Captain M Entertainment

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.

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

Great chapter to come back on after a long two weeks off (though that’s still a small price to pay for Oda’s health).

Interesting choice to put Yamato on the Jump cover. He’s technically an important figure, but he’s not doing much of note at the minute, and certainly isn’t all that relevant to this chapter. Could this imply that he’ll be a little more in the spotlight soon? Or did Oda just want to settle the colours for a popular fanart character sooner rather than later? (Perhaps he’s decided against using Yamato on the volume 98 cover and wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance). Or I’m overthinking all of this. The red horns are interesting. A point in favour of the theory that Black Maria is his mum, not that genetics are all that consistent in One Piece’s world.

The colour spread is gorgeous and full of fun, playful details in that classic One Piece way, but I think Jinbei looks a little too big up the back there. Could he not fit through the doors of the train? Also, it’s a little disappointing to see he’s still using his Marineford-era getup as his default outfit. It would have been nice to see something different now that the timeskip has come and gone. I’d hoped it would at least be a different colour, given the change in how it’s inked, but that’s what you get for making colour assumptions based on Oda’s inking.

Big Mom seems to have some kind of a plan for the alliance, or there’s more to her truce with Kaido than we’ve told so far. I’m not shocked she would eventually bring her kids in line despite their objections, but the Marco-Perospero alliance is over almost as quickly as it’s begun. A shame we couldn’t have had at the very least some more dialogue between the two before it was over.

Despite all the characters breaking off in pairs, I wasn’t convinced we were getting confirmed matchups at the time. Carrot and Wanda chasing after Perospero as a duo has me wondering if I could have been wrong. Likewise, the framing implying that Shinobu, Momo and Yamato might be drawing close to Black Maria. And speaking of her and her song, for a while I’ve trusted Greg’s line of thinking that there might only be three acts, but this specific setup of someone to play us in and out again also has me rethinking my expectations. And with us so close to chapter 1000, from which everyone is expecting something big…

And also, it would be pretty cool for in the fade out ad the darkest hour for Hyori to be replaced with Kaido’s apparent-head courtesan, to really emphasise that it’s all him when it happens.

And after that, it’s all spectacularly-rendered action straight through to the end of the chapter. The transition from Black Maria to the rooftop, using her song as the soundtrack to the battle is one of the few things that’ll definitely hit harder in the anime. The fight that follows will likely be too drawn out to have the same punch it did here, but the transition at the start is guaranteed to be sick.

Kaido summons lightning that splits the earth. While this is new, it’s not surprising given that eastern dragons are often associated with controlling the weather. We did see him bring his own stormclouds back in volume 92 (and the colour version of the volume makes it a lot easier to see exactly how centralised around an in-flight Kaido the bad weather is meant to be. But Conqueror’s Haki has also been known to make lightning and crack the earth, so he could be using a bit of that too, though I’d expect another comment about copying Oden’s “special trick” if that was the case.

Almost all of the Scabbards have had their own individual moment to show their stuff against Kaido now, which bodes poorly for them. Only Ashura and Denjiro remain, though they did get to be part of the big moment at the end, so maybe that counts. With all the characters we’ve spent the past eight volumes building up all having had their strength showcased, and none of the Strawhat/ally battles in the dome even properly started, let alone feeling so close to concluding, it feels more inevitable than ever that the tide will turn back in Kaido’s favour.

The translation of Raizo’s attack is interesting. Apparently, in the original Japanese, the wording of it had a similar structure to a devil fruit name (Scroll Scroll or Roll Roll), which would go a long way to explain all the weird shit he can just kinda do. But Stephen has translated it as “Scrolling Jutsu.” I wonder if this is one of those things where he got an editorial behind-the-scenes tip that no, Oda wasn’t trying to name a devil fruit there.

The chapter ends with Kaido taking his biggest hit yet. But remember how literally every Kaido fight so far has gone: he takes a surprising amount of damage or hits in dragon form, falls to the ground, transforms back to his human(ish) mode and ends things almost instantly with his club. Oda isn’t known for being predictable, but he does know how to utilise a pattern. We’ll see where it all ends up next week. I didn’t expect to have so much to say about a chapter that was mostly action and attack names, but I guess it just goes to show how many balls this series manages to keep in the air at once.

As a final note, I can’t wait to come back to this chapter in a couple of years when the colour version hits. You can see Oda substituting screentones and hatching for full inking in a lot of places where things were getting too busy or the lighting needed to be emphasised, especially across Kaido’s scales. The colouring team has always been good at bringing full vibrancy back to things Oda had to have fade into the background so as not to overwhelm a black and white panel. It’s gonna look incredible.

