Stumbles in after spending the past week gathering up all his hopes and dreams for Yamato, locking them away in a box, then dropping that box into an actively burning furnace

Alright, now that I can discuss something that doesn't just leave me sad and disappointed...

It is SO very satisfying to see Crocodile back and being an absolute boss again. He's been my single favorite villain in the series since Alabasta, and being the real mastermind behind the Cross Guild makes perfect sense for a man who has a history of running large criminal organizations. Going to be interesting to see how the Croc-Mihawk-Buggy show develops from here on.

On the Revolutionary side of things, we've now got confirmation that Sabo was separated from the other Revolutionary commanders, as well as the pretty strong implication that the death of Nefertari Cobra was not an action Dragon had sanctioned - which, given that Cobra is/was known as a good man in spite of his family's ancient ties to the Celestial Dragons, isn't surprising to me. Whether Sabo is truly responsible for his death or is merely being framed is another matter entirely.

Regardless, seems like the Reverie fallout is finally flowing again, so with luck we'll get an update on what happened to Vivi in the relatively near future.

@theackwardstation

Gion and Tokikake also made earlier cameos in Film Gold, albeit unnamed and without doing anything of note.

Tokikake was golfing during the race sequence and Gion was hanging out in Tesoro's VIP room.

@hideoushorrendous said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

If the world government has one of three ancient weapons then why didn't they try to conquer the other half of the grand line ???

Whatever the nature of the thing that destroyed Lulusia, I'm going to assume there are (or at least were) some significant restrictions on its use for one reason or another.

Perhaps Imu, the Gorousei, and their predecessors felt that the best way to achieve their goals was to use their doomsday weapon as sparingly as possible - you can't exactly rule over, or extract wealth from, a nation that you functionally vaporized...

It also pretty much guarantees rebellion. The threat of going full "Death Star" might seem a good way to keep troublesome people in line, but it's also the biggest ultimatum in existence, more or less forcing anyone who doesn't want to live with a proverbial nuke hanging over their head to rise up against it.

@joekido-the-Second said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@joekido-the-Second said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@otakufan Lulusia is located in the Paradise

This chapter claims it's in the New World - admittedly might just be a mistake that will be corrected in the final volume release, but I'm operating under the assumption that this is correct for the moment.

Well it was close to Peach Island where Dragon is so if it's in the New World, shouldn't Sanji be the first to go there?

Might be an "As the Crow Flies" situation - near each other on a map, but still on opposite sides of the Red Line.

@hideoushorrendous said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

If the world government has one of three ancient weapons then why didn't they try to conquer the other half of the grand line ???

Whatever the nature of the thing that destroyed Lulusia, I'm going to assume there are (or at least were) some significant restrictions on its use for one reason or another.

Perhaps Imu, the Gorousei, and their predecessors felt that the best way to achieve their goals was to use their doomsday weapon as sparingly as possible - you can't exactly rule over, or extract wealth from, a nation that you functionally vaporized...

It also pretty much guarantees rebellion. The threat of going full "Death Star" might seem a good way to keep troublesome people in line, but it's also the biggest ultimatum in existence, more or less forcing anyone who doesn't want to live with a proverbial nuke hanging over their head to rise up against it.

@joekido-the-Second said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@joekido-the-Second said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@otakufan Lulusia is located in the Paradise

This chapter claims it's in the New World - admittedly might just be a mistake that will be corrected in the final volume release, but I'm operating under the assumption that this is correct for the moment.

Well it was close to Peach Island where Dragon is so if it's in the New World, shouldn't Sanji be the first to go there?

Might be an "As the Crow Flies" situation - near each other on a map, but still on opposite sides of the Red Line.

@joekido-the-Second said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

@otakufan Lulusia is located in the Paradise

This chapter claims it's in the New World - admittedly might just be a mistake that will be corrected in the final volume release, but I'm operating under the assumption that this is correct for the moment.

