Rocks or Locks. What if it's LOCKS and an acronym of a group of pirates?
Linlin and Kaidou… that'd be the L and K. Missing an O, C and S.

I freakin knew last chapter that Charloss was going to make a play for Shirahoshi, that asshole. I'm glad he got his head slammed in. Screw that guy, for reals. All we need is his sister to appear and get her own introduction with a mace and things will be 'even' for Bubble arc. Well, for a given version of even.

@otakufan:

Whether or not she's actually in the running for a heel-face turn, I expect she'll catch up to them before they get to the Sunny.

Her interactions with Sanji in the aftermath of the "Wedding Massacre" plot falling to pieces certainly seemed to have shaken her quite a bit and so I fully expect Pudding to at the least come seeking some sort of resolution before the arc ends, in whatever form that takes. At the same time, she made it abundantly clear to Luffy, Nami, and Sanji that she is an extremely skilled liar, so I feel they'd need a chance to properly interact with her again before letting her on their ship, if only to convince themselves that she might actually have had a change of heart.

Let's be real - she'd say sorry and give some meat and Luffy'd forgive in a heartbeat. The others, not so much, but hey, Robin won over everyone bar Zoro really fast. It's not impossible for them to do a sudden heel-turn forgive.

I don't think treasure would cut it for Nami this time around though. It'd have to be something super special. Luffy though? Meat. Meat'd do it.

@Megaman:

Just because 1 stupid luck thing happened to save them doesn't mean it's ok for it to continue happening. Although its not that big a deal anymore. I just would have preferred they got out of this without luck.

I really wouldn't call it stupid luck. It actually makes complete sense that someone who was interested in the artefact would sneak in when EVERYONE was attending a wedding where it was going to be opened - especially snoop-tastic reporters and government agents undercover who want to know what's in there before shit hits fan from its opening. If they could learn the truth behind it, they can be forewarned but they didn't have a chance until now to get their hands on it. We always knew it was going to explode, and we always knew it was likely going to cause trouble for BM when it did. I mean, sure, the timing was just perfect for an escape, but this is a story where perfect timing makes for action. I mean, c'mon now, perfect timing went into a lot of things from the start - Luffy just-so-happened to get into a barrel before his ship sunk in the first chapter or so of the whole manga, a lightning strike just-so-happened to strike Buggy when he was about to lop Luffy's head clean off, Roger just-so-happened to get out that one phrase about his treasure before he was killed, Ace just-so-happened to get in the way of a magma fist before Luffy died… there's a shit-ton of times where, to amp up the excitement and action of the story, perfect timing occurs. You're just now noticing this? It's not a new thing.

But hey, let's say that it didn't go off... then what? Luffy wasn't going to be able to beat Big Mom, so how were they going to get out of that jam? Death isn't an option at this point in the story, so of course something had been set up way before in order to enable an escape - to give the heroes a chance (just a chance!) to skim through and save the day by the skin of their teeth. Sometimes it takes that one punch covered in your own blood, sometimes it takes getting eaten by a giant sky snake and sometimes it takes that one in a million chance that lightning will strike down from above and hit your enemy for you.

Quite frankly, I'm glad it was set up that way and used. It was never going to kill BM - Luffy's already claimed a battle to beat her at a later date and as a Yonkou she was never going to keel over from a bomb of all things - so of course it was going to be used at a point where it would benefit Luffy and gang. It was their set-up after all. It'd be stupid if it didn't.

@omy785:

I don't know…are we supposed to feel bad for Linlin/BM? 'cause I certainly don't feel that way...

I think we're supposed to feel bad for her, yes, but not as much as understand where she came from and why Caramel plays such a large part in scarring her psyche.

I do feel a little bad at the idea of a kid who just wants to do stuff right but accidentally hurts those around her, especially as it was adults failing her that caused the issue in the first place. Her parents just dumped her instead of trying to stick through and teach her right from wrong, Caramel never properly helped her realise that her actions, no matter how well-intentioned, had consequences or that she should feel responsible for those consequences, good or bad. None of the adults around her thought to question whether such an odd child should be made to take part in their ceremony, especially when they knew that she had issues with requiring a large amount of food. Also, someone should have noticed how oddly she reacted to the Semla - the panels that show her eating and reacting to it definitely set off more than a few warning bells. That kind of severe reaction should have exempted her from fasting for so long, especially seeing as her biology wasn't really understood. That'd be like giving a kid peanut butter for the first time, seeing them dive into the whole jar with just their fingers, and then saying "You know what? I don't see an issue here. Oh, by the way, you're not eating for the next x days or so now."

Frankly, she'd been let down quite a bit and the adults should have known better.

I don't feel sorry for her adult form, but I do feel sad for the abandoned girl who was never taught better and whose symptoms were ignored completely.

@desa:

How much do you regulate a 5 year old. She did tell her why what she was fixing didn't need fixing.

