Cute, classic-feeling colour spread with the whole crew together. Presumably, from the architecture, the trees and the very Japanese statues, this one's taking place in Ringo. I feel like it's fairly rare to be able to suscribe a colour spread theme to a specifc known location like this, but I can't be bothered running the numbers to see if that's true. Love the outfits for this one especially. Robin's leather jacket and jeans combo is great, the horns on Brook's hood are amazing, and Franky's "CYBORG HENTAI" speaks for itself.
Not sure about using the Japanese Naraku as the title for this one. I can see the reference to the Buddhist Naraka, but it's not the most intuitive thing in the world to research. The wikipedia page for Naraku is only the sixth result in google, and even that's a disambiguation page. How many people, particularly among the casual readers, are actually going to pick this one up at all? I get that we're in the One Piece version of Japan, but I think at least shifting it to the better-known Buddhist name would have made the reference more accessible.
The spread of Orochi losing all his heads to a combo attack from the Scabbards is something I expected his arc to end on, and certainly not what I thought would happen this soon. As of this chapter we're only seven heads down out of eight, so there's obviously more to come, but now I've got no clue what Oda's endgame for both him and the Scabbards is.
The scabbards also depart into the burning part of the castle fairly casually, and we can see the Beasts Pirates fighting the fire, so it's hard to say how much of a factor that's going to be going forward. Interesting that we're getting another Scabbard set up for a solo fight as well. There can't possibly be enough opponents left for all of them to have one, right?
Combo attacks and tag-in-tag-out fighting are what I'm living for in the rooftop clash, so this was a great chapter. I do think, however, that Kaido and Big Mom's combo attack suffers a little bit of poor conveyance. It's hard to say how much of what made the attack so impossible to dodge was speed and how much as size. It seems like it's Law's teleportation that saves them in the end, but given that it's essentially instant, speed shouldn't be an issue, right? I could accept that it takes him a moment to spread a room further than the radius of the attack, but we don't see him setting that up. I usually don't complain about "talking is a free action" as a shonen trope, but it's definitely had an impact on my attempt to visualise the action here.
It's also hard to tell what kind of attack is actually being used. Is it a flying slash-style air pressure shockwave? Haki? A miscellaneous energy thing, generated in the same way Luffy and others make fire with no better explanation? The similar attack used by Dorry and Broggy on Little Garden seemed like just air, but Big Mom's version on Tottoland got an interesting purple filter in the colour manga. Unlike the anime, the colour manga doesn't usually add that kind of flourish on its own, so I consider it worth taking note of. Oda uses the kind of screentones he would for a bright light in this chapter, even though he didn't in Big Mom's Tottoland version.
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What I do think is cool is how easily Kaido matches Big Mom's move. She was raised in Elbaf, so it makes sense for her to use giant fighting styles, but where did Kaido learn it? From her while they were in Rocks? On his own journey to the giants' homeland? Through his apparent ancient giant heritage? He also references the Norse Raknarok in his later attack, and we all know the giants are the Viking-inspired people of One Piece. There's so much we don't know about this man!
Luffy goes right back on the offensive, and Kaido… dodges? That's interesting. It not new information that the three captains are capable of harming Kaido, we learned that in the opening chapters of this fight. What this really tells us is that the damage being done is starting to add up. At the end of the last chapter, captains were talking like they'd been landing a lot of hits offscreen but couldn't tell if they were dealing lasting damage. Which means Kaido's been straight up taking the hits and acting like they're nothing, but if he's dodging now, he's starting to feel like he can't afford to keep doing that! So before the inevitable complaints of the fight ending too quickly and too easily for the alliance, here's our first clue that the boss's health pool is draining.
I almost feel compelled to wonder from this point how much of Kaido's reputation as an invincible creature, only damagable with super advanced techniques, is an intentionally cultivated image, created by no-selling big hits whether or not they actually do damage. I'm not denying that his scales are tough, but at the same time his fall from Balloon Terminal rattled his insides enough to cause a nasty headache, so who knows when and if he was taking chip damage from things like Luffy's original Gear Four salvo.
I said last week that I thought Kaido's hybrid form being underwhelming was largely a presentation issue, and this chapter has absolutely proved me right. I love the way he moves in his skirmish with Luffy here. His musceleman body coils and twists like the dragon form, and the tail whipping around behind him has a great effect on the apparent speed of his movements. The unhinged jaw for the mini blast breath has a great, truly demonic look as well. This is the Oda-style motion and posing I was hoping to see!
The play to remove Big Mom from the fight is definitely going to go down as a highlight. It's a great sequence that shows the strengths of the fighters and the weaknesses of the enemy perfectly. It's something for anyone who thinks One Piece fights have become powerlevel spam following the introduction of haki. Our boys aren't just fighting hard, they're fighting smart, and you love to see it. (Although, even if Law can't teleport Big Mom or Kaido around, this maybe raises the question of why he hasn't been moving her homies away from her more often, or taking the club out of Kaido's hand.) Zeus in a box all but confirms his return to Nami's hands. When Big Mom first took him back it became questionable if Oda was going to let him stay part of her arsenal long-term, but I don't think there's any more doubt. Zoro confirms himself for Smash. It's meant to be a game character only zone, but he got a little lost. Killer's bit with Napoleon looks a little ridiculous. We couldn't have the sword fighting on its own or something to let the guy look a little cooler? Kid takes a hell of a hit, and Big Mom goes flying.
She seems to think there's only sea underneath, which doesn't track with what we saw of Mount Fuji a couple of chapters ago. Maybe she was paying too close attention to the battle to be on top of the island's location, or maybe this is jut going to be another thing like the Noah falling on Fishman Island where it's as close to its target as it needs to be in any given chapter.
Hard to say where Big Mom's plot goes from here. If there's really just sea below, I can see that being it for her in Wano. I'd be very surprised to see her left without a clear defeat to menace another arc. Hitting the surface could result in another O-Lin episode. Or she could just not fall at all. She made a flying carpet homie for Pudding, so who knows what she could do with her kimono with some quick thinking and a fragment of soul.
I hope we don't cut away from the rooftop too quickly next week. I want to see Kaido's reaction to Big Mom's fall, and what Oda can do with him in this new form in a focussed five on one. This is great. I'm living for my weekly One Piece fix lately.