One Piece 1048 Review: Random Flashback!

One Piece, Chapter 1048: 20 Years

I really, really didn't want to talk too much shit about this chapter. To get the elephant (gun) out of the way... a huge chunk of this chapter is just a flashback. And... I get it. Oda wants to end this fight at 1050, a nice round number. But I felt like the flashback could either focus a lot more on how Orochi's dickery meant to Denjiro or Hiyori; or give some context to Denjiro's character personally; or even be structured to revolve solely around the wishes of the people specifically to have those wishes on the lanterns hit home... but nope, this just ends up feeling like a random smattering of scenes you'd find in any given one-minute episode of One Piece when they need to pad out time, and... and I don't care for it. I won't say this ruins the chapter blah blah blah because we've been so spoiled for the past half-dozen chapters with nothing but action scene after action scene. And the pacing won't be this bad when you binge-read through it, just like Dressrosa's pacing didn't feel as bad. But I would be lying if I said that I was wholly underwhelmed by this chapter entirely. 

That one panel of a single suicide rope is well-placed and quite sad. If only I cared enough for the flashback to not just speed-read through it. 

And the rest of the action sequence is... it's pretty neat, but it's obvious that it's setting up a lot of the major plot points that the final arc has been pretty much hammering home. Momonosuke needs to move the island out of the way, and he's pushing it with his head. There's a very cool moment from Kaido where he says that he's going to take Luffy's punch head-on. He's a pretty cool battle-hungry guy, y'know? It's very cool. 

And he activates a brand new ability called "Flame Dragon Torch", where he breathes out fire or magma or something from his mouth... and I thought he merely set himself on fire, but no. It's not until my reread of this chapter that I realized that Kaido created... well, created a Susano'o out of fire, if you guys have watched Naruto. You can see Kaido's real body nestled within the forehead of the giant fiery dragon form that's like, easily three to five times larger than Kaido's original dragon form. That's super cool!

We get a clash of attacks as Luffy remembers how Ryu'o allows Luffy to punch and unleash his Haki without touching -- and that's nice. That's nice that we're not forgetting all those random shots of Luffy fighting and training in the prison. We get a clash of Kaido's Flame Bagua and Luffy's Gomu Gomu no Bajrang Gun -- Bajrang being a title belonging to Hanuman, a Hindu monkey deity that's the inspiration for Sun Wukong, as google tells me. 

We get a bunch of random scenes -- including a scene of Usopp dropping Kin'emon and Kiku, and going "you better not be dead"... which... it's kind of extra-dumb if Kin is actually still alive. It'd be a great subversion if he actually dies after all his wounds, and that would make scenes like this actually good... we'll see, because I still think Kin'emon should've died at the conclusion of their fight with Kaido on the roof.  Or when Kaido stabbed him through the heart. Or when he fought Kanjurou for the last time. Or something. I don't know.

And then we get a five-page flashback, at which point we cut over to Orochi, on fire, with one head left, about to devour Komurasaki... and then to the surprise of no one, Denjiro comes in and slices Orochi's head off. It's nice, it gets rid of the second-biggest antagonist (narratively, at least) right before the final clash between Luffy and Kaido. And Denjiro has been MIA for... for a year? I would really like at least one line explaining what he's been doing, because he's really the only Scabbard who hasn't done anything since the rooftop battle, right? 

And... I don't feel as strongly about this as some people, but I would also really like it if it was Hiyori that kills Orochi? It's been such a huge part of her characterization, of the Kozuki clan's motivation... and she gets such a great moment when she finally gets to watch Orochi burn that it felt so cheap to reduce her to a damsel in distress just so that Denjiro can swoop in an save her. Shit, at least have her pull out a sword to defend herself before Denjiro comes in or something, y'know?

Kind of a disappointment, but they can't all be winners, I guess. 

Random Notes:

• The cover story has Brulee and Cracker talk about Reiju and Ichiji arriving... or are they? Brulee is only reporting what she sees through mirrors, and we don't actually see them showing up. A lot of theories want the Blackbeard pirates to show up, or some other pair of interesting characters....
• Shimotsuki Ushimaru shows his full face. Yeah, he looks like Zoro. No, I don't really care at all since we don't even acknowledge anything about it. 
• That single panel of a flashback of "when you reach the future, rebuild the Kozuki clan" and Momo remembering his family is an example of a flashback that works in showing us Momo's determination from "I can't" to "I WILL move this fucking island, motherfucker". 
• How interested are you guys in seeing me do a recap-review of the entirety of either Naruto or Bleach? It's a massive commitment for me to even rewatch either of those pretty long series, but all this talk about Susano'o has got me kind of itching to revisit some of these older series. 
• There are a lot of people who think Orochi should be redeemed to break the 'cycle of hatred' or whatever. But this isn't Magi, and Orochi did a whole ton of bullshit. If this flashback is good for something, it's to hammer home what a massive piece of shit Orochi is, so... yeah, I really don't care if he dies .