Got a 5 year old niece. She pulled our cat's tail and got told off for it. She wall pulled aside, scolded and had it explained to her that animals have to be treated gently or they could get seriously injured. Hey, guess what? She now treats the animals gently and they don't get hurt. Hell, they don't run from the room when she comes in any more either. Kids learn if you bother to pull them up on their bad behaviour and actually teach them. They're not stupid.

@K.:

This was brought forward as soon as the portrait was mentioned, however, with it now being destroyed it does not seem it has a physical connection to Big Mom, just emotional.

I wasn't saying to Big Mam, but Caramel, perhaps…?

I wonder if the photo is something along the lines of a certain painting that was tied to the life of a person in literature? That would be one explanation as to why Big Mum is so extremely protective of it. It's not likely, but just a thought I had. We do know Oda draws inspiration from a lot of different places, Western or otherwise, so it's not impossible for it to be linked in some way to The Portrait of Dorian Grey.

Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to the explanation~

@Riddler:

I would say that Law's character arc also sort of ends on a rather weak note, though it may not be as apparent since it's overall one of the better aspects of the arc. But it always bothered me that Law doesn't have a stronger reaction to Doflamingos downfall…he pretty much just looks on stoically. His later conversation with Senghok is nice, but imho it could have been better.

That said, I do agree that the ending for most of the other characters was really well done. Fujitora apologizing on live TV for the actions of the Marines, the formation of the Grand Fleet, and probably most surprising of all, the final scenes with Rebecca and Kyros were great.

It could be that that's not the end of Law's character arc. Not likely, sure, but he's still around and still has an alliance with Luffy, so it's not impossible that he's got more characterisation to come, including an actual emotional fallout-type response to everything. Then again, he seems to hate showing his feelings off around others (every time he interacts with the crew he struggles to pull himself out of the crazy when he realises he's suddenly joining in and showing more of himself. I actually quite liked that about his character XD ). I'm sure we'll see more eventually, though. I hope so, anyway.

@LightningAce:

I know he has Robin but still…it'd be interesting to see this power in action and how it allows him to read a Poneglyph. So far we've only seen it work in regards to living things like the Sea Kings or Zunisha

I'd rather that never happen. It's just not in Luffy's nature to care about reading and maps and information like that. Even if he could read it, he probably wouldn't understand it - it'd be left in Robin and Nami's hands to figure out the what and where, so it's better that Luffy be his own self instead of a copy/paste of Roger. Not that I mind him awakening the ability of being able to hear things, but he's a different character and person to Roger, he should use that ability in a different way than Roger ever did.

Frankly, I've enjoyed the pacing so far, though I find it a bit faster (kinda wish it'd slow down a tad) I'm still enjoying it. The thing a lot of people reading week-to-week don't realise is that we need chapters like this to round out the story or it feels flat as a whole. Things take time to get done, as well they should, and pieces of the story need telling. I trust Oda to tell the story right, so I'm happy to go at his pace.

Actually, another reason I think that Sanji is doing the "Get out of here!" thing might be to protect Nami. We saw his brothers' reactions to her, and we know they're very much the "I get what I want and women are just playthings" type of assholes. We also noticed Sanji noticing their reactions to her. I'd bet at least part of his wanting them to leave is remembering what happened to the young chef lady earlier.

Alright, I'm just calling it here because it's something that's been in the back of my mind for a while now. That vivre card of Big Mom's is just a cover for Nami's own parentage. I think she's Big Mom's daughter (we don't know her real parents, after all), and her ability with weather is a pretty big hint towards this. I wouldn't put it past Oda to have given her the vivre card in order to make it so that her own connection to Big Mom wasn't revealed during this arc (or at least, until the part it needs to be revealed during) and it would make a lot of sense with how much Luffy has been struggling to have a different way of 'defeating' Big Mom and putting the Germa 66 in their place. Say, if perhaps one of Big Mom's daughters were 'married' (or just connected) to Sanji… and could somehow still be part of Luffy's crew? You know, like, say, how Sanji and Nami are nakama and all~

Just something that's been swilling around my mind for a while now.

That said, I enjoyed the chapter. It actually reminds me more of Usopp leaving than anything else at the moment, though I can see the parallels that people are putting towards Robin. Thing is, this arc has so far drawn in a ton of references from previous arcs. Zou has been a reference to Skypeia in more than a few ways, there's some parallels between Big Mom's powers and Thriller Bark and something that struck me this chapter was how we're being introduced to Numbered Siblings which reminded me of Baroque Works. It's been a big ol' draw from all of the early arcs and frankly, I'm enjoying it a lot. I don't mind if it does go down the whole Robin route, as long as Oda does it well, which we know he is capable of. I trust him to do right by his story.

I don't think the Kidd alliance is under Kudo, but that perhaps Apoo was an inside-man for Kudo the whole time and is pretending to be part of the alliance in order to bring it down from the inside~

Also this chapter~ I know one person who is going to be very, very happy with the contents. ^.^ (A mutual friend of mine who loves the Minks and was quite distraught at the idea of them getting beaten on again.)