Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation
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I might have missed the convo, but does anyone have any clue whose ship that was at Lulusia?
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@andre Since Imu is hearing the report, it must be a government ship sent to evaluate the damage caused by the weapon.
This also fits with the Elders "changing their mind" about killing York. Imu probably realized this is the same damage the Ancient Weapons could do, so he requested the Elders for more Mother Flame. York asking "a request from who?" is a hint of that.
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Really dug this chapter. We'll see how Oda handles it in the coming weeks, but I'm glad not much more time was spent on the York stuff, but even more exciting to me was to see all of the different places and characters again like Sai's former fiancee (would've liked Ippon Matsu or his Wife in Loguetown).
Not sure if it's possible to determine which island we see in South Blue but it could be Baterilla, the island where Ace was born. Solely based on it looking tropical, so hardly conclusive.
But the North Blue island appears to be Rakesh (only named in the anime), but I wonder if the anime made up their own stuff cause I feel like it's just Spider Miles, where Doffy's base was at the time and the reason they only blew everything up then, was because they were intending to leave. Either way my point is, they do look very similar, but maybe it's just two cities on the same island so it's probably either Spider Miles or Rakesh.What also stood out to me, was that a lot of characters were eating. Kizaru, Saturn, the random marines, Sentomarou, Luffy, Jinbe, Bonney and Franky. Even the sea beast was taking a chomp out of the ship. Was Oda hungry when he drew this?
Just a lot to look at this chapter, and those are always some of my favorites.
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Chapter releases will be a bit unstable from now on until the Netflix show premiers. Oda himself announced this.
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It feels like this may be Volume 108's starter, given the amount of recap we got. This makes me think Vol. 107 will have 12 chapters after all. The chapter is almost entirely used to catch the whole situation up, while advancing the story very little.
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Lulusia's void remnant is a reminder of the mysterious waterfalls of Enies Lobby. Since Enies Lobby stood there for 800 years, this shows that something similar happened during the Void Century. This all but confirms that the "Mother Flame" may be related to an Ancient Weapon.
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Imu is shown hearing the reports about Lulusia. This is important because later we learn the Elders "changed their mind" and have a "request" for more Mother Flame (York even asks "request from who?"). It seems Imu was very pleased with the results.
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We know now the size of the marine fleet. 100 ships, 20 of which are warships. 30,000 marines. 9 vice-admirals. Kizaru. And Saturn. I'm not expecting much from the vice-admirals, thought. 3/4 of them feel like fodder.
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I'm a bit disappointed by things apparently being sorted out at the end. This did not feel like a real continuation to how things were left at 1078. There, we had crescent tension and danger, but now the situation seems defused.
I was expecting the story to be picked up at full speed, with the crew in a bad position when the marines arrived. Instead, it feels like the story halted and tension will have to be built up again, as the crew is in control of the situation and fully able to fight.
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This feeling that things got resolved too easily is further emphasized by Bonney, Stella and Lucci being there as if nothing happened. So, it's not just York's scheme that has been sorted out, but also other stories that seem to have been skipped over.
So, what happened Bonney's issues? She was seeing traumatic memories, and now it's all fine? She no longer has any beef with Vegapunk?
Vegapunk was betrayed and just lost two satellites, but feels unphazed.
And is Lucci now an ally?
These beats feel so wrong to me.
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This ending will require me to reevaluate all my expectations for the remainder of the arc. So, for now, all my predictions are off, and I will need to wait for one or two more chapters before I can try and figure out where the arc may be going.
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@King-Cannon
May I ask where he announced this? -
@andre said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@King-Cannon
May I ask where he announced this?Jump author comments.
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By the way, we learned the room York wanted the Seraphim to not attack. It's likely the place where the Mother Flame is generated.
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@King-Cannon I feel this reactor room may be related to the gigant warm eddy we found Bonney in at the start of the arc. Nami explained it's caused by warm deep water rising to colder surface water, so I think there's something massively heating up the bottom of the ocean there.
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I like how Oda is basically choosing to show the most interesting events going on at a given time.
While the traitor thing was still a mystery, we focused on that.
Then it got revealed and all that was left was to have Luffy/Zoro/Sanji/Jinbe/CP0 take down the seraphim. Who are tough but don't really hold a candle to Kaido and BM from the previous arc.
