One Piece, Chapter 936: The Great Sumo Inferno
It's not a bad chapter, necessarily, but it's just a "things happen, we need to get from point A to point B" chapter, and as such it feels distracted and unfocused. We briefly get Raizou meeting with Kawamatsu and getting a brief conversation about their plans, as well as what it takes for Raizou to free Kawamatsu, before Raizou is forced to flee. Kawamatsu's laugh is ka-pa-pa-pa, so maybe he's a kappa? We get the very brief scene in Ringo of Zoro meeting against a big ass dude with daruma makeup and a glaive, who has returned Shusui to Ryuma's grave, and... and I really wished we had seen a bit more about this beforehand. Zoro just acts kind of like a dick, and wants to steal the dude's weapons collection.
Even the titular 'sumo inferno tournament' just ends up breezing by without much of an impact for me, with Queen setting up this elaborate tournament to kill Luffy and Hyo instead of just doing something practical, James Bond villain style. I won't say this is out of character since Queen does seem to be the sort of flamboyant man, but still. They give Luffy and Hyo these neck collars that will crush their necks if they get knocked out of the sumo ring. I guess there is the slightest bit of merit to the Luffy-vs-Yokozuna fight earlier in the arc? If you want to think of it that way, sure. It's still pointless filler to me. They remove Luffy's seastone cuffs, so he can... use his devil fruit powers? Luffy basically goes "hey, if I beat you, I can go free, right?" and then takes down a whole swarm of Queen's minions with conqueror's haki.
So one of the questions brought up from the past couple of chapters is whether Luffy being unable to use Haki is caused by the seastone handcuffs, or by him just being tired. Turns out that it's implied that seastone also disables Haki? I think? I'm genuinely not sure, but eh.
The bath house sequence is more light-hearted, but I also feel that there's more content in that sequence, as fanservicey as it is. There's a raid with both Drake and Hawkins showing up, and Hawkins is apparently aware of the whole 'crescent moon' tattoo on the ankle being something that is a calling sign for Kozuki clan supporters. So is this Kyoshiro leaking the news to them, or is it something else? Nami raises up her hands and knocks out the entire bathhouse with her "real national treasure", if you know what I mean.
And... and you know what? I'm not even mad. It's just hilarious that Nami taking off her clothes not only causes Drake to nearly faint (the artwork isn't particularly clear if Hawkins gets stunned too), but also causing Sanji, who was there, to break free from his invisible powers and nosebleed his way across the room. No blood transfusions this time, though. I do like the little detail of Drake and Hawkins bonding over their shared North Blue heritage, becuase they quickly figure out that the man before them is Stealth Black of the Germa 66.
Sanji speed-jumps Nami, Robin and Shinobu out, and in another "god, I really wish they showed and not just told" moment, apparently the ankle tattoo raid has caused Bepo and a good chunk of Law's crew (at least the two hat-bros, in any case) to get arrested. Fanservice comedy aside, I do think that the bad guys finally wisening up to the Kozuki conspiracy and actually doing something about it is definitely a pretty interesting direction for the story, especially considering just how much things seem going to coincidentally be great for the good guys.
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