s defences. Kid seems to think that even if his skin doesn’t break, crushing wounds could do internal damage, and my initial reaction to this was to think he should know better after witnessing Kaido survive the fall from Balloon Terminal. How could he expect to to apply more pressure than the moment of impact after a sky island fall? But Kaido did get out of that crater with a splitting headache, and he makes another pained noise here, so there’s some genuine merit to the approach. Haki levels are rarely the be all and end all of fights in this series, so it’s good to see Oda showing other possible approaches even at this late stage. Law is taking a similar approach, but it remains to be seen what it takes to repel the energy-based Gamma Knife. It got inside Doflamingo without leaving a wound, but Kaido’s dragon scales and haki are both far beyond anything Doffy could pull.

Also, is it just me, or do the fingers on the left hand of Kid’s (absolutely sick looking) mech look pretty unfinished in the panel where he crushes Kaido? Looking forward to that getting fixed up in the volume.

The final spread is already one of my favourites of Wano. The scale, the detail, the nightmarish threat level of Kaido and Big Mom as a tag-team. I could look at this thing for hours. I was expecting the many social media artists who usually colour their favourite bits from new chapters to be all over this spread, but I’ve yet to see one that does it justice. Maybe it’s just taking a while because of the level of detail. I think this one’s going to be great in the digital colour manga when it finally gets here.

The Odabreak is a bitter pill to swallow after all the Christmas and New Years delays, but hey, one more off week and then the schedule should start looking a little more normal.

Oh, and wasn’t the final version of volume 98 cover meant to drop today? I kind of expected it to be put out at the same time as the chapter, but here I am, still waiting…

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

Chapter 1000. Wow. I don’t think there’s likely to be another manga with the ambition to make it this far anytime soon, and I doubt there’ll be another that catches my attention the same way. It’s no exaggeration to say One Piece has to be one of the most ambitious works of fiction ever created in terms of scale. I never would have thought when I was a little kid finding the 4kids pirate rap actually kinda catchy that the dumb cartoon I was looking at then would become important to me in ways I would struggle to fully articulate, but here we are.

Let’s talk about the big multiple-of-a-hundred event. Some were expecting a big lore reveal, the One Piece, the Dawn, the Will of the D and so on. I’ve cautioned lower expectations than that for weeks, but I’ll admit Oda managed to get my hopes up a little for the Will of the D. Maybe we’ll get it at the end of the arc. But even though the start of the battle with Kaido and Big Mom is smaller scale than that, it’s still an absolutely momentous development. Look at how many years of setup have gone into this moment: It was first revealed that Luffy and Law would be targeting Kaido in chapter 696, released in January 2013, eight years ago. But Kaido isn’t the only factor here. Luffy first invoked the wrath of Big Mom in chapter 651, which was released on January 4 2012, nine years ago to the day. Oda’s been building to this battle (and I’ve been waiting for it) for almost my whole adult life. Let’s not undersell the importance of it finally starting.

What else can you say about this chapter? It’s good to see the Minks are still in the battle to at least a small degree. They have as much reason to want to see Kaido fall as anyone, and we’ll likely see a lot more moments like Shishilian’s tears when the deed is done.

Queen being a cyborg, or, more of one that initally expected is an odd surprise, but it does explain the gun from the last chapter. I feel like it would take a bout with either Franky or Sanji for the techology inside him to be fully explained. Shame those two are both otherwise occupied for the moment.

Yamato says someone inside the castle must have saved Oden’s journal. This seems like one of those things that’s either going to be a big deal at the end of the arc, when someone we didn’t expect to be that close to Oden reveals they did it and explains some otherstuff (Hitetsu maybe?) or something utterly mundane like Kawamatsu or Hyori tried to save it but it slipped out of their pocket in the river.

