Captain M Entertainment

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

Alright, we all knew it was coming, but holy shit that was brutal. A lot more graphic than I expected it to be, especially the random mook who fell in early on. One Piece has never necessarily shied from dark scenes, but I feel Oda has previously tended to show only the start then cut away when something as horrible as a live boiling happens. I wonder if the recent success of darker-feeling series like Kimetsu and The Promised Neverland gave him a bit more confidence in showing the rough stuff.

The flashbacks at the end of the chapter do a lot to put the last few installments of the story into perspective. I think it’s particularly important that we see Oden and Kaido clashing in an apparent stalemate when he attacked the palace. It’s interesting how both sides of that conflict seemed to have come away with a healthy respect for the other’s threat level. Kaido acknowledged that Oden might have been able to beat him if he got all his samurai and yakuza together back then while Oden took a peaceful solution and even when he did choose to fight, chose the uncharacteristically underhanded option of planning to assassinate Kaido while he was drunk. A shame that couldn’t have worked out. And it really goes to show how desperate and terrifying it must have been when Kaido turned out to be waiting in ambush.

Structurally though, I’m not completely jazzed on how everything is coming together. I don’t think the surprise, after-the-fact stakes raising for the ambush adds any more benefit than the full force “oh shit” moment we would have had if we’d known the full context when it first happened. Similarly, the reason for the dancing was close enough to most reasonable guesses that it didn’t really floor me as a reveal. I understand that Oda probably wanted us to feel like the Wanoese citizens – frustrated with Oden’s strange choices then coming to regret that we ever doubted him when the full story came out. I get it. But I’ve spent enough time with Oda’s storytelling not to doubt Oden in the first place. It didn’t feel like the intended journey. It felt more like an eye-rolling “I told you so” reveal. I think I would have liked the frustration of knowing the reasoning while it was happening and feeling unable to do anything about it, as Oden did, more than what we got.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the flashback is bad or anything. I’m having a good time. I just don’t really feel like jumping around the timeline and delivering info out of order has delivered any real benefit over just telling the story chronologically in this case.

Kaido himself is proving to be an interesting character mostly by way of how little we know about him despite his prominence in the story. There’s so little backstory. Suicidal Kaido, emotional drunk Kaido and the just wants a laugh at the public execution Kaido could almost be three different characters. I’ve given up hope of learning more about him in this flashback, but I am looking forward to what comes up before the arc ends.

And speaking of the flasback ending, there’s still so much to do. Dog and Cat aren’t quite enemies yet. Kaido and Momo haven’t had their one on one, nor have we been given anything to back up Kin’s statement that Kaido wanted info about the Poneglyphs from the Kozuki family. And to top it all off, Oden hasn’t yet delivered the “born to boil” line from Zou and still seems to be at least an hour from death. It’s hard to imagine that moment being anything other than the last spread of a chapter, but it’s also hard to imagine the boiling going on another 17 pages without losing its impact. It’s actually starting to feel plausible that the flashback could make it to the end of the volume at this point.

Heard we’re getting a colour spread next week (well, this Friday), I usually don’t think these kinds of things a realistic to hope for, but it’d be cool to get one just for Oden and the Scabbards, especially given what a big event it’s likely to be.

Another strong chapter overall, only issues are how it fits in with the rest structurally, but who knows, maybe it’ll all flow a bit easier in the archive binge.

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

Man, looking at some of the replies to this one in the spoiler threads was a trip. Do some people think being a fan of a character is meant to be the same as barracking for a sports team? Because that’s what it feels like. All that matters is your team’s win, and if they’re looking bad or something’s going wrong, the other team is cheating or the ref made a bad call, and heaven forbid you ever acknowledge the rival team made a good play. Honestly that kinda thing often seems toxic enough in the context of sports, let alone when you try to apply it to a narrative which by design has to give different characters highs and lows and can’t be so all or nothing. I’m not one to tell other people the right or wrong ways to enjoy their media, but it really doesn’t sound like a lot of you guys are having fun.

But anyway, things this week moved a lot faster than I expected them to. I was predicting a bit of introspection during the march to battle, but like Oden himself, I was taken off-guard by Kaido’s unexpected appearance. Kaido mentions a spy in Oden’s midst, and we’re really running out of viable traitor candidates now. The stuff with Shinobi later on goes a long way to take her out of the running, so I’m leaning pretty hard towards Kanjuro for the moment. The showdown is marvelously framed, particularly the hills of minions and Kaido himself coiled around a mountain, and the middle row of page five, where Oden’s group on the hilltop are encircled by the coils of Kaido’s body.

