Captain M Entertainment

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!

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

Another week, another new chapter that doesn’t come with the volume 97 cover. If it weren’t for all the breaks, we’d almost have volume 98 complete before it comes out (edit: spoke too soon, it’s finally here). Lucky the chapters are so damn good then.

That Navy bombardment’s really come out of nowhere on the cover. Still, better something abrupt like this than spending an installment on them showing up. At least Pez is having a good time.

I’m glad we get to see a bit of Sulong action before the inevitable cutaway from the minks and samurai’s doomed battle with Kaido, and having Jack get involved is a good bit of catharsis reaching back to Zou as well. Loved the shot of all of them transforming with Kaido in the background. Of course, we don’t get to see Dogstorm and Catviper just yet. My guess is that they’ll be the last ones standing when we come back to this conflict later on. They way the fur on a lot of these transformations is drawn makes me think of all the koma-animals we’ve seen in Wano. The curls and the flame-like tips are a good visual match. Maybe there’s a connection, given how Wano and Zou were apparently close allies back in the day. Could the koma-animals be mink descendents who leaned toward the animal rather than the human part of their genetics.

The Numbers continue to not really make good on the build-up of their silhouettes though. I’m sure there’ll be some interesting lore behind them, but from a character and a design perspective they’re just not really doing it for me at this point.

Sanji showing up for Momo is the kind of classic Mr Prince moment he’s been lacking for a long, long time. I’d be more endeared to the Sanji perv jokes if more of them led to cool moments like the “chasing prostitutes” saga did with this. As a side note, King is freaking enormous. We did kinda know this, but seeing how small Sanji is on the end of his pterodactyl beak really drives it home. If this is Sanji’s big fight, it’s going to be interesting to see what he does to measure up against such a monstrous opponent.

Yamato committing hard enough to the Oden bit to actually call Momo is son is great. Hopefully they get some time to interact and really let the absurdity of it all play out. I hope Yamato meets the Scabbards before his character act leads him to wanting to be his own man as well.

And to top things off we get a perfect Franky and Brook moment that really does cement them as the most underrated Strawhats. Brook was a clear MVP on Whole Cake Island but hasn’t had much to do in Wano yet I hope this teamup lasts.

The way things are being set up, my current prediction for the future is that Big Mom will be toppled by the Straw Hat crew working together as a team, perhaps minus Zoro and Sanji if they get caught up fighting King and Queen or something like that. Luffy delivers the last blow, of course, but if it’s a group effort he can have his win feel earned without having to expend himself too much to fight Kaido in a much more direct way right after. Big Mom has been shown to be vulnerable to combo attacks a few times now, so it would be really fitting for everyone to jump in and use their unique skills to overwhelm her together. Also the Oars fight was one of the series’ best and we haven’t really had much like it since.

As for the big translation debate of the week… yeah, I would have preferred the flowers callback over a quip about busting Big Mom’s nose. Oda’s crazy commitment to continuity is one of the things I love most about this series, and while I can easily accept that some callbacks and callforwards get lost in translation simply due to a lack of context when they were first done, it feels like a huge shame to sacrifice one that could easily have been kept. I hope it gets revised for the volume release.

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

Man, Oda has been on an absolute roll for the past few chapters. Everything from the end of the Oden flashback on has been good, but these past few weeks have been spectacular.

It warms my heart to finally see Jinbe hanging out with the rest of the crew on a colour spread after all this time. I’m a little disappointed he wasn’t being saved for a special one of some kind, but it’s still good just to see him.

After a little recap of Oden and Kaido’s interactions, we have an interesting moment where the Scabbards’ attacks actually pierce Kaido’s skin. I’ve seen some debate as to whether the Scabbards (or at least three of them) actually have the same advanced ryuo technique Luffy learned, or if their blades only went in because Kaido’s distress weakened him the same way Big Mom’s grief did. But if you look back to the Big Mom scene, the amount of anguish it takes to lower her defences also has her in a complete mental blank, screaming and unleashing her conqueror’s haki uncontrollably. Kaido is shocked here, but he hasn’t been emotionally upset to nearly that level. So I think it’s pretty clear this damage came purely from the Scabbards’ own power.