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

Nine chapters to the big quadruple digits, and Oda working hard to get there this year as well! I hope he makes it!

Okay, cover story, cathartic tears for the big reunion. Now can we move on to a little actual lore/story to close it out? I’m expecting either Pound’s flashback to his escape from Tottoland, showing a little more of what happened to the Sun Pirates and Germa, or some surprise news about what happened in the Reverie.

This was a good chapter for Strawhat interactions. People complain that there aren’t enough scenes with the crew just hanging out since the timeskip, but honestly I’ve rarely felt let down by their absence. The dynamics of the crew are so well established at this point its easy to slip in little exchanges of banter among the big, plot driven scenes like this. We can still get these big personalities bouncing off each other without having to sit everyone down to do it.

It seems like Oda might be setting up the crew-focused fights here, going more in duos rather than straight one on ones, presumably as a compromise to save time. However, I’m not going to call anything confirmed on that front until there’s an Odabox stating someone VS someone. For a while now, battles haven’t worked like the early-story fights where crews of half a dozen each pair off for duels. Now, they’re more like, well, actual battles. Clashes are objective driven rather than opponent driven. Characters fight to capture or hold ground, buy time, do crowd control or distract a heavy hitter, and it’s more important that they keep doing these things rather than chase down the foe they just blew away with one good hit to make sure he stays down for good. So you get a lot of little clashes and skirmishes, and in the grand scheme, most of them end up not being worth going to the death over. Even here, we see Ulti and Page One doing effective crowd control against the nameless samurai, so Usopp and Nami draw their attention and lead them away. Same deal with Haccha’s destructive potential and Franky and Jinbe leading him outside (hey, isn’t Big Mom still out there?), while Zoro and Drake focus on Apoo specifically to keep him from calling more Numbers. Queen jumps in with covering fire so Apoo can do his job. It’s just not about “this is my guy I have to take out” anymore, it’s all efforts towards the larger goal of the battle. There’s an ebb and flow to it that I feel goes underappreciated among the desperation for more old school one-on-ones.

And all of the above – the bigger picture of the fight – are why I’m not particularly stressed by things like Jack being fought offscreen. As much as I love seeing different abilities put to new and creative uses and different characters interact and clash, there are bigger and more exciting beats to move onto. What maybe could have used an extra panel is establishing how the mink/samurai forces are doing. It’s implied that they and the pirates Jack brought have mutually destroyed each other, leaving only the Scabbards standing, but wouldn’t it be good to know for sure? A lot of named minks are accounted for in the panels showing the battlefield, but Wanda is noticeably absent. I’m pretty sure that by process of elimination she’s meant to be with that group rather than the ones inside the dome but she hasn’t really shown up in a while.

An interesting note in this chapter is Kaido’s sympathy and understanding toward Jack. Between this and his acceptance of his son’s pronouns despite loathing the reason for choosing them (hey, he’s doing better than r/onepiece on that front), could Kaido actually be a good and wholesome father and captain? Uhh no, I’m gonna say no. While he has his moments of surprising humanity, he’s still got a noted tendency to get out of control drunk and casually murder low-ranked members of the crew, not to mention giving Yamato regular beatings all through his childhood. (we might also include his treatment of Speed on this list, but he probably didn’t have any way of knowing she was mind-controlled at the time of her betrayal) He may occasionally tell you you’re not weak, but he’s still a volatile powderkeg of man and its hard to imagine Yamato and the Beasts Pirates living in anything other than a constant underlying fear that they’ll be the one he goes off on the next time he drinks.

Sulong Dog and Cat look absolutely sick, and that’s really all there is to say about that.

And at the climax of the chapter, bringing us into the home stretch of volume 98, Kin cuts fire. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. It’s so obvious now that it’s happened. I can only imagine Oda’s been planning this moment or one like it since Punk Hazard. It must feel incredible to have finally done it after all those years. Now let’s keep up this intensity all the way to chapter 1000!

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

As we count down to the big quadruple digit, it’s worth keeping in mind that other multiple of 100 chapters weren’t always earth-shattering either. They can be things that don’t play into the bigger story, but are long-awaited in their arc, like Luffy landing his first blow on Kaido, or the Strawhats finally getting fight matchups with Cipher Pol. It’s easy to expect 1000 to be a level beyond, but judging by the current state of things, it could be something simple as well. Hell, chapter 900 was a negative moment of significance, with the Sunny seemingly destroyed, so our big moment might be Kaido finally letting loose, and little more than that.