Kaido talks about why things are happening the way they are. We learn that he was worried about the state of affairs five years ago. I would have liked if he’d mentioned how he felt when Oden stopped in and left again for the Poneglyph, as it feels like a significant moment to me, but we do still get emphasis on the idea that the sooner Oden had done this the better it would have gone. The big dragon laments Oden not living up to his reputation, but to be honest it’s amazing that any reputation for aman like that could be enduring. Oden’s been pretty consistent in not caring if he looks foolish or weak or villainous to others as long as he gets to help people, and that IDGAF attitude has been part of what charmed people to him. I wonder what he’s actually heard about Oden, and whether that info came through Orochi, the people of Wano, or things he heard about Oden’s career in piracy.

I don’t know if this is a quirk in the translation or not, but it doesn’t feel right that he says “Newgate and Roger were like that too.” Past tense is alright for Roger, but Newgate should still be a clear present threat to Kaido. Is he just confident? Have they not really clashed yet?

Then we get a scene of epic battle. It’s a shame Pirate Warriors 4 definitely isn’t getting this far, because it feels like a perfect scene for that kind of game. The use of screentones in the Scabbard closeups are odd.During the battle it’s just Kanjuro and Shura shaded in. At the end of the chapter it’s Ashura, Kawamatsu, Dogstorm and Catviper. I don’t think there’s any concrete pattern you could read into either group (or either set of remainders).

There’s a brief and perhaps oddly placed cutaway to Yasui and Oden’s family. Toki is oddly calm, but I guess living for 800 years would give you a bit of serenity like that, while Hyori and Momo clearly haven’t been made aware of how serious the situation is. What a rude awakening they’re in for. Considering how recent this is for them and how much whiplash it must have caused, Momo’s behaviour up to this point makes a lot more sense.

Back to the battle. Good to get some background for Shinobu and why she’s so dedicated but not a Scabbard, but there’s nothing super remarkable about what we learn of her. Does make it very unlikely she’s the traitor though, as mentioned.

The glimpses of the fight we see make me desperately want more, but I’m not going to say it’s a fault in the chapter that we don’t get it because it’s going to happen again with higher stakes and characters I care more about just a few chapters in the future. The hoards of enemies combined with a terrifying dragon Kaido throwing fire down from the sky makes for an incredibly intimidating enemy. Kaido’s dragon form always seems to come with a storm. It’s said that these eastern style dragons have weather powers and fly by climbing along the clouds. Bodes kinda poorly for Sulong forms in the present day battle of Onigashima, doesn’t it?

Kaido takes his wound in an absolutely gorgeous spread page, then Oden goes down fast and hard from a blow to the back of the head after being distracted by the Clone Clone Fruit. Well, Kaido and Orochi did go out of their way to prove Oden would let go of a reckless attack to protect his family. Wonder how we’re going to go from here to the death of the Clone hag though. Also, is that the traitor stabbing Ashura in the back? What a surprisingly blatant move to pull, especially after Oden had fallen and the battle was already won.

Oden’s capture doesn’t seem to have inspired the kind of love for him that things happening in the present have implied. There’s one last big moment to come in this story, somehow involving his execution and the Scabbards’ mad dash to get to Toki and the kids before Kaido and Orochi do. Not sure what it could be considering how firmly against Oden the public sentiment is at the moment, but I’m always interested to find out.

The wait for execution in the Flower Capital prison is a mirror of Yasuie and the rounded up samurai in act 2. It feels weird that Wano has been driven by all these little snippets from and reflections of the past, but we’re only now getting the context to make them all work. It feels like an arc built for the reread, given what a puzzle its present and past have become. Maybe it’s meant to reflect the time travel aspect, maybe it’s just Oda experimenting with structure. The binge reread when all is said and done and everyone knows what’s going on is going to elevate the story a lot, I think, especially for people who aren’t really vibing the structure of the week to week version.

Going to be a long two weeks waiting on the next part. I’m predicting a swift end to the flashback after the next one. A couple of chapters at most.

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

Oof, what a chapter!