I wonder if ryuo has anything to do with Kin’s ability to cut fire, which hasn’t really come up at all since Punk Hazard. Seemed like it was going to be a much bigger deal back then…

I appreciate that Nami and Carrot are shown to be so capable of getting away on their own, as if they were just biding their time while Big Mom claimed victory.

Kaido’s little speech really ephasises how much more interconnected the story has become through the New World – and he doesn’t even seem to know about the events on Fishman Island that rube-goldberd into his alliance with Big Mom. I’ve been in discussions about how best to classify and break up arcs and sagas but this really goes to show that there’s no easy answer because the story’s second half just isn’t built the same as the first one, which the arcs/sagas system was really built for. As much as no one likes the overdone “New World” titling on the Viz volumes, in hindsight they actually hit pretty close to how the story’s being portrayed from scenes like this.

Luffy’s big declaration is a trademark One Piece moment that’s wonderfully in-character and incredibly satisfying, and makes the perfect coutnerpoint to Kaido’s talk of betrayal. I think he’s gonna do it too, there’s not going to be any Emperors getting away to be addressed in a future arc this time. It all happens here.

Some people think they see Hawkins with Law, but the outfit is wrong and the hair isn’t long enough. And Hawkins still didn’t seem particularly like he would change sides when we last saw him, even at Law’s mercy. He plays the odds, and against the sheer power of Kaido and Big Mom, the odds are still against Luffy and co. It does reraise the excellent question of who freed law (probably Drake) and what is their endgame (when and how do they turn on Kaido).

Marco and Perospero is an interesting alliance. I have no idea how that was negotiated or what its impact is going to be…

Finally, Kaido heads for the rooftop in a pair of gorgeous spreads. I’m already absolutely certain the panel of Kaido’s dragon form in front of the moon is going to be represented on volume 98’s cover in some way (but I may be getting ahead of myself there – I was really hoping for a volume 97 reveal alongside the chapter but we don’t even have that yet.) Having the minks waiting on the rooftop under the full moon was an incredibly dramatic touch. In a normal arc, I’d be expecting Oda to cut away from Kaido for a while so he can deal with his non-Luffy foes, but it’ll be pretty upsetting to do that now and miss out on seeing everyone’s Sulong forms. Oda better commit to this!

What’s interesting about the structure at this point is that another potential cavalry option is being played seemingly too early. I think the assumed structure going into the battle was that Kaido would steamroll everyone easily, but then there would be a moment of reinforcement and troop rallying – Jinbe arrives, Marco arrives, Sulongs, a Big Mom betrayal – to lead into the final act, but it doesn’t look like that’s where we’re going anymore. We’re throwing everything we have at Kaido at once, and the endgame isn’t going to be a recovery and a renewed charge, but most likely Luffy as the last man standing, capitalising on the damage done by everyone who fell in the group attempt to weaken the big boss. That feels a tad more stale than the alternative – it’s not so different structurally from the Doflamingo fight – so it’ll be interesting to see if Oda has a twist in mind, or if he’s just planning to do the familiar thing but bigger and more explosively than ever before.

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

Welp, that’s not where I expected the cover story to go. Pretty funny twist, but I’m stilling waiting on the big plot or lore thing that makes it all worthwhile. Lola and Chiffon’s reunion alone doesn’t feel like enough.

The handling of Kanjuro so completely offscreen is an odd choice. I’m not going to say he needed a particularly drawn out battle, but there could have been a way to show a bit more of it. Maybe instead of a group of random Beasts Pirates, Kan confronts the Scabbards either alone or with just his own paintings, so the montage of the gang fighting in the last chapter could have been more focussed on him. And you know, cut back in to the final hit landing rather than it already being done. Just changing that first panel of the chapter to one of Kiku coming through on the far side of him, the final attack just landed, or putting more evidence of it in the panels with her crying last chapter instead of using them for a cheap cliffhanger would make it feel a lot more like the battle really happened. But the bottom line is that Kanjuro was never shown as a fighter, not even when we did see him as an ally, and his part in the story is pretty close to done. If these are all the panels Oda can spare for him, so be it.

