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I don't feel it's worth wracking our brains over how Kuma's powers may or may not work at this point, when we don't even know if he's at the same capabilities anymore now that his brain was turned off. He's also been heavily damaged and not properly maintained or repaired in just over 2 years. I find it very unlikely that the government or celestial dragons even had him properly repaired after he returned from guarding the Sunny. He never even paws people away anymore, so maybe Egghead is the only location left in his databanks.

Seeing Akainu's damage to him should be the beginning of the end. He's on his way for a final reuniting with Bonney before he pulls a sacrifice and shuts down for good. I'd much rather that, than seeing him collapse on the sunny and being dragged along for repairs in Elbaf. Have him go out blowing up the lab too, if you want to double down on making the Government lose here. They can get York and/or the Seraphim, but nothing else.

They're very lucky the Sunny fell out of the Mech's arms and bounced far enough away. It probably should've been close enough to get damaged by the explosion, but I can ignore it. Maybe a missed opportunity to let Franky do something to push it further away, like a good old fashioned Coup De Vent.

Kizaru definitely the All-Star of this chapter. How do you deal with Emperors again? Push them away and deal with the them later. Bonus points since pushing both Luffy and Bonney off the dome, even if they survive, is just the most pragmatic way of dealing with them temporarily, so he can focus on Vegapunk.

Points to Bonney for trying. And hey, if she didn't distract Kizaru for all those...seconds I guess, he might've just went straight for Vegapunk and ended it faster. I have no clue what we'll see from her now. I guess the robot and her can keep the armada busy for an extra few minutes until Kuma arrives, and then Kuma can bring her back up. The robot will especially be weird though. If it's too strong for the armada to stop, then Saturn should be forced to come out and destroy it. If it's not....the armada should destroy it. I don't know, these are all the elements I'm left at a loss with. Just like the blackbeards ship, which I'm gonna stop speculating on at this point, cause I just have no idea how Oda is planning to make them cause chaos here.

Kizaru still has an arm free, so I can completely see him taking a shot at Stella or trying to fill the room with light blasts before Luffy pulls him away. That's assuming Kizaru can't just get away easily by turning too light-thin for Luffy to grip or something. It's about time to see another Vegapunk drop, and as I mentioned in spoilers, Edison is top of that list now that the code has been cracked. Atlas has to bring the light gloves out still, although that could always be next chapter and then she bites it, and Lilith is outside and needs to help Franky prepare the Sunny.

While I enjoy the urgency I feel from the armada and Kizaru now, I will say that one part that's hurting is the fact the rest of the crew are still just in the lab. It's all well and good that you cracked the code, Vegapunks, but even if the ship had made it to the right spot, you and the entire crew would still have a long way to run before you're ready to launch. Especially when you have 2 injured now. But maybe that's why a few people aren't shown yet. It's always possible Chopper, Jinbe, and/or Sanji are tending to and already moving Stussy and Robin to the ship.

@Gizmo What a weird episode for them to put out online as an early tease.

It's not the first episode and it's not some random stand-alone episode that works on it's own, since it plays off what must be Hamton's arc.

Ignoring the weirdness of them picking an episode like that, it doesn't seem bad. Plucky's side-joke with renting the bed kinda flops as the joke, but the payoff of the shoes being ridiculous feels like something classic Tiny Toons would do. The end joke with Dizzy doesn't really land at all either. Either way, I'm still interested enough to see this.

I always liked Bleach for the non-captain characters. Everyone Lieutenant Rank and below had either great personality or fun powers that just made for a great watch to see how they'd win (or lose). This extends to Ichigo and the gang, who always seemed like they just got along with and worked better with these soul reapers than the captains.

The captains were all the cast I generally hated, with the Vizards being more a middle neutral ground that I just never found the ability to care about one way or the other. They were just lazy writing excuses to swoop in and clean up fights the actual good characters couldn't win. I mean, I thought Gin and Tosen were cool for awhile, but then we lost them. Toshiro was the only one that ever felt like one of the main group, barely feeling like a captain most of the time.

Yamamoto and Unohana existed to be the "cool old ones" that rarely did anything, but were constantly teased for being huge threats. When we finally saw the payoff for them, I was more struck with just thinking "God, finally they did their thing and we're done with them." rather than actually caring about them. Komamura and Ukitake are were just boring in general. Soi Fon would be with Toshiro as one of the fine ones, but her Yoruichi gag got old fast. Kyoraku is a fun personality, but his sword games are so hax they ruined his few actual fights.

And Kenpachi, Mayuri, and Byakuya are just the worst of the worst that I pretty much hated the entire series. Their arrival to "save the day" by curbstomping Espada in the Hueco Mundo fights cements the point of no return for me where I tend to mark my enjoyment end altogether. The final arc/fights never did anything to change this for me. At least most of their hax meet their limits here, but they still get to find new hax help. Byakuya should've died to the fear person, Kenpachi eliminated by the girl squad, and Mayuri should've died for his crimes years ago.

It's grown on me. It really perfectly encapsulates that feeling of a triumphant end to a long journey and a goodbye to Wano. Even if I might feel like Wano doesn't deserve such respect, I'm at least not gonna be skipping this one.

Or maybe it's just the trumpets.

This is definitely turning into a troublesome arc now that the lines seem to be; those that want Luffy to stomp all opposition and put a triumphant end to all question that they're an Emperor's crew; and those that still expect twists and turns so the WG can still become a threat for the endgame;

This is a fun chapter. I enjoy seeing the speedy progress of this raid. Sentomaru is nothing more than another Hannyabal. Here to stick with his convictions, despite being hopelessly outmatched. I personally like the viz translations for Kizaru better. It helps make it more clear that Kizaru is in no way gonna waver and pull some tricks to make sure his old friends get away in the end. I'm ready for the most loyal and powerful government faction players to take center stage for our threats in this final stretch to the end.