More talk about Luffy’s real dream here, but still nothing substantial enough to guess what it actually is. The phrasing “at the end of his dream” sends my mind racing, but it feels like the kind of hint that’s only going to make sense in retrospect (or could only be translated in a way that gives a proper hint by someone who actually knows what the answer is). Also I don’t think that spit of rock Yamato and Ace are drinking on in the flashback actually fits anywhere in the Onigashima establishing shot, but let’s be real, there are more than enough people around who could have demolished it if they didn’t want it there anymore.

Glad Kin is still holding on. Wonder if any other Scabbards are going to turn up with lost limbs, or even if anyone’s going to turn out to be beyond saving.

God, that final attack is satisfying. I know they won’t all land that easy, but right now I just want more of that. I actually peeked the spoilers for this one, given the length of the wait for it and saw when the attack name was originally understood as Red Rock, which I actually really liked the potential of. Pre-timeskip, Luffy named his attacks after pistols, bullets, bazookas and other weapons he would have seen hanging around pirates as a kid. Post-timeskip, it was animals he trained with. I actually liked the idea of the mid-Wano training being important enough that he decided to draw from the quarry he did it in, and that we might see Gum Gum Pickaxes or Gum Gum Menhirs or who knows what else throughout the fight. But, no, Roc was probably the best choice for this one. A mythical bird for fighting legendary opponents.

Next chapter (another two painful weeks from now) the real battle starts. I can’t see either side of this face-off having particularly good personal synergy, so the safest prediction is chaos and bickering across every front, in and out of both teams. It’s been a pleasure making it through 1000 chapters with you all, here’s to at least a couple hundred more.

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

Here we are. Final chapter of triple digits. Next chapter, I find out of the filenaming scheme for my offline archive holds up to the new digit, or if I’ll have to go back and add an extra 0 in front of every previous chapter number.

The Jump cover is a nice tribute. I’m not reading a whole lot of other ongoing series at the minute, only Hero Aca and Dr Stone, so I don’t recognise most of the artists, but the variety of character choices is great. Only real letdown is Boichi choosing Ace, because come on man, we already know you can draw Ace. Give us something new!

First half of the combined colour spread looks great. It’s so detailed! Where’s the other half? It’s painful to have this come up with the Christmas break. Just painful.

Yamato’s flashback gives us some Onigashima layout weirdness. The jet of flame in the establishing shot would have you think they’re fighting at the entrance, but then on the next page they’re in the middle of the Performance Floor (which in this time period has no less than three bridges over the middle corridor that just aren’t there in the present), and then a page after that, Mihal is talking to Ace from the docks. The dragon gate that Yamato smashes also seems to be outside. At least with Mihal’s bit the double panel boarder indicates a jump forward in time after Ace notices Yamato’s handcuffs. Now that I’ve reread it a couple of times, it’s clear that the sequence of events is Ace and Yamato fought outside first, then reached a standstill in the Performance Floor, Yamato told him Kaido was gone and stood down, actually standing by to let Ace save the children (I don’t even want to know what Kaido wanted to use those kids for), and then Ace goes back and restarts his fight with Yamato after the ship was loaded up. It was hard to follow initially because despite the movements in time and location, the dialogue is written like it could be one unbroken conversation and the one actual signpost of a transition is subtle and easy to miss. This all could have been drawn a lot clearer, but it would have been hard to do so without adding more pages to it, which probably wouldn’t have been worth it over all.

The gate that initially held the dragon statue, like the bridges over the Performance Floor, also doesn’t seem to be there anymore. It should have been visible in the establishing shot in chapter 978, but it isn’t, so I guess Kaido tore the whole thing down when he gave up on the statue.

Ace forgetting Cavendish’s name when in what was meant to be Cavenwhatever’s prime, before the Worst Generation stole his spotlight, is a great little gag, and getting timelines for some of the other Supernovas hitting the seas is a nice little lore thing. Ace’s faith in Luffy is heartwarming as well. He was a good brother. I always forget how charming he was until he actually comes back onscreen.