It’s hard to say if Kanjuro or Orochi will be back at this point. The opening acts of Wano were so Kurozumi-focussed it was easy to see them as the real villains rather than Kaido. Would it cheapen the real boss’s takeover to have them holding on. I could see something along the lines of Orochi’s extra heads going berserk without the influence of the main one and acting as a background source of chaos and threat to fodder while the right fights happen. Maybe an injured Kanjuro swoops in to finish him in a mutually-assured moment of death, closing the curtain on the Kurozumi dynasty once and for all. But that’s just a spitball idea for an arc that already has more than enough going on.

The Nami and Carrot moment is another one that has been handled oddly over the last two chapters. Last week it was really ambiguous whether they’d been beaten and left behind somewhere, or whether they were being dragged behind O-Lin or what. A panel or two might have been saved if they were shown in the hands of the Homies like this last week instead of making a mystery of it.

We spend the next few pages in what I assume will be the last bit of downtime for a while, building up to Momo’s big moment and making sure everyone is where they need to be for the big battle (while leaving a few like Sanji, Franky and Brook ambiguous so they can be played as wildcards when needed). How in-character that even with a mech to protect them, Usopp and Chopper have ended up in a storeroom, presumably to hide.

Momo’s memory of Luffy seems to reference chapter 701, but his talons getting in Luffy’s mouth wasn’t onscreen in the manga, and the wording is slightly different. “I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates one day” in chapter 701 vs “one day, I’m gonna be King of the Pirates” here. Oda’s mistake, or a quirk of the translation? I wonder if it’ll be changed for the volume release.

I don’t love Yamao as Luffy’s nickname for Yamato. It’s not quite different enough from his actual name, and doesn’t fir the English release’s stylings for Luffy’s other big nicknames. Traffy and Jaggy should make Yamato “Yammy” shouldn’t it? That said, I do feel validated that the Japanese behind the nickname suggests Luffy is respecting Yamato’s self-image and talking about him in masculine terms. Good on him.

And finally Momo gets his moment, shows his confidence and really starts becoming the man he was meant to be. From that moment on, Kaido’s fate is sealed, because we know there’s nothing that gets Luffy going more than a sincere show of conviction from someone without the strength to follow through personally. We know he’s gonna get right in there to back up the young Shogun’s words when no one else can. But as he explains to Yamato, it isn’t his fight. There’s others who’ve earned the chance to try first. And try they do. I really love how the Sunacchi thing has come together. It seemed like a throwaway moment early on, even with Kiku reacting in such a strong way when Momo said it, but bringing back the “surrender your name” part of the meaning right as Momo refuses to surrender his own is beautiful storytelling. Props to Oda. Of all the things in early Wano I was expecting to be super impressed by the payoff for, this was not one of them. Not much I can say about the final spread except that it’s absolutely gorgeous. Both in terms of story payoff and of the actual art with so many characters and moving objects all at once.

The ending obviously starts the battle, but leaves it wide open as to how it will progress. Kaido falling all the way to the party floor and starting to brawl side by side with Big Mom feels just as likely as him transforming mid-fall and flying around the roof with the Scabbards clinging to his back, spitting death as he circles. Either way, shit’s going down.

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

Man, this is a strong contender for chapter of the year, and this is the year that started with “Roger’s Adventure,” just going to show much hype there is behind it. I’m gonna put my prediction down that this is the first chapter of volume 98. Oda prefers to leave off a volume with a few things unanswered and a particularly surprising last page to get the readers back in for the next one, and I think the Yamato reveal combined with the lingering mysteries of the New Onigashima project and the uncertainty of whether the Scabbards will make it in time fits his style better than having those things revealed and answered and the comparatively less memorable final page of Luffy and Yamato running. But it’s not like a he’s never ended a volume in an odd or unconventional-seeming point either, so it could go either way.

The colour spread is nice, but weirdly understated for an anniversary one. Interesting character choice as well. It’s a pretty strong indication of who the stars of the show are going to be in this arc. The Jinbei tease just keeps on going though. When he finally does show up in one of these it’d better be something special, damn it!

Hey is it just me, or does the pirate on the far right of the group Kanjuro confronts the scabbards with look a bit like Coribou? Seriously, it’s the same weapon and everything.

