Captain M Entertainment

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.

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

I think only One Piece could deliver a chapter of pure, actionless exposition and infodumping and make it this exciting to read. This is the kind of thing other fantasy writers only wish they could make people invested enough in their worldbuilding to get away with. We’re following up on the hype of last week’s chapter setting up the collapse of the global power structure with a dive into the personal histories of some of the biggest names in the world, confirming again that the end is within sight and Oda’s really trying to put his ducks in a row for the big, conclusive lore reveals and final battles.

Interesting that Viz has chosen to change Rox to Rocks. If this had come out before Volume 90 went to print and immortalised Rox in my collection it would have made sense, but after… I don’t want to have to buy a reprint for things to be consistent. Despite the issues it sometimes creates, I like that the names and terminology don’t change from chapter to chapter in the official release as they sometimes can in scanlations. But whatever, even with this new addition, the list of retcons is still pretty short. These kinds of things are the price that sometimes has to be paid to keep the official translation so close behind the Japanese release.

To be honest, I don’t expect Rocks himself to be the most interesting of characters. I’m certainly not expecting him to be secretly alive and also the end boss or anything like that. He’s interesting because of the context surrounding him, and I’m sure he’ll have something interesting to do in Big Mom and Kaido’s inevitable flashback, but on the whole I think he’ll be more of a distant, mythic figure with a will to be carried on by one person or another (likely Blackbeard) but with little personal stake in the main plot. Circumstantial evidence suggests Rocks’ ultimate goal was chaos and conquest, not to overthrow the World Government for the sake of freedom, but to take the power for himself. This stands in contrast to the nobler but no less chaotic ideology of Roger. I’m sure that in time we’ll come to see why both failed (or perhaps in Roger’s case decided it was not the right time to succeed).

Some are saying Blackbeard must be a descendant of Rocks, and I’m not sure where I stand on this. On one hand, being someone not related by blood but carrying on the same ideology and goals regardless would parallel Luffy and Roger’s relationship. On the other, Blackbeard being a true heir that fails the ultimate goal because he’s not the right person, while Luffy not being a direct successor but being the right person to follow up Roger would be an interesting point of contrast.

The Garp and Roger stuff really paints both characters in a new light. I’m glad it’s being addressed, the moral dissonance between Garp’s obvious desire to protect the innocent and the Navy being forced to participate in genocides and pad its ranks with purchased slaves and so on and so forth. Garp doesn’t really get moral highground, since he chooses to remain in such an evil system, but the revelation that the Celestial Dragons would straight up murder him if he wasn’t so good at his job is a reassuring show of how hard he sometimes pushes back. All Marines are bastards, but you could do far worse than Garp. But then Sengoku goes on to explain that not just Garp but Roger as well went out of their way to protect the Celestial Dragons and their slaves, he adds very specifically and with emphasis, which 100% does not scan with what we know about either character. If they had just protected the Celestial Dragons, fine, I can see Rocks seeming at the time to be the greater of two evils, but the addition of the slaves in this explanation is so deliberately worded and so out of character that you just know we’re being fed a propaganda spin if not an outright falsehood. The true nature, causes and outcomes of the God Valley Incident are probably the thing I’m most interested to learn more about after this chapter.

The news about bounties has interesting implications. Firstly, by setting the ceiling at this point, it undermines basically every possible remaining bounty reveal, from King to the newly re-criminalised Warlords. I think we’ll get less of bit part minions hyping up their superiors’ bounties and more figures just casually being dropped in the odabox with no fanfare going forward. But the real interesting thing is the reactions of the sailors present for the explanation. There’s shock and awe. Even Brandnew says he’ll “reveal” the bounties of some legends. I think this implies that Emperors are set bounties mostly as a formality and after a certain point the posters aren’t widely distributed or the figures often discussed. It makes sense to a point; after you go outside the law hard enough to be a household name criminal the Government wouldn’t need big money to convince people to keep an eye out for you anymore. People know who you are. They’ll talk about seeing you if it happens.

The final pages hint again at the idea of the Navy sailing to Wano, but I still don’t see it happening. Assuming this is all going on on the day of the Fire Festival, there’s no chance they’ll make it in time. More likely they’re being set up be a factor in the final act or come into the main plot just after Wano ends. Or perhaps, to spitball, when the fighting is done and the country is rid of big name pirates, they might rock up and offer World Government membership or at least an alliance, in hopes of using all those powerful samurai to compensate for the loss of the Warlords. It would make for interesting consequences whether the country’s new leadership accepts or rejects an offer like that.

Anyway, great chapter. Can’t wait for the next one, but I’m expecting it to be a bit more low key, and probably take us back to Wano. Fingers crossed for an in medias res start to the Fire Festival raid!

