The Captain's Quarters

[cptn-m]

My illustrated prediction for One Piece volume 115's cover (which I would expect to be revealed anytime from late this week onward).

This volume starts from chapter 1167, and based on the listed pagecount could go as far as chapter 1179.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1185 review

Oh, we're three for three on Brook's songs being the chapter titles. I think they're gonna go for the whole flashback! I would love for Oda to do things like that more often. The flashback steps up its pacing substantially as we cross the midpoint of the volume here, probably setting us up for the necessary revelation about Imu and Reversi so that we can get back to the action for the volume's climax.

There is an interesting emphasis on etiquette and tone through the early scenes of this chapter. I'm sure it reads even more distinctly in the original Japanese where the contrast between formal and informal modes of speech is more extreme. Still, the contrast between Brook's urchin manners and the palace environment comes across. I could live without Oda doubling down on panty jokes, but the bits where he refuses to be artistically constrained by a uniform and cuddles up to his guitar while sleeping are super cute. And it all sets up that generational parallel where the adult Brook polices the language of the young Shuri, but also gives her outlets for her more rebellious instincts.

I talked about for the last chapter how there's a lot going deliberately untold about Reuven's father and how the throne came to be vacant, and I'm even more certain now. A visit from the Celestial Dragons, Candelle becomes bedridden due to "fatigue" and then Reuven abruptly gets to become king. Later, an unnatural disaster conveniently ruins the country's prosperity and leaves them deeply indebted to the World Government. You cannot tell me we have the full story there.

At a guess, Reuven's father cut some kind of deal with the Celestial Dragons for his own benefit, selling out the nation and/or its people. Candelle fakes an illness as an excuse to retreat from the public eye while she (with Reuven's assistance and blessing) engineers the king's downfall and clears the way for Reuven to ascend in his absence. I'm not sure if Oda would make assassins out of these sympathetic characters, so perhaps they just arranged some kind of exile instead. Either way, Reuven has no intention of honouring the rotten deal his rather made, so the Government sabotages his reign to put Esperia at its mercy. They just don't expect Reuven to take such a hard line stance against them. I think that covers all the datapoints we're currently working with.

It's a shame to see Candelle killed off so suddenly, and so offscreen. All the speculation, people wondering if she was a Celestial Dragon plant or undercover God Knight and she just goes and dies of One Piece mum disease a chapter later. At least it absolves her, I never really saw the sense in the traitor theories anyway.

On the flip side, Reuven does me proud this week. I'm so sorry your appearance made me doubt you. What a bold move, both to take up arms against the Government and to be completely transparent about the cruelty of their demands. You know they must have hated that. If only he could have made this play in an era where the Revolutionaries could have backed him. How many rulers chose instead to sacrifice the few for the many? How many have made Reuven's choice and lost their kingdoms, like the West Blue nation citizens allude to (remember, God Valley is still over a decade away)? And things come full circle for Brook. He started alone in a junkyard, singing songs that mocked the king. Now the whole nation is equal among the decay, and Brook's music rallies them to the king's cause.

Oda doesn't spare a lot of page space for the Government invasion, which I think is fair at this stage of the story. We've seen these methods. We know from the shorthand what horrors are being carried out. Even in just two pages, Brook gets a great showing as a combatant. I love the panel near the end of the sequence where he spins through a crowd. It looks like a dance as much as it does swordplay.

And then, some mysteries to chew on during break week. Is that Mars? Mars's predecessor? An old generation God Knight in the back? If Shuri and Reuven both suffered Reversi, why did they fight each other? And didn't we establish that a fatal blow undoes this kind of thing anyway? Oda is going to have his work cut out for him giving this a satisfying conclusion without Brook learning something that would break continuity with his present-day reactions.

I will be up front that I don't love the Reversi mystery at this stage. We have all these points of info and so much time to stew on them, but it still doesn't feel solvable. I trust Oda that there will be internal continuity and rules that separate all these contradictory cases, but they are a long time coming for a weekly reader. But how hard can I complain when such interesting things are being done with the characters?

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1184 review

(late post no images this time because some bad weather has made my internet super spotty)

I think this chapter is going to be unpopular among a certain kind of reader. It's short, it doesn't move the main plot forward and it has the misfortune of landing right before a break. And that's a true shame, this one is full of great characterisation and subtext.

Before the story jumps back, it first jumps forward seven years from the last one. It's hard to say when the time period for the main part of this flashback is going to be. Brook has about a decade to go before he can meet Laboon, but I don't think it's clear how long he was a pirate before that. Shuri still looks younger here than she does as Gunko in the present, but we don't know if she was made immortal and ageless right away after killing her father and ascending, or if she had to work for a few years before getting that privilege. Interestingly, we can now calculate that she was given ageless immortality while still holding the rank of Devoted Blade, given that she would be close to 40 for her God Valley appearance and sure as hell didn't look it. Why her, while the full-fledged knight Garling was left to age into an old man?

The character dynamics in this royal family are super cute now that we have the full context for Brook's relationship with the king and queen. His crush on Candelle and the way he and Reuven joked about it all read a lot more innocent now that the age gap between them has been made clear. And it forms a parallel with Shuri's crush on Brook. Yes, it's a bit less innocent when she tries to talk about her boobs, but that's teenagers for you. And Brook is quick and direct in shutting it down, so I think that keeps things in a healthy state.

My only nitpick in this scene is the panties joke. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I had kind of a headcanon that Brook got so weird and direct about that because of the 50 years of complete social isolation, but it turns out he was always a little bit of a sex pest. Too bad.

Brook sings, and we're two for two on chapters being named after his songs. It would be really cool if the whole flashback could keep that pattern up.

The new layer of flashback has Oda playing the hits of a tragic childhood to make us feel. The poverty. The childlike sincerity of trying to make a functional instrument out of trash. The determination to find pleasure in whatever small things his life offers, even terrible meals of curry-spiced boiled frog. Young Brook doesn't get all down about his lot in life, he finds more beauty in the world than people who have so much more. Of course you're on his side. And of course it's an injustice that makes your blood boil when a corrupt and cruel authority stomps down on this happy little guy. My heart broke when he started singing to comfort himself.

But there's a lot that goes unsaid as well. In just a few panels we see the nation's wealth disparity and the disdain people have for the lower classes. Brook has enough political awareness to blame the king in his song. Reuven comes to the junkyard looking a little beat up and dirty despite his nice clothes. He's got some very strong opinions about misuse of authority when he comes to Brook's rescue. And despite being fairly young as princes go, he'll have taken the throne within a decade to be the new king. Definitely makes you wonder about what quality of king and father Reuven's dad was and how exactly the throne become vacant.

I love the small moment where we see the origin of Brook's passion for swordsman ship in the middle of this, and yes, I was touched by the final page where Brook is shown such kindness after so long struggling. These tropes are classics because they work.

So what comes next? Do we go back to 63 years ago and continue with Shuri's transformation into Gunko, or are we staying at 79 years ago to answer some of those burning questions about Revuen's father and maybe see how Reuven took the throne and how Brook earned his Battle Convoy spot? Whatever the case, I'm here, hooked, and ready to be hurt again.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1183 review

It's a treat to be back with a 19 page chapter, a colour spread and a Jump cover. Not to mention an out-of-nowhere Brook flashback! I'm a little disappointed that Oda didn't take the chance to give us colour art of Imu, but I recognise that was always kind of a longshot. Oda has never rushed to establish colour schemes in the past, and he's probably not about to start.

I'm not the biggest soccer/football guy, so I don't feel much from the FIFA collab on the Jump cover, but it's a surprise to see even the strawhat recoloured. Oda regularly does palette swaps of canon clothes for non-canon art (you can find an example of the sash around Luffy's waist randomly being a pink on this chapter's colour spread) but certain accessories like Luffy and Chopper's hats, Zoro's swords and Brook's guitar very rarely get to change. The colour spread is fine. Not a bad ensemble piece, but I feel like it's lacking a certain wow factor that the best ones bring. The colouring on the sea down below looks really nice though.

As the battle with Loki rages, Imu punctuates the action with tantalising lore hints. He talks about Loki and Luffy (now using their names instead of "Joyboy" and "Nidhoggr") like not falling for Domi Reversi was a willful act of defiance rather than an innate immunity. And which of our growing number of ancient figures is Douzan meant to be? The real name of the Warrior God, or someone new entirely?

The Zaza scene is brief, but I love how much versatility her liquid body gets in just two pages. Captives moving around inside it, high pressure blasts of water, absorbing physical attacks like a pre-haki logia. I'm really keen to see how the real fight with her plays out.

