Captain M Entertainment

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.

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

After fighting a monstrous boar and being exiled from his hometown, Kozuki Oden must travel across the land to find a cure for his curse and see with eyes unclouded by hate… wait no, wrong story, that’s not right. Pack it up.

Denjiro is easily the most intriguing character of the flashback so far. There are plenty ideas of who he could be in the present floating around, but I can’t see anything concretely connecting him to anyone we’ve seen. I think it’s likely he could be the Witching Hour Boy or someone else we haven’t seen the face of yet, and his prominence so early in the flashback will allow him to catch up to the rest of the Scabbards in characterisation, given he’s been introduced so late. And it’ll surely be a relevant part of the story to come when Oda explains why he’s been in hiding for so long.

I wonder what colour young Kinemon’s hair is gonna turn out to be, just as a thought. Given what we’ve seen of Wano so far it could be basically any colour, a real wildcard. Did his hair turn black as he got older, or did he dye it after coming to the future to keep make the ruse of being Momo’s father more believable?

I feel a little bad for the Mountain God here. It was just trying to protect its (very cute) baby, and that horizontal bisection feels like an absolutely brutal way to die. (The use of a ladder to get people out of its belly in the background of the next page is great attention to detail though.) Oden really doesn’t hold anything back, does he? Him taking the blame for Kinemon’s actions was interesting. Not sure whether to read it as a mercy, as he has clout to spare and can take the heat when Kin might not be able to, or just another way to get all the attention and stir up trouble. Probably a little of both.

And then Orochi is introduced. Hard to say if his life has actually been as rough as his grubby appearance would suggest or if he’s just a sycophant sucking up to power in hopes of stealing some even this early. I think the latter. He stands in stark contrast to Oden. Oden acts brash and obnoxious, but ultimately stands tall and walks free and powerful, mildly shunned but secretly admired, while Orochi goes out of his way to be useful and cooperative, but ends up rolling in the dirt, being confined to servitude, and is instantly mistrusted. It’s absolutely tragic to know he’s going to come out ahead by the end of the flashback.

With only two chapters likely left for volume 95, Oda’s going to have to pick up the pace to find a big development to end it on. I don’t think we’re going to get two more chapters of individual Scabbard intros, things are going to start to accelerate towards Oden’s time as a pirate starting from the next chapter.

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

Man, Oden just has the biggest dick energy, doesn’t he? Oda’s been building this guy up to be a huge personality in a world comprised almost exclusively of big personalities, and so far I’m not disappointed. He’s not just loud and capable and constantly doing what he wants like most other noteworthy One Piece characters, he has the audacity to use a funeral pyre for cooking, to be so involved in all aspects of the underworld before he even hit puberty, to start a “Harem War.” Maybe the presentation of his list of feats was exposition-y, but it was necessary to give him the actions needed to back up the way he throws himself around. But for ever one of these stories that could paint him in a negative light (kidnapping young women, even if they were “free to go” after, is a real shady hobby for a heroic figure), we get something positive: underworld violence is balanced with hard work and an implied organic climbing of the ladder in prison, kidnappings with a well-intentioned but failed drought relief plan. And, of course, the final pages seemingly show him with a willingness to jump in put his own life on the line with the Mountain God. I don’t doubt that Oden would be an enormous pain to actually live with, but Oda does just enough to keep us on his side as readers.

Also, Wano in its prime is gorgeous, and I’m hoping for as many environmental spread pages as possible just to see it. It’s bittersweet to know this is what the country is capable of, because after 20 years of devstation, it’s probably not getting back to that point anytime close to the present. At best, I expect some hopeful sprouts coming through the dry ground, but the Straw Hats aren’t going to get to see what we’re seeing now. Unless, of course, one of the Numbers has a deus ex plant fruit or something.

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

Interesting chapter. Certainly was no expecting the Oden flashback so soon, feels like the current events aren’t a relevant enough trigger for it. I’m sure the things we learn about Oden and Orochi’s relationship will put this choice into perspective in hindsight. Given the hype, I’m expecting this to be a long flashback; at the very least to the end of volume 95 but realistically a few chapters longer.

Loved the samurai armour scene. Luffy and Brook in particular are looking great. The Jinbe acknowledgement is a good reaffirmation that he’ll be around before Wano is over and done with. I expect he’s in the brig on Big Mom’s ship and will possibly need rescuing. It would be redundant for him to be used as a deus ex machina again like he was on Whole Cake Island. And speaking of redundant, I wonder what the payoff for the second Sunny destruction fakeout in as many years will be…

It’s hard to say what to expect from the Oden flashback at this point. Either we’re getting flashbacks within flashbacks or a second Wano flashback later on so we can get all that tantalising ancient history with Ryuma, the ponegylphs being crafted and the connections to Shandia I vaguely recall being hinted at as well as the more recent social and political history. Excited to see where it’s all going as always!

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

Short chapter this week, but a pretty strong one for what it is. The Roger flashback was unexpected but appreciated, even if it was light on details that could be connected to the tantalizing reveals of the past couple weeks. And then we’re on to Act Three!

There’s not a lot to say, since the chapter seems to mainly setting the scene and tone for the chapters to come, but the art is gorgeous, especially on the spread pages. I’m really looking forward to seeing the port in Hakumai in colour, when that version of the manga gets this far. Get all those maple leaves a warm orange and it’s gonna be spectacular, not to mention the Great Wave style storm shot.

Kinemon’s cry for help was a really strong scene full of tangible desperation, and I can’t help being scared from the lone boat Dogstorm is pulling up that the Scabbards are going to try to reach Onigashima alone. I have an odd feeling that some or all of them might not make it through this fight, that they’ll be allowed to fade back into the past as the ghosts they claim to be. Normally I’d be the first to say that’s way too dark and somber for Oda, but after Yasuie’s death, I’m not as sure. It’s still a ballsy prediction, I know, but I’d love to see Oda commit a little harder to those kinds of stakes as the series builds towards its climax.

I’m about 50/50 on the destruction of the port being an actual enemy attack and it being a ruse to throw the enemy off at the minute. Leaning towards a genuine attack though; the crew’s had a lot of lucky breaks in Wano already, and it’s about time for things to start seriously going wrong. We’ll see how we go two weeks from now.