@Deicide said in Chapter 1060: Luffy's Dream:

So, when an island is erased, what happens to all the log/eternal poses that were pointing to it?

And how do you get the log pose to point to next island now that the island in the path no longer exists?

So many questions…

We saw something sort of like this in the early part of Film Z, with the destruction of Firs Island - the home of the Marine/WG facility where Zephyr initially stole the Dyna-Stones. It has admittedly been a while, but if memory serves, the needle pointing to that island on the Strawhat's Log Pose promptly went untethered and started spinning uncontrollably, with Nami essentially navigating to where the island used to be (at Luffy's insistence) by way of the massive plume of volcanic ash rising up from the horizon.

Presumably, the destruction of Lulusia would have a similar effect on any Log or Eternal Poses keyed to it. Luckily, assuming that Lulusia being located in the New World is indeed accurate, it would be part of the New World's much more deeply interconnected Log Pose magnetic field network. If every island points to three other islands, it only makes sense that multiple islands might also point to the same destination island, we know all routes eventually converge at Lodestar, but that doesn't mean that routes don't intersect elsewhere as well.

Honestly, I think it's a moot point.

If Vegapunk can clone/genetically-engineer Seraphim using samples taken from the Shichibukai, there's no reason he can't do so from others as well - powerful Marines, for example.

The fact that the first two we were introduced to were chibi Lunar!Hancock and Lunar!Mihawk doesn't in and of itself mean that all Seraphim are ex-Shichibukai clones, or that there are only seven in existence.

@Johnny-B-Decent said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

But there had to have been a vacancy as Ace was offered a spot when he was a Super Rookie.

Perhaps that was a ploy - as in they were already building up evidence that Ace might be connected to Gold Roger, but didn't want that to info to spread until he was either captured or dead, so they tried to bait him into a meeting/trap with a Shichibukai seat, perhaps suggesting that they'd simply replace one or increase the number of seats to eight.

Or there may have legitimately been a vacancy and one of the "initial" Shichibukai was comparatively new compared to those that had held the job for a decade or more. We know Doflamingo, Hancock, and Jinbe had been around since more or less the beginning, but I don't think we have any actual confirmation on when exactly Mihawk, Crocodile, Kuma, or Moria were given the title.

Buggy was able to do quite a lot with just two years.

I've had suspicions of an eventual "split" between the hardline "Absolute Justice" Marines and the more moderate "Moral Justice" ones pretty much since Sakazuki took over as Fleet Admiral, so gradually rounding out the roster to ensure we have enough significant named characters on both sides makes sense.

However it goes down, a proverbial "changing of the guard" is inevitable so long as Sakazuki's in charge.

@theackwardstation

Gion and Tokikake also made earlier cameos in Film Gold, albeit unnamed and without doing anything of note.

Tokikake was golfing during the race sequence and Gion was hanging out in Tesoro's VIP room.

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

Sighs

Please ignore the first few paragraphs if you don't want to listen to me venting about Yamato again...

The way Oda's choosing to handle the situation with Yams continues to frustrate the hell out of me... For all of my salt, I am glad Oda felt the need to actually show a bit of Yamato's decision making rather than just leaving it at "Nah, I spontaneously decided to stay instead", but it feels like he's trying to set up a post-timeskip Jinbe type scenario, where Yams is clearly set to join the Strawhats, but puts it on hold for a few arcs because he feels he needs to stay behind for a while in order to whip Momonosuke into shape make sure Wano will be safe before he actually does so. And that would be fine, albeit aggravating, if Oda weren't going out of his way to make it abundantly clear that we're heading into the final saga of the series.

If we had another ten real world years and a couple more full sagas for Yams to do what he needs to do and catch back up, then we could actually spend time with him as part of the crew, but as it stands, with Oda aiming to wrap the series somewhere in the range of 3-5 more years instead, he's basically being set up to probably deal with an off-screen assault on Wano by <insert bad-guy of choice here> to justify his decision to stay behind and then maybe show up to help in whatever we get for a final battle alongside any other Strawhat allies that happen to appear.