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

Well this was a chapter and a half, wasn’t it? Oda’s spent 20 odd years establishing the delicate structure and balance of power of his world, both in geopolitics and the criminal underworld, and how the two interact, and now he’s set in motion a domino chain that will collapse it all. Obviously we aren’t going to descend immediately into chaos, the real game changer of Kaido and Big Mom’s alliance is going to be caught up in Wano for a while, so won’t have much to do with the World Government and the Warlords’ turmoil, but the seeds have been sown and the chain reaction has begun. Oda’s recent estimate of 5 years was an obvious lowball, but its shows that he sees the ending on the horizon. I believe that more than ever after this chapter.

I feel like I was half right about how much Reverie we were going to see in this intermission. I expected another one like the last, with only tangential references to it, but instead we got a chapter that deals with it directly for the most part. But also aside from the big result of the Warlord vote, it was all so vague we learned basically nothing else. A fatality? An attempted murder? Something happening with Sabo, probably one or both of the latter? Something about Alabasta? Who knows what really happened.

Never expected Morgans to be so much of a fighter. He’s coming to be kind of a wildcard in terms of how he uses his influence. Previous coverups and lies (like the Doflamingo one) in his paper, as well as running propaganda comics such as Sora show that he’s not one bit above taking the World Government’s money and printing their lies, but then he throws his support behind Luffy and rejects the cheque here because he thinks the truth is more interesting. It seems the news depends on Morgans’ idea of the most evocative story, true or not. Click Bait Morgans, they should call him.

And on the Morgans scene, what is the deal with Attach? It would have made sense if he was a Cipher Pol plant from the start, given that we first see him working for the World Government before he became a reporter, but if that’s the case, was he bothering with a fake face even back then? If that wasn’t the real Attach, where is he? Is it just a coincidence the Government chose their own former employee to impersonate? Seems like the kind of thing that’ll come up in an SBS sooner or later. Oh, and what’s Wapol of all people calling about?

The Sabo stuff is too obtuse to make a concrete theory about. The reactions make his death and him being framed for an assassination equally likely, and puts dying in an apparent assassination attempt not far outside the ballpark. I’ve had for a while now a pet theory that Vivi will be forced out of the World Government and use her leadership abilities to take command of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, since Luffy isn’t interested in being responsible for it. If, say, the World Government assassinated Cobra and Sabo disappeared with Vivi, helping her get onto Sai’s ship or with the Dressrosa escort, it could all come together…

Blackbeard; also too obtuse. The official wording, “if the Navy’s only going to take it,” raises questions. It’s not just that they’re going to have it, he implies that they’ll take possession of whatever he’s after but not use it to its full potential, or at all. Curiouser and curiouser.

Sword is another big deal. The clues in the dialogue here paint an interesting picture of Sword’s relationship with the World Government and Cipher Pol. We can make a decent guess that Sword’s undercover agents are a “need to know” kind of deal, even for the upper levels of Navy command, given how Borsalino treated Drake at Sabaody. It’s suggested that Cipher Pol and Sword aren’t sharing information about operations with each other either, but not only that, that Sword has moral disagreements with the hypocrisy of the World Government and its agents. I think Oda’s setting up a schism for the Navy. We’ll see the authoritarians like Sakazuki standing with the Government when the world collapses into chaos while the more reasonable guys caught in a bad system, Garp, Sengoku, Issho, Smoker and so on will make a stand against the Government’s corruption and defect, taking a lot of fire and manpower with them. Through this, Oda can build into an ending where the oceans still have a peacekeeping force but where the cruel history of the current Navy can still be confronted and the people responsible dealt with. Film Z was non-canon, but if Zephyr really is out there in the canon universe, I wonder what he’d have to say about all this.

The last few pages of the chapter were great, seeing all the Warlords learning they were disbanded only after they and their hideouts are already surrounded. Very much the Order 66 of the One Piece universe. I don’t see any of them actually ending up dead or captured though. I feel particularly bad for the force sent after Mihawk, especially if Stainless is really the biggest name they had to send after him.

Going back to the top idea of the global power structure collapsing, this is how it starts. Vegapunk’s Warlord replacement obviously hasn’t been implemented yet, given what a surprise the current Warlords got, so the Navy is going to be short on firepower for a little bit after this, especially considering the kind of losses their attempts to arrest the Warlords are likely to cost. Who knows how long it could take for them to get back to full power. Perhaps the vote would have gone differently if Big Mom and Kaido had teamed up a few days sooner, if the Government had known what they’d be up against. Whether they go on to challenge the whole world or whether Luffy beats the two of them into submission, the Navy is facing their worst case Four Emperors scenario at the exact time they crippled themselves with this risky transition. This is how the global conflict begins. This is the best time to be a One Piece fan.