Captain M Entertainment

I’m still editing the full Egghead review I pitched after the last chapter. I ended up having a lot of thoughts and real life has been busy, but it’s coming.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a packed early arc chapter to play with here. It’s fun to see how everyone was a little right and a little wrong about the mysterious kingdom in our weeks of speculation. A lot of people hit the right cues to notice the people weren’t giant size, and of course this place wasn’t actually meant to be a retconned design of the central Elbaf village we’d seen in the past. But with the full picture of it being basically a terrarium and the surrounding room having stone walls and an actual giant present, I’m much more inclined now to say we’re somewhere on the island proper.

The much-speculated inconsistencies with outfit pieces turn out to just be mistakes. I might not have fully ruled out the possibility, but I was always skeptical they were intended to mean anything. I’ll be very interested to see how far the corrections go when volume 111 comes out.

But if I may nitpick, even in this chapter we can see the Lego castle crumbling like brick and mortar instead of plastic construction materials. Despite being told that they’re all synthetic materials that smell funny when they burn. It’s a missed opportunity not to draw them like what they’re meant to be. A decent adaptation could go the extra mile with this kind of thing, maybe do a CGI physics sim of a Lego wall coming apart and the pieces scattering realistically instead of the standard cloud of dust environmental destruction we’re getting here.

This week’s Jump cover and colour spread make a great first impression. The painted style Oda’s used for a handful of recent covers has been awesome, and I love the details of the colour spread. Franky’s souped up broom bike – absolutely radical. And of course Zoro just sits casually on the dragon’s head. And the forced perspective on Luffy’s broomstick coming right up to the camera gives it all such a dynamic, active composition.

The chapter builds fantastically to the key reveal as Luffy’s group descend into the town and meet the locals, with little hints like the lack of wind after they hit the ground. Nami making the suggestion that the crew could have been gigantified is a funny if you remember chapter 410 (titled Giant Nami, and in which Kalifa mistakenly assumes Nami has transformed into a giant after seeing Chopper’s Monster Point) but that’s probably a coincidence rather than a deep cut. I’m actually surprised in hindsight I didn’t see anyone theorising the crew turned giant (or shrank) as a way to reconcile the size issues of last chapter…

I like Luffy calling out Usopp’s handling of the cat. Calling attention to his weakness so directly feels like setup for a character arc, instead of it just being another instance of a running gag. I’m less enthused with the standard set of Sanji gags, particularly the idea of setting up a two-way mirror in the womens’ bedroom. But what’s new? Better humour is the reactions and expressions of the crew when confronted about the sacred animals they just beat up. And Nami extorting Chopper after saving him. It’s classic Strawhat humour all the way down, the bad and the good all together.

The scale of the reveal shot after Luffy hits the mirror (another great gag) is jaw-dropping. And I love the expectations play that this isn’t a toyroom or child’s play place but a fully enclosed human terrarium by what has to be an adult hobbyist who’s sewing clothes for his miniatures and everything. His craft room is well-stocked, and he cares enough to call it a temple. I’ve done a decent few model ships and Gunpla in my time, so I see and respect where that comes from. I’d be pretty miffed too if those 1/144 pilot figures broke out of the display cabinet and set my study on fire too.

The page leading into the Sun God’s arrival (love the headgear btw, is it hard to sew at a mini scale while looking out of that thing?) is a lot of fun. The slow build up of the suspicious noises and snippets of offscreen dialogue. The smoke under the door as he reaches it. The door flying open to the battle already in progress. It all makes me very happy.

If I may nitpick again though, I still don’t like how Luffy’s outfits are working with Gear Five. The Egghead one vanished entirely and came back when he left the form. The Egghead cape stays and turns white, but the boots and axe vanish, and the helmet fuses into his hair somehow? You can see the horns turned white and still sticking out, even with the rest of it gone. That’s going to bug me for days. And of course it all returns to normal when he leaves Gear Five in a few pages. I don’t understand or like how this works. Just keep the outfit, turn it white. It’s like Oda is trying to treat the Gear Five design as too iconic to change and is putting the reversion to it over the story’s continuity.