I was not expecting another legacy devil fruit to be playing a part here. The need for Semimaru and Higurashi to die before the present day is an interesting plot problem. Any other series, I would confidently be expecting Oden or one of the Scabbards to kill them outright next week or the one after, but Oda doesn’t like making his heroes killers, even for characters so completely irredeemable. I wonder if he plans to twist the plot to have Kaido execute them for failing to control Oden, or have them fall victim to some kind of near-comical accident while the more serious battle goes on around them.

The big mystery of the chapter is of course what Oden and Orochi talked about. I’m sure we’ll get some info on it next week, either through a flashback within the flashback or from Shinobu’s perspective. I would guess from the context in the rest of the chapter that it was a mix of things. The lives of the commonfolk on the line, either through the poisoned arrows (Queen?) and Kaido, a promise to leave Kuri relatively untouched (hence why Orochi still had to “make his move” on the region four years later, and an agreement that Kaido’s operations would result in ships being built and the borders opened. A delicate balance of factors combined with Oden’s trusting nature (given how many loans he gave Orochi back in the day) that resulted in what we see here.

This is the real tragedy of Oden. Unlike most flashback characters, he hasn’t been undone by being too virtuous at the wrong time (Bell-mere refusing to disown her family, Hiruluk taking poison in his attempt to support Chopper’s work, Tom not rejecting the ships he built, Rocinante giving up his life for Law’s), no, Oden has actually been undone by his flaws. He felt too big for the space he was living in and was undeniably selfish about pursuing his dream. He didn’t fail when he made his stand against Orochi and Kaido’s invasion because he wasn’t there to stop them at all. Even when Roger’s crew came for the Poneglyph he chose to look away from the blighted landscape and horrible factories and keep putting his adventure and his dreams first. By the time he was ready to actually give Wano (the land he was meant to be responsibly for) his full attention, Orochi and Kaido had too great a stronghold and too much leverage for him to fight back properly. Oden was a big personality, one of the biggest we’ve seen so far. Massive amounts of virtue, but shortcomings to match. I wouldn’t call him a bad person, especially given that he couldn’t have known the true extent of what Orochi was doing, but he undeniably let Wano down when he chose his priorities, and now it’s come back to bite him.

Although, that brings me to the thought that Oda maybe could have set this up a little better. I think most of us believed until this chapter that it was just Orochi causing trouble in Wano while Oden was off with Whitebeard and Roger. No one thought Kaido was moving in until after he came back, probably until the night he died. A better look at the state of things when Roger picked up the Poneglyph, or some mention that they had to sneak past Kaido’s crew to get in might have made things clearer for the readers and enhanced the dramatic irony of us knowing how badly the country is falling apart while Oden remains willfully ignorant. Eh, we’ve had weeks to overthink it all. Maybe things will read a little easier in the volume binge.

And another slightly critical point, this time about the translation. I liked the thinking behind “Akazaya Nine” at the time it was revealed, but I don’t think it would have been chosen if we’d known at the time it would need to be referenced so literally like this. The price you pay for an up to date translation is not being able to anticipate little things like this. It’s why I’m going to be cautious of any retranslation initiative that comes up before the series is completely or almost completely said and done.

That last spread is incredible though. The march of the scabbards in chapter 955 was a powerful enough moment on its own, but it only gets stronger seeing it reflected here. It’s fun that Oda plays with the time travelly-aspect of the story by making the recreation of this famous moment in the future being the one we see first and the original the one that comes after. Oh, and I can’t wait for the digital colour manga to get this far. I always think it’s at its best with scenes covered in warm hues, and this big sunset with a strong emphasis on red lighting is perfect for that. See ya’ll in two and a bit years for that I guess.

I’m not expecting the flashback to end next week, but I’m expecting it to start accelerating toward an ending. Details of Oden and Orochi’s deal intercut with the trip to Kaido in the first half, some shit going down in the second, possibly closing on Oden and Kaido clashing for the first time. We’ve had some of the most exciting lore reveals in years in the past few chapters, so I expect the trend to continue with some of the hardest hitting drama in the next few. Volumes 95 and 96 in their entirety are going to be remembered as one of the highest points of the series, you all mark my words!

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

Man, I was starting to wonder how close we were to getting an unprecedented whole volume of flashbacks for volume 96, but it’s not even close. This is only the fourth chapter of the book. All the end of year breaks have thrown my sense of time off so badly. Every year, it never gets any easier!

Shanks question to Roger is something we’re definitely coming back to. Is it about what he expected the One Piece to be? Was he hoping the last island would have a cure for Roger’s illness? Does his question and the answer he received have anything to do with his current role in the world and he relationship with the Five Elders?

