We had Joker as the main antagonist of Dressrosa arc…Penguin as a member of the Heart Pirates...and now we have Batman.
At this point,I wonder if commissioner Gordon will eventually show up as a member of the marines...

@Gecko:

Loved the chapter.

The title and first spread tie the WG more to American/McDonald's imperialism (since the Chinese hanzi for USA means ''beautiful country''.) The cameos were amazing (Kaiserstache and Skeletor interacting with Sengoku especially) and everyone was hilarious. Next we get more hints the Red Line is designed by the WG, until the big country representation. Russian beer and dolls, Lincoln-quoting King of Bollywood, USA (lol), a Queen of Morocco/al-Maghreb, and of course, a King Tacos based off Emiliano Zapata as much as Ham Burger is based off Lincoln. A beautiful world indeed.

I bet we'll get a flashback to the first time Fishman Island was at Reverie. As I'm rereading I noticed an Absalom invisible cameo lmao. I'm eagerly awaiting when Vivi meets Shirahoshi, and puts Sterry's racist ass in his place (unless Sabo has done it first!) I wouldn't be surprised if the arc ends with both Vivi and Shirahoshi outcasts from the WG, unfortunately. It's gonna be very lit. Can't wait for next week with that closer.

Speaking as a Mexican American living in China, pretty much the only place racist to Mexicans is the United States, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Cuba, Argentina, and Spain. King Tacos (wonder if Oda has been to Los Angeles' King Taco chain? Really good tacos!) quotes Zapata, one of the greatest Mexicans in history. So the portrayal is not bad at all IMO. A racist cartoon would not even know who Zapata is.

Now, if an Anglo American cartoonist was doing this, I'd be a lot more skeptical. Due to the Mexican-American War, the origin of Mexican Americans comes as a conqered people, similar to Native Americans, Hawaiians and Alaskans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipino Americans, among others. Nearly every other immigrant group eventually "whitened" (even Chinese Americans, whose immigration led to the 1870s-1880s Chinese Exclusion Acts amidst Trumpist furor in post-Civil War California, are now seen as a "model minority," a benignly racist trope echoing how Jews were seen a century ago) but Mexican Americans are stuck with Trump as our president due to mainstream American culture not acknokwledging the roots of this conquest. There is a phrase, "I didn't cross the border, the border crossed me," but we will continue to be racialized and demonized until another Chicanx movement gets our rightful place in the sun. As I get older, the Fishman Island arc really does get better and better on ever reread, especially now. Hope Shirahoshi can get her place in the sun too.

Anyways, outside of the United States, people just look at Mexican culture and food, and love it. There's no history of conquest or oppression. I study international relations in Beijing and my Chinese colleagues think all Latin Americans speak English! Japan is not nearly as closed to the world as China, but you can just see how different things are by the price of tacos. Due to racism, tacos are extremely cheap in the United States. In Eurasia, tacos are very expensive because Mexican food is renowned as a rare and rich delicacy. So we should not be so ethnocentric as to analyze Oda from an Anglo American perspective, IMO.

Also, as as someone with some Moroccan and Arab heritage, it was nice to see the shoutout of both Morrocco and Mexico alongside great powers like the USA and Russia. It was annoying for the scanlation to miss that Mororon is a clear reference to Morocco (known in Arabic as al-Maghreb; in English the Maghreb is North Africa except for Egypt and eastern Libya), but Oda knows what he's doing. Due to their European colonization, the Mexican and Moroccan representation showcases not only indigenous Mexican and Berber culture, but also Spanish and French influence. Oda's done a lot of homework, and I feel great about it.

Sorry for getting a bit off-topic…but "due to racism,tacos are extremely cheap in United States "? Whaaat?LOL.
So,you wanna tell me that the law of supply and demand has no part in this matter?The fact that tacos are a delicacy far more common in USA than in Asia has no relation with this matter?If you fill the chinese market with tacos right now,their prices won't drop the next day?
C'mon...we already have "Lazy Justice","Absolute Justice" ,"Dark Justice"and "Unclear Justice" in this manga...and now we have "Social Justice" too?LOL

@Sads:

I still say Fugitora doesn't use a Devil Fruit ability but a Sword Technique similar to Kinemons Firefox Style. But let's see if Oda will specify it at any point. Unless he has in an SBS and I missed it.

He uses sword techniques to pull meteors from space and make navy ships levitate?

Well done,Sanji LOL.
MVP of the arc…to the Big Mom Pirates,that is.

@Fraco:

I'd go further, if she didn't eat them then I'll be so upset.
All the theories about BM taking carmel's fruit without eating her are bullshit and more complicated than accepting the true: she ate everybody.
Streusen too was afraid to be too much close to her, he was keeping her far from him (and he also was far when she killed the chefs, streusen ain't no joke)

Oda just said that you eat luffy you get food poisoning but because his flesh is rubber, Carmel wasn't damn rubber and also if she was bm would eat her like the table

Hmm…I'm inclined to think that Oda was just joking when he gave this answer.
In fact,a friend of mine once said the same thing to me when I asked him about not being afraid to swin in a sea full of sharks and I'm quite sure that he isn't made of rubber or any other toxic material.