As the chapter wraps, the plan to bust through the opposite mirror and the wall behind it becomes a tiny bit questionable when we consider that said wall will be built to giant proportions, orders of magnitude thicker and denser than the crew must be picturing. But it’s the monster trio there, so if anyone can do it…

I know it’s the new arc honeymoon phase, but man this one was a fun ride. Creative ideas, mostly funny gags, the mystery of who and where and how building with every new detail. My nitpicks can’t bring down the joy of exploration that comes with the opening of each new story in this series. Can’t wait to see where it goes next.

New arc is a go… but things aren’t feeling quite right here. I’m not usually one to get on board with conspiracy theories – sometimes a weird detail is just something Oda threw in because he thought it would be fun or funny, not the key to unraveling the plot; sometimes an inconsistency is legitimately a mistake or typo, to be fixed in the volume. But here, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s because we have so little in the way of context, but things are feeling wrong about the setting we’re shown in this first chapter.

We are not in the Elbaf we thought we were in. From the first page: look at Yggdrasil. Compare it to the enormous tree shown in the backgrounds of Big Mom’s flashback. It’s too small, it’s not the right shape, it doesn’t cast shade over the whole island the way the real one does. Though dressed like giants, the people in the town have roughly the same scale compared to the stingermole and Lego buildings as the Strawhats do. And while the environment certainly looks like a giant child’s Lego playroom, watch the way the castle comes apart during the cat attack: it doesn’t scatter into pieces like a real Lego construction would, the bricks themselves crack and shatter and crumble into shards, suggesting cemented concrete or stone rather something designed to come apart and be rebuilt. Even the title plays up a “Land of Mystery” even though it would be no spoiler at all to say “Land of Giants” or something similar given all the setup this arc has had.

So where are we? Some kind of human settlement on the edge or off the coast of Elbaf? Are they people who came hopeful to emulate giant culture like Usopp has? Or is this a human zoo or pet enclosure run by a particularly cruel giant leader? Maybe whoever is playing the part of a sun god (very intriguing setup by the way) But in either case why the toy look without toy materials?

And then there’s the question of absinthe hallucinations. If the whole scenario was meant to be a trip, we probably wouldn’t have seen the people in the town. That kind of objective POV from people who weren’t drinking wouldn’t fly, we’d have been kept limited to only the Strawhats’ perspective. The animals cause real physical harm, and Nami trips on and interacts with the Lego bumps on the floor, so they’re not illusions. But things are weird here. They keep changing. Both the spiky thing (which has hedgehog ears but more of a porcupine snout, and doesn’t fully match up with either creature) and the cat transform dramatically for creatures without (apparent) devil fruits. And the weapon of Luffy’s back changes between two panels, but that one I could chalk to being a mistake, or a last minute mind change. The panel with the sword also lacks the strap going across Luffy’s chest, which feels like a major detail of this new design to omit. But it adds to the strange feeling all this gives off.

(Luffy calling out the wrong gear, however, is definitely an error. It hasn’t even been that long since the wrong number was used for a Cipher Pol division in the final chapters of Egghead. Sanji winding up with one leg and kicking with the other feels the same, some of these little glitches happen all the time.)

Mysteries and theories all aside, this is a tremendously fun Usopp and Nami chapter. Every single gag landed for me. Nami’s expression at meeting the spike monster sets the tone and the chapter just rolls from there. Usopp taking a hit, assuming the cat is a hallucination (even he’d just been in its mouth, and Nami’s reaction. (Love the cat’s claws curling over the panel boarder there too.) Then she uses the broken and beaten Usopp as a shield before claiming to Sanji he was already dead. I loved it all.

I’ve seen some upset that Usopp is taking such a beating in what they think should be his arc, but I can’t imagine being upset by something like that. You can’t have much of a character arc without the character having things to learn and challenges to overcome from the experience. The last time we had a genuinely designated character’s arc was Sanji at Whole Cake Island, and whatever else you can say about it, that arc brought Sanji low and kicked him while he was down, physically and emotionally. He got no climactic fight. And he lost his memory of getting the girl. But it all set him up to be stronger than ever and face even more interesting character decisions in the next arc. So if we’re going to make Usopp grow on Elbaf, putting him in situations that showcase his weakness and trigger his cowardice is a good starting point.