And speaking of Kaido, what’s he doing, just hanging over the battlefield. It’s hard to read the emotions on his transformed face. Is he furious? Unnerved? Studying his foes? Debating whether it’s worth nuking Jack and the Number with a Boro Breath just to be done with samurai and furries? Go figure Oda would tease us with Cat and Dog’s sulong forms, but I wasn’t counting on a cut back to these parts for a few chapters yet, so I’ll take it.

Back inside, it says something about the Beasts Pirates that even in these circumstances, the Tobi Roppo have to be ordered to drop what they’re doing and help push back the invasion. There’s a lot of internal confidence for this crew. They’re still pretty sure they can handle this, given that it wasn’t an immediate all hands on deck situation. Whether that confidence was earned or not remains to be seen.

Drake nudging Hawkins in the direction of betrayal is a nice little nod to the potential of a Sword agent in an organisation like this long term. One can only wonder how much internal tension he’s stoked over the past who knows how long, especially given how ruthless and competitive most of the crew seems to be (although we see a little later the conflict between the Tobi Roppo and the Lead Performers doesn’t run as deep as was initially suggested). Given the context, it probably makes sense for Hawkins to be calculating Drake’s changes of survival, as a way of weighing up whether to listen to him, but Luffy is also a strong candidate. Remember back around Marineford when Drake kept trying to predict Luffy’s death but his survival odds refused to come up zero? Might have left him with a spot of curiosity about our captain, and what a time to try again for different results.

The panel where King says the internal power struggle on hold is the best look so far at the layout of the dome interior, which seems to be a network of islands, buildings and bridges. I wish we could get a proper overhead view or a map to work with. I want to be able to visualise the space better.

As much as I hate a chance for a co-op battle to be skipped, the acknowledgement that these kinds of enemies once took the whole crew to fight but are now easily put in their place is a fantastic demonstration of their progress and I love it.

The choice to have Hyo call Luffy simply a “guardian deity” rather than call out a specific Buddhist god like in the Japanese was probably smart. The story doesn’t flow if I have to stop reading to google a thing, or squint to read a hasty margin-sized note that barely gives enough context for it to work. I do wish Viz would let its translators add some notes, trivia and commentary at the ends of chapters or volumes, just for those little points of interest. (Or failing that I wish Stephen could be as twitter-active as Caleb Cook is for his series, given that it’s a slightly easier format than the podcast, but to each translator his own social media)

So what’s with that explosion that saves Drake? Doesn’t seem to be one of his moves, doesn’t seem to have come from the battle on the performance floor either. There shouldn’t be anyone else left to come from behind the stage, so who or what did it? Also, this is another chapter where Oda plays with the passage of time a little, getting all those conversations to play out in time for Drake’s fall to line up with Luffy’s attack. But then, talking is a free action. Queen and Who’s Who would have had to do quick work of subduing Drake though.

Luffy and Drake might have been the most unexpected teamup of the arc if it weren’t for Marco and Perospero the other week. I think Drake mentally dismissing the idea of going to the Marines for help and declaring himself an army of one is a good indication the Marines won’t be factoring into the Onigashima battle at all. They might challenge Wano’s borders as a post-climax complication after the fighting is done, but they aren’t being summoned here. And that’s fine. The characters we do have are jostling for screentime as it is. As always, can’t wait to see where it all goes!

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

Another fantastic chapter. Oda’s killing it well into his second Onigashima volume, and there’s no reason to think this hot streak won’t continue.

This cover story has to be going somewhere, right? The huge and extremely aggressive Navy presence might be an indication of the post-Reverie climate. Bege reached the Redline while the Reverie was in progress, but given that it lasts a week (and Zou was a week’s sail from Dressrosa when Luffy’s group arrived there, and Tottoland a few days away from that, it’s likely that he showed up for the tail and of it, not the start. Maybe his cover story is leading into a reveal of the SSG’s big Warlord-replacement weapon, and the Firetank family’s fate is going to left uncertain as the World Government begins its endgame purge.

Luffy uses the right pronouns for Yamato because he’s a good person. I know that technically he would be using neutral pronouns most accurately translated as “this guy” or “this person” in the Japanese, but as a translation choice it definitely captures Luffy’s attitude and the way everyone else including Yamato himself as spoken about Yamato. There’s a few people who could stand to pay attention to what our captain is doing here.