It would have been nice to have these scenes mentioned or at least as hinted at in the Ace novels. Without them, the books already feel dated. And speaking of, I’ve seen people in different comment sections talking about this flashback and the one with Tama at the start of Wano “canonising” Ace’s crew from the novel, as if they were created purely for the book. That’s just not the case. Go back to chapter 552 and compare the people with Ace when he fought Jinbe to the sketches at the back of the novel. The manga art is pretty low-res, but there’s the right number of people and nearly half the crew is distinct enough to be recognised as themselves even from this distance.

Ace’s crew has always been canon. They just got a bit more room to breathe in the novel.

Going back to the present, and we can see that the storeroom Momo and Yamato are hiding in is actually inside the skull dome, just below the lower half of the Performance Floor, on a path branching off from the stairs that led up from the skull’s mouth.

Robin and Brook are going up through the castle, where one of them will presumably… sigh… save Sanji from his current predicament. I’m praying for a twist on the formula, but I’m not holding my breath.

We get another little Ace flashback in the middle of the chapter purely to explain why Whitebeard didn’t act against Kaido sooner. This is all stuff that could have been intuited from what we knew already – the slow movement of info to and from Wano meant the didn’t hear what had happened until after, and given the scale of both Whitebeard and Kaido’s crews, the collateral damage and loss of life isn’t worth a symbolic act of vengeance. (the fact that Kaido is about to colony drop a freaking island on a populated area just because he felt it would make a better capital for his empire and Whitebeard coming close to completely sinking Marineford back in the day make it clear the kind of mutually assured destruction two Emperors bringing their A-games would be in for). “But Whitebeard left the people of Wano to suffer as slaves!” Yeah, and he’s also left along the common-knowledge slave culture of Mariegeoise and the slave markets of Sabaody. He leaves Tottoland alone even though Big Mom’s lifespan tax is (despite being voluntary) ethically questionable at best. We’ve never heard about him going out of his way to topple the Doflamingos or Wapols of the world’s monarchies. One man can’t fix all the injustices of the world on his own, even one as powerful and idealised as Whitebeard.

I’m surprised this is as controversial of a reveal as it is’s proving to be. From not chasing Teach to his strategic back and forth with Sengoku at Marineford, Whitebeard has always been portrayed as pragmatic. He’s is a father to his men and fiercely protective of those he takes under his wing (a position Oden voluntarily left) but he’s also extremely aware of his place in the world and the potential consequences of his actions.

I agree that it would have been nice to see Whitebeard weighing these two sides of his personality a little more before coming to the decision he made, mulling over the contrast between his respect for Oden and the feeling of betrayal that Oden left him and his found family to chase knowledge and glory with Roger, but there would have been no way for Ace to be part of that conversation. Remember that Oden had been dead for more than a decade by the time Ace joined Whitebeard. Even though it took “several years” to find out he died, Whitebeard, Marco and Izo would still have had at least another several years to grieve and make their peace with it by the time of this flashback.

I dunno, I’m sympathetic to people who had a specific interpretation of the character they now feel has been betrayed, but I’m struggling to see it the same way. This makes sense with what we knew. It adds layers rather than creates contradictions. It strengthens the worldbuilding if even the strongest man in the world is forced to weight the cost and benefits of even his most unambiguously well-intentioned actions.

Getting back to the chapter, the spread of King and Queen transforming doesn’t give us much new for them art-wise, but I did really enjoy Queen’s ridiculous mouth-gun.

Yamato pulls out the journal, I deliberately haven’t been getting my hopes up for any long-term mysteries being resolved for chapter 1000. Just the start of the final battle would have been good enough. But between this and Law reflecting on it in the basement, do I dare hope for to learn what the D stands for in the next chapter?

Zeus and Prometheus are recharging themselves on the roof. Zeus drawing power from the storm clouds makes sense, but what is Prometheus eating there? I doubt Kaido would make extra flame clouds just for him, and whatever it is is drawn like an explosion that wasn’t there in any previous chapters.