Loki wasn't kidding about that ice being unbreakable, huh? It's cool how you can still see the shaft in the middle where Imu's shadow body was at the moment of freezing. Love that attention to detail. And I also enjoy seeing the Strawhats get to talk out the situation and share info to decide their next move. It functions as a bit of a recap for all the previous Shuri hints (which were months ago for us weekly readers and will be in the previous book for future volume readers) but also gives a sense of the Strawhats acting as a comprehensive unit. And it serves as characterisation for Brook as well. Oda's dropped enough hints for us to be sure basically since he joined up that there was something going on with his pre-piracy life and it would be in the nature of Book for it to be pretty tragic. But you can see him working through as he tells it how all the demonic possession of this arc is reframing his memories. What sense of betrayal, or what guilt - about a red flag missed or a loved one going down a dark path that he failed to help - is about to be lifted from Brook's weary soul?

Jinbei is remarkably cold asking if they should finish the job, but then, he's spent more time as a professional, yakuza-coded pirate than anyone else here save maybe Brook, so maybe that kind of bluntness is to be expected. How does he think they're going to get in there to kill her if that's what they decide though? If that explosion couldn't do it…

And the flashback begins. I thought we'd be getting some Brook lore through Gunko, but later, certainly not in the middle of the big fights. At a guess, she's going to have some info that makes it possible to fend off Imu, and that's why going through the whole memory and thought process to Brook releasing her needs to be treated importantly. It strikes pretty close to using Hajrudin's decision to free Loki as the lead-in for the previous flashback though, doesn't it?

I like the callback to the old Festival Night illusion as an establishing scene, although it feels weird to see Brook's music not being universally loved. Even if it is 4:00am. Brook's scene with the young Shuri is very cute though, and you can tell that even as a guard he acts like a member of the family to her and the king. Reuven's threats of death sentences and accusations of an assassination plot made me worry for a moment, but the scene ends in laughter, so I think that's just how familiar they are. The king is drawn the way Oda tends to draw scumbags though. Is he being set up to take a turn, or am I being prejudiced to judge him on that? No, I think the king has to remain good, no matter how he looks or what he jokes about. Remember, we learned already that Shuri is going to kill him and it will break Brook's heart.

The Moulon Rogues is a wonderful gang name for a music-themed country. Very inspired pun. I don't know if it translates directly enough to credit Oda or Stephen for the work, but either way it made me smile. And extrapolating Brook's classic Three Pace Slash into something that takes the whole morning to activate is so ridiculous you have to laugh. Only in One Piece could you push the trope that far.

But where does Queen Candelle fit into the story being told? Brook obviously loves her here, but she didn't figure into his tirade at Gunko when he recognised her in the present. If I had to spitball, I would guess that their relationship will sour. Perhaps she comes to blame Brook for Shuri being seduced by the God Knights, manipulated into killing Rowan and ascending to the Holy Land; then she exiles him to start his pirate career. Or instead she encourages her daughter to cosy up to Celestial Dragons because she wants to climb the ladder, and Brook distances himself after seeing her true colours. Oda would definitely catch a lot of casual readers off-guard if he introduced a scummy-looking king and a beautiful, popular princess and made the latter the villain and the former the victim.

I think for the sake of the arc's pacing and the final battle's momentum, this needs to be a quicker flashback than the last, as interested as I am in it. Something more in the ballpark of Big Mom's one at the wedding party (but maybe a smidge longer) than another Loki or Oden.

We learned last week that the upcoming volume 115 would be a near-unprecedented 248 pages long (tying vol 69 for the series' longest volume) and potentially fit 13 chapters instead of the normal 11ish. That changes the structural math for where we are in volume 116 from the middle to the start. I still think Oda is going to aim to finish Sanji and Zoro's fights in this book, but being further back in the pages leaves room for a quick flashback before jumping back to the present for the climax.

But you know, I don't think I saw a single person speculate a Brook flashback starting this week. I love that nearly 30 years in One Piece can still absolutely blindside us with a move like this. I'm excited to see where Oda's going to take it.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1182 review

Oda couldn't let two arcs in a row go past without major Zoro and Sanji battles, could he? I really thought we were just going to let Imu be fully in focus for the final stage. I don't want to sound like I'm making a powerscaling/aura farming kind of argument here, but it's an observable pattern that Oda doesn't usually like to show off his villains' powers, let alone them getting beat, before the final fight. For Sommers and Killingham to get back in the game in such a major capacity is unique.

I'm not sure if a synergy between lightning and ice is really as thematic as Imu claims, and I certainly don't understand what Ragnir is adding to the Ragnaquintarrow barrage but I can't deny it makes an awesome looking page. Imu's little devil face guys are coming in swarms now as well. Interesting thta the narration box is specific about a Squirrel Squirrel Fruit after we were told previously that the soul of an actual living thing transferred itself into the hammer. The mechanics of a real individual/animal being represented as a mythical zoan and then fruits going into objects remain a mystery.

The talk of Nidhogg as a traitor builds on the implication of a Joyboy friendship from the last chapter. Did they defect from Imu's side together, I wonder…

It's good that Oda found the page space for Lilith and Bonney's scene. We're not being told anything we didn't know, but sometimes it's nice to just get to see characters thinking the implications through fully and drawing conclusions. I wonder if she's made connections to anything uncovered by Vegapunk-stella in his research into the Void Century.

This is also a good Sanji scene. He's a character with so much potential to be cool when he's allowed to not be a sex pest for five minutes. And yes, he has to mention the giant women here, but the fact that they get third billing behind the children and Luffy and Usopp's dreams is fantastic.

The book fakeout is resolved without much surprise, but Oda puts a pin down in Biblo's true nature/identity to follow up on in the arc's epilogue.

Sommers has wings now. He definitely didn't when the Omen boost first hit him, even when he launches himself away at the end of the power up scene. I wonder if that's an oversight to be fixed in the volume release. As odd as it is to need a round two for him, he acts obnoxious enough to make me happy to see him getting his shit kicked in a second time. Super Sommers indeed.

Gerd's fingers getting fixed by Chopper doesn't shock me; as grusome as the scene was, that's the kind of thing a real life surgeon can do, but I had figured we'd let it sit until the fight was done before the fix happened. What about Stansen's leg though? But the funny thing about this scene is the way oversized Chopper on the table and the undersize-looking Hajrudin in the foreground in the bottom panel of page 10. Scale is a moving target for Oda, as always.

Imu's flames turning into bullets instead of just being damaging attacks in their own right is strange, right? Like, no one would question the fire doing harm by shooting forward, One Piece is full of attacks like that. Why justify it like this?(Also does that mean Zoro literally got shot in the head in chapter 1180 and he's just shaken it off?) It recalls the equally off bit in chapter 1150 where Gunko-Imu summons from flames a book which summons from flames and knife and a gun that were then just used as normal weapons. Is Imu trying to work around a weakness in his own ability by using it to summon items and dominate others rather than spending it in more direct ways? I draw your attention again to the devil face faces on so many of the black fire moves and my thought that they're an entity rather than an aesthetic.

"Great Imu's body isn't meant to withstand the outside" feels like confirmation of the time limit expected since he first arrived. But what's going on with Gunko? I don't believe for a second that she's dead, but does Killingham's statement mean Imu failed to free her from the ice, or that she's just remained limp and unconscious since. It sticks out that Imu didn't send an Omen her way. Whatever the reason, Oda seems to be setting up the justification to leave her behind. I'd wondered if she would end up being a future-arc damsel for Brook, but getting to resolve that and draw some lore from her in the short term is probably better.

And everything this week is capped off by the Zaza reveal. Another ancient god, another of the old Shandian pantheon as well. I'm actually going to have to schedule in a Skypiea reread with a focus on background details after this. Does this god have a Devil Fruit that's been sneakily renamed somewhere out in the world as well? I love the design though. The arms, the way the translucency has been illustrated, and the shading as well. It's cool that it reflects the style of the other Sleeptids, but it's not quite as uneven as theirs, differentiating an adult fear from the crayon-coloured look of the kids' ones.

But should Killingham be that scared of a little rain? I can understand a regular Celestial Dragon being a bit freaked out by rain, but the God Knights have to be made of sterner stuff to do missions in the lower world. It's cool that Zaza has a rhythm as well, just like Nika's drums and the rhythm played by the possessed trees and houses when Imu landed. The Zaza and Imu ones seem to have a little more variety than the Nika drums though. "The rhythm of prayers for rain" brings to mind real world rain dances, but also makes a nice connection with the Dance Powder from Alabasta.

And in this new world of gods, which one does Imu represent, or at least claim to represent? God of the Earth might be fitting for a being seemingly shackled to the planet's largest landmass, but given the Harley line about "taming demons" I would be inclined to bet on the Forest God for Imu's power, at least until we get more info.