The treasure being dubbed the One Piece while Roger lives is a really interesting point. I kinda liked the idea of the name coming from his last words (as per the 4kids intro I guess) but it seems to have just popped up on its own. Meh. At least the line “and they have no idea” reads like the name is somehow fitting for what they found. Maybe it leaked from the World Government, after some meeting from the upper echelons who might actually know what it is they’re covering up.

I’m seeing a lot of people feeling real unhappy about the second Neptunian sovereign and the talk of the return of Joyboy and the implication that either or both could be Luffy, but let’s be real, One Piece has always had talk of destiny and inheriting the will of your predecessors. Luffy was accepted as the inheritor of Roger’s will long ago; does it make all that much of a difference if he’s inheriting from Joyboy as well? Or inheriting Roger inheriting Joyboy? And in terms of being a chosen one, we’ve got the Will of the D, the King’s Haki and the Voice of All Things before you factor in being the son of Dragon the Revolutionary and the grandson of Garp the Hero. Listen, I think chosen one tropes are as boring as everyone else, but Luffy has always been a special little guy. The interconnected lore of big fantasy stories always seems to end up tying the hero back to important figures and concepts. It’s something you learn to live with in the genre I guess.

I did see the counterpoint to Luffy being the sovereign/Joyboy that the Neptunians didn’t really care about him being at Fishman Island or making contact with Shirahoshi. They were surprised he could hear them at all, so that doesn’t scan him being the one they’re expecting. What I think would be neat would be a royal sovereign for each of the ancient weapons. Perhaps in form of the three princesses Luffy’s saved over the years. The royal family of Alabasta was entrusted with the location of Pluton, which is interesting, but there’s little to connect Dressrosa to anything else. And also, if the Neptunians knew about two sovereigns it would make sense for them to know about the third as well, but they don’t mention them. Another mystery for the ages.

And then we’re back to Wano and as much as I’ve been keen to see how things got the way they are in the present, it can’t help feeling slightly flat after all the Roger stuff. Especially factoring in the knowledge that the pivotal moment of the story is still five years away. What could possibly come from Oden’s raid on the palace that would be both a satisfying outcome and still allow the next five years to happen. I think we’ve got at least another chapter to get through one way or the other before we’re close to Kaido arriving. That said, the run to the palace was a pretty great sequence, and the storytelling through the damaged environment as Oden makes his way in were pretty great.

I’m looking forward to the next chapter, but not expecting anything super huge from it. Just a transition between where we are now and the climax of the flashback. Gotta adjust my level of anticipation from Roger’s journey back to the Wano plot. Hopefully no breaks until until we reach the final stage of the story.

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

First thing to say about this one, and it sucks that it has to be a negative, is that someone has really dropped the ball with the release timing for this one. Absolutely no avoiding spoilers. And every year the first issue leaks super early, so Shueisha must have known it would happen here as well. Would have been smart to move up the release of the digital version with that in mind, or at least not let the English release be so many days behind the Japanese one. And the whole thing with taking down scan sites might have gone a little smoother without this long delay so soon after it happening. Give people a bit more time to transition before the annual first issue delay shakes their faith. Just feels like there should have been some way to manage this better.

The colour spread is… not my favourite. The Arashi boys are deeply uncanny, and a lot of the bobble head Strawhats aren’t super appealing either. It is cute the way the Arashi ship is holding hands with Merry and Sunny at the bottom though, and Jinbe’s presence leads me to believe we’ll be getting back to him very soon after the flashback ends. Interesting to put him in his Marineford outfit though. I would have expected the Fishman Island or Tottoland duds to be used as his default appearance going forward, but I guess he changed so little over the timeskip that it doesn’t matter the same way it would if any other crew member got that treatment.

But the rest of the chapter more than makes up for the odd colour spread! The lore! The history! The hints at the endgame! Gold Roger in the flesh! He’s really been cemented as a human being now, after so long purely as a mythic figure, and I like him a lot. It really does feel like he could be the hero of his own story if a prequel was ever done. The chronology of Roger’s adventures is interesting though. From Water Seven to Tequila Wolf and then back to Fishman Island? Are we to assume a long passage of time in which Roger left the Grand Line and started over (even after suspecting at Water Seven that all the poneglyphs would be in the New World)? Something from the past? Or maybe they were distracted by a sidequest we just don’t know about for the moment.