Oh, and where are the bodies of the Scabbards? Weird that they haven’t been in any of these shots even though we last saw them spread out in front of Kaido.

Looks like the final battle really is going to be Big Mom and Kaido together. I can’t wait to see what it takes to get the alliance through it. While I thought the wording was a little clunky, having them declare their intent to get the One Piece together really drives home how high the stakes are right now. Between this and yesterday’s comment about Shanks making a move in the new year, it’s really starting to feel like the end is coming.

Kadio’s fruit being a Fish-Fish fruit is absolutely brilliant. Very Oda. I know I’m not the first to make a Gyarados comparison, but holy carp, he’s a Gyarados!

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

Pretty light chapter this week, albeit one with incredible art.

It was easy to expect Marco to be a deus ex machina for the ice oni plot, bring a fire doctor dealing with an ice virus, but thankfully he’s just being used to add some minutes on the timer rather than resolve things completely. Chopper may still get to do something for the plot! His attack name, Phoenix Pyreapple is an inspired pun as well. Unfortunately, Marco’s spread is by far the weakest one of the volume. Marco is drawn too small and sketchy to work as a focal point, so aside from the infected pirates in the foreground the page just looks like a vague spread of swirly lines. Doesn’t look bad, there’s just hard to read anything other than negative space out of most of it. I think this is one that will improve significantly in the colour version, where they can play with different hues in the flame and empashise the lighting.

The panel with Drake is a great show of the Onigashima battle damage continuity I talked about when I mapped the Performance Floor a few chapters ago. In the background of that one panel you can see the tower Zoro cut down when he first appeared, the hole in the wall Big Mom burst through when she arrived and the place where King and Sanji crashed during their little clash, all exactly where they’re meant to be relative to each other. Always love being able to catch this kind of attention to detail!

Jinbe overestimating the crew’s ability to not get lost, not start trouble and prioritise dangerous opponents over women has been a fantastic gag so far. His unwavering faith in the team despite how unfamiliar with them he is warms my heart.

Franky seems to have brought out the General Shield in his battle. Wonder if it was any more use against Sasaki’s goons than it was against Baby 5. It’s starting to look like we’re getting confirmed battle matchups as Sasaki reveals his devil fruit against Franky. An armoured dinosaur against an armoured pirate. Fits well enough. Not much more you can say besides that the art for the reveal is fantastic, and that’s going to be a reoccurring theme.

Black Maria looks great in her hybrid form. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the text introducing her fruit seems really light and hard to read. Just one or two shades of grey darker would make a big difference here. I have no comment on how Sanji’s handling himself so far. All I can do is hope Oda’s got a plan for this.

The fourth floor as a giant cat cafe is brilliant design-wise, and I’ll be interested to see what role that design plays in Jinbe’s fight against Who’s Who. All those very cat toy-like climbing perches we see in the bit with Jinbe and Luffy would give a cat a lot of mobility and highground advantage against someone like Jinbe, who thus far has seemed really heavyset and grounded. Who’s Who looks great in his cat form as well. The hint that he’s someone Jinbe’s seen before has interesting implications, but I’m not yet convinced he’s someone we the audience has met. He just doesn’t physically match up with anyone unaccounted for.

Ulti and Page One have made it outside the dome, but it’s not yet clear where they’ve burst through, why they think Usopp and Nami are out there, and where those two actually are relative to them. This is the only other kinda weak spread besides Marco’s one. These dinosaurs aren’t anything new, and for a pair of ancient monsters bursting through a wall, it’s not the most dynamic of panels. More space could maybe have been given to the panel showing a fallen Hihimaru. I’ve still got no idea what part of his body I’m meant to be seeing in that shot.

Yamato starts building up Ace’s time in Wano again. I guess it wouldn’t be too bad for the chapter 1000 event to centre around that. It looks like at least some of chapter 999 will be this flashback, given the creeping blackness in the gutters around that last panel. Maybe we get a chapter of flashback and in chapter 1000 we go back to the present just in time for Luffy to reach Kaido, or the battle matchups to be fully locked in with Odaboxes.