Zoro and Sanji get a good moment right at the end trusting each other to take care of their respective battlefronts. I'm curious to see how Oda plans to play this out. I'm not expecting long fights, but then I wasn't expecting to have these fights at all, so what do I know? We're about halfway through a volume now, so wrapping up these two back to back could be a good finale, and leaves the way open for Luffy, Loki and Imu to be fully in-focus for the arc's finale in the next book.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1181 review

Okay, it's another dialogue-light fighting chapter. These can be tough to get through on the weekly read when there's too many of them in a row. But for now, the spectacle of the giant battle retains its novelty. I think it would have been cool to see a little more background and environment during the fight to really emphasise the scale this clash it taking place at, especially after Imu transforms. These guys are meant to be big even by giant standards! Show them towering over the school, or heads peeking out of the branches in the long distance shots.

I'm getting increasingly curious about the devil face in Imu's black flame. It has the same look as the ghost that fled the Reversi'd giants, not to mention the demonic houses back at the village. The way it fuses to Imu's halberd to change its form brings to mind Devil Fruits, DF weapons and the physical changes taken on under Domi Reversi. Is it a companion or servant spirit of some kind to Imu? Is it actually destroying itself and being replaced with another for the explosive attacks? Is Omen or Nemesis meant to be this thing's name? Maybe Loki's use of Ragnir (love its face in the lightning panel) is meant to be a mirror to Imu has his weaponised spirit. I think of everything we're shown about Imu's fighting style this week, this is the thing to keep an eye on.

Imu's claim that the gigantification power is latent in all things certainly is interesting. No wonder the World Government was so eager to run scientific gigantification experiments. How much of Vegapunk's Devil Fruit research was meant to unlock the kinds of things Imu's Dominion unlocks without the big boss having to reveal himself?

The obsession with Mihawk comparisons on social media over the Nemesis attack though, that feels overblown. Yeah, there's a momentary similarity to the unnamed plunging attack Mihawk did at Marineford, but look closer at the action playing out. Imu actually isn't plunging, he's landed on Loki, aims his weapon down and summons the blade into him like a piledriver. Imu's crossguard is proportionately smaller and has different shaped ends to Mihawk's. The only reason he seems to match the extremely long hilt of Mihawk's Yoru is because the sword parts are manifesting from the end of a polearm. I'm not saying we'll never ever find out anything about Mihawk's heritage, but if we do, it won't be because of this.

In true final boss fashion, Imu is all about power. But it's a unique angle that he focuses on giving power rather than taking it or gathering it for himself. He gives a person too much power too fast and it corrupts them, a strangely fast-paced and literal interpretation of the old adages on the topic. He tricks people into subjugating themselves for power. And then this new Omen power weaponises envy of the power of others in some way. Maybe that's why this demon thing can block Loki's attacks so effectively and power up the Knights, it feeds on the envy one might have of a stronger opponent and raises their level to match it. And Imu figures that through at least one of these three methods, he should be able to claim dominion over anyone. I feel like we're edging closer to explaining what makes a person vulnerable to Reversi, but not all the way there yet. Could a person too close to their peak not have enough left to gain to be corrupted by a sudden influx? That's my shot in the dark from the info we have.

The difference between a god and a devil is a cool theme for this fight. Both Loki and Imu have godlike and demonic qualities. Imu's horns and tail contrast the seraphim-like wings and biblically accurate ring of eyes. His title as the god of the world government vs all devilish wheeling and dealing. Loki, a self-declared sun god cursed and cast out as a demon by his people. Which one will live up to which role?

It's a very vague panel, but is that Imu and Joyboy getting along? Having some lively debate about systems of governance? Veeeeery interesting. Looking back to the mural, I wonder if they worked together to overthrow some great enslaving evil in the First World, then fell out over what to do with the planet after and ended up clashing at the end of the Second World. (Or at the very least they carry on the ideologies of the heroes of the First World and might have been intended to work together as those figures did.)

Of all the ways Oda has prevented Luffy from turning up too early to a final battle, struggling to finish a meal is certainly one of them. It's weird to see the guy so intimidated by a figure he hasn't even met yet.

Loki quite firmly has the upper hand at the end of the chapter, but I don't expect it to last. Emphasis is placed on Imu making his hand gestures before Loki launches his final attack, which makes it hard to tell how much damage Imu took directly. He also didn't do nearly as much damage to the tree as I would have expected. Which, while we're here, is kind of an ongoing sticking point with this arc. So much emphasis was placed early on on how dangerous fire was to Elbaph and how quick it could spread, especially with the aid of a lightning strike, but all the fires we've seen so far have been slow to spread even if they took a decent few chapters to put out. Loki's been told off for starting fires with his attacks, but it's been treated as a gag rather than a real danger. Is this going to turn into a real threat for the final stage of the arc, or has it been discarded?

For the next chapter, I think we'll start to see a turnaround from Imu that will eventually pave the way to Luffy's entrance. As for what happens after that, it's really anyone's guess. We're still less than halfway through volume 116, and it wouldn't shock me if Oda was slating most of 117 to be Elbaph chapters as well. See, chapter 1200 is on the horizon and likely to be either the last chapter of v117 or the first of v118, and it seems like an Oda-y thing to make that into something big regarding the crew's next destination. So while we're at the climax, there's certainly room for the momentum to swing a couple more times before it all ends.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1180 review

If the last chapter was all about setting the atmosphere, this one is here to really lock in the first impression. Make Imu walk the walk and establish himself as the final boss candidate he really wants to be (even if I'm still ultimately team Blackbeard).

I'm glad we get the standing shot of Imu right away. Put the last two chapters back to back and it's basically four pages of just showing off this guy's appearance. But One Piece does this kind of thing so rarely that it pays off in a big way. Some details are clarified by the new angles too. Like the black fire with the eyes behind him. Originally, I thought that was like the Japanese god-style smoke wreaths Nika and a lot of the other awakened Zoans wear, but it's actually a full halo. It also looks like Imu's tail is actually part of his outfit. The fabric arrow is a dark(er) reflection of Gunko's specifically white version. Can Imu imitate Devil Fruit abilities, or do Devil Fruit abilities mimic Imu?

But like everything connected to the God Knights so far, there are things we don't have the full picture of yet. Why does Imu teleport (in a splash of black liquid, just like his silhouette form) from the castle to the town, but then make himself wings to reach every other location? Why does he need to physically free Sommers and generate the omen halo over him at point blank range, but seems to do it all at a distance for Killingham?

This is the difficulty with week to week reviews. I don't want to go too hard on this as an "inconsistency" because I'm sure there is an explanation. But you can't not talk about it, the story's written to make you ask those questions.

I'm also curious about Imu's defences. No one's even been able to touch him. Will he regenerate like his Knights, or will he split into black goo like silhouette form to avoid damage logia-style?

I love the uncharacteristic brutality of Imu's fight scenes. Gerd is mutilated. Stansen is down a leg. That's some pretty real damage by OP standards. At first, I thought he blasted Zoro away with the literal flick of a finger, but looking closer, his thumb and index remain primed as Zoro goes flying. It's the flames on his palm that do all the work. For his next move, he reshapes the flame using a thumb/index circle on his other hand. Are these gestures important? I'm sure there will be readers who give Imu a hard time for not confirming his kills, like they did for the Five Elders on Egghead, but the guy clearly considers the Knights a higher priority. On the assumption that he has a time limit outside the holy land, he now has all three of his minions on the loose again, ready to continue the chaos after his forced return.

A little spot of humour in the middle of all this chaos and darkness - Luffy and Loki destroying all the food at the school in their attempt to defrost it. Did Loki try to use his lightning for that?

The final pages get things back in their usual gear with a quick Sanji KO to match Zoro (I'm sure he'll be back up in a minute) and the final confrontation between Imu and an imposing Loki. And I have no idea who to bet on for this one. Both of these guys have so much hype behind them they kinda need to come off as powerhouses. Going to be a hard sell for both at the same time. And where's Luffy for this anyway?

The fight is an exciting prospect, but returning again to the flashback, we suffer a little from Elbaph's emotional stakes being undercooked. Loki's desire to avenge his father provokes my sympathy, but not my empathy. And we have Hajrudin having not just the same dead parent grudge, but the maiming of his crew to bring to bear as well, but he's nowhere to be seen.

And with all this, the ending of the arc remains a mystery. There's the makings of a big fight, but Imu can't possibly fall here, and neither can the island be evacuated and abandoned without the loss of too many supporting characters and civilians to bear. The Knights are free, but is there really any tension in taking them down again now that we've thought of ways to work around the immortality? The longer term trajectory is hard to trace, but the short term outlook is all hype for what un-One Piece-like move Imu is going to pull next.