The Egghead outfits so far are fine. Pretty standard medieval gear. The choice for Nami threatens to follow the Egghead design trends, but I’m going to wait and see on that front. The problem with Egghead’s outfits wasn’t that Nami was showing a lot of leg – her characterisation has always had her comfortable in bikinis and similar pieces that make sense to wear when you’re around the sea. The problem was that every single female character in the arc unquestioningly picked up Nami’s fashion sense and level of comfort, no matter how they were depicted previously. So the amount of variety and how in-character the outfits of Robin, Lilith and (depending on what age she presents as) Bonney will make or break the fur bikini.

As much as it can hurt to be left with a lingering mystery, I’m thrilled to see Oda still finding the inspiration to give us something new and different to start a new arc on. And with a break coming up and the new arc underway, I think now is finally the time to properly reread and review Egghead in full, which feels like a good thing to put in the place of a review next week.

After like four more chapters of Egghead loose ends than expected, I think we can finally call the transition to an Elbaf arc complete. But we still spend most of the chapter on things that follow up past arcs. Shanks has been waiting to check Barto off his to-do list since Wano, the Blackbeard sections reference the cutaway sequence and events from Egghead’s final set piece, there’s a Bonney and Kuma moment, and more updates on the Revolutionaries’ siege. Any of those things, I think, you could justify grouping as part of Egghead’s epilogue if not for the obvious first plot hook of Elbaf in the final pages of the chapter.

But that’s just One Piece sometimes. Look back and think about where Thriller Bark and Sabaody separate. Chapter 490 contains all together Brook’s new crewmate toast, Kuma’s debrief about letting Luffy go, and the giant mysterious figures in the Florian Triangle – all important story or theme points for Thriller Bark – but also the arrival at the Redline and the introduction of Camie – vital setup for Sabaody. The transition of arcs happens kind in the middle of the chapter. Such is the nature of a serialised story after it gets big enough.

And what an opening to an arc. The crew gets smashed on hallucinogenic booze and loses a day or two and end up separated, left to piece together what they missed. It’s fairly unique. You might compare it to Zou, where the reader’s POV starts at the end of a normal arc and we get the main events filled in via flashback. But after Egghead’s cutaway, there’s precedent for not circling back to the skipped day as well. It’s going to take a lot more than one chapter – and probably the next one – to be fully sure what Oda’s building up to here and how he plans to structure it.

The opening party has two moments I really like. Nami being driven to drink by the giants’ warrior customs, and Bonney and Kuma finally reunited and able to enjoy the open sea they dreamed of. Kuma’s even smiling. He’s going to make it!

On the other hand, it really handwaves away the timeline discrepancies with Dory, Brogy, Oimo and Kashii’s journey. Maybe they could have waved that hand a little faster to say the duo from Ennies Lobby at least reached Elbaf and decided only recently to go check in on the captains. Oh well.

And then we have Shanks and Bartolomeo. This is a much darker side of Shanks than has previously been shown, or at least than has previously been directed toward anyone we like. I think with so long offscreen it’s been easy to fill in the blanks with what we want to see of the man, and it’s inevitable some fans are going to be shocked, surprised and even disappointed by the reality. Personally, I like a mentor with a secret or two to dramatise the relationship. I’m interested to see what Oda does with it.

Shanks acts like a pro pirate here, a seasoned pillar of the criminal underworld. The importance of respect, reputation and the risks that come from people thinking they can get away with crossing you all speak to historical piracy and even more modern organised crime. But his expressions stick in my mind. The blacked out and shaded-over eyes could simply be a sign he’s in serious mode, but his close up when Bartolomeo expresses regret that he won’t see Luffy be King of the Pirates betrays genuine sadness. Compare and contrast his encounter with Kid, which features the same darkened eyes early on, but a much angrier expression in the aftermath.

Does Shanks regret that he has to escalate a turf war with Luffy? Does he simply not like that the role of Emperor forces him to be ruthless for the sake of protecting his territory? The fast transition from appreciating Barto’s loyalty to delivering the final lesson only amps up the ambiguity.

Props to Barto though. His commitment is real and wonderful. Hope this isn’t the end of his story.