We’re so close to the big milestone! Assuming the site I used to use for getting things from Japan as opened up international shipping again, I might try to get my hands on the next two issues of Jump for my collection. Can’t wait!

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

Ugh, Sanji, Sanji, Sanji. I want to hope we’re not about to get another Kalifa situation, but this first scene was not promising. There’s a spot of hope if Oda wants to turn the idea of him throwing away his pride to use the Raid Suit into a theme. At the very least, bring back smart, Mr Prince Sanji and have him think up a way to handle Black Maria without physically hitting her rather than just throwing the fight.

Zoro’s moment was pretty damn cool and drawn fantastically, but I am looking forward to him being put more of a struggle at some point in the future.

The ice oni plot seems to be under wraps surprisingly quick. Will there be something else happening to delay the vaccine distribution. Chopper in his samurai gear and face half iced over is the coolest he’s looked in literal years and it would be great to see him trying different forms and being forced to fight in that state.

Zoro seems to have cut the balcony railing at the crucifixion mount in his warning shot at Queen. Just some more battle damage to watch out for the continuity of.

The falling of Okiku’s arm is the first acknowledgment from Oda that the other side of the hole in the ceiling actually exists on the roof. Good to know it’s not completely a one-way opening. And lucky for Kiku (in relative terms anyway) that does appear to be her left arm. Imagine how dark it would have been if an arm fell and it wasn’t the same one we saw get blasted off earlier.

And then Onigashima lifts up in an absolutely jaw-dropping panel. It was an easy guess that Kaido at least would go back to the mainland, but I figured it would be to burn the capital in dragon form, Smaug-style. At least we don’t have to worry about how everyone else catches up with him this way. Hopefully this means we’ll finally get to see the top of Mount Fuji. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if this moving island situation finally ends with Onigashima either balanced precariously on top of it or impaled on the mountain in the way of Shandora on the beanstalk. I’ll be interested to see what happens to the citizens when Kaido arrives. I don’t want them to be all talk about their newly-revealed secret hatred of him. Hopefully the fact that they’re flying Oden-shaped balloons will make it impossible to hide and force them into a fight or die situation.

I love that we can see the flames spiraling back to Kaido as their source in the final panels. Who is he talking to though? The fallen Scabbards? Their final survivor? The mystery guest from Decks of the World that Marco brought?

Some people have said that Kaido being able to produce flames in human form is evidence that he’s an actual dragon, but I’m just not seeing it. Making flames is just something some people can do in One Piece’s world. Luffy, Sanji and Kinemon all have totally devil fruit-unreleated fire moves. It can’t even be that high level of a thing if Pearl could do it back at the Baratie. Luffy himself is able to make a not-dissimilar-looking lingering wreath of flame to wear for Snakeman, though it obviously doesn’t lift him up (and the anime decided to just have it be steam for whatever reason). So colour me unconvinced on that one. I remain in came World Government genetic experiment Kaido.

Really fun chapter overall, even if that one plot thread is going a direction I’m not a big fan of. Some incredible artistic highlights in Zoro’s moment and the final spread, not to mention more inspired Gifter designs through the middle. The anticipation for chapter 1000 is starting to get painful!

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

Hey, Oda’s finally given us an interior map of Onigashima! Kind of! I think we’re not going to know the exact floorplan of the left and right brain towers for a while, if ever, but at least we know what to look for on the Performance Floor now. Up to this point, the enclosed space hasn’t allowed for many good high-angle establishing shots, which has made it hard to get a feel for the space and where everyone and everything is relative to each other in all the action up to this point. We’re already essentially going into our third volume of Onigashima, after all, and the fighting has been in full swing for a while. Let’s see if we can rationalise what we’ve seen so far with the current map:

First thing to note is that the map in the manga (which I traced for this image) shows five buildings extending out from the left and right brain towers, all in the same shape. In actuality, the first and fifth buildings are freestanding turrets, and this has been show consistently in every panel so far, so I made that change on my map. I also found that some buildings were drawn with the rounded edges shown on the map while others were square, but I don’t think this has been managed as consistently. The relative heights of the buildings (and their heights in proportion to the Numbers) has also tended to shift from panel to panel. But shifting proportions are a longtime Oda thing. The layout at least is consistent.