In theory, it really shouldn't take the armada very long to finish up with the Sea Beasts and move further in. Maybe Sentomaru can get back on his feet one last time to flip the pacifistas again just to delay them a little longer. Kizaru only knocked him unconscious, so maybe it'll fall to the nameless Vice Admirals or Doll to put the big guy out of his misery.

Kizaru and Vegapunk/Stella will end up face to face before too long. If we got this little bit for Sentomaru and him, we'll definitely get it with Stella. He really has no reason to stay engaged with Luffy when he should be able to blitz around and look for his main target. Luffy will probably be able to protect the Sunny and Lilith, but eventually Kizaru should just head for the lab. Especially if Lucci draws his attention over there.

Stussy is whatever. I guess she'll get dragged along to escape with the crew to recover. I thought there'd be a small chance she'd end up stalling for time eventually, but things not looking good for that. Not sure what her point will really be, cause so far she's just been a tool to swap the Seraphim and nothing else.

And now we wait for the Blackbeards or Saturn to come out of hiding and do stuff.

I'll be the one to mention I watched the reboot season. Overall, I'd say I liked it and was happily satisfied over it. There's certainly still some of the bad season's qualities in there, but they definitely tried to come up with new solutions to balance these out. Chris' new voice actor is the voice for the Host character for the Ridonculous Race spin-off (which was also a fairly satisfying watch), but I got used to it within an episode.

Chris isn't at his absolute worst, but he's still on his more sociopathic side of his character's history. However, they've balanced this out by promoting Chef to full Co-host, and making him be the morally Good host to Chris' Bad host. Chef watches out for rules and keeps up with medical supplies to prep for injuries. It's a far cry from the Mean Muscle that never cared and would laugh alongside Chris occasionally, but I like the change.

I was worried the cast would be rather boring or cringe based on their designs and more modern stereotypes. Overall, they kept them pretty tame though. Felt more like how the original cast were treated in the original season than the later seasons as things got flanderized more and more. Even the first character eliminated isn't a pure joke made for no purpose than to be first out (probably).

While 13 episode seasons still aren't the best way for this type of series, I felt this handled it better than the past ones. The biggest flaw I found was that they still struggle with writing finales, but at least they had the whole cast back for it. The bigger positive is the fact they're using this cast for 2 seasons in a row, which could mean that these 2 "13 episode seasons" could be seen as a combined 26 episodes for them. I'll have to wait and see when the 2nd half drops.

This 2nd season with the same cast means that any dissatisfaction for certain characters going too early or missing out on good storylines could still happen in the next season. I look forward to seeing what they do. I can go more into things if anyone is actually interested or any discussion starts from people who actually watched it.

The aftereffects of the weapon that destroyed Lulusia is neat to see, but I personally feel the chapter drags on with the worldwide earthquake cutting too much. It's not really all that interesting to me. The cuts to characters we know is enough for me, but the 4 directional seas panels are all pretty pointless.

So 6 days ago from this point, Lulusia was destroyed. It... seems like the Strawhats had left Wano at this point, but it might be the same day they left. I think that's a fair assumption, but we can say at the very least that it's been a minimum of 6 days since leaving Wano.

Kizaru casually destroys a sea mecha beast with his laser, which pretty much tells me those won't be any threat at all once the orders to attack are started. Even if Kizaru has to stay on the ship to protect Saturn, he'll have an easy time sniping the sea beasts.

The recapping of Egghead would be annoying, if not for the fact it's basically used to show how lacking the Government is on the information. It's kinda fun knowing they don't know about Stussy or the eliminated Punks yet (assuming they still are gone).

It's interesting that Saturn plans to hide out on the ship and doesn't want people to know he's there. Does that mean he won't be participating in the initial siege and expects the VAs to be enough? I guess his reveal will be the big shocker later on, and will probably be a major point to shut down any initial advantage the SH team gain in repelling the invasion. I kinda wish more of the Elders were out on missions, but I guess only Saturn had to leave.

Mention of the dome defenses again made me realize, whatever Lafitte and Devon are doing right now, it's pretty likely they haven't made it up there yet. Put all this together and I'm starting to guess the SHs will drop the dome temporarily to send the Seraphim down to attack and protect Sentomaru, which the BBs will use to sneak in, while Saturn will ultimately reveal himself to take priority ownership of the seraphim. Maybe then the BBs will sabotage the dome and the SHs will be further and further pushed into escape. Then we just wait to see if Kizaru is this arc's Katakuri or if he'll just be outsmarted and pushed back for later.

Anyway, ultimately the York call fakeout is definitely a cool payoff. I personally wish Oda had left a few more SHs missing from the spread, leaving us with a few more nagging questions on what happened there or how they are. But overall, Oda still does that fine by leaving the rest of the Punks, Stussy, Kaku, and Robin missing (I probably would've just left Franky and Jinbe out, maybe Brook too).

I still expect us to get a flashback sequence to cover what all happened, but now at least I think Oda will manage to fly through it relatively fast. We'll probably be left with the Armada starting it's attack as we go through the flashback and then come back with having them made some progress already. That way we can skip past the awkward first stage and don't have to waste time trying to make the Vice Admirals look good, as they'll quickly get outmatched by the Seraphim.