Apparently all the Tobi Roppo are dinosaurs. That’s good speculation fodder, and I look forward to seeing what kinds of guesses people come up with. Although, it wouldn’t shock me if Oda just means “prehistoric” and there’s a mix of big flying and swimming reptiles that aren’t technically dinosaurs in there as well.

Franky doesn’t get enough love. He and Brook are so easily forgotten but so often come in clutch with arc-saving moves. With this declaration, I don’t think there can be any doubt that we’re toppling Emperors this arc. The crew are ready for this, not individually, but as a unified force. They were big fish in a small pond for a long time, no matter how hard the narrative worked to play them as the underdogs, but now they’re fighting for real in their own weight class.

And then we have the Numbers! Finally, some designs that live up to the silhouettes from the last act a little better. I don’t know if I would have called them Oars-sized compared to normal giants just from the art, but we all know Oda likes to play with scale, so it’s good he had Franky and Nami confirm it.

And then Big Mom drops some lore. Wow, so the World Government was trying to recreate Ancient Giants on Punk Hazard and Kaido’s crew has ties to those experiments. I made a post a couple of years ago talking about this kind of thing (and a whole lot of other wild conjecture) before we even knew they were called Ancient Giants. I’m far from the only person to guess it, but it still feels pretty validating.

My prediction for Kaido’s backstory remains that he was a lab experiment, and probably the most successful among them despite lacking the size he was supposed to have, and he was rescued and taken in by Rocks. Maybe this happened with all the Numbers, maybe he went back for them later, but that’s the bones of the story. This is one of the most exciting mysteries to be coming up on an answer to in my opinion, because I’m pretty sure we’re going to find that the Ancient Giants are significant for more than just their size and strength. They would need to wear a pretty large size of hat, that’s for certain…

The second half of this chapter has some really weird passage of time from the moment Franky shoots Jaki onward. I think Oda was trying to show that a lot of things happened all at once, but the result is that the Number seems to fall in slow motion. On page 7 he’s shot, bottom of page 13 he seems to be falling backward, to land in the middle of General Franky’s transformation on page 14. Which is especially weird given that Franky has time to set around thanking Jinbe and Robin for their help on page 10. He should be already rushing over to meet the Brachio Tank if he wants to start transforming before Jaki hits the floor. It really all does not line up, which is an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise fantastic chapter.

I did enjoy Jinbe and Robin teaming up on Big Mom. I hope this is how the fight with her goes forward, with all kinds of Straw Hat combos. The same method was incredibly satisfying to watch back in Tottoland too. Remeber, the crew isn’t stronger than Big Mom and they’re probably not going to be, given that she’s a natural monster. What they can be is smarter, more skillful and more versatile. There’s a strange fixation in this fanbase on who’s the strongest fighter as opposed to who’s the best fighter. Lucky Oda knows which one is more important.

Oh, another structurally odd moment. Why have Queen stop Luffy and Zoro and then have King arrive to block the skies? Him and his flying Gifters are kinda superfluous as far as tension goes, with Luffy already pretty effectively blocked. Wouldn’t it have been better for the flyers to block Luffy and Zoro first, then have Queen use his long neck to dunk them back to the floor out of nowhere as they get pushed back or prepare to fight? A small niggle, but it does stand out.

And shouldn’t Kaido be feeling a little inferior at the moment? After all, he’s only got a Flying Six, and we haven’t seen a single one of them fly yet. But King swoops in with a whole Flying Nine and they don’t even need to justify themselves with several chapters of built up! In all seriousness, while Stephen’s missed a few marks in terms of names this arc, I think going with Tobi Roppo is one that has worked out pretty well. While Tobi Roppo doesn’t mean too much to me, a non-Japanese speaker, the Flying Six alternative feels like an increasingly poor descriptor.

Finally, the money shot. Been waiting a long time for this one and it does not disappoint! Having it happen in the middle of a battle feels very… well…

I can hear the theme music already.

We’re about half way through volume 98 now, so I imagine this is the point where the story zeroes in on the Straw Hats fighting, with maybe little cutaways to allies like Law, Kid and Hyo elsewhere in the dome. I’m expecting a big focus on team-ups and coordinated attacks as they fight Big Mom, Queen, King and the Numbers. And they’re going to win these fights too, taking at least the rest of this volume to do so. This big reunion, like the one at Fishman Island, has to lead into a skills showcase. Things aren’t going to get really desperate until the crew has a bit of a wining streak going and we cut back to see how the Scabbards are doing with Kaido on the roof, only to find devastation.

That’s my guess anyway. I’m glad I’ve got a busy week ahead to make the time go fast between now and the next chapter!