The location of the Fishman Island ponegyph is sure to be a big deal going forward, but the options are far too open to speculate on now. (Maybe Jinbe would remember something about it if given the right hint from Oden’s logbook?). One of the most interesting fragments here is Roger explicitly describing Poseidon as “a weapon that’ll destroy the world one day” which perhaps suggests the Ancient Weapons could do more than simply nuke Mariejoa and Reverse Mountain as some theories suggest. But as to what could be combined with Neptunians and a great battleship to create a global scale threat, who knows. The wording is vague, but the line about “people who called it a weapon” could be read to imply that destruction is only one possible function of the so called Ancient Weapons. And of course, the idea that fulfilling the One Piece’s purpose will take all three and Roger couldn’t do it because he was ten years too early is easy theory fodder.

You almost feel bad for Roger. Too late for Joyboy, too early for the One piece. Makes me think of the old “born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore the universe” meme, except Roger did get to explore the world. And, well, he does seem happy with the friends he made things he accomplished in his own time, and isn’t that what counts?

Looking forward to the questions about how hair mermaids actually grow, coming soon to an SBS near you, from the usual gang of pervs

It’s interesting to see how much Wano was already changing when Oden stopped in for the poneglyph. Previously we might have assumed Kaido did most of the damage after establishing himself there but it’s clear now (and from the last chapter) that Orochi industrialised the country on purpose to lure powerful allies like Kaido in, which makes me even more ready to see his downfall when we get back to the present. Kaido is a bad guy for sure, but his evil is an uncaring force of nature. Orochi is malicious and exploitative in a way Kaido just hasn’t been so far.

Genghis Baan! What a name! I do wonder, what is it Cat and Dog told their people to convince every single man, woman and child on Zou their bond with Wano was too important to betray, even in the face of annihilation. I can understand them feeling that way personally, but we aren’t seeing a lot of Oden making an impression on the general mink population. The pack mentality is strong among minks, I guess.

“Several Real Poneglyphs” is interesting to note. It’s been a point of speculation for a while if the full text of the Real Poneglyphs could be found alongside the One Piece. The logbook implies both that Roger didn’t find all of them and that he learned all the secrets of the world anyway. How many poneglyphs were missing from the Pirate King’s set? Would Robin have seen any so far that he never did?

Poor Buggy and Shanks. Hey, it seems Buggy is like the “bad timeline” version of the aged up characters Oda’s been doing in the SBS lately. Wonder if we’ll ever get a good timeline version of him, maybe what he would be if he did get to see the One Piece. Shank’s plot is doing nothing but thicken. Has he visited the last island on his own? If he doesn’t know about the One Piece and the secrets of the world, what’s his leverage with the Five Elders? Too many questions!

So what do we know about the One Piece? It’s a real treasure, but there’s a lot of information in there as well. The Void Century, the Weapons, the People of the D (I can’t wait to for my friends who don’t really follow the series to ask if we know what the treasure is yet so I can say with complete honesty that the secret final treasure is what the D in Monkey D Luffy stands for), and that it has something to do with Wano, given how desperate Oden was to restore the country to its open state after seeing it.

The final spread is a beautiful piece of work which I can see becoming iconic for the series for years to come. In fact, I’d be shocked if there weren’t prints of the manuscript available at Jump Stores already. Interesting that the official release actually went with Laugh Tale as well! I’m glad for it, but I’m aching for the podcast episode to come out so I can hear a little more about how they’re going to handle it.

I assume next week our time with Roger is going to wrap up pretty quickly and the focus will shift back to Wano and Kaido. Our time with him, like his life, feels so much shorter than it should have been, but all the same it was beautiful, inspiring, and a great bit of a laugh. My heartiest congratulations to Oda for sticking the landing on this one. After 20 years of anticipation, seeing Roger as he actually was could easily have been massively underwhelming, but somehow he pulled it off. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for the end of the series!

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

What a beautiful chapter this was! I’m not usually one to focus on powerlevels or the characters’ apparent strength, but this strikes me as a good time to have a think about it, since we’ve likely just seen what the absolute power ceiling looks like. We’ve got so much haki it visibly flows off the weapons. There’s projected advanced armament several feet away from the end of the blade. The lightning and physical shockwave we’ve seen before though not on this scale, but the dazzling white light is new – and looks spectacular! I do wonder if this moment will end up being a little less special in the anime because of the ways they’ve exaggerated things in the past. A shockwave so big it shakes the ocean far off the island? In the anime, King Kong Gun clashing with Doflamingo caused that. A dazzling white light? In the anime, Luffy pushing Kaido’s head into the ground just did that, among a number of other bright flashy things. None of these things will be unprecedented in quite the same way there. But that’s the anime, and this is a manga discussion thread. Time to get back on topic.