@Seafarer33:

Heh, no doubt that's what drove the giant away. I mean, who in their right mind would eat wood after a perfectly good serving of Semla? Disgusting, isn't it. And an insult to the Sun God, no less. No wonder they wouldn't speak her name anymore.
I bet to this day mothers in Elbaf keep using that threat to make their children eat properly. "Now don't you eat the table, sweetie. That's what You-Know-Who does." :happy:

Hmm…indeed...it all makes perfect sense now.
Maybe wooden furniture in Elbaf has the same sacred status as cows in India.

@rereboy:

I don't agree at all. If she hadn't eaten them, why would the giants, after hearing what had happened, been so repugned by Big Mom that they even avoided using her name? The only possible answer is that Big Mom did something terrible, something despicable at that moment. In other words, she ate them. If something else had happened, the giants would have no reason to be so repugned by Big Mom, it had to be something terrible done by Big Mom herself.

As for why, from the storytelling point of view, there were two witnesses, is was to: 1) further justify the bad blood between Big Mom and the giants (of which she isn't even aware it's her fault); 2) to explain how Big Mom managed to go on, survive and prosper (with the help of that guy).

Quite frankly…i'm really curious to know how these people think that Linlin got Carmel's DF power.
In fact,I intend to listen my "Inception" CD soundtrack while I read their theories about it.

@Kaido:

It's far more probable that Big Mom ate the fruit after Carmel died instead of got the power by eating Carmel, since that's how DF transfer works.

Our current knowledge about DFs is still very limited.
We don't know the exact process that explains how Spandam's sword got the Zou Zou no mi hability,but we can definitely assume that wasn't after eating a fruit, correct?
We also can assume that the DF essence tends to leave a dead body and get inside the nearest fruit until it is consumed,immediately causing a reaction within the living body of the person that ate the fruit.
But… what if a DF user actually dies INSIDE someone's body,instead of dying outside?Should the fruit still be a necessary vessel in this equation?The DF's essence,once leaving the user's digested body, wouldn't already be exactly where it should be-inside a new living organism capable of manifesting it's properties?
According to chapter 698(I checked cnet's translation this time),Vegapunk unveiled the path that would later lead to the SAD(main element of the artificial DF) creation through the "Bloodline Factor theory."Although we still don't know the full details revolving this theory,we may assume that there's a factor in the blood of living beings that reacts with the DF's essence once they meet each other.
Got my point now?This reaction here is the key.If a DF user dies inside someone's stomach,the DF's essence probably wouldn't need to travel searching for a fruit vessel: the blood factor of the new host would be right there ready to embrace it.And well...even if we assume a diverse scenario, in which the DF powers come from the reaction caused by the blood factor and the DF essence modified somehow after it's interacion with a fruit component,it's not a strecht to imagine that the croquembouche Linlin was eating had pieces of fruits inside it.So,yeah…these are my basic thoughts about this matter.
But like a said above...unfortunately,our current knowledge about DFs is still very limited.

@Seafarer33:

While I do favor this outcome I have to admit that, in lack of irrefutable proof, there are a number of equally plausible ways for the children and Mother to have vanished. I would tend to rule out CP0 directly intervening because had they done so, they would most certainly have tried to capture Linlin as well and that would likely leave battle marks all around if not a couple dead CP agents. But Mother manipulating the other children into pulling a fast one on Linlin could be a thing.

The one decisive factor at the moment is that I have yet to read a convincing explanation of what Oda's purpose would be in involving CP0 and/or keeping any of the children alive as government soldiers or whatever. Suppose they did and Big Mom eventually learns the truth: how would that change the dynamics of her relation to the Straw Hats or anybody else? Would it make her question her status as a Yonkou and sixty years of ruthless piracy? Their disappearance largely defined her character, but their return is likely not going to change it and so I'd prefer them to stay gone.

We may find out about this in an upcoming flashback, just as we may never learn the truth and keep the memory for what it is : a grey, uncertain cornerstone of Big Mom's character. Either way, Greg often says Oda likes to make his readership speculate about events: despite all the shortcomings of this arc, I'll tip my hat to the man and reckon this much was handled masterfully.

What seems more probable:Big Mom getting the Soul Soul fruit hability via cannibalism or getting it after conveniently eating a near fruit right after Mother Carmel ran away/got abducted and (later)murdered by some mysterious organization off panel?
Particularly,I believe that the non-inception scenario fits better in terms of probability.

@Chrior:

Carmel clearly hints to this, man: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelites

T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelites)his is what mangastream generates with their shitty translations. Wrong interpretations that lead to wild theories that could be simply solved by reading a better translation (not saying this is the case, just a little bit though).

It still might be a word play from Oda.For me,considering Big Mom's sweet addiction thing,it definitely doesn't look like pure coincidence.Who knows…