Blackbeard’s sequence doesn’t give us as much new, just a sense of plans and building toward the future. I enjoyed the details of the bandages on the skull and learning that Garp is still alive though. And poor Pudding. That’s going to be an interesting source of conflict in the future, when Sanji gets wind of it.

It’s also nice getting a view of the Revolutionaries’ actual tactics through Laffite’s sequence. The bombs and fires give the sense of kind of a guerilla operation, all sabotage and terror. From all the Dragon “…” and “looking east” memes that have been repeated enough to become insufferable, I think there’s a chunk of the fanbase that needed to see this stuff to understand it.

We return to the Strawhats for the final new story hook. Bonney getting to act like a little girl again, clinging to Jinbei’s side, is the cutest touch. But hang on, if we’re acknowledging her as a kid here, she probably wasn’t drinking with the rest. She might be key to figuring out what happened while everyone else was blacked out.

I’m looking forward to where this Lego-look castle is going to go next week. We’ve seen Oda toy with this idea for a colour spread many years ago (chapter 622) and it looked pretty good back then. Makes yuo wonder how long he’s wanted to do this. I have no particularly novel theories about what’s going on here – the same likely conclusions everyone else seems to be reaching – she’s probably on Elbaf already, a plaything to some kind of child prince. Maybe Loki, but I don’t know if the timing lines up him to act that young. The real question is how this happened while the rest of the crew remains at sea. Did an envoy sail on to meet them? Could the Great Erik have reached Elbaf then departed again for some reason?

And hey, no break next week. Three chapters in a row again! Looking forward to seeing where all this is going with you all!

One Piece arcs have slow and bloated midsections that can be difficult to sit through week to week. This is nothing new; we’ve been doing this dance since Skypiea. But it’s the endings, the post-arc lore bombs like this, that make it all worthwhile.

Now, I don’t want to toot my own horn too much, but I feel pretty validated by Garling being promoted to Elder status following Saturn’s fall, which I spitballed in a chapter discussion thread in February, and Punk Records taking off to fill the role of satellite internet, which I was pitching as a way to escape the siege since at least August last year (though admittedly, I thought it could be launched all the way into space). I believe I also said in one of my reviews, when the escape plan was being made and Shaka said the Vegaclones were expendable that Oda seemed to be setting them up for self-sacrifice, but that it didn’t feel like his style to kill them all, but also that he probably also wouldn’t bring the full set of them on the Sunny, so there had to be a third option. And would you look at that, this week we get the third option.

Cover story first. Minatomo’s disappearance has to be linked to the kidnapping foiled in the last installment. There were theories last from the last one that Raizo could be back to his old ways, but he wouldn’t be interested in Minatomo, so the lead theory that it’s a former Beasts Pirate gains ground.

Right away we get a very interesting inferred character interaction for Lucci and Kaku. Is Lucci lying for Kaku? You can tell from Kaku’s face that something difficult for him has gone down. I’d love to someday see the conversation that preceded this scene, but that wouldn’t have the engagement factor of trying to fill in the gaps short term. And then, where is Stussy? I don’t believe for a second that she’s dead, but would she have made it to Punk Records before its takeoff?

Next, we learn some big things about the Five Elders. We know from the Gum Gum Fruit being a myth even to them that the Elders of today do not date back to the Void Century, but Saturn at least goes back 200 years. So the demonic forms come with a kind of agelessness. And shortly after, that the forms come with the position, seemingly bestowed by Imu and taken away just as easily. The first big clue about how to beat these guys, and a deepening of the mystery of who and what Imu is. And what an unexpectedly brutal and satisfying way for Saturn to go. A fantastic escalation for the series’ endgame.

Earlier than expected, the setup of the cloud machine’s importance pays off. But I’ll be honest, the mechanics of how the clouds are moving to pick up only Punk Records and not the rest of the lab aren’t really clear. And what the heck was York shooting at? Seems like she breaks the connection between the two halves of the eggshell, but that only makes it easier to steal Punk Records. Bit of a weird one.