Bege’s cover story is all over the place and I have no idea where it’s going to be honest. Is that a member of his crew falling down unconscious in the bottom right of the panel? Who did that if the Navy is coming up from the other direction?

I’m glad to see a bit of weakness from Oden this week. Obviously he’s still an absolute beast in a fight, but he’s not really on the level of Roger or Whitebeard when they’re fighting seriously. We wouldn’t want Oden to be too perfect, after all. (and again, it’s good for the long-awaited fight between the big boys to be something only they could achieve.) Oh, and great attention to detail showing all of the Moby Dick’s furled sails being blown upside down by the shockwave. Feels like the kind of thing a lesser artist might easily overlook.

The next spread has two great examples of things I brought up in the ongoing Mangaplus debates over in the thread for that. An up-to-date translation for a series so driven by lore and secrets is a constantly moving target. The first is Blackbeard’s strange wakefulness. I think Luffy’s talk about people who don’t sleep in Drum still holds up to the reveal, but the current interpretation of Ace’s words to him before their fight absolutely does not. (even the fan translations I’ve seen wrote it as being to do with Blackbeard’s actual age, not his extra time awake, because how could anyone have known?) The other thing is, of course, Lodestar Island. Great name for a place, given its relevance to the lore, but it means the Road Poneglyphs were obviously intended to be Lode Poneglyphs. Feels so obvious now that we have the context, but I don’t think a single person guessed it. At this point I almost expect the Rio Poneglyph to be carved into the shape of a lion and turn out to have been the Leo Poneglyph all along  But yes, this kind of thing is why no one wants to commit to a translation rewrite. I said it in the other thread and I’ll say it here as well. If a revised translation came out in full 13 months ago, fans would have insisted it had Shilliew instead of Shiryu. Eight months ago, there was no way of knowing Mighty Blade was meant to be a reoccurring term. Four months ago and it still wouldn’t have had Laugh Tale. And if it had come out just one week ago, it would still have gotten Blackbeard wrong and we still wouldn’t have Lode Poneglyphs. I think internal consistency is a virtue for any release to have, and I’m not going to boycott or tear down a release if its consistent glossary is out of date just because of how impossible it is to be up to date.

I don’t really know what to say about the Blackbeard reveal. He’s still a very mysterious figure. We’re getting him one piece at a time, but we still don’t have enough for a clear picture. What I do think is that between this and Luffy’s assertion that if he sleeps he will die, we can make a safe guess that his story will probably end, no matter how chaotic the battles leading up to it, with him quietly closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep for the first time in his life. I think that has the potential to be quite the beautiful death.

Also on the lore front, it seems we have confirmation that the One Piece is something Roger found on Laugh Tale, not something he hid there. We definitely knew this previously, but I think it was just from interviews and author/editor comments. It’s good to have it locked into the actual comic.

Given that Roger sailed to the end of the Grand Line already, that basically means he’s on his New Game + run, doesn’t it? No wonder he’s so strong, he’s been thrown back to the starting area with maxed out stats and gear, and this time he’s trying for the good ending!

You almost feel bad for Whitebeard seeing how hard he took Oden’s departure. Poor guy. I hope they got that last chance to meet and exchange stories before Oden died. Gonna be real sad if this is the last time they saw each other.

The message on the Skypiea Poneglyph is a fun callback and nice to have squared away. There’s not exactly any new info in this sequence besides a little hint at the limit of the Voice of All Things, but it just wouldn’t have felt complete without showing it. Next chapter, I have no idea what to expect. Vingettes of places on the Grand Line we’ve seen? The stealing of Big Mom and Kaido’s Lode Poneglyphs? (and which one does Roger have already?) Laugh Tale itself? Or will we just cut back to Wano and get to the meat of the nation’s tragedy?

Frankly, every option is a good one. They’ve all got things I would love to see. This is such a painful time for the Christmas and New Years breaks to come up!

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

I was hoping we’d get the full colours for the volume 95 cover with this chapter, but ah well, next week for sure.