[cptn-m]

Sometimes, because stories aren't real life, the narrative gets to punish the character instead of the institution.

The consequences for a fictional bully are usually going to be a humbling experience in whatever the main dramatic/actiony component of the story is, not detention or expulsion. Reconciliation with a victim is going to be shown via newfound cooperation and comradery, not told in a stilted apology scene where they go through an itemised list of times they were mean. Sometimes the circumstances that force the character to grow are spread over the length of the story, and the result can be subtle enough that it doesn't feel like a punishment at all in the traditional sense.

But there'll always be some ding dong in the comments saying they can't accept character development without seeing the school disciplinary action and/or the direct apology. Because they can't separate the media experience from their fantasy of their own childhood villains getting the exact punishments they hoped for at the time.

But no, the character is not "getting away with it," there aren't "no consequences." The narrative contains the consequences. Sometimes the narrative is the consequences. Is being made to reflect, learn and change for the better not the outcome you wanted from the institutional punishment? If that's happened, what is further punishment for?

Understanding stories and being able to meet them where they are means understanding that the author controls the give and take of karma and can use it to make rewards and punishments happen indirectly.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1179 review

I've been saying for weeks that something else had to be coming, but this beyond my wildest expectations. I thought this chapter would be a big one for Elbaph, but instead it's a titanic moment for One Piece as a whole. Oda spends every page he had this week building slowly to the final reveal instead of packing in story beats in his usual style, so you can feel even before it happens that something special is coming. This likely being only the second chapter of a new volume, there is a part of me that worries that the final page here will be spoiled by the cover, which will want to represent all the future pages spent dealing with the fallout of this moment. But on the other hand, if you saw that design in a vacuum would your first instinct be connecting it to shapeless form we've known Imu through up to this point?

Despite revolving around one moment, there's actually a lot of smaller details in the chapter that are worthy of picking at and analysing. I really liked the scenes of the Five Elders at the start. You can see how Garling is something of a disruptor to the older four who have served together for decades or more. They've met up without him. He presses for more action when they would remain complacent. He's the first to defer to Imu's higher authority and call the debate settled. He reads as the new manager trying to make an impression and establish his style next to the dig-in leadership team.

I do want to nitpick one thing though. Garling says all the problems started after Nika awakened, but surely the percieved first of the current troubles was the Revolutionary attack and Imu's identity being leaked to Sabo during the Reverie. Which, timeline wise, was about a week before Luffy awakened Nika's ability during the Onigashima raid. So yeah, probably more of a coincidence, huh Garling?

I love the pages showing the chains of inherited will and causality that brought things to where they are. All these nearly 30 years of arcs are still one story. You can feel it coming together here. And like I was saying above, the Government's issues were building long before Luffy's awakening.

A bit of lightness before the finale, I really liked Gerd playing with Sommers' body. And Franky offering to patch the wounded up into cyborgs while a worried Jinbei searches for Chopper. Now that it's happened it feels like such an obvious bit it's surprising Oda didn't get to it sooner.

Breaking the heart to stop regeneration is just another mysterious detail in the whole covenant saga. Remember how Gunko's whole upper body was blown apart? You can clearly see that she's gone above the waist with no sign of a heart to destroy. Still not enough info to solve this one.

So Ragnir's ice can only be thawed by Ragnir itself. Cuuuuuuurious. Wonder what we're going to find out there frozen by the old Warrior God. Galeila maybe? It never sounded like Ragnir was factoring into Rocks' plans for Elbaph, but maybe he didn't have enough info to be sure if it was the legendary Devil Fruit, the hammer, or some innate ability of the king.

The final sequence is one for the ages. The visual of the pentagram over the castle is perfectly done. Egghead did more than enough setup to make those columns of black smoke an icon of fear. When multiple of them shot up, I thought for a moment the Elders might have followed along despite Imu's orders. But then, the drum sounds? (The translation choice for one of them is close enough to Dandadan to have me reading it like the refrain from that anime's intro.) The trees and buildings coming alive? It's a demonic mirror of Big Mom's soul powers, which has me thinking a lot about souls and demonic possession in this arc. Maybe just having Devil Fruits actually is the answer to resisting Domi Reversi like Luffy, Loki and Chopper have done. Waaay back in Ennies Lobby we got that folklore that you can't eat a second devil fruit because the two devils from the two fruits would fight. We all thought Jabra was being silly, putting too much stock in a myth, but now I'm wondering if that scene is the cornerstone of the series' demonic lore.

The immediate aftermath of Imu's landing shows us why the Elders were so concerned about him handling things personally. The wheezing, the coughing black liquid (I don't even want to sound too sure it's blood), the trembling, the screaming, the transformation almost looking involuntary. Just coming here has obviously hurt Imu. So now we have to wonder if it's something about moving through the abyss, or if there's something in the Holy Land that holds him together or suppresses the monster inside him. That treasure Doflamingo spoke about maybe? The hat in the freezer? It goes a long way to explain his hesitance to get personally involved before now. And it might give the heroes their way out of this situation, if there's a time limit on how long he can last before having to return.

Now let's talk about that design. It feels super un-One Piece-like, but in a way that works for an ancient, unseen threat. I actually feel teased more than anything. Would love a proper, standing full body shot to get a better sense of the patterns for the white lines. His skin appears tan, but Oda uses a darker shade of screen tone here than he did for King, so I'm not fully convinced by Lunarian theories. Maybe Imu will turn out to be red like classical devils. The dude is also big if Oda isn't playing around with the scaling. That castle is a comfortable fit for Ancient Giants, so Imu has to at least match a regular one, sizing him up to the windows on the tower. But is this his true and final form? That, I'm not so sure about. It's pretty obviously treated as a transformation, suggesting that the silhouette is another face we haven't seen, or else he's able to literally be a figure of amorphous black goo. Is this what Sabo saw in at the Reverie though? Uhhhh maybe. That one's far enough back that I could see it being the classic Oda silhouette switcheroo.

It's crazy what a difference one chapter can make. Last couple of weeks I was a little down on One Piece. A real final battle to pay off the anticlimax was far from guaranteed, the balance of short and longterm storytelling focus was askew, key moments for big characters like Usopp and Brook had been rushed past. (And I think feeling this way is normal, when you follow anything for literal decades your passion is going to ebb and flow for periods of time.) But damn, a massive escalation and a very fresh-feeling character design have turned it all around so fast. No complaining about the break week here, I've got tons to chew on.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1178 review

Rather than committing to the big battle that the last chapter promised, Oda switches gears into a setup mode disguised as a cooldown mode. He even has Sanji lampshade how abruptly things seem to be ending. But the next stage, whatever it's going to be, isn't the obvious thing. Should have known Oda wouldn't be that predictable. I hope I don't end up sounding like one of those five-act, raid failing Wano people going on about this week after week, but surely there's no one thinking that was the real final battle this time.

Imu seems to confirm that Loki only targeted the World Government on his rampage, which definitely raises the question of why Shanks had to shut it down. Before we might have assumed that Loki was taking things too far and hurting innocents as well, but now that we know him better and have this confirmation, it's clear that there's more to the story. It also makes for an ironic parallel to how Imu used Harald as his knight, an Ancient Giant that emerges from the fog. It must have stung Imu's pride to see his own monster used against him like that.

The Domi Reversi attempt is a callout for me personally. For thinking it was too obvious. For thinking that an artificial Luffy vs Loki was such a strong bet. For even floating last week that it could be Luffy who gets turned instead. No, Imu hits both of them, and… it just doesn't work. Huh.

But why didn't it work? I can see people speculating that a Devil Fruit user can't be turned, but I think Imu wouldn't have even tried in that case. He already knows they're both powered up. Then is it the D? Well, it didn't protect Rocks and there's no sign of Loki having one anyway. If it was just a willpower thing, I can't see Rocks failing his check, so there has to be something more. If not Devil Fruits in general, something about these two specific fruits (and who knows how many others)?

The Ragnir squirrel face on the hammer was a great giggle as this mini fight wraps up. Amazing choice.

But Luffy's outfit? When he showed up in the default Nika getup before, I assumed he'd just ditched his Elbaph gear down below. After all, we had a Nika version of that outfit! But here the transformation just completely changes what he's wearing, literally between panels. No little offscreen bit like on Egghead where you could assume he was retrieving his coat after throwing it away to fight, the whole thing just blinks in and out of existence entirely. This is the kind of inconsistency that actually does shit me. Stick with the outfit you established. Grr.

Anyway. I think it's really funny how Chopper and Zoro's scene plays out. Yeah, it shuts down any exposition about how that works, but it's such a great character moment when one's too dumb to look deeper into it and the other is so blinded by the praise he fully shuts off. It's a fun way to save the explanation for later.