You can’t help marveling at the sheer entitlement of the Celestial Dragons in their little sequence. How about that guy saying the sinking of the world wouldn’t impact him. Dude, you’re starving to death because you don’t have a way to grow your own food on top of your rock. You’re getting a taste of what it’s going to be like when the lower world goes away right now. And the obvious implication that while they have fewer choices and extras, the Celestial Dragons themselves are still eating well. The guy complaining about fish has a full plate, and another is still fed decently enough that snacks are an expectation. All while the chef serves on a growling stomach. You can see how far things are being stretched to make sure the haves keep having while the have-nots feel the impact first. There’s no saving these guys.

Garling joining the Elders is an awesome development. Can’t wait to learn more about this guy. And will he adopt Saturn’s demon form, or while he get ihs own monster to play. For how relatively late he’s come in this story, this guy’s already been fantastically set up as a villain.

I also think it’s worth noting how the Elders treat Garling when he walks in, before they know he’s joined their ranks. Garling seems to have been about as highly ranked as a non-Elder Celestial Dragon could be, a Holy Knight with the authority to execute an otherwise untouchable nobleman. But the Elders confront him about coming into their space without stated business. They demand deference. He’s told to know his place. There’s clearly a towering difference in rank that they expect to see respected, even though all present are Celestial Dragons.

The new Vegapunk Frankenclone is certainly something. I do enjoy the asymmetry of the giant Atlas arm though. I wonder if this entity will get a new name. I wonder if these guys would consider manipulating the information in Punk Records to mislead or mess with York should she try to reconnect. Hopefully they’ve learned enough to do the things York and the Stella did to prevent info they don’t want seen from syncing.

When I spoke about the last spread of chapter 1121, with the key players of the final saga, I raised the possibility of unexpected rivalries, but I’m still surprised to see Revolutionaries considering the implications of a run at the One Piece. Sabo and Luffy becoming rivals, even if they’re friendly about it, would be a crazy place to escalate things to.

Ivan realises something about the bridge projects, but I’m not sure I see it the same way. They don’t seem tall enough to escape the flood, but maybe they’re not just to live on. They could be ways for the people of the lower world to make pilgrimage to the Redline. Or they could have been intended to slant gradually upward as they extend out. There’s a few ways it could work, but no single one sticks out as the answer.

Meanwhile Dragon leaves us with some relevant social commentary. As much as we’ve all been thinking about Vegapunk’s words sparking rebellions and anger against the World Government, there would definitely also be panic and war. If the WG is smart, it can stoke the battles for dwindling space and keep the peasants below distracted fighting each other for as long as possible so no one has time to think long enough or get a big enough force together to challenge it directly. Will the Revolutionaries have a way to capture the hearts and minds of the whole world and unite them to collective safety instead of personal survival?

This has been the kind of One Piece chapter I’m here for. The sheer amount of work my rewrite project was taking had me a little burned out on the series last week, but all these big developments and hints to future lore and events are a shot in the arm. Can’t wait to see what Oda has in store next.

Egghead lingers on for one last coda, but it’s worth staying for, closing those last few emotional openings that we’d all been wondering about. But there’s kind of not a lot to say about it. The things that happen pay off the arc’s buildup in ways that make sense, and they all work well in those functions. To try and overanalyse what makes them work would just sound like ‘this is a good ending because it follows up on this, this and this happening earlier,’ and at that point I’m just recapping the arc. But we don’t need to go too deep to know this is a good chapter. It just has to be read for the feeling that it works to come across.

The Vivi and Morgans dynamic has proved unexpectedly fun since they got paired up, although I don’t think Wapol contributes quite as much to it. Morgans is still such an enjoyable character on the whole, chasing only the money, whether that means defying the Government to tell the truth, or defying the truth to put a dramatic spin. His attitude toward the world sinking is the ultimate show of how it’s all about him. Big fan of Vivi’s ‘don’t expect to live through it anyway’ attitude here. That’s a girl with nothing left to lose. It makes me very excited to see what her role is going to be in the upcoming arcs and the series’ finale.

I’m happy to see Sentomaru making it out, even if it’s rough how left in the lurch the guy must be now. Too bad for him he couldn’t make it to the giants’ ship. But if Sentomaru is escaping alone, what will come of Stussy and (maybe) Edison? I’m still betting on a cover story.