So instead, we moved away to a whole sewuence of incredibly hype events involving other major players, which also helped contextualize why the Egghead situation matters (the Mother Flame is currently the most important mcguffin of the OP world).
And then we cut back to the reveal that the SHs now have that mcguffin, after giving York an offpanel version of the Bellamy treatment. And now we move to them facing a massive fleet of Kizaru+Saturn+VAs to escape with it. Which is more compelling that the seraphim battle.
The arc both helped present and hype the big players in the Final Saga, but also placed the strawhats one of the main threats. By the time this ends, they will have the one thing the WG needs to secure world domination, and will possible have defeated an admiral for it.
This is Oda showing he knows what really matters for the story, dramatically, and playing the strengths of each plotline.
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@King-Cannon I mean, there's only 2 more chapters max until then. So maybe it's just gonna be the one at the 20th and then another break on the 27th?
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Perona's grandmother is a Marine as well I see.
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So I guess we shouldn't expect a big all out fight with Kizaru and Saturn if Luffy is just thinking about escaping at this point, seeing as he know has Bonney and Vegapunk. Maybe a few punches here and there, but nothing extremely big and drawn out.
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I've praised enough the twist in this chapter in the spoiler thread, so I will skip that.
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My next prediction for this arc is that Egghead will turn into the core of Luffy's territory. Instead of escaping, they will manage to fend off this Marine fleet. Then, the SH Fleet will arrive at some point, maybe other allied forces like the Wano people, and become permanently seated in EH to keep it guarded as a proper Emperor headquarter. Vegapunk(s) will stay there, this time building stuff that can redeem their past as weapon-of-mass-destruction creator.
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Right of the bat Oda tells us how many vice admirals are in the fleet and show all of them, killing any possibility of us to wonder about Smoker.
I am really curious, since his presence here answering to Borsalino's call was the only explanation I could see for him to part ways with Tashigi. -
Still on the vice admirals, I get the value on keep showing new ones every time we see them (it makes the Marine look like a gigantic force when it has this inexhaustible amount of high-ranked officers), but I still would like to focus on some of them from time to time so they could develop into full characters.
Maybe some of these 9 will get a bit more attention than usual, but I fear like most the VA we know for over a decade will never get more than cameos. -
Despite how the whole "York is the villain" portion was solved offscreen, I hope she still is going to have a role in the arc going on.
Caesar became one of my favorite characters only after PH was over, and I can see York becoming another POS opportunistic character that can be valuable in different roles. -
Disappointed Lucci is still in his CP0 clothes. Oda better ensure he and Kaku get proper Egghead outfits before the action restarts.
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About Lucci... Is he really going against the goverment? I can understand teaming up with Luffy against York but now that she's taken care of, shouldn't he become antagonistic again?
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Is the baby's laugh supposed to be recognizable ?
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@fana said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Is the baby's laugh supposed to be recognizable ?
It laughs with kyahaha (きゃはは). I know a lot of characters use gyahaha, not sure about kya.
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@access-timeco said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@fana said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Is the baby's laugh supposed to be recognizable ?
It laughs with kyahaha (きゃはは). I know a lot of characters use gyahaha, not sure about kya.
Apparently Dellinger laughs like that.
Dellinger is also blonde.
Ergo we can only conclude that Makino shacked up with Dellinger.
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This was a cool way to bring things back to the "main" plot, however we're quantifying that at this stage of the story. It's a very recappy chapter, but it uses the time it's taking to go over everything to set up and subvert the reader's expectations. I think we all knew we weren't going to come back to Egghead exactly where we left off. Even as far back as Dressrosa it's been apparent that when Oda does back and forth cuts, time continues to pass offscreen and fights develop even while we're not looking at them, and through Wano it was extremely obvious. The mix-up here is that where I think most of us were expecting to come back to a worst case scenario, we instead find the Strawhats completely on top of things. York's message builds up the expected scenario, walking through her villainous demands like she's got her way. The only hint something's amiss is the blood and dirt on her face in the close-up. And then we twist it around and show the reality of things. It's genuinely very well executed.
But I have structural questions. Because don't I always. Is there still going to be an escape (the Stella still has his backpack ready to go), or is the bigger picture for this arc to stand and fight? I still don't see why the cutaway happened at the moment it did. It feels random. Where it would make sense to change scenes and build suspense at a darkest hour, only Franky's group and Vegapunk Stella were truly in dire straights when we last saw them. I'm trying to pin down what mood, or what emotional impact Oda was going for when he chose that point to spend a volume away from that moment and I'm still coming up blank.
