One Piece 925 Review: Intermezzo

One Piece, Chapter 925: The Blank

Well, this chapter of One Piece is apparently the interlude of sorts to the first two acts of the Wano arc. Apparently Kabuki plays are divided into five acts, which... okay, sounds about right, I guess, if each act is going to be more or less the same amount of chapters as the first act. 925 here acts as a fun little interlude, though, before we cut away to the weird fox-masked lady dancer that marks the beginning and the end of each acts. Not sure if the dancer herself is going to be an important character (Lady Toki?) or if she's just fluff. 

A majority of this chapter surprisingly deals with a character I haven't really thought about for quite some time, though, which is former Shichibukai Gekko Moriah, who apparently mounts an attack on one of Blackbeard's bases. The first scene basically has Perona and Mihawk have a bit of an argument, with Perona eventually leaving Mihawk to go back to rejoin Moriah's crew... and Mihawk off-handedly notes that it might be best for Perona to leave at around that point, because "something interesting came up at the Reverie". Is it the abolishment of the Shichibukai, if it's something that's not going to be good for Mihawk and Perona? Interesting. I'm genuinely disappointed that apparently a chunk of the Reverie appears to have taken place off-screen, although, well, I'm sort of holding out hope that it's going to be explored eventually. 

Meanwhile, we cut over to Moriah himself, who is rampaging on the island called Beehive, one of Blackbeard's bases, and he's unleashing a zombie army in search for Absalom -- who's apparently missing while doing a recon mission into Beehive. 

And it's... it's interesting to see Moriah's reactions throughout this episode. He is genuinely delighted to apparently see Absalom stuck with a bunch of ladies and simply having forgotten to make contact, and seems genuinely remorseful for "doing a terrible thing to these people" under the assumption that Absalom would be under attack since Blackbeard's pirates are Ability Hunters. Of course, as it turns out... the Blackbeard Pirates have already apparently killed Absalom off-screen (!) and given his ability to Shiryu, who shows off said invisibility. We also get to see the ability of one of BLackbeard's other crew members, Catarina Devon, who apparently have the Dog Dog Fruit Model: Nine-Tailed Fox, allowing her to seemingly shapeshift. Or cast really convincing illusions, if we're not going to double up on similar powers with Mr. 2.

And then Blackbeard makes his first proper appearance post-timeskip, and he's grown significantly bigger and more stereotypically pirate-ier. He notes that the Revolutionaries have apparently clashed with Fujitora and Ryokugyu in the Reverie, and notes about the developments of Wano... and offers Moriah a chance to join him and enact revenge on Kaidou, who we know is one of Moriah's goals. I'm not sure if he's going to be happy joining up with someone who has (apparently) killed one of his new crew members, though... still, it's an interesting prospect. I do kinda wish Moriah would join, for the simple reason of having him die off-screen would be a bit of an odd choice. Unlike Absalom (who's memorable, but I'm not particularly sad that he died offscreen), Moriah's an actually somewhat interesting character with unique motivations, and having him join up with the Blackbeard Pirates would definitely be pretty interesting.

Regardless about all that, we return to Wano, and we get a brief montage of events that I'm actually quite happy was covered pretty quickly. I have no real emotional attachment to the character of Ashura Doji/Shutenmaru, and apparently we just get a quick montage of him fighting Inuarashi, and then condemning the Kozuki Clan for "abandoning the country for 20 years". He notes that he respects Oden Kozuki, and not the entire clan, so it's interesting, kinda? I still don't particularly find himself invested in these new characters, but at least we're building up their personalities while simultaneously not spending too much time with them. 

We then cut away to see Jack being sort of bullied in Onigashima by his two "big brothers", King the Wildfire and Queen the Plague, the other two members of the calamities. And... and apparently Kaidou's minions have a card theme going on? Hmm. It is interesting that King really seems to be wearing a uniform similar to those of the Impel Downs staff and is called a "torture-lover", while Queen apparently is tasked with "breaking the spirits" of a certain set of brats. And he (she?) apparently has Kid's metal arm in his hands? I dunno. 

Anyway, it's a pretty fun chapter -- always fun in One Piece when we get to break away and see the huge things in other parts of the world. I do kind of really want to see what's going on at the Reverie, or with Blackbeard and Moriah, and genuinely find a lot of these far, far more interesting than what's going on at Wano, but as a whole? As a whole the arc is still pretty dang fun. Overall, a chapter that's more of a hype-maker than anything, but eh, it's still neat.