Borsalino’s breakdown absolutely steals the show this week. It hits home the subtext that’s been building through the arc to make him a much more nuanced figure than I think anyone would have guessed from his introduction at Sabaody. Maybe more surprising is Sakazuki’s acknowledgement of his own insensitivity. Makes you wonder what kind of conversation went down between him and Garp post-Marineford…

It’s good seeing the crew acknowledge their failure to save Vegapunk and process it in different ways. Even with a way to soften the blow and move on almost immediately, there’s good characterisation in Zoro’s harshness, Franky and Jinbei’s rationalising, and Luffy’s despondentness. On the pick-up, I speculated last week that the links between Vegapunks would be a justification – they clearly share the stella’s memories from before their creation. Lilith is obviously taking on traits and functions from the fallen satellites, but it’s not clear how much of their minds and memories are coming with that data. And how is it being transferred with the connection to Punk Hazard severed? Hopefully she stays in the limelight through Elbaf so we can see the actual capacity at which the others are alive through her.

I’m a big fan of the art showing how small everyone is compared to giant furniture as well. That makes me excited for the Elbaf setting.

The last party scene makes for a beautiful spread, especially finally seeing Jinbei as a part of one of these. The new outfits so soon is an interesting touch as well. Are these the Elbaf fits, or will we get new, viking-inspired ones after making landfall?

And the final stinger might just be the guy drinking with Crocus from that one cover story! I’ve waited so long, please don’t let it be a fakeout. What’s with the ‘war-land’ epithet and ominous rumble on the Elbaf establishing shot though? Not sure we’ve seen those before. A somewhat ominous lead-in to the new adventure.

The short pagecount and another break are definitely unfortunate, but with a new island on the horizon, I’m more excited than upset. Oda’s obviously been waiting to draw this one for a very long time, so I’m keep to see what he’s got in store.

The idea of arcs and sagas as a two-tier approach to story structure exists mostly in fan wikis rather than officially released material, but it was an effective way to show how a lot of the overarching pre-timeskip stories came together over multiple islands. Post-timeskip, that model became largely irrelevant as everything started to point towards Wano as one massive saga made up of old-saga-length arcs. But here we are again, at what can only be described as the start of a new saga, for the first time in a dozen years.

Yes, Egghead has a self-contained story locked to its local setting, as all arcs in all sagas have, but as the crew sails away from its ending, we realise how much is left up in the air. Bonney and Kuma got symbolic blows in on the architect of their suffering and are out of immediate danger, but they don’t yet have a place to settle. I was a little surprised that this final act of Egghead didn’t address more directly how much of Kuma’s mind can still be salvaged. This chapter raises questions about what death means for a consciousness as fragmented as Vegapunk’s, and what the implications are of a satellite surviving instead of the stella. The Seraphim remain a threat, beaten only offscreen using easy-win technology the crew won’t have access to again. Overarching villains have been teased, but circumstances aligned to prevent a direct confrontation. It’s like being at the end of, say, Whiskey Peak again. Act one of something much, much bigger.

The cover story’s quick resolution to the kids’ assault on Yamato rings true to the way Oda has tackled themes of prejudice in the past. Think of Hody, who harboured all this hatred based only on the stories told to him by the adults in his life. He was too far gone, but these kids are young enough to have their horizons broadened if other influences are offered. Putting hate to rest by getting to know each other over food and drink feels like a very One Piece thing to do.

But does Oda intend to test this idea by giving Yamato an enemy who won’t be so easily brought to the table?

The opening scenes ease in slowly, (enough so that I wonder if this could be the start of volume 111 instead of the last chapter) and let the fallout of the last chapter’s ending simmer, but S-Snake’s consciousness is a detail worth noting. Are the Seraphim that strong, or are they instead that inhuman?

And in a key example of why I didn’t try to fit an Egghead reread and full arc review in last week, Vegpaunk’s flashback comes right in on the home stretch to fill in gaps and provide the bigger picture. Weekly reading can be tough. You just don’t have the full story until you have the full story.

But the timing’s good for this actually. My copy of volume 106 came in last week and obviously got a read when it did, and a lot of the stuff here builds on things in that volume.