The new chapter has the lower area of Performance Floor labelled as the Forehead Floor, but I’m skeptical that it’s actually in the forehead of the skull. The stairs leading in from the mouth really do not look steep enough for the lower floor to be above the eyes and there still to be so much cavernous space above the upper floor.

My interpretation of what we’ve been shown is that the upper floor is actually level with B1 of the central castle in the cross section shown in Luffy’s recent scenes. You can see the rock wall at the base in many, many different panels of the early battle. It logically follows that the lower floor (and probably the basement area Kaido and the Scabbards fell into before and Yamato and co fell into recently) are on level B2. But that’s my conjecture.

Anyway, let’s have a look at what’s actually happened in this area and if it can all be placed and tracked consistently. I’m paying particularly close attention to moments where buildings were damaged by the battle, because that kind of thing is particularly good for orienting and anchoring a scene when it’s shown consistently in the backgrounds, and stands out like a sore thumb if it magically goes away between shots (and we know Oda cares about that kind of thing, because characters like Minatomo and the Kablutermann were originally created to cover his ass when he did mess it up).

It shouldn’t shock anyone at all to hear that Oda has handled the continuity of the Onigashima battle incredibly well. The turret Zoro cut down is the most prominent bit of damaged scenery because a bunch of action has happened around it, but almost everything else has been shown at least once in chapters after the one it happened in, in the right location, and has never failed to be drawn when it should have. I find it supremely impressive, personally. The amount of coordination it must take between Oda and his assistants to not just keep the environment but the damage done to it accurate and consistent across so many chapters, panels and varying camera angles would be enormous. Props to them for doing it so well so far.

But getting things right is par for the course for Oda. Let’s have a look at where he’s slipped up, or intentionally fudged something for plot reasons.

First, and perhaps most obvious is what I’m calling the Phantom Bridge.

Many of the establishing shots inside the dome are framed with this bridge running right across the Performance Floor, usually connecting the second buildings on each side. This bridge has completely ceased to exist in recent chapters, presumably because it would get in the way of the Numbers’ movements. It’s possible it was knocked down offscreen at some point, but I didn’t have any luck finding evidence of that.

Second, the place Sasaki was tied up isn’t quite accurate to the exterior map shown when it happened. He’s implied to be under or just behind one of the skull’s horns, but in order for Big Mom’s attack that frees him to clip the right brain tower’s first turret and hit the main castle next to the hole Luffy and Yamato made, he would need to be further around the back than what was shown.

And third, the biggest struggle of mapping the battle was the placement of the Strawhats’ pose as a team moment. Most of the fighting at that point seems to be taking place between the first turrets, close to the base of the central castle. Jaki definitely falls in that area, and the crew appears to form up right in front of his body. But in the next chapter Luffy and Drake stop Juki and Goki’s advance between the second buildings, which means the Strawhats would have needed to finish the last chapter between the third buildings.

The most logical explanation is that the crew was fighting at the bottom of the castle, then fell back to regroup with the samurai before making a renewed push at the castle. It’s not the most in character thing for Luffy to make a tactical retreat, but it’s what makes the story works.

Finally, and less related to the interior map, I noticed in my rereading that the hole Kaido made in the roof is kind of a one way deal. We always see it when the camera in the dome pans up to the ceiling, but to my knowledge it hasn’t once been shown from the roof. Even more egrigious, it’s right in front of the castle tower, which has the door to the roof at the top. Jack’s reinforments for Kaido should have been at risk of tumbling straight through as soon as they arrived!