Of course, in the cover story it was only Caribou who was taken away by Drake, but Coribou could easily have come on yet another rescue mission, been beaten, dyed his hair and assimilated into Kaido’s crew in exchange for his captain’s life, in another Kid/Killer situation. I’ll see you guys in the volume 98 SBS.

I love Kiku getting a spotlight moment to take on Kanjuro (and that one panel near the end suggests we’ll flash back to this scene again a little later, so that’s good) but I’m not totally wowed by her speech about her katana’s wounds not vanishing in the afterlife. It feels a little…

…which is absolutely not a good image to invoke. It might have flowed a bit better with the foreshadowing of the “lingering snow” interpretation of her epithet, but even it still has me going “what does that even mean?”

I still want to see more from Yamato before I decide where I stand with him. He’s strong and proactive enough to be imposing, but we’re seeing this week just how naive and sheltered his enthusiasm is, and how transparent the amount of effort his putting into the Oden shtick is. I want to see where this is going and how the two sides are going to be balanced going forward. That said, I loved the panels of him and Luffy peeking through the ceiling, with the little detail of the crack growing slowly throughout the chapter. That was fun.

Despite the outright request to join, at this stage I don’t see Yamato as crewmate material. He only wants to do it because Oden did it, and we’re seeing here that as much as he loves Oden, it’s not natural for him to act like him. He’s not free like Oden was. He’s not making his own choices like Oden did, just blindly following Oden’s logic. He looks at Luffy and rates him on a scale from “more Oden” to “less Oden.” Yamato is out here learning to game “what character are you” personality quizzes until he gets Oden, not realising that Oden isn’t even in the possibly results because taking a “what character are you” personality quiz isn’t something Oden would ever do because he doesn’t need to be another character. The most logical character arc for Yamato seems to me that it would be learning to act as his own man (or his own woman, if he decides the male gender doesn’t have much appeal without Oden’s identity; it’s cool to take some time working these things out and experimenting with how you want to be seen) and breaking away from Oden’s story to forge his own path. And I think that’ll probably lead him away from joining Luffy. But we’ll see.

I’m a big fan of Olin’s entrance with the army of yokai. It’s great how the depiction of her power adapts to the setting, going from the Silly Symphonies look in Tottoland to traditional spirits here. As much as I think this’ll be her last arc in the spotlight, I would love to see this in more different locations. I’m not as big a fan as how the battle over Zeus was handled. I’m usually okay with some offscreening for minor skirmishes, especially this late in the story, but I feel we could have gone one more panel here. I’m not even sure where Nami and Carrot are meant to be in that little panel of them. Is Olin dropping them behind her as she enters? Robin’s panel suggests so, but it definitely could have been conveyed better.

All the talk of Ancient Weapons and the One Piece suggests the two Emperors here have some solid info on where and what they are that we should see the crew claiming when the battle is done. Between those and Oden’s journal, not to mention the Reverie subplots, it’s easy to see how Wano leads into the series’ endgame.

I don’t for one minute think Orochi is out of the game permanently. There’s too many different powers in play that could be used to fake or survive that kind of thing, and this is a world where Wapol’s Twenty Doctors could stitch his head back on without even leaving a scar, even if it was for a gag. Still, the betrayal ups the stakes considerably and is a big shock to the status quo. Will the newly headless samurai and ninja Orochi brought submit to Kaido, or will they be shown the kind of honour they’re meant to have by the Scabbards and rise up? Either way, chaos and complications and a very exciting battle ahead.

Final note, Yamato looks to have shrunk considerably in the last panel, but I think it’s just a matter of weird perspective. Also, the Beasts Pirates recognise him even without the mask, which if nothing else shows his male identity among the Onigashima locals isn’t based on trickery or hiding his true identity, for whatever that’s worth to the discussion.

Fantastic chapter all up. Can’t wait to see where it’s all leading in a (long) couple of weeks.

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

We’re back again, for what I assume to be the last chapter of volume 97. It makes for a pretty good set of chapters, probably the most consistent Wano volume so far following a long run of setup volumes so dense with worldbuilding and character intros that it was often hard to figure out the direction the arc was going. 97 is still doing setup work for the real fighting, but at this stage all the new elements are much more cohesively pointed toward the arc’s conclusion, even if there’s still a way to go.

