When I heard there would be poll results with this chapter I expected the usual top whatever colour spread to go with it, but it's not the full results yet, and it's just a normal spread. Franky's Mr Whippy hair is a blessed detail. The giant Nami in the background could be worth paying attention to. Oda doesn't often play with scale to that degree in the spreads. Remember the title of chapter 410? Is Oda hinting at some kind of embiggening in Nami's future?
I wouldn't bet on it. Theories based on colour spread symbolism are usually tinfoil-level.
I've got no idea what the plan is for Big Mom at this point and that's probably the way Oda wants it. She works well in the wild card role. Not just in her big flip at the end of the chapter, but her ability to just make a new weapon out of any part of the environment after being disarmed makes her fighting style as unpredictable as her loyalty.
Luffy and Kaido are back at it. Kaido notices Luffy enjoying the battle and seems to feel the same way as he circles the outskirts of having a personality.
It's been interesting seeing the back and forth over whether Kaido should be talking about laughing or smiling with Luffy, and learning how the Japanese wording could be translated either way. Laughing has the obvious Laugh Tale reference, but I'm not going to be as quick as some to call out smiling as an incorrect translation either. Consider not just the idea of the D as a pictogram for a grinning mouth, but also the symbolism of smiles throughout the arc of the fruits of the same name, and how the people who ate them can't stop smiling (and laughing) even in times of distress. Maybe time will tell which was the better choice in this case, but for now you can make a strong argument either way.
But I don't think we'll be coming back to this for a while. This is too good a segway to the inside of the castle to waste.
Killer and Hawkins is not a matchup I expected, but I'm glad to see Hawkins again. He's been feeling fairly forgotten for most of this battle. Maybe he's been lurking in the shadows, only engaging groups of fodder the cards tell him he can 100% take out, and that's why he hasn't confronted another named character before now. His disrespect for Killer is crazy though. Hawkins thinks he has a 92% chance of killing anyone who was part of the rooftop brawl? Someone who actually took Kaido (against whom Hawkins was certain he'd lose) head on and dealt damage? He doesn't look that badly hurt, man!
I'm sure Hawkins is no one to trifle with either, but considering where Killer's just been, it should at least be more of a 50/50 shot. Anything less feels like Hawkins deluding himself. But hey, most real world fortune telling is just looking for the things you want to see in abstract symbols, why shouldn't Hawkins operate the same way?
New voodoo man form looks sick though.
The confirmation that Tama's power only works on Smiles is nice to have. It was assumed anyway, but it's always good to know for sure. I'm curious to see what order she plans to give the Gifters, if there's a specifc plan, or if she's just going to tell them to turn on their former crew and go wild. Usopp and nami are both great in this sequence.
Big Mom looks huge when she appears in the castle. I know she's bigger than a normal person, but I forget sometimes how much of a monolith she is, even accounting for Oda's tendency to play with scale for drama. It is a great shot though. Really emphasises her as a threat. And then, unexpectedly, the O-Lin plot with Tama comes full circle. I'm glad it happened this way and not with a new bout of amnesia. Looking back over the spoiler thread, and even this one, seems like people got pretty worked up over the "mother mode" thing, but the actual context doesn't back up the outrage. I get the fear, especially for the early spoiler readers - in a shonen, where changing forms is key, and with Big Mom, who's had two distinct personalities this arc already, there's some pretty clear connotations to saying she switched to a different mode. But what the chapter actually shows is that she just generally likes kids and acts nice to them, without that totally overtaking her normal reasoning or anything. I could say Nami sometime switches into big sis mode around kids and it would mean the exact same thing.
I'm not the first to say it, but Big Mom turning on a dime because being fed goes above everything else in her moral compass made me think of Luffy. They're a lot more alike than either of them would ever admit. And wonder if that (or the fact that they're both indebted to Tama for the same reason) is going to come up again before the arc is done. Maybe, if she actually does remain standing the whole way, it could be how the post-Kaido ceasefire is negotiated.
And I do think a real fight with her is still on the cards. There was a point in this arc when it would have seemed reasonable to play Big Mom and Kaido against each other, resulting in an uneasy truce with Big Mom, but now? The Gifters have turned, Kaido's officers are being kept busy by the alliance's heavy hitters and Luffy is going toe to club with the big man himself. We don't need more help right now. Big Mom is a wildcard. Relying on her to keep doing what she just did to PageOne would be a huge mistake. (As would assuming PageOne will stay down for long without it being Usopp's doing.) There's every chance she'll sort out her issues with Kaido with one blow, like Luffy taking a swing at Bege for hurting his friends but still allying with him after. And what's going to happen when she learns X Drake, now on the alliance's side, destroyed Tama's first home?
But speaking of what Big Mom did to PageOne… I don't want to get back into the debate about the new haki tech, but Big Mom using offensive CoC here is another point against its first impression. Why only now, and not, say, when she blocked Luffy at the tea party or attacked Kid on the roof? Is it just because we know what it is now and Oda wants to show it again. He got away with a lot by making haki and other powers invisible until explained to the main cast, but there's not a lot of ways to visually justify the idea that Big Mom and others have actually been casually using this skill that sets them apart the whole time. We'll see where Oda takes it from here though.
And finally, I'm not one to go super hard on predictions, but the setup for the next chapter feels pretty obvious. We're back inside the dome, potentially back to the emerging pattern of chapters named after Straw Hats. Nami was next in order, if I recall correctly. She's here. Ulti's here. Zeus is going to where Big Mom is, not knowing he's been replaced. I can connect the dots. Look forward to seeing you all there for whatever way Oda chooses to completely subvert all the setup he's done for the hypothetical Cat Burgular chapter.