I've got nothing on the how or why of Biblo and the books being gone, but I'm not surprised. Of course Oda wasn't going to let any real harm come to them. Sommers' heart (I think that's what that's meant to be) is a crazy thing to just drop in like that. Is that what a Covenant does? And is it actually made of metal, or is that the haki-clad texture? Could it be that breaking through a super dense haki shield around the heart is the way to permanently take one of these guys out?

I think in the final page, we catch Oda in a wee bit of an error. The Holy Land did not look like that at the end of chapter 1175, so I guess that's one to redraw for the volume release. But damn, looks like they were having a real crisis. Riots? Revolutionaries? No wonder Shamrock was called back so quickly.

So what's Imu's next move? What can he do in person that his shadow proxy can't? If that's even what he's doing. I don't know how that plays out for the larger story, fighting Imu directly this early. Oda typically doesn't give villains losses before their main fight, but it would be hard to have the Strawhats lose at this point without going uncharacteristically dark. Maybe he's going to bring the Mother Flame weapon around. Flying up through the canopy of the great tree to down a massive airship before it can fire, now that would be a sick finale for the arc.

But if I've learned anything this week it's not to get too bold about predicting Oda. The man's always cooking a third option. We just have to wait a week to see what it is.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1177 review

I think we've reached the end of volume 115 with this one. I had kinda hoped the end-of-book cliffhanger for this one would be the turn for the worse that kicks off the secret final stage of the battle (come on, Reversi Loki), but it's much more in Oda's style to call it on this kind of rallying moment instead. Unfortunately, you can feel the story getting compressed and squeezed to fit the story into the book here.

That said, I like that we found time for one last scene with the kids at the start of the chapter. They all discovered inner strength they would never have known during their abduction, and it brings things full circle to show them enraptured with the warriors' strength as they defend the homeland. It's also actually really funny to cut between Kashii struggling to attack a friend and Broggy taking out petty grievances as he fights. Zoro's attack is unexpectedly brutal as well.

A giant with a D. name is a pretty wild thing to drop randomly into these opening pages. From the presentation of it, my gut says this might be more of a translation.transliteration quirk from a wrestler name like so many other giants, but I don't know the wrestling scene well enough to confirm.

And then we get to the Chopper scene, which to be honest just raises more questions about home Reversi works. The first thing we learn is that Zoro's group is wrong about fatal blows being the only way, because Chopper saved that guy without coming close to killing him. Does that mean what Zoro is doing will turn out ineffective? And what do we see leaving that giant's body as he's hit? A piece of Imu's essence, or an actual demon from whatever underworld the tiles flip into? Are these entities that need hosts to survive the real world? Perhaps Imu is able to act as a conduit for them, or keeps a few on hand inside himself, which is how he was able to turn Rocks without the tile flip. This has the feeling of pivotal info dropped in a kinda throwaway way, so I'll be keeping a pin in it.

The shift to the Strawhat group at the library is where I can feel Oda stepping on the gas just a little. I don't mind Killingham not getting a multi-chapter 1v1 or anything like that, but I expected a tiny bit more back and forth. The method to stop his regeneration is very fun though. We love a belligerent severed head. We've been able to see for a while that healing also fixes clothes, but it's a great touch that separated as he is, Killingham's helmet has repaired fully without his head in it.

I got a good chuckle out of Nami telling off Luffy and Loki. As much as Loki claims not to care, he visibly hesitates at her tirade and only lashes out at Luffy. Ragnir comforting Luffy is for sure something we'll all be sick of seeing as a reaction image within the month, but it's incredibly charming as a one-off.

Buuuuut if Killingham's defeat was a little glossed over, Brook and Usopp's scene is where Oda fully puts his foot to the floor. This is a sequence that needed at least a couple more pages. Brook's been run through! Can't you just picture the scene where he's shocked to have taken a fatal blow except whoops, he's already dead? There's the outline of the Usopp scene everyone's been waiting for in here, but it lacks weight without seeing him actually get beat first. You need to see a guy try, fail, then raise the question of what drives him to keep getting back up even though it's hopeless before you drop lines like this. Like damn, I'll take it over nothing - Usopp not getting to live up to the spirit of Elbaph was starting to become a real worry, especially after the live action Little Garden provided a timely reminder of how important that moment would be. I just can't help wondering what could have been cut to give this bit the breathing room it deserves.

Aside: does Gunko/Imu use Saturn's death glare thing against Brook here? Glad we haven't forgotten that was a thing, even if it's still not clear how it works, except that it's a gesture as well as a look this time.

And I will say, Imu's final move using Usopp's own explosives against him is a smarter use of immortality than we've been shown up to this point. Being the one to say 'fire' when he hesitates is a power move as well. (And props to Usopp for being able to survive his own attack, considering what it does to Gunko's body.)

For all that's had to be missed here, I'm truly keen to see what fighting Imu/Gunko is supposed to look like given the current size differences. A big deal is being made that it's the first time these two are meeting, more than 200 chapters after Imu's introduction, but I'm keeping my head because I'm sure it'll be made into twice as big a deal when they meet again without Imu using a proxy. That's the for real one. This is practice. Whatever the battle looks like, it's pretty clear that Luffy will be going in highly motivated (see, he does still care about people getting hurt when he's in Nika mode, there were just a lot of distractions for that one Vegapunk scene) so Imu is going to have to show off some counterplay fast and hard. My money remains on Reversi Loki, but actually can you imagine a Reversi Luffy instead? The odds aren't great, but with Oda you can never be too sure what to expect. See you all next week for the start of a new volume.

[cptn-m]

Green Bone Saga Review

Jade is the lifeblood of Kekon, a gemstone that can give a warrior supernatural speed, strength and perception. Its mining and distribution are controlled by two clans locked in a vicious turf war over the nation's capital city of Janloon. But the superpower nations of the world are starting to realise the potential of Jade for their own armies and setting their sites on the island nation, presenting threats of invasion and cultural dominance but also unprecedented economic opportunity for the two big green bone clans.

Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga has become an instant favourite over the month and a half it took me to read it. It mixes genre tropes and worldbuilding ideas from a variety of unconventional sources to construct a fantasy experience that feels totally fresh. Gritty mafia and yakuza elements combine with magic kung fu in city that most closely resembles 1970s Hong Kong in an epic that spans decades and continents but somehow never stops being about the battle for the streets of Janloon and the internal drama of its main family.

The story follows four members of the Kaul Family, leading house of the No Peak Clan. Lan has recently been made head of the whole operation through the death of his father and retirement of his grandfather. He's trained his whole life for this, but is struggling to assert his own authority and pull the loyalty of his lieutenants away from Grandda. His younger brother Hilo is a leader of the clan's street level soldiers. A man with a violet, thuggish reputation that's not undserved but belies a more sensitive side and a tendency to take in the disenfranchised. The youngest Kaul child, Shae, is returning to Janloon after rebelling, giving up her jade and studying overseas for several years. She's determined to make her own way apart from the clan, even as her older brothers realise how valuable her education could be for their operations. Finally, the siblings' cousin Anden is in his final year of training to be a jade warrior. He has the technical skills, but being bookish and gay makes him an uncomfortable fit in the testosterone-filled world of the green bones.

These characters are not heroes. All are flawed and conflicted and can be pressured into moral compromise (if they don't run toward it willingly). You can easily see how they could be the villains in anyone else's story. But they're layered, nuanced and believable, and I was fascinated to watch them navigate the trecherous waters of clan life. Martial arts action is big in the summaries and marketing of these books, but keep the gangster elements close to their hearts; a warrior is as likely to die via ambush and assassination as an honourable duel. Death can be sudden and shocking, and no one is truly safe.

Each book builds on the last to grow the scope. The first one is locked in on the streets of Janloon. The second one expands to show the wilder world, providing political and economical context to the core conflict, playing on ideas of proxy wars (both on battlefields and in social movements) fought by larger nations and telling the stories of Kekonese migrants on foreign shores. The third one adds time to the equation, introducing larger and larger forward jumps between major events to show how cultures, technologies, laws and international relations growing and shifting. The result is a believable world alive with texture from the street level crime up to the executive boardrooms.

Lee's prose is direct and unpoetic but tells the story effectively. Her biggest weakness as a writer is overexplaining. After a tense negotiation your POV character will often then mentally walk through the veiled threats and powerplays of the talk and explain who gained and lost ground at what points in a way that made me feel like I wasn't being trusted to read between the lines myself. This is useful early on when we're still learning the culture, but it outstayed its welcome.

The third book's ambitious timeline also means sometimes moving forward by years when as a reader I would have really liked to stay and explore the fallout of the latest development. It was frustrating to feel like there were whole other books worth of material in there I wasn't getting to see. I would have loved to have seen the younger characters given more POV time to really drive their arcs home.