The cover story stretches on another chapter, even if the double-Enel face is a lot of fun. After this I’m expecting the twist that wraps it up – like Caribou being on one of Kaido’s islands, Enel’s moon lore and so on and so forth. Soon the slow sections will be worth it. Soooooon.

I’m surprised at the amount of debate over Blunder Bagua. I thought it was a really clever way to handle the joke. You’re not translating a joke if you just write in the corner “this was really funny in Japanese, we swear.” And you can explain all you want why it was funny in Japanese, that doesn’t make it funny in English. If Oda’s intent was for the panel to be funny and the translation doesn’t make it funny, you’ve failed the author’s intent, no matter how “accurate” and unchanged the translation otherwise is. And, of course, by not having it work as a joke, you get people like Drumztv on the first page of the thread just looking at the use of numbers in the wordplay and taking the line seriously as a legitimate power scaling thing (somehow missing the the Bam sound effect and comedically timed blood coughing that were also meant to play up the ridiculousness of what she’s saying).

The infiltration of the party is a great scene that calls back to the fake smiles of Ebisu town – their situation forces the samurai to smile and laugh externally while they’re suffering inside, just like so many others victimised by Kaido and Orochi’s rule. Sincere smiles and laughter have always been central to One Piece’s philosophy and storytelling (you might call the whole thing some kind of “laugh tale” even), so Wano really stands out for repeatedly emphasising forced and masking smiles, and turning them into a sign of suffering.

Some absolutely gorgeous spreads this week, with the submarine breaching the water being a real highlight. I love the way Wano’s waters are drawn. It’s going to be such a same going back to regular oceans when the arc is done.

I guess most of Law’s crew is staying behind. I expected at least Jean Bart to have a role to play, but I guess these guys just aren’t really fighters.

Marco talking about spotting a strange shadow at sea is a curious new factor. The obvious answer is Perospero, who we saw coming in last chapter, but I actually doubt that’s the case. After kicking the Queen Mama Chantre off the waterfall, Marco should have been miles ahead of Perospero, way too far ahead to see him approaching. I think this has to be something else. Something bigger, maybe, like Zunesha hanging around the outside of Wano, waiting for his orders.

Izo is here (and Cat has a cool new gun arm) which is great, but the real reason his intro spread is exciting is that his kimono doesn’t match the person who was “surprised [marco] got involved” a couple of chapters ago. That means there’s one more important player yet to be revealed, and it’s probably the mystery man who met with Crocus just after the timeskip. Nearly nine years we’ve been left to wonder about that. One Piece just isn’t going to feel the same without it hovering over our heads 

And then we come to the big reveal of Yamato. Oda’s depictions of queer people have always had me in two minds. I wouldn’t call them the best out there by any means – with the disgusted reactions of characters like Sanji played as a joke, non-passing crossdressers played for shock and laughs and a whole lot of ‘predatory gay’ stereotypes – but they’ve never read as malicious either. The man has a clear affection for Japan’s drag scene, he just also has some blind spots that I think come from assuming that ultra-flamboyant and performative environment is indicative of all of queer culture (as well as there certainly being some differences between the Japanese and English-speaking queer cultures that alter what is and isn’t acceptable, and far be it from me to say the culture I know is the only one that’s got it right). Kiku was a clear improvement over previous efforts, even if the scanlators really did a number on the western community’s understanding of her by having her answer the “are you a man” question with a “yes but” as opposed to having her just hit right back with “I’m a woman at heart” like in the original. I also like that Izo hasn’t been retconned to match his sister’s identity. The distinction between a trans person and someone who just feels right crossdressing is a cool thing to maintain. Yamato though, I have my reservations about. Calling him a daughter in the Odabox while every other character and instance has gone with male pronouns has only created confusion. The idea of making him “Oden-gendered” rather than just feeling more right as a man has shades of the kinds of discourse that tells trans people they’re just dressing up in a costume, or accuses them of being ‘trans-trenders.’ I’ll sit back and see where it goes, given that two pages isn’t a lot of depiction to make a final judgement on, but I’m wary. That said, obviously I’ll be using male pronouns for Yamato. He’s made it clear what he goes by, and the respectful way to treat people is to acknowledge that, even if you don’t agree or understand their reasons for choosing it.