I’m not shocked Oda chose to gloss over the bulk of Oden and Toki’s romance. Nothing we’ve seen so far suggests it’s the kind of thing he’d be good at writing, and while Oden is an interesting figure, he doesn’t have the depth of a romantic lead, and Toki isn’t much of a character at all.

Blackbeard’s cameo was an interesting nod, but really doesn’t give us much to go on. It’s mostly interesting in the context of the One Piece magazine reveals of the Marshall family mother and sisters. You would think if they were going to be part of the final canon this would be the time to leave some hint about them. Surprising that he joined so young though. From all his talk about hiding out in the crew biding his time for the right devil fruit, I would have guessed Blackbeard had joined as a calculated move later in life.

The old witch with the Clone Clone is the biggest enigma of the week. Who is she? How does she know all this? When did she get the chance to steal all these faces without the owners realising? The Clone Clone changing hands means she’s already dead, so Oda’s going to have a hard time explaining her whole deal if he can’t find a chance to do it within a flashback that’s already carrying a ton of weighty plot threads.

And then there’s the Roger pirates, making the big last page reveal for the second week in a row. He doesn’t look so sick to me! Young shanks with his piled up hats is pretty cute though.

Solid chapter overall, but nothing huge. Glad we’re getting one more in before the end of year breaks kick off. It’s going to be rough having those in the middle of a flashback.

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

Oh so that‘s why there was one more chapter left in the volume. Yeah, that’s the right place to end it.

The question raised by the cover story now is this: is Kuween doing what she was doing because of who she is as a person, or is it because she was hit with a kiss kiss cootie already? Perhaps we’ll get a bit where the Germ Pirates come after her and she’s all “I already always want to kiss people,” cue Enel face fault.

The figure of ten or twenty million islands in the world is a curious bit of worldbuilding, assuming Marco’s info is accurate. According to Google, the real world only has about 2,000 in its oceans (not counting ones in lakes or other inland areas of water because they get too hard to define), which is a huge difference, even accounting for the extra space the One Piece world has without any major continents aside from the Redline. I think the only way this works (this and a few other things) is if the One Piece world is significantly larger than earth. That, or Marco’s exaggerating to impress Cat and Dog. Or Oda picked some impressive sounding numbers and didn’t think through the implications of them. As much as I’d like to be getting a concrete number, the implication is probably just that there are too many islands to count. Wouldn’t be much point to Nami’s goal if they knew all the islands of the world this long ago.

Still no sign of Sleepy or Frowleibs among the Whitebeard pirates. Come on, Oda, give the Vivre Cards the thing they need to be truly complete!

I really appreciate how Oda makes flashbacks pull double duty in terms of both character and worldbuilding. And the fact that a character as minor in the scheme of things as Izo gets to have this much backstory. I wonder if Oda is setting him up to perhaps change Marco’s mind about coming Wano in the present.

Oden’s trial is a good bit of storytelling. A good ordeal for the character, though Whitebeard seems to have made it through a lot of different biomes in just three days. That’s the Grand Line for you.

And we have Toki. Aaaaaand she looks exactly like her daughter. Not just family resemblance, they’re prettymuch the same. Which is par for the course honestly. In another series, I might have taken this as a clue that perhaps there was something up with the two identical women never explicitly confirmed to both be Hyori – wouldn’t that be a twist? But here I’m inclined to say it’s just Oda being Oda.

I like the lack of clarity over why Oden let go of the chain. Did he actually get too injured and slip away, or did he actually hear Toki screaming and let go so he could help. I read the latter as Whitebeard giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it could really go either way. (sure he talks about hearing her voice as he comes ashore, but that could easily have happened as he was washing up on the beach. The ship seems pretty far from land when we see the crew realising he’s not there anymore.)

The adventure panels all look like a lot of fun. Oden trying to climb on the back of a giant koala is my favourite one. Good to know there’s a One Piece Australia out there somewhere. (too bad about what’s happening to the actual koalas in actual Australia though)

Toki seems to have been born right at the end of the Void Century. We might get some info about it from her, but I’d say this is a sign Oda will be saving the full story for later.

And then we get the Pirate King himself taking an interest. I’m very interested to see how convincing Oden to jump ships ended up working, and why Izo decided not to follow him. It’s going to be an interesting few chapters, that’s for certain!

