One Piece 931 Review: Who's Bucky?

One Piece, Chapter 931: O-Saba Mask

Yeah, this is going to be a chapter with a fair amount of controversial moments, and I don't see a lot of people having any sort of neutral opinion about the two huge plot threads explored in this episode. So let's start off with the middle portion of the chapter, which is likely to have upset exactly no one. Robin slips away from the party with Orochi, entering an old an suspicious room, but gets stopped by an army of ninjas with a whole ton of wacky designs. I can tell the writer has some absolute fun cherry-picking different tropes of ninja fiction in making these designs. Apparently it's the Wano-kuni's version of the Oniwabanshu, an aspect of Edo-era Japan that's been pretty popular in many, many different anime (Gintama, Rurouni Kenshin, among others). They basically corner Robin and demand that she explain herself. It's a simple plot development, but after having Robin as barely more than a background character for the past couple of arcs, it's definitely refreshing to see her more involved in the plot, even if it's just a little bit. 

The biggest chunk of the chapter is Sanji's fight against Page One, the spinosaurus headliner. And don't get me wrong, as a debut for a power-up piece, it's a pretty badass showcase of the Stealth Black armour. It's the non-malicious, non-goofy version of the Raid Suit that everyone expected Sanji to get. It's just that... Sanji gets past his Germa 66 funk without much fanfare, you know? I don't necessarily mind the idea of Sanji using the suit. It's just that he basically shrugs off all of the angst from the Big Mom arc, and it doesn't sit well with me. I really felt like we should've had more buildup to Sanji using the raid suit, or have him actually have a brief monologue about the Germa back in the whole cake island arc. 

Sure, we did get that whole speech about "I can't be that stubborn if I want to save everyone" and "we're up against a Yonkou", which are both pretty valid points, but a superior story would've had this be foreshadowed -- whether in small doses or in a huge chunk -- throughout the previous episodes. Certainly would've given us far better content than Sanji selling soba, for sure. I don't know. This is a plot development that I think I would've even discussed for this long if now for the absolutely poor buildup. 

And, mind you, Stealth Black is admittedly kinda neat, even if it's... also the expected repaint. Both Law's fanboying over the Germa 66 and Sanji half-assedly calling himself "O-Soba Mask" are pretty fun. The reveal that Sanji gains invisibility powers with this suit is kinda neat, too, trying in pretty hilariously to the throwaway line about how Sanji had previously claimed that he wished to have the Clear-Clear Fruit, and the whole dilemma about how the power Sanji has always wanted was granted to him by Germa's technology. And, again, I wouldn't have any problems with this if it's either built up or foreshadowed properly. I would honestly take either/or. 

And then, meanwhile, Chopper, Momonosuke, Kiku and Tama find Big Mom washed up on the beach, and she's fucking amnesiac. It's not something I like. Honestly, characters getting amnesia has always been a personal pet peeve of myself in fiction, but this, again, is such a bizarre decision to sort of bring some hype to the story by re-introducing Big Mom... and immediately getting rid of her personality? It's weird, and honestly, a lot of the fandom already have a problem with one of the four Yonko being more... well, less traditionally badass than the others. And while I would stand by the manga's decision throughout Whole Cake Island for the simple sake of it being something that's different but still threatening... completely turning her into an amnesiac isn't something that I'm a huge fan of.

Overall, it's a mixed bag. I'm just sort of vaguely disappointed with the lack of buildup to Sanji's raid suit, although the execution of the reveal is admittedly not bad. Meanwhile, everything regarding Big Mom's amnesia is just honestly something I wished just flat-out didn't happen.