Vivi actually got to adventure with the crew before getting her "Honorary Strawhat" designation in Alabasta (and I have theories about her return in the near future).
Momonosuke and Kinemon actually got to adventure with the crew before getting their "Honorary Strawhat" designations at the end of Wano.
Law adventured with the crew and has essentially become an "Honorary Strawhat" as well, though he would never admit it.
Yamato got to beat up a bunch of mooks, show off a bit of what he can do in a single battle that no one else witnessed, and is now being promised that he will get to go on adventures at some nebulous point in the future that may well not even come until the series epilogue - it's giving him the most cursory of "Honorary Strawhat" titles and pretending that is somehow satisfying for the two-years of build up we just went through.

Practically speaking, Yams won't actually get to begin his adventures until the series is essentially over, all because Momonosuke needs a babysitter and thus undercutting Momo's entire character arc in Wano, given that he sacrificed his childhood specifically so that he could become the man he needs to be to protect his people. Oda essentially just spent two-years introducing us to Yamato and then told us that he will be a very relevant character in One Piece Z/Super/Shippuden/TYBW, so look forward to the sequel once One Piece has concluded and he can find a new artist to take over for him.

Okay, rant over...

I am glad we got to see Luffy meet with Marco, however briefly. Would've like more, but I'll take it.

That brings us to the meat of the chapter, Blackbeard vs. Marines vs. Hancock.

Starting with the genetically-engineered/clone/cyborg child super soldier elephants in the room, the Seraphim are creepy as ****. Since we know that Vegapunk was involved in the research that discovered the Lineage Factor back during his MADS days alongside Judge and Queen, it isn't particularly surprising that he has developed cloning and gene-modding tech. Presumably he acquired genetic samples from the Shichibukai during their time under the World Government, and similarly got a Lunarian gene sample from King/Alber during his time on Punk Hazard, so while I don't know that Lunarian-Pacifista-Shichibukai-clones was a turn that could reasonably have been seen coming, the pieces were nonetheless all present.

Hard to tell at this point whether the Seraphim will become characters in their own right or are simply the newest iteration of super-mook, no more free-willed than their Pacifista forebearers, but that smile that chibi Not!Hancock was sporting makes me feel there's at least a chance that they have some personality to them. Looking forward to seeing how they develop, and which of the other ex-Shichibukai (and perhaps others) got cloned for the Seraphim project as well...

Hancock vs. Teach seems like it went about as well as any confrontation between a single ex-Shichibukai and a Yonkou would go - she lost, but not before managing to petrify a decent portion of both the Marines and Blackbeard's contingent, ensuring that heavy losses would be inflicted in the event of her death.

Rayleigh saved her life, obviously, as well as those of the people she petrified, but the overriding theme of the chapter seems to be that Hancock is going to have to leave Amazon Lily in order to protect it, at least for now, an option that might be more viable should Shakky be willing to hold down the fort while Hancock is away, now that she's been revealed as a former Kuja Empress herself (wasn't expect that twist personally, though I'm not against it - still suspecting that she was a member of Rocks back in the day).

And last but not least, I'm glad to finally be getting some more details on the Rocky Port Incident - now that it's been tied to Teach's rise to power over Hachinosu and another of the former Rocks Pirates, I think the chances we'll eventually get a more in depth look into the whole fiasco are growing. Especially given that Koby has seemingly been taken captive.

Going to be interesting to see how he handles this situation. He's far more capable than he was under Alvida, but given the sheer disparity between even his current abilities and those of Teach and his top officers, I'm actually thinking Koby's best option might be to "go pirate" again and reprise his "cabin boy" days under Teach, while utilizing his SWORD contacts to undermine them from the inside. Which may well make Koby a major player in the fight to take down Blackbeard once and for all.