Hopefully we can be a little better about that here than the reddit threads I’ve looked in on have been.

Anyway, the implications of Yamato carrying on Oden’s will (and being mates with Ace!) are extremely exciting. If we’re going to get some series endgame info about the One Piece and the truth of the world after the battle, as expected, this is where it’s gonna come from. This is not at all the character I expected to be flinging us forward into the final arcs, but Oda does as he wants, unpredictable as always.

See you all in two weeks for probably the first chapter of volume 98 (unless that one somehow manages to have a better-feeling stopping point than this, but I feel pretty safe in my prediction here).

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

This was a fun little action chapter, wasn’t it?

Pound’s reunion with his daughters and their husbands feels like a good way to cap off the adventure portion of this cover story. Next few should start wrapping it up, hopefully with a last minute main plot sting, just like always. I think it could be Pound bringing some insider info about what happened in Tottoland after our main POV moved away from it that could change how we’re seeing the current battle, or what kind of fallout we’re anticipating.

Perospero’s quick return is welcome. It would have been a shame for the Big Mom pirates to come all this way and not feature at all in the main event. I wish he’d managed to get more of the crew up the falls with him, but it’s a start.

The Brachiotank switching to walk mode is an odd development. Will it have some baring in how it’s used for the coming battles, or is this just for the funny visual? I loved Prometheus being a little shit and Big Mom using her powers to make yokai though. Sanji disappearing to look for women is a disappointingly overplayed gag, but here’s hoping Oda’s just using it to set up a much-needed Mr Prince moment.

Orochi’s acting like he’s back on top of the world. It’s fine. At some point he’ll realise the forces sent to capture Luffy, Law and Kid aren’t coming back and return to fear mode.

I’m not the first to point this out, but I do think it’s interesting that we’ve got a bunch of insect Gifters working together against Zoro. We’ve already seen Who’s who’s cat squad, and previous chapters have shown bee themed and ghostly looking Gifters working together in groups of two or three. Do the leaders within the Beast Pirates all have themed squads? Whose minions is Zoro up against? And it only be the Tobi Roppo who do this anyway, since there was no real cohesion among Queen’s subordinates at the prison. Interesting too that them seem so enthusiastic about following Kaido and recruiting for his forces. That wasn’t the impression I got of their vibe previously.

Luffy VS Ulti and Page One was a really snappy bit of action that flowed well. Luffy grabbing Ulti’s horns mid-flip and slamming her down was a sick move. One of those beats you hope the anime lets have the speed and power it deserves, rather than breaking it up with a big reaction shot as he grabs her, or turns it into some kind of pulling contest before he can slam her. The elephant gun into poor Pay Pay was a nice panel, but where does Pay Pay go after it? If that was it for him, it would have been nice to have just a small panel of him falling, or have him unconscious in the background of another panel. Oh well, I guess if he was still up, he’d have made some objection to what Yamato was doing.

That said, these are just small skirmishes. I don’t expect either Ulti or Page One to be totally out of the coming battle, even if this means they won’t be coming in at 100%.

Side story: as a young kid, I loved dinosaurs. Like, I love them. Read every book I could get my hands on, even if they were above my level. In my first years at school, when you’d have a letter of the week and the week would start with the class yelling out a bunch of things starting with that letter to go on the blackboard, I’d frustrate my teachers every week by calling out dinosaur names that neither of us had a chance in hell of spelling properly. Seeing users and elsewhere struggle with pachycephalosaurus gives me a pleasant nostalgic tingle. Hard to imagine Oda not also being a precocious kid with more memorised dinosaur names than common sense.

Yamato makes a shock appearance and seems to be on Luffy’s side. I don’t think there’s much I can say about his obvious Oden cosplay that hasn’t been said. Why this? How does it affect his relationship with his father? There’s a lot of questions and very little evidence to sift through for answers. With nothing more to go on, I like the theory that he found the logbook featured so prominently through the Oden flashback, but I wouldn’t want to commit to believing anything is the correct answer this soon. But I don’t expect to wait too long for the truth. Next chapter or the one after should warp up volume 97, and any bombshells Yamato has to drop would make a great end-of-book cliffhanger.