But the ending is powerful and emotionally resonant. The series has left a glowing impression on me as a reader. Easy recommend for anyone looking for fantasy that feels a bit different. Expect violence, sex, drugs and moral ambiguity, and some animal death (mostly mice, but cockfights are regularly alluded to as a popular activity in Kekon). It also feels like the kind of books that would make killer TV if the right studio picked them up.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1176 review

I came into this one expecting the turning point and have instead come out with mixed feelings. Oda is doubling down on the feeling that we've reached the climax by giving the heroes victorious moments and the villains losses. Meanwhile the rules of Domi Reversi only get murkier.

The colour pages initially confused me - why redo vol 12? The original references the chapter 100 colour spread, which was already given a full crew redraw for chapter 1000, so he basically did it already. But then I saw the live action version and it all clicked into place as an actually really cute synergy between the two works. Plus, these redraws feel like the kind of thing Oda wouldn't have started if the crew wasn't complete. Nice offset to some of the implications of the latest SBS.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Lilith getting involved with the conflict in these opening scenes. Kinda thought by this point she was just going to keep her head down in the lab until was over. Bonney hanging out with Franky was adorable as well. And Frankly finally gets to work with his hero! She acknowledges the workmanship of his internal structure and everything, even adds her expertise to him for an upgrade. We were waiting for this! I wonder if Oda held back on this on Egghead because that arc was a required loss and retreat for the crew and didn't want any new powerups to be undercut by that. Well, better late than never. Hopefully we won't have to wait another arc for Usopp's Elbaph moment though.

Nami is shortchanged by the plotting this week. It sure looks like she could have handled that fire singlehanded, but Killingham has to get the interrupt so that everyone else has the chance to do their thing. Would have been nice for her to get at least one hit in with the rest of them.

Flip side, everyone else comes out of this looking great. Sanji sticking up for Jinbei is one of those things that show how he could be one of if not the coolest members of the crew of he want constantly being let down by gags and unworked-on character flaws.

In the back half of the chapter though, things get shaky. Dorry and Brogy get their minds back for a moment. Unlike Harald, they don't have marks to damage, so it's not that. If it was a matter of willpower, I'm sure Rocks would have managed more than to cry while he was under control. My guess is that the mental control is just weaker while regeneration is happening, some kind of energy gets diverted from the mind to the body. In addition to this, Dory and Broggy return to the way they were before the reversi in terms of health, and Rocks very much did not. He was certainly not at 100% before he turned, having fought through God Valley and faced Garling to get there, but he was far from immobile and as vulnerable as he was after coming back. Does this have to do with using Conqueror's Haki to bypass his defences? Or is it actually a contradiction?

I don't mind a mystery. I don't mind connecting dots. Oda rarely lets me down so I want to give him some benefit of the doubt. Buuuuut I don't like the feeling of Imu's powers so far. From Saturn's inconsistent immobilising stare, to what makes a person vulnerable to a reversi, to what influences the level of mental control, to how restoration works and what state they're left in, to the difference between how Rocks was captured with piercing tendrils vs the giants flipping over in the ground, to the differences between Reversi and Covenant driven control and regeneration, there is a whole lot of stuff that just seems to work when and how the plot needs it to rather than by a consistent set of rules. I want to be able to look back and see it all making sense in hindsight, I really do, but there are a lot of details to reconcile, and the pile grows by the chapter.

There's also a lesson this week about relying on leaks and spoilers for your info. The initial summary said that when the curse wore off the victim was "fully restored." This is an obvious misreading of Broggy's confident final page declaration, along with his stump wrist being hidden behind the shield. We can see the battle damage scuff marks on him from that first encounter with Imu, and we could see his hand was still gone when he first came back. And yet, comment sections around the internet were full of people talking like the spoiler version was true. I know I'm preaching to the choir for anyone who reads these reviews in full, but man, info from a summary is not the same as actually reading a thing. Way too many people seem to be using the spoilers as an excuse to only skim the final release, assuming they know enough, and it's just not the same info.

I guess to go back to some positives for the ending, the visual of the double beheading was cool. Great callback to the equally-matched duels and cross-counters of the Little Garden days. I liked the attention to detail of Dory's beard being severed and falling. And the final spread of Zoro lining up with the giants is awesome too. It "goes hard" as the kids might say. They are "farming aura", I'm pretty sure. And it's pretty funny seeing them try to talk about how bad they feel while obviously raring to test themselves against such tough foes.

Wonder if this gang is smart enough to attack the flanks first and try for chain recaptures? Or does that only work for the bad guys?

A break after just two chapters is a little disappointing, but hopefully it means something big is coming next chapter for the probable end of the volume. As much as it seems like things are wrapping up and the villains are on the ropes, I still have hope for an extra stage to the battle. I mean, having learned that the cure to Reversi is an all-out fight against the victim but that they come back after, it means an epic showdown with Loki is possible without having to kill him off or rule him out as an ally. Luffy can be matched against him without guilt or restraint. And I will maintain, whether it happens or not, that a final complication for the last stage of the battle is what this arc needs not to feel complete. I'll be sitting here with my fingers crossed through the break.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1175 review

With this chapter the arc is at a turning point. The Strawhats' turnaround of the situation is feeling close to complete and major villains are being downed effortlessly. Within the next couple of weeks we should be able to see if the arc is wrapping up here, or if there's another leg to the battle. Loki's power is so overwhelming I could almost believe this was it, but there's just a little too much that's gone unaddressed for a little too long (the burning library, Killingham and Gunko/Imu) for me to trust that impression.

As nice as it is to have Robin free and the whole Strawhat gang back in action, but it's a bit weird that no one thought to try burning the thorns before now. I mean, there's a huge bonfire at the library where this all started. I guess maybe the connection to burnable vines is harder to make when they're invisible like they are around the kids, but I dunno, this still feels like a handwave to wrap up all of Sommers' influence in this chapter to me. The question is, where does this group go now; into the fight or to save the library? (They could split up too.) Whatever happens, I hope it sets Usopp up for an Elbaph moment. Even after Wano didn't need a Zoro moment and Egghead didn't need a Franky one, I'm still hoping for Usopp's connection to the place to be factor into the plot.

Getting a better look at dragon-Loki now, and yeah, still awesome. The rendering in this chapter makes it more clear he has a few layers of manes around the back of his head, neck and shoulders. It would be very Oda to give some of these the pink of his hair or the purple of his cape to offset the black body. You know how these things tend to go. Anyway, I love the sleeptids freaking out in the reveal panel here, great detail.

I was wondering the other week about the snakey vines Sommers was using and whether they'd be more than just an aesthetic, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see them turn into a trio of thorn machine guns. I also love that the platform they've made Sommers has a back to it. Such a fun power set.

And while it didn't have the same emotional weight to me as the last chapter - I guess just because of the two weeks assuming it was wrapped up - the kids coming around to protect their parents in turn is a fantastic bookend to the kidnapping saga. And it shows the new generation has the hearts of warriors, whether they're able to physically fight or not.

Luffy taking out Sommers is given a multiple spread treatment to really sell the idea that this is it. The spiral rendering for the haki coating does a great job of conveying the spinning aspect of the rifle move, and just gives a lot of visual interest to the page. What are the mechanics of the Thor moves though? Here, Luffy has to grab a lightning bolt. On Dressrosa, it seemed to be electric all of its own accord. Back then, I'd assumed this represented Conqueror's Haki. We'd just been introduced to the idea of lightning coming out of a clash of conqueror's, and during that first instance with Chinjao, Oda obviously hadn't finalised the look of the effect because it comes out with normal lightning instead of the black stuff. Ugh, I'm overthinking it. Probably better to just roll with the punches for these kinds of things.

Another curiosity is the shattering effect. Looking back at Harald's breaking, you'd be forgiven for thinking Ragnir's ice powers were involved, but maybe that's just how God Knights go doen when you hit them right. Sommers doesn't seem as out of energy as Harald was when he shattered though, it still takes that deeply satisfying stomp to finish him, so it doesn't seem like it's a sure kill either.

I kind of like that the Nidhogg fruit is special to giants because it scales with them. It's still technically a genetics superpower, but one that stacks up logically rather than 'only this one family line can lol'. Tracks with Hajrudin thinking a giant with a logia fruit would be tough to beat. Doesn't track with Momonosuke and Kaido becoming the same size of dragon even though one is more than twice the height of the other but oh well.

How about the God of War being an opponent of the Sun God? My Reversi Loki stocks are rising. But it seems like it didn't stay that way the previous era, because we see them fighting side by side against a greater evil in the Harley mural. And it would be a bit odd in the Elbaph lore to be such fans of the Sun God if he was really an enemy of their main god. So Jarul is probably not giving us the full story.