Well all Yamato really seems to want for Wano at this point is essentially enough back up to help Wano from the inside, seeing as how Luffy's flag protection wasn't enough to convince her. Seeing what happened with Amazon Lily and Luffy caring about these places, maybe this arc will answer up to how Luffy would handle wanting to protect places when he can't be everyone at once.

What Yamato wants for Wano is simply the confidence that Momo and the Akazaya will be able to handle anything that tries to do what Kaidou and Aramaki did.

Much as I love the Akazaya, they're never going to be able to defeat a Yonkou/Admiral-tier opponent by themselves, so ultimately it falls on Momonosuke, i.e. Pink Kaidou. Once Momo is strong enough and skilled enough to keep Wano safe under his own power, Yamato will be able to leave with the confidence that Wano will be safe without him.

That is, fundamentally, all it boils down to.

Might turn out to be a losing battle then since Momo and Akazaya aren't obligated to surpass Kaido and Aramaki in their lifetimes, and that a better solution would have to be found.

Might get more complicated with Yamato being there too, at least in case it turns out Yamato's mother was Kurozumi, and is met with anger if the Wano citizens turn Hiyori's "Kurozumi was born to burn" line into a grudge too.

And I highly doubt Yams has any blood relation to the Kurozumi. We don't have any identified female Kurozumi survivors other than Tama and Granny Higurashi, so unless she was using her shapeshifting powers to make herself young and sexy enough to cozy up to Kaidou, or Orochi/Kanjuro spent the better part of a year Ivankov'd without anyone noticing, I don't see much reason to assume Yamato would have a relation to the clan. Particularly since it's blatantly obvious that Kaidou was always just using the Kurozumi and never held anything but contempt for them - unlike Yamato, whom Kaidou was still trying to position as his heir even when at his most rebellious.

That's the thing, in that what if Higurashi offered her younger sister or niece to Kaido, which would then result in not only a continuation of the Kurozumi bloodline, but also have someone of Kurozumi and Oni heritage on the shogun throne at the same time, and that that someone possibly turned out to be Yamato?

If true, then it might shed light on that proposition Higurashi offered to Kaido 28 years ago too, and take things in a very interesting turn depending on how the Wano citizens react to this.

It's also a theory that is fundamentally irrelevant at this point. For all practical purposes, the time to out anyone as a Kurozumi was at the end of the Wano arc, so that Momonosuke could make a show of pardoning them and breaking the cycle of retribution. Doing so now wouldn't give Yams a reason to leave Wano that he didn't already have simply by virtue of being Kaidou's son.

Well then what was Higurashi going on about in regards to "survival of the fittest" and a proposition to Kaido then?

By any reasonable measure, the actions of Orochi's grandfather were criminal and treasonous - Higurashi is justifying them as the right and natural course of action. Survival of the fittest - it's not wrong if you can get away with it, so the Kurozumi's Daimyo was not at fault for trying to murder his Shogun and fellow Daimyo so he could seize rulership of Wano for himself, and it's certainly not something his kin and descendants should be punished for.

How much of that she actually believed is debatable, but she was framing it in a way to convince Orochi to join her, not in a full and fair accounting of the facts.

She also had Shiki's appearance in her proverbial shapeshifting stockpile, which at least suggests the possibility that she was affiliated with Rocks, and thus might have pre-existing connections to Kaidou and his might makes right philosophy.

As to the proposition, "Help me make my great-nephew(?) Shogun of Wano and you can use it as a base of operations and do whatever you want with its people and resources" seems a plenty suitable option in my mind.

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@electricmastro said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

@otakufan said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

Sighs

Please ignore the first few paragraphs if you don't want to listen to me venting about Yamato again...

The way Oda's choosing to handle the situation with Yams continues to frustrate the hell out of me... For all of my salt, I am glad Oda felt the need to actually show a bit of Yamato's decision making rather than just leaving it at "Nah, I spontaneously decided to stay instead", but it feels like he's trying to set up a post-timeskip Jinbe type scenario, where Yams is clearly set to join the Strawhats, but puts it on hold for a few arcs because he feels he needs to stay behind for a while in order to whip Momonosuke into shape make sure Wano will be safe before he actually does so. And that would be fine, albeit aggravating, if Oda weren't going out of his way to make it abundantly clear that we're heading into the final saga of the series.