But I feel confident we'll be getting at least a dot point version of the Strawhats' lost day in the coming chapters. Questions like why Lucci is still on their side and what happened with Bonney in Kuma's memory beg answers, even if we're not going to see the full Seraphim battles play out.
And from the perspective of volumes, this wouldn't make a bad opener for volume 108, should the previous one stretch out to 12 chapters. But I'm still not betting on it. It works just as well as a reintroduction to Egghead after so long away, whether at the front of a book or not.
Anyway, it's always nice seeing more of the world and the ways they react to the bigger picture stuff. In particular because there's more going on than just a bounty update. And I'm a big fan of showing explicitly that the WG's eleventh hour super weapon has devastating global consequences that will follow ever single use of it from now on. That's good, stakes raising stuff. Gives a way to threaten all the scattered locations we've become attached to all at once. And hey! An explanation for the Ennies Lobby ocean hole! I was so ready to write that off as just a piece of One Piece weirdness, but all these years later we're starting to see the deal with it.
Now, the claim from its arc that Ennies Lobby has stood for centuries rules out it being the former site of God Valley, which is an easy first connection to make. But we can also rule out God Valley's disappearance being a Mother Flame (hey, Viz updated their translation here, wonder if they got word from above) thing at all, given that the narration confirms the earthquakes resulting of Lulusia's destruction are unparalleled in recorded history. So there's another way to get rid of an island out there. Oh, and the one big difference between Ennies Lobby and Lulusia: the eternal day. I wonder if that represents some inherent difference between Vegapunk's version and the way this weapon was used in the Void Century.
It's not lost on me that the World Nobles, high up on the Redline, are more or less immune to the results of their own weapon. The sea level won't reach them without thousands of activations, and we can see in Imu's panel that the reverberating earthquakes are more of a light trembling.
It comes to mind, especially with Momonosuke's panel in the chapter, that old Wano's walls might not have been to repel invaders as much as they were to future proof against the rising sea. What irony then, that they ended up flooded by the very barriers designed to keep their feet dry.
The vice admirals that have shown up here are a fun bunch of designs. Everyone online loves Doll and the chin guy, but I'm a big fan of the dude with the stripe in his beard, especially seeing his... uh... headpiece? Franky-style haircut? Half a chakram just lodged up there? Hope there's room in the arc to give these guys some screentime and personalities to match their appearances.
Borsalino's little flashback gives us another strange example of a One Piece character whose hair has darkened as they age instead of lightened. First Kin'emon in Oden's flashback, and now him. Could be that they both decided to dye it, but is blackening hair really that far outside suspension of disbelief for a world like this? Either way, Borsalino remains true to his motto of lazy justice. He has to know the scenario is unfair. He has to feel something about being ordered to kill Vegapunk and Sentomaru. But to openly care, to make yourself into something other than the order-following blunt instrument of tyrants, means putting the effort in to stand up and speak up, and living a harder life unsupported by the system. True justice is hard work. It takes the effort of thought and interpretation just to decide what you think it's meant to be. Justice bound by the word of the law rather than the spirit, and directed by higher authorities with no room for interpretation by its enforcers? Well, that's easy. Don't even have to think about it, just have to do it as directed.
I don't have much to make of Saturn's dismissal of Bonney, but I'm sure it's sunk a few theories about her heritage or true age or plans to use her fruit to be immortal or something. But wait, what benefit did she have for them before?
We covered York's message and the reveal in the opening paragraphs, so I just want to close by acknowledging what a great final spread we have here. It does a great job of painting a picture of an arc coming to its end, even though there hasn't even been an arc yet. Really well composed and drawn.
I'm really happy to be back with the Strawhats from next chapter, whether we're pushing forward with the battle against the Government or flashing back to see how we got where we are now. And I'm very much looking forward to being far enough into this arc to look back and have a better understanding of why it's been cut and broken up the way it was.
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Kizaru has come off to me as the only high-ranking Marine who's doing it more for a paycheck than anything else.
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@Cyan-D-Funk Lawful neutral for sure.
Whereas Akainu is lawful evil and Aokiji....well, was lawful good.
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So Smoker isn’t with the other Vice Admirals then?