Vegapunk’s personality comes through hard here, and it’s been consistent from the start. He’s a genius when it comes to tech, but he has massive blind spots when it comes to people and politics, as well as simply not knowing what genre of story he’s in. His choices were probably not the optimal way to handle the situation, but they were undeniably the Vegapunk way to do it. Look back to the start of the arc and Vegapunk’s passion for the ideas of infinite energy and widespread access to information. Of course he’s not going to dismantle the Mother Flame before the Government can take it, he wants to perfect it so the whole world can use it. Is that playing with fire, risking handing an authoritarian empire a power source for their ultimate weapon? Werner von Punk hasn’t concerned himself with the negative potential of his ideas before. Watch him dismiss Jinbe’s concerns about the Punk Records database being poisoned by ideologically-driven misinformation. That stuff is not his department, he just wants to finish building things. Vegapunk sold out on his revolutionary sympathies to get Government funding; we see him debate Dragon over this choice. All of these factors run consistently into a personality that would milk the status quo for as long as possible, and try to finish as much work as possible, with his last act of rebellion set to go off only in the event of his death.

His perspective on the decision not to run makes sense as well. The World Government seems so large and so inevitable to a person who has to live with it. Even in lawless lands, the idea of being iced quietly by a Cipher Pol operative would scan as a real threat. Even Wano wasn’t safe from that kind of thing. I can see how running seemed pointless in his circumstances. At least staying on Egghead, the assassins ring the front doorbell and give you a moment to make peace. And, of course, the chance for a death that’s bombastic and impossible to come up. What would have happened to his countermeasure if the Government had launched a smear campaign to discredit him and reattribute his accomplishments to others the moment he fled? This way, Vegapunk’s narrative gets out first.

Now, this is a Shonen manga where a big million to one play of determination and defiance would have been rewarded, like the Strawhats declaring war on the whole Government for Robin, but we can’t expect Vegapunk to know he’s in that kind of story.

A very interesting point of emphasis in this section of the story is the Cloud Plant. The Buster Call sure as hell didn’t care to spare it, but it’s the place Edison was last seen before his signal went dead. If he came to the same conclusion about its importance as Vegapunk-stella does here while hearing the broadcast, he might have gone offline deliberately and made off with a vital component needed to recreate the technology on the run. My stance was ‘died from his injuries until Oda gives a reason to think otherwise,’ and this feels just vague enough to make a reason. The next cover story could be his and Stussy’s great escape from the burning island, slipping onto a ship or through the blockade while everyone else is knocked out by Emet’s Haki bomb. Let’s stick a pin in that one.

And we also get the question of what it means for Vegapunk to die, with his brain separate from his body, and his mind duplicated across half a dozen androids. The lines are blurry; the clones can seemingly share the stella’s memories from before they were created – seen through Shaka being the one to trigger the brief flashback to the aftermath of Ohara. But there’s also a heirarchy. We’re told its the satellites’ duty to die to protect the stella, as if there’s something special or extra about him that the others lack. But the lack of significant mourning or atmosphere of loss over the stella may be because Oda intends us to think Vegapunk lives on through Lilith. Again, things still to explore.

Now the memory erasure. To be honest, this one does feel a little like it was done for the drama. They’ve managed to not let anything slip and keep the information from syncing with Punk Records for two weeks as they set up and execute their contingency, but now it’s a threat that something could come out? Okay, but then he leaves a note revealing everything short of the traitor’s identity anyway. Surely the a scientist’s curious need to investigate the claims on the note would cause more disruption than just holding onto the lie. No, this one was done mainly to keep Vegapunk from giving the whole game away to the Strawhats as soon as they arrive.

On the flip side, the conversation with Sanji fills in a gap I remember talking about as it happened. Why did Vegapunk disappear from Sanji’s side and wander back into the fire off screen when he was poised to escape? I’d said there felt like there was a beat missing there, and here it is. Good work closing that hole, Oda.

This is running long already, so I won’t go too deep into Elbaf expectations from the last page. There’ll be plenty of time for that in the months to come, but I’m pleased to see it looking like something Oda’s excited to draw, with that same passionate energy as the introduction of Wano. He’s been waiting for this, and so have we. Looking forward to watching this final saga continue to develop next week!

See, all you people who ask why we don’t see more of Smoker, all you have to do to make him appear is write a decade-long bestselling rival manga. If you wanted it that bad you’d be doing it already, so get cracking!