If we had another ten real world years and a couple more full sagas for Yams to do what he needs to do and catch back up, then we could actually spend time with him as part of the crew, but as it stands, with Oda aiming to wrap the series somewhere in the range of 3-5 more years instead, he's basically being set up to probably deal with an off-screen assault on Wano by <insert bad-guy of choice here> to justify his decision to stay behind and then maybe show up to help in whatever we get for a final battle alongside any other Strawhat allies that happen to appear.

Vivi actually got to adventure with the crew before getting her "Honorary Strawhat" designation in Alabasta (and I have theories about her return in the near future).
Momonosuke and Kinemon actually got to adventure with the crew before getting their "Honorary Strawhat" designations at the end of Wano.
Law adventured with the crew and has essentially become an "Honorary Strawhat" as well, though he would never admit it.
Yamato got to beat up a bunch of mooks, show off a bit of what he can do in a single battle that no one else witnessed, and is now being promised that he will get to go on adventures at some nebulous point in the future that may well not even come until the series epilogue - it's giving him the most cursory of "Honorary Strawhat" titles and pretending that is somehow satisfying for the two-years of build up we just went through.

Practically speaking, Yams won't actually get to begin his adventures until the series is essentially over, all because Momonosuke needs a babysitter and thus undercutting Momo's entire character arc in Wano, given that he sacrificed his childhood specifically so that he could become the man he needs to be to protect his people. Oda essentially just spent two-years introducing us to Yamato and then told us that he will be a very relevant character in One Piece Z/Super/Shippuden/TYBW, so look forward to the sequel once One Piece has concluded and he can find a new artist to take over for him.

Okay, rant over...

I am glad we got to see Luffy meet with Marco, however briefly. Would've like more, but I'll take it.

That brings us to the meat of the chapter, Blackbeard vs. Marines vs. Hancock.

Starting with the genetically-engineered/clone/cyborg child super soldier elephants in the room, the Seraphim are creepy as ****. Since we know that Vegapunk was involved in the research that discovered the Lineage Factor back during his MADS days alongside Judge and Queen, it isn't particularly surprising that he has developed cloning and gene-modding tech. Presumably he acquired genetic samples from the Shichibukai during their time under the World Government, and similarly got a Lunarian gene sample from King/Alber during his time on Punk Hazard, so while I don't know that Lunarian-Pacifista-Shichibukai-clones was a turn that could reasonably have been seen coming, the pieces were nonetheless all present.

Hard to tell at this point whether the Seraphim will become characters in their own right or are simply the newest iteration of super-mook, no more free-willed than their Pacifista forebearers, but that smile that chibi Not!Hancock was sporting makes me feel there's at least a chance that they have some personality to them. Looking forward to seeing how they develop, and which of the other ex-Shichibukai (and perhaps others) got cloned for the Seraphim project as well...

Hancock vs. Teach seems like it went about as well as any confrontation between a single ex-Shichibukai and a Yonkou would go - she lost, but not before managing to petrify a decent portion of both the Marines and Blackbeard's contingent, ensuring that heavy losses would be inflicted in the event of her death.

Rayleigh saved her life, obviously, as well as those of the people she petrified, but the overriding theme of the chapter seems to be that Hancock is going to have to leave Amazon Lily in order to protect it, at least for now, an option that might be more viable should Shakky be willing to hold down the fort while Hancock is away, now that she's been revealed as a former Kuja Empress herself (wasn't expect that twist personally, though I'm not against it - still suspecting that she was a member of Rocks back in the day).

And last but not least, I'm glad to finally be getting some more details on the Rocky Port Incident - now that it's been tied to Teach's rise to power over Hachinosu and another of the former Rocks Pirates, I think the chances we'll eventually get a more in depth look into the whole fiasco are growing. Especially given that Koby has seemingly been taken captive.