And another twist - if you have my specific set of interests - is Ratatoskr apparently being a regular, living squirrel and transferring itself into Ragnir. Isn't this interesting for the topic of Devil Fruit weapons? Til now, the assumption had been that you somehow physically fuse the fruit with the object, but maybe it's not that. Maybe it's closer to Caesar's process for growing artificial Devil Fruits. So consider, they don't really go into it, but it was implied that live animals were being used on Punk Hazard to make the fruits. Why'd it only work for Zoans? Because they were taking the spirits or some other aspect of real animals and putting them in the mixture, which also explains why the animals bits of the Gifters came with minds of their own. Is there any real evidence of this being the case? Think about all the centaur-looking lab assistants. The story is that they were paralysed by chemical weapon fallout and that Law used his powers to give them the lower halves of animals when he came on-board. Why were there a bunch of animal legs just lying around at Punk Hazard and where were the top halves? Connect the dots buddy. So what if the Devil Fruit weapon process is similar - the extraction of the spirit and its infusion into a thing (rather than into a mixture used to grow an edible fruit). The idea of them being weapons that "ate" fruits is a bit of a misnomer, but I can see how the terminology would have come about if the process was rediscovered by Vegapunk around the time he was researching artificial fruits. And the fact that it can be done voluntarily and while keeping the subject's memories is pretty incredible too. I wonder if a human could do it…

The question does remain of Shamrock's Cerberus sword in this theory. BUT we know that Vegapunk has his own method of creating artificial Devil Fruits, derived from the bloodline elements of someone who ate the real fruit instead of using a live animal as raw material. Because of course he was able to replicate Kaido's power without having to find a real dragon to slay (or kill one of his genetically engineered ones). But I think the problem here is that this method wouldn't come with the spirit that provides the key animating factor to the object, so let's consider other possibilities. Maybe it's three dogs together. Maybe a scientist genetically engineered a cerberus to be sacrificed into the sword. Maybe cerberus is like the other mythological creatures that guard the levels of Impel Down, just randomly existing. I think it can all fit together.

Loki's Sleeptid hunt is a banger squence to end on. The detail in the art and the sense of scale are incredible. The expressions of the fleeing monsters crack me up too. And the mix of silhouette, traditional anime screentones and the highly textured crayon look of the monsters in the panel where Gunko watches them go to pieces in the inferno is a standout.

Is it a contradiction that Imu is shocked to see Nidhoggr in Elbaph? After all, Harald was going to try and eat the fruit during his rampage. But I don't think those were Imu's orders. Evidence up to this point suggests that Imu's control doesn't fully override the original personality and memories, but twists them into a dark, cruel version of themself. Imu doesn't mention the treasure or the fruit when giving Harald his marching orders, it's only after Jarul mentions it in front of him that he seems to remember and start pursuing it. I think it's a choice made by evil Harald based on his own knowledge rather than a specific command he was following. All the talk of wanting an ancient giant to eat the fruit to unlock its true potential in the flashback came from Rocks, although it's a fair question how he learned those kinds of secrets that even Imu can't access.

One final note: the Holy Land is looking pretty calm considering Imu's earlier comment about a "sea of fire". Was that just meant to me metaphorical about the unrest, or has the conflict not reached Pangea Castle yet or what? Putting a pin in that.

We're now nine chapters in to volume 115, meaning the next few weeks should provide our end-of-volume cliffhanger. If the Loki reversi is happening, that'll be the time to do it. I figure that gives us at least a volume, maybe a volume and a half of fighting, then half a volume to a volume of wrap-up before moving on to the next stage of the story. But it's all up in the air still. I wouldn't want to repeat the classic One Piece commentator mistake of getting too attached to a pet theory and making it the story's problem when it's deconfirmed. The truth is that things could still go in any number of directions, and that's what makes the next couple of weeks so critical.

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1174 review

That certainly was an entrance worth waiting for. But for all the hype, I'm a little confused about where Oda plans to take this arc's finale. Things seem a little too set in the heroes' favour, so I've been expecting a reversal from the God Knights to set the final stage of the battle. But Oda has pulled what seems to be his biggest emotional trigger here and now, rather than saving it for the critical moment.

Sommers is fantastic in the opening scene here. What a slimy, self-serving nasty piece of work he is. It's been building for a while, but I'm now fully sold on his guy you love to hate status. That face he makes when he realises he can get away with watching the kids and their parents die? Disgusting. And the overconfidence that Imu will take responsibility for the plan going wrong instead of giving him the Saturn treatment? And this being so twisted in a way that only presses Saturn's specifc buttons that even Killingham isn't into it? man, watching this guy go down is going to be so satisfying. I think there is going to be broad disappointment that the God Knights aren't as threatening in a straight-up fight as people want from antagonists this late in the series, but Sommers is exempliary of a rich kid who gets nepotism'd into a position he's not qualified for and makes an unhinged power trip out of it. The man is coasting on borrowed immortality and the best devil fruit money can buy. But he's having the time of his sociopathic little life doing it.

And then we reach the emotional peak of the kidnapped children storyline. And look, if I'm completely honest, there are things about how recent arcs have played out that give me reservations about the series' finale. Wano showed that Oda can burn out and drop the ball. Egghead delivered chaos and tension, but was shortchanged of the worldbuilding and feeling of being populated that is such a trademark of every prior island. Elbaph's flashback compromised on its emotional core to drop the God Valley lore. Sometimes I worry if these cracks will grow. But then you get a scene like this one with the kids that proves in no uncertain terms that Oda can produce a resonant emotional hook in a very small number of pages.

Oda leands toward the biggest and most dramatic character beats, but he makes the right choice by going really, really small with the things the kids think of when word goes up the line that they're facing divine punishment. The flashbacks are all basic kid stuff. Scuffles, lies, avoiding homework, not eating vegetables and lashing out at people who only want the best for them. All mistakes a child should be allowed to make and then grow to learn from. Nothing that deserves death, but when the mind of a child tries to put cause and effect together to make sense of the world…

Ronja was heartbreaking enough in her spotlight chapter last year, and she hits that note again as she goes from optimism to a breakdown as her father arrives.

Bent feeling guilt just bringing his mum up as his biggest fear is one that feels very grounded to me. I remember once when I was pretty young (early primary school I guess) and had a dispute with my mum, I went and drew a handful of comics that cast an unkind caricature of her as the villain and a few hours later regretted that private act so tremendously I tearfully destroyed them. Tell you what, I would have been pretty distressed too at that age to have been marched off to my doom before I could set a moment of childish cruelty right.

And even as these kids reflect on the acts they think make them most deserving of punishment, the adults swoop in and do what adults should for their kids: put themselves on the line to give the young ones that chance to grow up from their mistakes, and simply provide comfort and guidance when that's the only thing left that can be done. It's genuinely touching stuff. Oda makes sure to keep the One Piece theme of surrogateand found families in the spotlight, because it's not just blood parents; grandparents, teachers and big brothers all go through it the same, sacrificing their own bodies despite the kids' past rejections.

And I actually hate Sommers even more now, because man shut up and let me enjoy this heartfelt scene, how many times do we need to cut back to you laughing?

I would expect a moment like this to cap off a chapter and leave us hanging for a week (or two) to find out what happens, but Oda obviously had a bigger moment to reach for this one, so find out basically immediately that everyone is safe. I don't even want to run the numbers on how big Luffy must be here. Actual giants are just dots on top of him, and he still has to be thick enough to provide cushioning. This goes way beyond the giant-size Gear Five we saw on Wano and Egghead.

The prophecy segment that leads into the final pages solves one narrative problem, but rubs me the wrong way. Okay, a lot of us were wondering what power Loki could have that would convince him he was Nika, given that there is an actual Nika power and someone else has it. But when you get down to it, if the giants worship Nika as an actual religion, that would assume he's a real guy who would get a second coming, not that someone would get his powers from a fruit. They would think that Nika will be reborn rather than remade. I don't see a hypothetical One Piece Buddhist taking on Sengoku as a spiritual leader just because he has Buddha-themed powers, do you? So when Loki, who's been outcast and treated as a destroyer all his life, gets powers of ice and lightning and the ability to become a beast that fills the sky, of course it clicks into his head that he's Nika and he has some prophecies to fulfill. I wonder at this point if the giants even know there is a specific Nika fruit.

But on the flip side, I wish we'd heard this bit of prophecy a long time before this. During the Harley chapter at the absolute latest. I don't care if it would have made it easier for people to guess Loki has dragon powers, imaging if we'd had the idea of Luffy and this giant beast building for a couple of years. Just like with Nika himself, even a single early hint could have gone a long way to making this feel like a more natural progression.