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

Reading through this, I would really have expected it to be the final chapter of volume 95, because what a note to end on, but according to the volume’s pagecount we’ve got one more to go. What could Oda possibly add to make a stronger finale than Whitebeard arriving?

I really like these Germ Pirates on the cover. They’re an appealing set of character designs, and I love the way Oda takes the time to draw five unique characters for a crew that’s probably going to be swept up by Bege in like two whole panels. That kind of thing makes the world feel populated and lived in, even though the scope of the main plot long ago went past the level these guys are operating on.

This was a pretty good chapter considering how much of it was scenes we’d already seen in the past. There’s an interesting contrast between Dogstorm’s idealised view of Oden rescuing him and the real, unfiltered vresion where Oden was willing to just walk off and leave them there after beating up the guys he doesn’t like. Similarly it’s an interesting comparison between the scene with the Scabbards at Yasuie’s place before and after we’ve been properly introduced to these characters. Kawamatsu’s expression has changed completely because his actual lips simply couldn’t do the kind of grin his silhouette had in chapter 943 (I wonder if that was a misdirection or if his design wasn’t fully pinned down yet) and Izo’s face fault was far less extreme in the old version, presumably to ensure he was recognisable before the idea of him being part of the group was fully established. Also Denjiro’s silhouette in the old one seems to imply he’s not wearing his glasses, but I think that’s just because it would have looked weirder if he had no eyes at all.

I’m a little frustrated Oda would give us Kawamatsu’s backstory without confirming what species of fish he’s meant to be. Are there any theories? Because I have no damn clue what he’s going for.

The growth in the Scabbards is nicely explained and goes a long way to explain how different their personalities are between their introductions and the present. Kinemon apparently dyes his hair during this time for some reason. I thought that change might have some significance to it, but I guess not. This also seems to explain the formal, old timey way the translations have tended to have Kinemon and co speak. The original assumption was that this was to emphasise some linguistic difference Wano had, but it’s actually a result of their education.

Curious that religion is on the board of subjects being taught. Does Wano have an official faith? Are the Kozukis and the Scabbards more pious than we’ve been giving them credit for? Gimmie that worldbuilding Oda pls

Yama being sewn back together is hilarious. Oda apparently heard my thoughts that a horizontal bisection was cruel and found an answer. I think this makes the already-great background detail of ladders being propped up against his still-standing body for people to climb out even better.

And then we get the Whitebeard Crew. Hell yeah! I like that some of his allies from Marineford are core crew members here. I wonder if we’ll eventually see a similar thing happen to the Strawhats in the epilogue, since some people’s main goals might require them to go their own way for a while. Also, I hope Oda takes the opportunity to make canon appearances for the handful of databook-listed Whitebeard allies that weren’t found in the Marineford chapters. He didn’t do it for the currently psuedo-canon members of Ace’s crew during his Wano cameo, but I assume we’ll be spending a little more time with Whitebeard so…

So that’s another really solid chapter down. It’s a shame Oden could have lived to meet Luffy, the two really do seem like they could have been kindred spirits. Can’t wait to see where Oda takes Oden next, for the big finish for volume 95.

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

Rejoyce, for at last we’re getting a cover story with a Donquixote Family member. We can put the old debate to rest forever: yes, Kuween made it out of there alive. It’s One Piece, what did we exect? Glad to have all the loose ends from that crew tied up. Let us never speak of them again.

This was a short chapter but it really didn’t feel like one. Every page was stuffed with detail and it got through a good amount of story and ended on a decent cliffhanger. You have to wonder if this actually was a case of Oda’s time or energy levels affecting the pagecount, or if this is just all this one needed.

Oden continues to entertain and impress, although the backstories for some of the Scabbards are surprising. Kanjuro as a hair-eating monster? Ashura eating raw blood? Like a Jojo villain turned ally, they abandoned their creepy traits immediately the moment they were beaten and recruited.

The idea of an Oden logbook is neat. I wonder if it’ll turn up in the present. I didn’t like how abruptly it swapped from Oden’s first hand account back to the normal third persion narration right near the end though. I thought it might have been a translation mistake before I flipped back to the start and saw the narration leading into the logbook. Could have used at least some kind of visual clue like a font change, I think.

And so the flashback goes on. Initially I expected it to timeskip over Oden’s time with Roger and just focus on what he did in Wano, but after recent interviews, I’m not so sure of what we’ll see next week. Only a couple of chapters left for volume 95, so there should be a big development or reveal coming in soon.