All in all, there have been a few hiccups in terms of character placement, but I was really impressed by the consistency of the environmental damage across chapters and from all different perspectives and camera angles. A lot of big fighting manga, like your Dragon Balls and your Narutos, limit their action to generic wasteland and woodland settings that look the same in all directions and make it impossible to keep track what the camera’s orientation is and whether there should be evidence of a past attack or skirmish there. Oda, on the other hand, is committed to his settings and sense of space. It makes the world so much more tactile and grounded, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I eat that shit up.

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

Big Mom VS Marco is going to look stunning in colour with the red and blue flames cascading away from each other. Even though it’s a short clash, you’re doing something right if you’ve managed to invoke the end of ATLA.

We’re at a weird stage of this battle where some characters seem to be getting long-awaited 1v1 matchups while others seem a millions miles away. Like, now that Carrot and Perospero are in the same place it would be a disaster not to take that though to its conclusion. Natch with Usopp and Nami and Page One and Ulti following their interactions later in the chapter. But most of the rest of the crew aren’t interacting with any enemies in a meaningful way. I wonder if Oda’s going to buck his usual structure of setting up the big matches all at once then playing them out simultaneously, and instead had fights start and finish as they do, barely overlapping if they do at all.

Either way, Carrot and Wanda slashing Pero’s face was deeply cathartic, and their Sulong forms look sick.

Big Mom implying some resource management to her power is interesting. I wonder if that’s Oda setting up something to be exploited to beat her. Zeus and Prometheus are also worth keeping an eye on, now that they’ve both gone X-eyed – Zeus following Brook’s attack, Prometheus following Marco’s. Big Mom seems to need both of the to fly in this state, rather than just one, so there might be other limits, like not being able to attack with them either. Will they recover with time like a KO’d human fighter, or will it take some stolen souls to recharge them? And what does it take to kill a homie anyway? Kingbaum was able to keep functioning through an absurd about of damage, and he didn’t even have Big Mom’s own soul inside, so her ones must have insane endurance.

I can’t picture Zoro staying in to fight Apoo much longer. He’ll move on to something more important soon. Oda’s setting up some personal beef between Apoo and Drake which could support a dedicated fight scene, as much as I’d love to see Brook be the one to take him on, for obvious reasons.

Queen seeming to have a personal connection to Judge is a plot thread to keep an eye on, especially if Oda goes with the usual monster-trio-vs-top-lieutenants setup and he starts fighting Sanji.

I love Brook turning out to be invincible in the virus situation. He was the clear MPV of Tottoland, so it’d be great to see this immunity position him for another clutch play here. Chopper has never been the best-utilised Strawhat, so hopefully putting him on a virus timer motivates a much-needed spotlight moment.

Usopp/Nami and Page One/Ulti is a great fight pairing that I hope gets carried through to its conclusion. As the two “normal people” surrounded by superhumans, the interactions between Usopp and Nami in dangerous situations make for one of my favourite dynamics within the crew. My reading of the start of the scene is that Ulti could have escaped the Green Star Devil on her own but loves that Pay Pay jumped in to help her, which is a fun interaction for the dinosaur siblings to set up the duo battle. Props to Usopp for holding his ground after Nami went down and the odds were against him. Even as recently as Dressrosa we’ve seen him backslide into cowardice in similar circumstances (headcanons about Robin-related memory loss erasing his Water Seven character growth notwithstanding) so his bravery deserves commendation here. It’s great to see Nami really getting into a fight and taking some genuine damage as well. Her declaration for Luffy wouldn’t have hit the same if we couldn’t see how real the stakes were for her. Excellent character moment.

And it’s that moment that has me believing this is the matchup for Usopp and Nami in this battle. After a line like that, Nami at least has to stay in and finish things to back her words up! That’s just how shonen storytelling works!

