One Piece, Chapter 903: The Fifth Emperor
Holy shit, what a big bomb of a chapter! See, why couldn't this be the 'BIG' event for chapter 900? Honestly, any of the past two or three chapters have enough huge impact without having to resort to the silly fake-out that was chapter 900. But I've done enough complaining about chapter 900's troll fake-out in the comment section before, so let's talk about the good parts of this chapter.
We still have no concrete answer as what happens to Jinbe's crew and the Germa dudes, although they are still conspicuously absent from the huge roll call of characters reacting to the news... so yeah. I don't buy Jinbe dying off-screen so... transformed into homies, then? It is slightly frustrating that Jinbe misses yet another moment to join the crew, but eh. Whatever.
The chapter starts off with the revelation that Niji snuck in Sanji's raid suit into his person, and both Luffy and Chopper beg for Sanji to not throw it away because it's super cool... but Sanji expresses absolute disgust at using anything coming from the Vinsmokes (as he should!) and refuses to have any part in having Germa Science be the source of his strength. He also brushes off the fact that he can shoot laser beams by noting that their crew already has Franky as the super robot. Time will tell if this is just the writer giving a sly nod as to "nope, Sanji's not going to betray his convictions" or actual foreshadowing to a potential possible power-up in the future. We also segue to the fact that Nami has apparently trapped Zeus in her clima-tact, essentially enslaving that powerful huge thundercloud. Huh. That's... that's actually what everyone online predicted and something I scoffed at, but it appears that we're rolling with this outrageously fun development... at least until Big Mom faces the Straw Hats again, anyway.
We get the revelation of new bounties when the newspaper gets delivered to the Sunny. Sanji's bounty is increased to 330 million, a wee bit higher than Zoro (which Sanji is extremely excited about), but at the same time he's pissed off that they've printed his name as Vinsmoke Sanji. Oh, and it's dead-or-alive now. There's a bit of a fake-out with Lulffy crying because his bounty went down to 150 million... but of course, as we learn at the end of the chapter, it's actually shot up dramatically to 1.5 billion, one of the highest bounties we've seen in the series so far. I'm not someone to really get caught up in bounty discussion, but god damn, this is a pretty badass little increase, isn't it? And the reason is even believable -- it's all thanks to Big News Morgans reporting and embellishing, noting that Luffy defeated Cracker and Katakuri, Luffy managed to fight toe to toe with Big Mom in her own territory and escape, Luffy being able to consolidate the Firetank and Sun Pirates in an alliance against Big Mom... plus all the other members of the Straw Hat grand fleet spreading Luffy's reputation... yeah. I do think that it might perhaps be a wee bit too much, but as often is pointed out, bounties are more of a threat level in the eyes of the government as opposed to the oh-so-holy power level debate.
We then get our requisite 'the rest of the world reacts to news' bit, but at the same time it also ties in to the Reverie arc, which is reportedly coming next as opposed to Wanokuni. We check in on Fishman Island, where Neptune basically notes how Jinbe has finally joined Luffy's crew (oh, if he only knew) and that Fishman Island is under the Straw Hat Crew's protection. Oh, and Shirahoshi decides to go alongside her father to the Reverie.
We get a bit of a check-in with Crocodile, Bege and Dalton reading the newspaper, as well as Bartolomeo and Cavendish spreading tales of the powerful Luffy, head of a new grand pirate fleet, as Morgans' aforementioned narration is told over it. Morgans even notes that Luffy is the fifth Emperor of the Sea, making the terminology... Goko instead of Yonko, then? We get to see Akainu being angry at the fact that the Illusia kingdom ship being attacked by pirates and the princess being kidnapped -- and the Ilusia kingdom was like something mentioned here and there over the chapters building up to the Reverie, but this is the biggest and most prominent bit it has had.
As the nameless pirates are about to attack the combined fleets of Dressrosa and Prodence (we check in a bit with the Tontattas, King Riku, King Elizabeth, Rebecca* and Viola). They try to launch a torpedo to sink the ships, but some marine dude zips through the water, grabs the torpedo and blows it up, and it's revealed to be COBY! Coby isn't my favourite character in One Piece, but he's apparently progressing at a pretty rapid rate. Last we checked in with him, he's honed Rokushiki. Now he's apparently trained Observation Haki as well. Helmeppo is also there, taking out the submarine pirate crew and rescuing the Illusia princess with his weird kukri swords. There's a fun bit as Coby reads the news and is impressed at Luffy-senpai, and Rebecca catches on to this and accurately notes that Coby is a Luffy fan himself.
*Who I am sorry to say I actually didn't realize was supposed to be her, because she's wearing a normal dress
We get a bit of a check-in with a furious Kaido, who's confused why Luffy's attacking Big Mom. We also get Blackbeard, doing his jackass Zehahahaha bit. Big Mom is screaming and angry that Luffy is painted the victor, while Shanks... is just sitting cool on some island somewhere. That's all four Yonko as the chapter ends in a two-page spread of the revelation of Luffy's 1.5 billion bounty.
Overall... yeah, a pretty damn awesome 'hype' chapter. Hopefully we actually start off the Reverie next chapter! Looking forward to it, for sure.
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