If he’s not at Pirate Island or Egghead, then where is he?
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@Captain-M said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
But I have structural questions. Because don't I always. Is there still going to be an escape (the Stella still has his backpack ready to go), or is the bigger picture for this arc to stand and fight? I still don't see why the cutaway happened at the moment it did. It feels random. Where it would make sense to change scenes and build suspense at a darkest hour, only Franky's group and Vegapunk Stella were truly in dire straights when we last saw them. I'm trying to pin down what mood, or what emotional impact Oda was going for when he chose that point to spend a volume away from that moment and I'm still coming up blank.
It comes to mind, especially with Momonosuke's panel in the chapter, that old Wano's walls might not have been to repel invaders as much as they were to future proof against the rising sea. What irony then, that they ended up flooded by the very barriers designed to keep their feet dry.
We covered York's message and the reveal in the opening paragraphs, so I just want to close by acknowledging what a great final spread we have here. It does a great job of painting a picture of an arc coming to its end, even though there hasn't even been an arc yet. Really well composed and drawn.
Luffy said he‘s intending to escape. With that, I presume he and the others would defend Vegapunk and Bonney who’d be targeted by Kizaru, with a few scuffles here and there, but not a full-on fight. These really doesn’t seem like an arc meant to have some darkest hour like Wano, more like a lore-centric/recreational arc with a few fights here and there for shounen’s sake.
Already mentioned this is another thread, but that panel of Momo standing around makes me wonder how often he, Yamato, and the others are fighting, since he’s not bruised or scrambling to defeat any enemies.
This arc has also gone on for 30+ chapters, just focused on other things, so maybe all future arcs will be like that?
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@electricmastro The Strawhats' plan is still an escape, but this about Oda's plans. Unless the final act involves shooting the Labophase into space (which I definitely wouldn't take off the table) their exit is gonna be heavily contested. I might have bet on a lighter, shorter arc before the cutaways, but things are getting a lot more dramatic as it goes on.
You seem to have inferred a lot from a single panel of Wano. Just because the nation is threatened without Kaido's protection, doesn't mean there's going to be an instant and endless conga line of invaders. You don't just pull an army capable of invading and occupying an island of that size and with that much in the way of natural defences out of thin air. And you'd take some time to plan it out as well.
I think you're right that future arcs are likely to have this same level of jumping around. Global events have gotten too big to only do the cutaways between arcs like we used to.
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I enjoyed the twist at the end. We will probably have a short flashback on how York and the Seraphims were defeated. But having the crew alltogether after the long pause was nice. Too bad Robin is missing.
I wonder what will be the role of Lucci in the future.
We also need to see the role of Kuma and Bonney. Saturn comment is a bit weird.It was also funny to see everyone eating nonchalantly as if nothing special will be happening.
I wonder if we will see the event in which Luffy's float his implied. They could be the help they need to get out of this situation -
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.
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@Captain-M said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@electricmastro The Strawhats' plan is still an escape, but this about Oda's plans. Unless the final act involves shooting the Labophase into space (which I definitely wouldn't take off the table) their exit is gonna be heavily contested. I might have bet on a lighter, shorter arc before the cutaways, but things are getting a lot more dramatic as it goes on.
You seem to have inferred a lot from a single panel of Wano. Just because the nation is threatened without Kaido's protection, doesn't mean there's going to be an instant and endless conga line of invaders. You don't just pull an army capable of invading and occupying an island of that size and with that much in the way of natural defences out of thin air. And you'd take some time to plan it out as well.
I think you're right that future arcs are likely to have this same level of jumping around. Global events have gotten too big to only do the cutaways between arcs like we used to.
Now that you say that, this might be the best opportunity for Oda to start a space arc he may ever have, so we'll have to see if he takes up on that.
Well a picture can be worth 1,000 words after all, and Momo standing around not fighting anyone and no bruises can prob lend towards those 1,000 words. If anything, it just gets me thinking who's actually going to attack and how long it's going to take, because a prevalent thought I have on this is that Yamato must be bored out of her mind right now, realizing that she may have overestimated how quickly the invasions would come, and how her character may be developing in the meantime. But more on that later I'd presume.
And yep, just keeping worldly events to newspapers and flashbacks isn't good enough anymore.