The arrival of Tama and Komachiyo is unexpected, at least timing wise. There was never any doubt they would have some role to play in Wano’s finale. Unlike some I’ve seen, I don’t see any reason to fear the worst of their arrival. They aren’t taking over the fight or anything like that. They’re a diversion to get Nami and Usopp out of a tight spot so they can regroup and come back stronger, then Tama moves on to her real role in the battle, which is presumably helping out with the Gifter hoards and probably eventually transporting something or someone important in Komachiyo to keep them safe. I’m not inclined to believe Tama’s ability would work on real zoans, it’s probably only the smiles. And for all the talk of how dark it is that she has a “mind control” ability, I would say the darkness goes to Kaido and Caesar and the smile fruits as a whole. It’s not just that they have low odds of success and unpredictable animal spawns, they also alter the user enough that other fruits categorise them as animals.

But that’s just my feeling for where these events are leading, and Oda is nothing if not unpredictable.

Looking forward to the end of the week and whatever’s coming next. I was hoping Oda wouldn’t take all the way to 1,000 to get Luffy on the roof, but it seems to be going that way at this point.

This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread. These two chapters were reviewed together because the forum was offline on the week of chapter 993’s release.

I think we were offline for two chapters’ worth of discussion, so I’ll quickly throw notes down on both.

We’re at the end of volume 98 now! (Probably.) I wonder if it’s still scheduled for December after the sudden two weeks off. Feel like it would be listed on Shueisha or Amazon by now if it was dropping on the 4th alongside other new Jump releases, but the 28th, with the new box sets still should be possible.

It was a strong volume overall. Very action heavy, and the clash with dragon form Kaido on the top of the dome is one of the most artistically impressive battles in the series.

The sudden redemption of the Flower Capital citizens at the start of chapter 993 doesn’t feel earned to me. Or at least, it doesn’t gel with how I’d previously interpreted the people living in luxury while the rest of the country starved. A few more hints that Orochi and Kaido were hurting them too, or that they held some sympathy for the people worse off than them.

But hey, if Oda can manage to redeem the Dressrosan public, I can live with a Wano turnabout. (and this will probably pay dividends when Kaido decides to destroy the city himself in the final stage of the fight a volume or two from now)

Ice Oni put a ticking clock on the battle inside the dome. That should keep Luffy from taking too long to reach the top of the dome and getting his part in motion. Hopefully. Things would feel pretty stretched out if we have to see every floor of the castle in detail and it actually takes up to chapter 1000 to get there.

The long-awaited reversal of the battle on top finally happens, and Oda goes out of his way to make it visceral after making us wait so long for the other shoe to drop. Feel bad for Kiku being the first to take a hit though. Not that it keeps her down for long. Even now that they’re going to start losing, the samurai are nothing to sleep on.

I’m glad Oda is taking the time to explore Kaido’s philosophy a little more. How many years of “why doesn’t he just jump into the sea” have we put up with? Although, I wonder how the jump from Balloon Terminal plays into this line of thinking. Sure, a jump from a sky island is an epic and novel way to go, but I wouldn’t compare it to the kind of noble warrior death Kaido seems to want here.

Gifter designs are as strong as ever over both chapters. These guys are hilarious. A shame to see the destructive power of giraffes become so insignificant to the crew though. The power creep marches slowly on.

Yamato closes out another consecutive volume, which I imagine is part of Oda trying to emphasise his importance despite introducing him so late. It’s a little underwhelming to have the final page of the book so familar considering all the crazy action and escalation that took place inside. A shame we couldn’t have seen more of Yamato’s interactions with Momo as well, I think that’s going to be an interesting dynamic. Most are anticipating Momo won’t be a fan of Yamato’s whole shtick, but I wonder if instead he’ll be impressed at how Yamato is carrying on Oden’s strength and will and try to learn from him instead. But that’s for for a week and a half from now.

Hope y’all are staying safe in these crazy times, hope that if the forum does have to go down again it can at least do it on a break week this time.