And while I'm grumbling about Nika stuff, what's up with Luffy's outfit? His Elbaph duds have just disappeared entirely. He's shirtless in the panel after he saves the giants, and then back in his default outfit for riding on Loki's head in the final pages. It was the same stupid thing on Egghead, where the local outfit just vanishes at random for the transformation, and I thought Oda was past that when we got an actual white Elbaph outfit when Luffy fought in Rodo's room and at the castle. But nope, back to the generic version. Sigh.

Dragon Loki looks pretty cool though. Freaking huge. Like that you can still see a bit of his helmet on the transformed design. Eye placement is a bit odd, but maybe they were exaggerated to not get lost in the spine of the physical edition. Love Ragnir just being along for the ride. Can you imagine if he'd done more than hybrid mode inside the castle when he first got it? The resmeblance to the dragon on the Harley mural goes without saying, but it's interesting how much Loki also resembles the Ancient Giant fighting the demon on the left side. I think this supports the interpretation that the mural only shows the first and second worlds and is not a prophetic view of the final battle in the third one. Echoes of these old worlds will feature in the battle to come, but they don't have to be one to one parallels.

With the next few chapters forming the climax of volume 115, I can't wait to see what this big beefy boy is going to do. And what the bad guys are going to do about him…

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1173 review

The recap is done and the action is moving! Still no Luffy and Loki though. If we were any closer to the end of the volume I might guess that Oda's saving them for that final page, but three chapters (minimum) is a long time for a guy who was so confident he could casually fly up.

Zoro's plan to go high to avoid the Reversi is genuinely pretty clever, and I love the panel of him falling into the mob of demonic giants. Cool Zoro moment right there. But what stands out to me is the board game metaphor: if Imu is playing Reversi, Zoro's just pulled a Checkers move. (Oda is, as always, playing 5D chess.) Will this result in some recaptured pieces? We cut away before it's obvious if any of the demons hit this way are getting back up as themselves or not, but I can't help thinking that if Luffy had done this, the Nika powers would have let him change the rules of the game for sure.

The follow-up moment where Dorry and Brogy cut each other is a neat callback to their clash on Little Garden when we first saw them, but the framing of Zoro's dodge feels a little odd. Looks like he's going down when either up or sideways would be a smarter choice to not get caught in the spell.

Despite being all bones, Brook gives us the meat of the chapter (yohohoho!). The mystery of Brook's pre-piracy past is literally two weeks out from turning 18, but I've never forgotten it! But I definitely didn't expect it to tie him to Imu either. Seems pretty obvious that this Shuri followed the trajectory Harald was meant to take - possessed and forced to murder her own as part of a coup, then brought back to the Holy Land as an asset after the country was secured. It's actually a pretty fun build-up to this revelation - the earlier flashback panel and the start of Brook's speech really get you feeling he'll be distressed to find this figure from his past under Imu's thumb, but then he turns on a dime and yells about how much he hates her. It's not the kind of talk you expect to hear from Brook. Particularly not directed toward a pantsless woman.

We're also learning some new extents and limitations of Imu's powers. Erasing memories is a big one. Does that happen by design, or is it a gradual effect that comes from long periods controlled? But we also see the victim being able to push Imu out on a purely emotional basis - not just when the mark was repairing itself as we saw with Harald. It's definitely interesting that Shuri/Gunko is the first one to pull this off though. Harald resisted valiantly but his control seemed to wane with time. Rocks, Dory and Broggy were all completely lost and willing to attack the people they held most dear despite despite all pleas to stop. So what makes this girl different? Maybe she's been saving her strength for that one critical moment of resistance for decades. Maybe she's been docile so long Imu wasn't prepared to fight back against her like they expected to do with new converts.

It's cool seeing Brook actually use the shield that came with his Elbaph outfit. You sorta figure those things are ornamental when they fall outside the character's normal skillset. And props to the old skeleton for technically being the first Strawhat to clash with the big bad. You can always count on him to sneak into the spotlight at a critical moment.

Over to Sommers' group, and hang on, what's that he's riding on? It looks alive, but it's not shaded like a Sleeptid. Did he make that just with his own powers, or have the thorns left such an impression they can already be extracted as a nightmare? Even at this late stage, the variety of Sleeptids is still increasing. I like the rabbit monster at the top of page nine and the dragon with the top hat on the bottom of page 10. Plus another payoff to the running gag about that one kid's mum, she's there to help with the rest of the adults and just as scary as the nightmares made her out to be! I hope she gets named in an SBS and goes down as a darkhorse fan favourite.

What an odd choice to destroy the escape ship now. It's funny that Sommers messes up his deflection of the Sleeptid and do it himself, and it's very thematic that it's a Nika nightmare that causes this chaotic turn. But the kids reaching that ship was out main ticking clock. The Strawhats didn't even get a chance to race against it after being freed. There's no way that part of Oda's beloved structure is being written off before Luffy shows up, and with just three major villains we're already struggling to find enough for all our heroes to do to have their moments. So I guess that means there's another stage of this battle coming with a new countdown as the main fights start. The fire from the school spreading maybe? Factor that into your guesses for how long this arc takes to end. It's that, or Oda is going further outside his normal storytelling than I think any of us expected him to.

I'm pretty happy with where this leaves us. The Brook stuff is massively exciting and great balm for anyone who ever starts to feel doom and gloom that Oda might have forgotten their pet throwaway line they've been waiting decades for follow up on. But let's start finding matchups and get that second clock ticking quick so we can still meet Burnscar this year!

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1172 review

I think it's a little funny that we finally see Luffy again after seven months then immediately go to a chapter without him. I can live with a little bit of a recap chapter after such a long break. It's a necessary evil for the casual readers, and at least it comes with some nice art.

The ride on the lift builds a nice amount of suspense before revealing the Sleeptid invasion to Hajrudin's group in an awesomely chaotic spread. You can almost picture it in motion as a slow zoom out from a close up of Hajrudin's reaction in the previous panel until his whole group is so tiny in the middle of the carnage. We shift back to exposition after that, but it comes with the new info that one of the kids is Rodo's brother. Skimming back over old chapters, the one thing we really got from Bjorn before was the hope that he alone be saved at the expense of his classmates. So the kinda skuzzy vibes run in the family. Hey, Bjorn is inked with light hair while Rodo's is inked dark, but the canonical colour for Rodo's is purple. Do you think they'll match in the colour version?

Hey what's with Goldberg suggesting eating the God Knights? Kind of a Delicious in Dungeon solution to the problem, when you think of it, and even they never went as far as doing humanoids.

The map page is an Oda classic. I really like how the surrounding panels come out of the points of interest like speech bubbles. The ways their tails weave under the main branch gives almost a pop-up effect. It's this kind of fun visual texture that makes it easy to forgive that this is 90% stuff we already know.

The one surprise is Brook's absence. Last we saw him, he was made into a bandage mummy by the arrows. Did he hop away, just leaving the others, or actually get free somehow? Or is he actually just lying off to the side and exploring in soul mode?

Jarul's speech kind of opens with a recap of the flashback we just had. I get that it's important that Elbaph learn what we already know, but it's still two more straight pages of old news. Maybe with a bit of fenagling we could have had Jarul reach this moment at the same time Loki started telling his story down below, so that the whole island learns it at once from two different sources, and then cut back to him in time for the big, rallying climax. Oh well. It's also interesting to have Loki exonerated here instead of at the end of the arc.

The re-introduction of the villains in the middle of the speech is another killer page. They're all in different spots on the map, and you can see there are three separate panels for those locations, but the actual characters are bursting out of the panel walls, matched in scale to each other so it looks like they're standing together as a group. Oda brought some real creativity to this week's spreads and I'm here for it.

A declaration of war is a powerful moment to end on. I'm happy with how this is framed in terms of the peace vs war themes of the arc - Elbaph doesn't bloodthirstily seek a fight like they might have in the old days, but they don't just roll over and let themselves be subjugated either. The kids are encouraged to cover their ears and be insulated from the warrior talk because it's them the peace is for. If you're fighting, it should be so that your kids don't have to, not to make them into fighters as well. A well-worded moment that will definitely pay dividends going into the series' finale as Elbaph fights their war.

And a final stinger for getting back to the action next week: Zoro's got a plan. With Jarul moments from facing the demons, it could be as simple as 'throw me' (a Zoro classic, to be fair), but I like the theory going around that he's going to reignite Dory and Broggy's rivalry to slow them down.

While this was probably not the strongest chapter to come out of a break into, we have to consider that it would be much worse if this one had come before a break instead. At least we have the promise of getting straight into the action next week. I wonder how many chapters it's going to be before Loki and Luffy burst up through the branches and get involved…