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@Deicide said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
all my predictions are off
as usual, it feels like.
man, I really liked the twist at the end. and i read it as a volume starter as well. it's a whole new situation and leaving it unexplained would be so funny to me. it just flexes an "of course we got it chaotically under control as always" attitude.
i expect short flashback beats in the next chapter though, maybe interwoven in dialogue with Lucci or something.
and cap pissing off the old men via den-den mushi is of course always a possibility.can't wait!
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@Cyan-D-Funk said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Kizaru has come off to me as the only high-ranking Marine who's doing it more for a paycheck than anything else.
Kizaru comes across as somebody the Navy didn't have the slightest idea what to do with so they just kept promoting him.
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okay it was helpful to get those little drawing outlining what each group is doing. And yeah, pretty awesome final page. Way better to see it then imagining through it the text.
also viz link
https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/one-piece-chapter-1089/chapter/39920?action=read -
Sandman puts Stefan to shame as usual
Garcia looks amazing in this chapter, eating a loaf of bread with a fork is the finest touch in this arc
Kizaru still represents the good side of the marines, he will not remain an antagonist for long. it doesn't fit his character to be evil or blindly obedient
it's getting exciting if not for another break.
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@cavendishsama said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
I'm glad not much more time was spent on the York stuff
Heh, he's the problem though: are we going to just ignore how much the tables have turned since the last time we saw them, so simply accept an handwaved recap like "somehow we rescued the petrified people, sent away the seraphims, saved main punk, made friends with Lucci, have Bonney forgive Vegapunk, subdued York, moving on"
Or we're going to flashback through it, thus spending as much time on it but without even the slightest of interest about it, given how we already know exactly how it ends and we'll be impatient just move on to the meaty stuff?
Neither sounds too good to me honestly, but if I have to choose I'd prefer the first option given how the "siege" situation is new and interesting and has a lot of potential for fun times. -
@hideoushorrendous said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Kizaru still represents the good side of the marines, he will not remain an antagonist for long. it doesn't fit his character to be evil or blindly obedient
Where do you get that from? In my view, he's been the guy with no view of justice of his own. He just does whatever the WG tells him to and considers that good enough.
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Kizaru reminds me of “concurseiros” in Brazil: people who enters public exams to admission in public service because of salary and benefits above private sector jobs, but have no affinity with the function they are aiming for. So, they just work the bare minimum and follow the rules, but don’t care if they are doing a good job. It’s all about status and security.
This is further emphasized by Kizaru’s child version in SBS, in which he appears as a studious but poor kid. He just wants the best job, so he aims at pleasing his bosses above whatever function he’s supposed to fulfill in society.
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Can Lucci ally with the Strawhat because his failure would not be accepted ?
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@Kdom I imagine after two failures, he and Kaku are on the chopping block.
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@Johnny-B-Decent said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@Kdom I imagine after two failures, he and Kaku are on the chopping block.
How slimy of them... They changed their minds about offing York but Lucci and Kaku are punished for failing...
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Given how Elders send CP0 to their deaths regularly, it’s amazing they have any agents left.
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@Alfiere
We'll see how Oda handles it, but I think it's overblown how bad of a spot the Straw Hats were in. As an example: What if Shaka was not actually down or the Stella himself has an ace up his sleeve? They take down York, head upstairs, neutralize the Seraphim, undo the petrification. That scenario would take a total of 2 pages to explain and I don't think it's unreasonable at all.
Will obviously be explained what's going on with Lucci and Bonney. Don't know if I believe Lucci is a friend, but what can he do right now? Him and Kaku vs the Straw Hats and Vegapunk + Seraphim? -
@Alfiere said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@cavendishsama said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
I'm glad not much more time was spent on the York stuff
Heh, he's the problem though: are we going to just ignore how much the tables have turned since the last time we saw them, so simply accept an handwaved recap like "somehow we rescued the petrified people, sent away the seraphims, saved main punk, made friends with Lucci, have Bonney forgive Vegapunk, subdued York, moving on"
Or we're going to flashback through it, thus spending as much time on it but without even the slightest of interest about it, given how we already know exactly how it ends and we'll be impatient just move on to the meaty stuff?
Neither sounds too good to me honestly, but if I have to choose I'd prefer the first option given how the "siege" situation is new and interesting and has a lot of potential for fun times.Pretty sure Oda skipped over the thwart of York’s plot specially to skip to the meaty stuff, but will most likely give brief recaps to give more sensible structure to it.