Going to be interesting to see how he handles this situation. He's far more capable than he was under Alvida, but given the sheer disparity between even his current abilities and those of Teach and his top officers, I'm actually thinking Koby's best option might be to "go pirate" again and reprise his "cabin boy" days under Teach, while utilizing his SWORD contacts to undermine them from the inside. Which may well make Koby a major player in the fight to take down Blackbeard once and for all.

Well all Yamato really seems to want for Wano at this point is essentially enough back up to help Wano from the inside, seeing as how Luffy's flag protection wasn't enough to convince her. Seeing what happened with Amazon Lily and Luffy caring about these places, maybe this arc will answer up to how Luffy would handle wanting to protect places when he can't be everyone at once.

What Yamato wants for Wano is simply the confidence that Momo and the Akazaya will be able to handle anything that tries to do what Kaidou and Aramaki did.

Much as I love the Akazaya, they're never going to be able to defeat a Yonkou/Admiral-tier opponent by themselves, so ultimately it falls on Momonosuke, i.e. Pink Kaidou. Once Momo is strong enough and skilled enough to keep Wano safe under his own power, Yamato will be able to leave with the confidence that Wano will be safe without him.

That is, fundamentally, all it boils down to.

Might turn out to be a losing battle then since Momo and Akazaya aren't obligated to surpass Kaido and Aramaki in their lifetimes, and that a better solution would have to be found.

Might get more complicated with Yamato being there too, at least in case it turns out Yamato's mother was Kurozumi, and is met with anger if the Wano citizens turn Hiyori's "Kurozumi was born to burn" line into a grudge too.

And I highly doubt Yams has any blood relation to the Kurozumi. We don't have any identified female Kurozumi survivors other than Tama and Granny Higurashi, so unless she was using her shapeshifting powers to make herself young and sexy enough to cozy up to Kaidou, or Orochi/Kanjuro spent the better part of a year Ivankov'd without anyone noticing, I don't see much reason to assume Yamato would have a relation to the clan. Particularly since it's blatantly obvious that Kaidou was always just using the Kurozumi and never held anything but contempt for them - unlike Yamato, whom Kaidou was still trying to position as his heir even when at his most rebellious.

That's the thing, in that what if Higurashi offered her younger sister or niece to Kaido, which would then result in not only a continuation of the Kurozumi bloodline, but also have someone of Kurozumi and Oni heritage on the shogun throne at the same time, and that that someone possibly turned out to be Yamato?

If true, then it might shed light on that proposition Higurashi offered to Kaido 28 years ago too, and take things in a very interesting turn depending on how the Wano citizens react to this.

It's a theory, sure. The issue I have is that there is literally nothing to back that theory up beyond raw supposition.

The Kurozumi never had a claim to the Shogunate that wasn't backed by Kaidou's threat or application of brute force, so having Kaidou's kid be a Kurozumi by way of his mother doesn't do any more to strengthen his claim to the throne than carrying a big stick and being willing to use it does.

It's also a theory that is fundamentally irrelevant at this point. For all practical purposes, the time to out anyone as a Kurozumi was at the end of the Wano arc, so that Momonosuke could make a show of pardoning them and breaking the cycle of retribution. Doing so now wouldn't give Yams a reason to leave Wano that he didn't already have simply by virtue of being Kaidou's son.

@Lemony said in Chapter 1059: The Matter Involving Captain Koby:

I don't understand the Hancock complaint...? Teach wasn't hit by Hancock's attack because... he wasn't. It's not only by looking at her, she needs to actually execute an action, which can be avoided. And you don't need to have heart eyes or whatever to be affected by it, Teach would have been if not for circumstances.

And/or he made use of his long established ability to nullify the DF powers of others to prevent Hancock from successfully landing the attack to begin with.

Of all the people to ask "Why wasn't X affected by Y's Devil Fruit?", I would honestly expect Teach to get the most leeway...