I thought this was a really eventful chapter, right when 1016 got me thinking the pace would slow again. The climax of this battle is close, and Oda seems to be stepping on the gas with battle updates and hybrid reveals.
Tama's order
Seeing Tama pass out at the start of the chapter had me worried, but I think it was necessary to justify the cutaway of the Gifters making the one on one fights hard for the good guys. I do kinda wish that information had been spread out a little better over previous chapters instead of phoned in at the last minute, but it still barely manages to emphasise the Gifter flip as a necessary step toward the ultimate victory. Interestingly, all the Gifters we see go right to fodder control rather than lashing out at the officers or influencing the one on ones in the other direction. Is it because the numbers game still strongly favours the Beasts Pirates, or did they pick up a bit of respect for a fair fight now that they're on our side?
Oh, and we see Shinobu and Momo during this sequence. Where'd they land? Looks like a wooden floor or deck of some kind in the background.
On the Performance Floor
Queen's hybrid form is peak Oda design. There's so much going on with it in the best possible way. The grabby hand coming out of the ponytail is an inspired decision, and it had better actually be used in the fight.
Oda's pushing the connection between Queen and Judge again, but I'm not sure what he means to actually do with it. Presumably MADS is the same unit Judge was in with Vegapunk, which should have big reveal potential, but I don't see Vegapunk being a Wano thing. I expect to be teased and nothing more.
Mini-Chopper is not the side effect I was hoping for, but I'm sure it'll make for a few really profitable plushies. Zoro is very in character right now, acting like he needs the drug even though the enemies around him are being pretty comfortably handled. We all know he'll have to fight King eventually, but Zoro wants to be contributing to the battle as much as possible, even if its just helping with the fodder. The setup does feel a little like it's ham-fistedly trying to set up a new "nothing happened" moment, but I'm reserving judgement on the repetition until I see how Oda chooses to play the new version.
Jinbe and Who's Who
I'm really happy we're spending some time showing Jinbe's battle. He's got some catching up to do in terms of screentime, relative to the rest of the crew. The Fishman Karate shockwaves being able to deflect flying slash type attacks is a cool, logical interaction. These are things we like to know.
I would have bet on the Impel Down escapee angle (and I was kinda right; I don't think Jinbe was a Warlord until after Luffy ate the fruit, so the prison has to be where they saw each other), but I really like Who's Who being a former Cipher Pol agent. Bringing the Six Powers back on a major opponent is fun continuity and should make for good action in the rest of this fight. The original Cipher Pol fights were some of the series' best action to date, to my mind, so more of this is always welcome. I liked seeing the actual manga draw the connection between the Six Powers and Haki. Many of us had speculated it for a while, and the Vivre Cards for the CP9 members all but made it clear, but this feels like the final nail in the coffin for the naysayers.
Who's Who has a pretty fun hybrid look as well, but he's definitely overshadowed by the ridiculousness of Queen.
Going against the grain, I think the Gun Gun reveal is exciting and I hope we get some more follow-up on it. I don't think it's actually going to be anything world-shaking, but given how mysterious Shanks is, any info we get about what he is and has been up to is good info.
The events of the Reverie raised some questions about Shanks's alligences, but from this we can be fairly sure that if he is working with the government in any way, it's a more recent development. We can say with some confidence that he wasn't working with the Five Elders back when he inspired Luffy and gave him the hat, given that it was apparently taken from an "enemy ship." Which may or may not soothe your "Shanks groomed luffy to be the chosen one" conspiracy theories. Does Who's Who's treatment by the government imply a higher importance to the fruit? Well a squad was also sent to arrest CP9 after their big failure at Enies Lobby, so it's reasonable to think that's just what happens when you fail the government. You can't just let black ops guys like that walk with all the secrets they know, so if you get kicked out of Cipher Pol you get arrested. I'm still a big fan of the theory that the Gum Gum and Dark Dark Fruits are easily mistaken for each other and both Cipher Pol and Shanks went after the wrong fruit after hearing a report of it being in East Blue.
But we'll see. There's a lot of directions Oda could take something like this and we're not operating on a ton of info. I've got a lot of thoughts about the negative ways some people have reacted to this development despite how little we know about it, but I think I'll make them a separate post for that to keep this one from getting too overwhelmingly long.
Apart from a slightly soft 1016, the last few chapters have been really, really strong. Oda's doing really well, and I hope he can keep this kind of pace up to the end of the battle. Oh, and looking ahead, if the break schedule goes the way it usually does and I haven't forgotten any Japanese public holidays, we could be getting chapter 2020 exactly on the series' 24th anniversary. Sounds like a perfect place for that long-awaited WT100 colour spread!