One Piece, Chapter 938: Her Secret
A bit of a shorter review this time around -- a wee bit busy IRL. This is mostly a pretty unremarkable intermediary chapter, honestly, other than the huge revelation at the end. Kamazou the mummy man gets defeated by Zoro, but he faints from blood loss and gets taken care off by Komurasaki (that is indeed her) and Toko. Meanwhile, Gyukimaru just... sits around or something. Afterwards, Komurasaki ends up revealing to Zoro that she's looking for Momonosuke, and that she's actually the royal princess Hiyori. I'm... I'm not 100% sure if that's true, and apparently the internet is ablaze with this apparently controversial revelation, depending on whether you think Komurasaki, Toko or Tama should be Hiyori. And... and I honestly just don't care? This is another "is Pudding good?" or "where is Sabo?" storyline that the mystery is neat, but we'll have a whole ton of subversions and the like that I really don't care either way -- a strong case could be made for most of these characters depending on the focus these guys have been given, as well as which ones are the most subversive. And either way I... I have to be honest and say that I don't really care, mostly because all the characters involved have so far not been really all that memorable as actual characters and are all shrouded in mystery that you can make an argument for any of them being Hiyori.
The other scenes of this chapter are basically just scene-setting. Kaidou and Orochi's people are cracking down on anyone with the tattoo and code, and we get to see the minks discuss who's leaking it. This hapter and previous ones seem to imply that it's Kyoshirou who 'got' the message, but then at the same time, it also seems that Kyoshirou is the one who helped Komurasaki escape. Whether that's because of him caring for Komurasaki as one of his girls, or actually Kyoshirou being loyal to the Kouzuki Clan... honestly, I don't know? The mystery is neat, but we're moving so quickly and juggling so many characters that I'll honestly just shrug at whatever revelation for this character I genuinely don't really care about. Oh, and Tonoyasu's also apparently one of Kouzuki's retainers, something I really don't care about considering he's a one-note character.
My favourite part of this chapter has to be the argument between Law and Shinobu, with Law being loyal to his crew and insisting that they won't spill the beans, while Shinobu gets super emotional because she and the rest of the Kouzuki loyalists have a gigantic stake in this conflict. Interesting to note that Law's willing to just drop everything to rescue Bepo and the others, despite his insistence that anyone just go and kill themselves if they get caught. Law's a softie, and we all know it.
Overall, though, this is honestly pretty much a chapter that I really don't care about. It's not a bad one, but one that is very much symptomatic about my biggest problem in Wano -- every single new character we meet is basically a one-dimensional character that is introduced then briefly flits in and out of focus with promises of mysterious backstories. Kyoushiro, Orochi, Oden, Komurasaki, Hyo, Tonoyasu, Gyukimaru, Tengu, Toko, Kiku... every single new character has something interesting, but it's kept so genuinely vague and saved-up-for-later, but everything ends up so vague that sometimes revelations like this, or the Hyogoro one a couple chapters back, honestly isn't as exciting as it probably should be. Part of it is the pacing, of course, with One Piece just wanting to blaze through a lot of the introduction, but it's definitely suffering a lot from the same problems that early Dresrossa suffered from with too many characters jockeying for screentime and not a lot of them really ending up becoming memorable until late into the arc.
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