One Piece 1057 Review: Curtain Close

One Piece, Chapter 1057: Final Curtain

Okay, yeah... that's... that's not it, really. I tend to be on the 'trust in the payoff' kind of guy whenever we get chapters that aren't up to everyone's expectations. And hell, I'm even willing to understand the real-world marketing situations that some people speculate caused the leadup to the final fight to perhaps be rushed just a bit to get to the Shanks moment. 

But I've seen arcs that ended well in One Piece, and this... this ain't it, guys. I'm sure the anime will dress it up and make it pretty and everything, and all of these kabuki-play beng beng beng and yooo~ will sound much more impressive with, y'know, actual music. But that's not really the problem. Wano has always had its act transitions with these kind of fancy background and it's stylish. It's just that the events that take place in this chapter is... is so kind of bland. 

Within two pages, we get Yamato telling Momonosuke and Kin'emon that she's not heading out to sea. That alone is already something that's going to make a lot of fans rage-quit, because a lot of people really like Yamato and there has been significant foreshadowing that she's going to become the next Straw Hat... but she's staying. She's staying in Wano. And... and I would be fine with it if it was handled well. But not only is it dragged out over the cliffhanger of last chapter, it's also kind of brushed aside as a very emotionless handwave in this page. "Oh yeah, I talked with Luffy offscreen, no biggie" despite spending the entire goddamn arc going on and on about wanting to go to the ocean. 

Now if there's some huge moment (and it could've even been in this exact chapter) of character realization that Yamato needs to stay in Wano, or that she needs to study about Wano culture or some shit, sure. Hell, in an ideal world, perhaps Yamato could've seen how Ryokugyu technically hasn't been defeated by Momonosuke and stayed behind to properly protect Wano, and I think that could've been a much better handwave. I don't know. It's just the blatant and flippant manner that this was brushed aside, when up until the Ryokugyu fight we're still building up Yamato's joining the Straw Hats, that really irks me more than 'who gets to be the next member of the main cast' thing. 

Instead, we get a multiple-page flashback of Momonosuke's journey throughout the entire series. Very impressive, I suppose, but on the other hand, this also seems to questionably imply that maybe Momonosuke joins the crew... except he doesn't either at the end of the chapter. Instead, the chapter focuses on Momonosuke's kind of... anger and denial that the Straw Hats are about to leave him behind and that he's not going to have anyone to lean towards. It's... it's really kind of contradictory to what we had when he stood his own against Ryokugyu, yeah? Not entirely, but it really feels like the story is flip-flopping. And I suppose Momonosuke is a kid at the end of it all, but still.

Okay, admittedly Luffy giving Momonosuke the flag and going 'yo, you're a Yonko territory now' is a sweet moment, but the farewell itself really... really rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it's the long flashback, maybe it's just frustration at how poorly Yamato was handled this chapter... I don't know. Would the 'Momonosuke breaking down and crying' moment been better placed before his fight with Ryokugyu? I do personally appreciate that the story is actually acknowledging that Momonosuke is just a scared child at heart despite going through some impressive events at his young age, but damn, it just doesn't really feel satisfying at all. 

Luffy does say that he'll accept Yamato, Momonosuke or Kin'emon whenever they want to become pirates, but with the story rocketing so fast towards the end, it really feels like just a handwave to get them to show up in the final battle with the rest of the Grand Fleet. 

We also get some rather... not-quite-as-funny jokes about Yamato's Oden obsession (oh, right, another thing the fandom thought was going to be addressed here) and the rivalry between the three Supernovas. 

And here comes, I think, the most problematic part of the chapter and the arc in general. A five-page retelling of how the brave Scabbards beat Orochi and his oppressive regime, complete with an epic half-two-page spread of Hiyori doing an epic pose. And... and the message this delivers just runs so contrary to the message of peace and acceptance and 'you're not your dad, right?' message that One Piece has been delivering, and unless we're going to have some kind of huge subversion and have Wano crumble because of Hiyori's propaganda -- something I find One Piece to be highly unlikely to do -- this is it. This is the final big message of Wano... that the 'cycle of hatred' between the Kozuki and Kurozumi... is something that the good guys are going to maintain.

Huh?

Like... okay. I've never been on the board of "Tama is a secret Kurozumi" fan-theory that so many people suspect, because that just felt too convenient that the one girl that's perhaps one of the most influential person to turn the tides of the Wano conflict ends up being the exact example of why judging someone by their clan or heritage isn't the right thing to do. 

But that would have been MILES better than what we got here. What we got here is basically Doflamingo's epic and very memorable line that he said in Marineford -- the victors write the history. 

And to some extent, yeah, I think I mentioned it before when we get a parallel to the beginning of Wano when a new teacher arrives to tell a revisionist history. As readers, we know that this is the right history. But even so, there's just something so off about the huge message being a condemnation of the Kurozumi clan instead of just condemning Kurozumi Orochi and his manipulations. There's a distinct difference from celebrating the fall of the villain and going 'nah, his clan deserves to burn'. I really do feel like after everything the arc has tried to tell us (hell, even with the King storyline too) that this is just so off the mark from what the story itself is already trying to tell us. I get that there are intricacies in translation and all that, but either way, I don't know. I really felt like it rubbed me the wrong way. 

So... yeah, the curtain closes off on Wano, and it's kind of bittersweet that with how good the anime has been doing adapting these amazing fight scenes, that this closing chapter of Wano -- if indeed none of these issues are going to get addressed in the future -- is probably one of my least favourite chapters to end out a One Piece arc. And I'm not afraid to call it like I see it. The Wano arc, when taken as a whole, is a pretty good one! The highs in this arc are pretty damn high, but I'm just not the biggest fan of the conclusion. 

Random Notes:

• Cover story has Caesar Clown unleashing a poison gas attack. I guess he's trying to escape Whole Cake Island with Germa? Even with his gas fruit, I highly doubt he can withstand Katakuri. But I guess it's not about defeating Katakuri, it's about getting away from him? 
• We get another chapter of the Film: Red prequel, with the Red Haired Pirates singing around to get Uta to stop crying. That's cute, I guess. 
• Usopp made the flag that Luffy gave to Momonosuke. That's a cute callback if nothing else. 
• I get that 'Kurozumi is born to burn' is also kind of a nod to Oden's 'Oden is born to boil'. I get that there's a bit of a pun because Kurozumi also means charcoal, but still.
• The one way that the whole clusterfuck of that confusing final-arc moral could work is that if in the future we actually confront Hiyori being so full of hatred towards the entire Kurozumi clan, and have Momonosuke prove himself to be a good shogun and oppose her. That, on the other hand, might raise some more problematic issues in terms of pacing and storytelling too. 
• It really does rankle me that the 'will of Pedro' and 'emulating Oden' ends up being the reasons for Carrot and Yamato to be written out of the story when Pedro's will is to... bring on the dawn? And Oden wanted to get out of Wano ASAP? I don't know. 
• To top it off, here are some additional questions and subplots that really should have been covered in a post-Wano chapter: what happened to Big Mom and Kaido (which I guess we'll just hoo-hoo hold in tension like the mystery of what Sabo did), Zoro's encounter with the Grim Reaper, any proper conclusion to Shusui or any in-universe acknowledgement of Zoro's connection to Wano, King/Lunarian lore, Drake and SWORD, Yamato's Oden subplot, the Nidai Kitetsu... No bounties yet either, huh?