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my crackpot theory is that lucci is petrified in the room with all the others.
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@Johnny-B-Decent said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@Kdom I imagine after two failures, he and Kaku are on the chopping block.
Or up for another promotion.
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@cavendishsama said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@Alfiere
We'll see how Oda handles it, but I think it's overblown how bad of a spot the Straw Hats were in. As an example: What if Shaka was not actually down or the Stella himself has an ace up his sleeve? They take down York, head upstairs, neutralize the Seraphim, undo the petrification. That scenario would take a total of 2 pages to explain and I don't think it's unreasonable at all.I think something like that happening is a real possibility, but would ultimately gut whatever drama and tension the first half of Egghead had going for it.
Also, would completely obliterate the autonomy and fearsomeness of the "They're an Emperor Crew now" Straw Hat pirates if the resolution was entirely out of their hands.Whatever the case, I'm just not sure what rereadability, if any, the pre-cutaway Egghead section has. For all its shagginess quite a lot of chapters was spent on setting up the pre-cutaway scenario, stakes and tension, but now it was sacrificed in the name of getting us to The Next Exciting thing (and any inference of "Not that many chapters!!!" misses the point entirely; theres no arbitrary cutoff where a thing the manga spends several months on "Doesn't actually matter", is "something we shouldn't actually care about at all". It was in the manga for a reason, it was something we should be invested in, with cliffhangers and everything)
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The York situation is pretty simple, though. The SHs had Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Jinbe, Lucci and Kaku. I imagine they simply beat the seraphim and released the rest. I never felt like those seraphim presented any threat to the people I listed above.
Yeah maybe it would have been cool to see the fights, but it was a foregone conclusion, and it was always the lesser event compared to the siege and the escape.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@cavendishsama said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
@Alfiere
We'll see how Oda handles it, but I think it's overblown how bad of a spot the Straw Hats were in. As an example: What if Shaka was not actually down or the Stella himself has an ace up his sleeve? They take down York, head upstairs, neutralize the Seraphim, undo the petrification. That scenario would take a total of 2 pages to explain and I don't think it's unreasonable at all.I think something like that happening is a real possibility, but would ultimately gut whatever drama and tension the first half of Egghead had going for it.
Well that didn't stop Oda from showing Luffy, Bonney, and the others happily munching on their lunches with York on the floor.
Which only tells me that Oda never really intended Egghead to have intense drama from York in the first place, and everything that happened with the Seraphim and such was mainly meant as an excuse to draw cool panels.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Whatever the case, I'm just not sure what rereadability, if any, the pre-cutaway Egghead section has
There are already lots of mini cutaways in this part. Also it is always fun to reread a part when you know the culprit to find if they are hints.
Anyway, York was just used to delay the departure for the final showdown happening now and to present the seraphims, i'm not sure we missed that much -
@Deicide said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Given how Elders send CP0 to their deaths regularly, it’s amazing they have any agents left.
They recruit from orphanages, so there will always be potential employees left.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1089: Hostage Situation:
Whatever the case, I'm just not sure what rereadability, if any, the pre-cutaway Egghead section has. For all its shagginess quite a lot of chapters was spent on setting up the pre-cutaway scenario, stakes and tension, but now it was sacrificed in the name of getting us to The Next Exciting thing (and any inference of "Not that many chapters!!!" misses the point entirely; theres no arbitrary cutoff where a thing the manga spends several months on "Doesn't actually matter", is "something we shouldn't actually care about at all". It was in the manga for a reason, it was something we should be invested in, with cliffhangers and everything)
Or, you know, things might have a different purpose than what we assumed at first.
Instead of taking this chapter as "Oda threw everything he was building up away so he could get to the next step", why not simply take this chapter as a hint that our initial assumptions about the arc were wrong (and we were likely misled on purpose)?
That the first portion of the arc was setting elements that will still come into play in the second part? That the cut-away serves a narrative purpose that will become clear once we give it time?Wano showed us Oda's writing is not as trustworthy as it used to, but there is no reason to assume we know better than him what intent the arc and its elements serve at this point (particularly after a chapter like this).
Once the arc is over we'll be able to properly evaluate its hits and misses, but until then keep an open mind because you don't know yet what intent he has with this.
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@King-Cannon Still, the most capable ones are very rare and take time to train, and yet they are thrown to their deaths without any care.