In all actual seriousness though, Hero Aca had a strong run and Oda’s tributes to hit both on the cover and in his author comment, are very sweet. Horikoshi has earned a big rest and break after all he’s done, but as much as Oda has too, there’s still obviously a lot of One Piece to go.

This is overall a pretty standard winding down chapter, hitting all the expected beats of powering down the broadcast, giving Emet its moment in the spotlight with the secret weapon and putting the Strawhats and the giants on the open sea, outside the Marine blockade, and ready to sail for the next island. I think we’ll be getting at least one chapter of cooldown between now and Elbaf, probably focusing on the World Government’s efforts to put out the fires Vegapunk just started, or the other Emperors and main players we haven’t seen yet (like most of the Strawhat Grand Fleet) getting their ducks in a row surrounding all this new info.

Koby’s choice to get between Luffy and his dream is very interesting. The question is, who would he have take the One Piece and decide the fate of the world instead? Given his presence on the last chapter’s final spread, could he be planning to get it personally and reform the Marines to his preference?

We get a rare moment of Buggy showing actual competence rather than just failing upward. He’s playing the crowd perfectly to maximise loyalty and morale. Which makes you wonder what Crocodile’s so upset about. Probably because he’s generating loyalty to himself only, leaving out the other two leaders.

I’m happy to see Emet realise the distinction between Luffy and Joyboy. They’re not the same person, and it would get old fast (and do nothing for accusations of reincarnation/time travel) if everything from the ancient past was permanently calling Luffy by the wrong name. Very curious about the idea of making Joyboy a king through. Will this turn out to be the entymology of the current day’s pirate king title?

And I love the panel of the Elders leaping at the Sunny and the giants’ longboat. The sense of scale is incredible.

The longterm stored Haki is an interesting concept. One of the first things we learned about Armament Haki is that it can be made to linger in an object after the user lets it go, enough to loose a powerful Haki arrow, so it tracks to be able to scale that up and make it linger longterm, especially having learned that Conqueror’s Haki can be used the same way as Armament. I wouldn’t want ancient Haki storage to become too regular of a thing from this point, but it’s definitely being set up for one more future maccguffin or deus ex machina, and I can live with that.

What I’m not as much of a fan of, as it appears here, is the Haki blast erasing the Elders’ demonic forms. Haki has never previously been a lockout thing. We’re shown back on Amazon Lily that raw speed and power can overcome Haki, and even with the addition of using it for coating in Wano, Conqueror’s was more of a dickmeasuring thing between the super ambitious than a necessary skill. If the one in a million bonus ability turns out to be a necessary weapon against otherwise invincible demons, I will very disappointed. Worse, at no point in the skirmishes with the Elders up to this point, can I see the trademark lightning crackle of Conqueror’s Haki on Luffy’s attacks. It would be hard to justify him just not using the one technique that would have worked through the whole arc just to keep these guys feeling menacing.

But look. We don’t know what the deal is yet. It does no good for anyone’s mental health or the quality of discussions to imagine the worst case scenario and get mad at it before it’s confirmed. I can wait.

For example, on the topic of not having the full picture yet, there’s the teleporting. I don’t think Emet’s attack forced them to go back, because if it did Saturn would be back on his ship instead of remaining on the island, but I don’t think the situation for the others was dire enough that they would have chosen to retreat. Maybe their recall had to do with Imu’s distress. Mysteries remain about these guys.

And then a Joyboy flashback. That was really unexpected at this point, although the hat and coat in the silhouette are not all that surprising. Scale in One Piece is tricky and not always consistent, but he definitely looks too small to be a giant, and probably too small to wear the Marie Geoise frozen strawhat as well. The X mark on Emet’s arm is a sweet touch, recalling the Strawhats at Alabasta. The way the two speak here make me feel like we’re in for a real tragedy when we finally get their full story and the way they failed. We know Oda doesn’t hold back on the flashbacks.

So that’s probably the full stop on Egghead. At least a semicolon, depending on if the between-island cutaways lean Egghead or Elbaf. The first half of this arc was a breath of fresh air, the second half treated very unkindly by breaks. I’m looking forward to doing my reread and seeing how much things change when I don’t have to wait. But above all else, I’m thrilled to have Elbaf so close on the horizon.