One Piece 948-951 Review: Kappas, Prison Breaks and Yonkou Fights

One Piece, Chapter 948: Kawamatsu the Kappa Takes the Stage; Chapter 949: Mummy; Chapter 950: A Soldier's Dream; Chapter 951: Rampage

It's been a while -- I know I did say that I wanted to do the Shonen Jump manga reviews monthly, but, y'know, things got in the way, so have this little bonus edition of four chapters all at once. It basically ties up two mini-arcs of the Wano-kuni saga, which is neat!

948 and 949 basically deals with Luffy and the Udon prison, which is... still a bit too erratically paced for my liking -- in retrospect I'm still pretty sure the whole Big Mom amnesia and prison rampage stuff was something that I definitely didn't like. It isn't bad, but the pacing's just kinda off. With Queen and Big Mom off on their own little sub-plot, though, we get a neat little focus on Luffy fighting a bunch of random prisoners, as well as fighting against Babanuki (a.k.a. Old Maid in some fan translations) the elephant warden man. It does kind of feel like we've seen this exact same plot multiple times over the course of One Piece's storyline, where Luffy just wins over a group of people and becomes inspiring by sheer grit, determination and a show of force, but the Udon prison bit does have a little twist in that the prisoners actually don't want to be freed, not really. They're not oppressed and chomping at the bit like the citizens of Alabasta, or split in half due to racism like Fishman Island, or blissfully ignorant due to a deception like Dressrosa. They know they're being oppressed, but they're so goddamned afraid of Kaidou and the rest of the corrupt system that they're begging Luffy and company to just keep their head down and not cause a ruckus.

We also get a bit of a fighting as Babanuki and that one scorpion Gifter ends up using the "Mummy" plague bullets to infect everyone that basically turns them into pain-spreading zombies, which adds to the whole "despair" theme of the prison. And... and these random mooks are certainly never a threat as far as the audience is concerned, but it does make for a decent little two-parter mini-quest, y'know?

Also, in 948, we get the full debut of Kawamatsu the Kappa from his prison cell. He's finally freed, given his sword the Soto-musou, and ends up being kind of a badass as he rampages against the guards. His design is kinda goofy, but, again, prety standard as far as One Piece fare goes. I still do think that a lot of these Wano-kuni characters feel even more like NPC's and pieces on a chessboard as opposed to actual characters, although a fair amount of them are starting to grow on me. 948 ends with Raizou, Kiku and Hyogorou showing off their true identities to truly inspire the random soldiers and prisoners in Udon, which is a badass dual-page spread.

949 shows off the Excitement Bullets even more, which really ends up selling the whole "Queen the Plague" epithet really well, with all of the prisoners of Udon turning against the Straw-Hat-Samurai squad... but, of course, Luffy ends up taking the bullet's effects on himself voluntarily and just gives this whole speech about how they're just working as oppressed slaves and lying to themselves that this is 'normal', ranting about how even as an outsider, he'll protect this country. Then Luffy one-shots Babanuki with some hilarious Looney Tunes style "tie up the nose and let the cannonball explode" bit, eventually causing the prisoners to finally rebel and the narration to give a badass bit of "without the enemy knowing, Udon has been conquered".

950 is a bit of a wrap-up of the prison staff. Kid and Killer ends up leaving the prison despite being freed, apparently still burned about their failed alliance, and just buggers off into the wasteland. I'm... I'm still curious where they are going with Kid, honestly. He's got such an interesting storyline, but at the same time we know so little about Kid as a person that at the same time that I'm not sure how I feel about him. I do like that after the adrenaline of the jailbreak is over, the prisoners are still confused and unsure about whether to trust the pirate Luffy, and it's not until Momonosuke shows up that they all collectively shut up, bow down and pledge their allegiances. I do really like this bit -- sure, Hyogorou and the Samurai may be respected figures, and Luffy gave one hell of a speech, but considering just the constantly-showcased insular attitude of Wano-kuni in general, I do really like that the people needed some huge gesture and someone to rally behind... and, of course, that someone is the literal son of their deceased, betrayed Shogun.

We get Ashura Doji showing Kin'emon and Inuarashi the graves of their fallen comrades, and apparently a significant amount of their old allies have literally gone off to their deaths and that's what made Ashura Doji such a cynic now. We learn that the term "Sunacchi" is a war-cry that Ashura's now-deceased comrades used to rally around as a way to rebel against Orochi and Kaidou, basically an abbreviation of "throw away thy name and wits". And with One Piece itself having used the common Shonen action trope of just trusting your instincts to fight and win as the right thing to do, I do like that we get a bit of a subversion where these fools end up basically dying kind of a pointless death. Which, at the same time, is hard to blame them for -- they certainly had no idea that time travel was involved or that the Scabbards are returning. Oh, and in 950, we get Ashura Doji showing off a fleet of half-broken ships that they've been collecting for years, and Franky's going to be key in repairing them.

We also get a setup of Zoro and Komurasaki (Hiyori...?) going off to get Shushui in order for Zoro to be in full tiptop condition for the final battle. The end of 950 and the beginning of 951 ends up with a bit of an interesting development, where Law has been apparently captured and defeated offscreen by Hawkins, in exchange for the freedom of Bepo and the other members of his crew. While Shinobu and Sanji gave a narration about the politics of the capital, Bepo and the other members of the Heart Pirates end up rendezvousing with Nami and giving an updated message... but apparently Law's struck a deal with Hawkins, and has told his crewmates to keep this hidden from the Straw Hats. We get to see the full force of the rest of the Heart Pirates (including Jean Bart!) but we really don't get much about this. It's... interesting? Law's always been presented as kind of a more morally-flexible character, but from what we've seen throughout Punk Hazard and Dressrosa he's really a softie inside, so...

And, of course, 951 ends at Onigashima, where Big Mom is held prisoner and we get a bit of an argument between King, Queen and Jack about Big Mom's imprisonment and what the fuck they're going to do with her... and I really do like that Big Mom's just snacking and still being pretty damn dangerous looking. The portrayal of Big Mom over the past couple of arcs have been... inconsistent, but I really do like that at her default state, without amnesia or hunger pangs, Big Mom isn't just an idiot. She clearly has unique goals, but man, she definitely is pretty dang sinister when she wants to, yeah? We also get confirmation about how the two of them used to serve under the same pirate crew, and the two of them end up clashing with their weapons, causing that break in the sky that we law saw when Shanks and Whitebeard faced off against each other.

And... and as of the time of writing, we're still two chapters short of being caught up, but I'm not going to cover 952 and 953 just yet. It's sort of a clean break-off point here as we wrap up both the prison arc and do a little catch-up on some random sub-plots like Ashura Doji, the political situation of the capital and the Yonkou bosses meeting each other face-to-face... it's definitely kind of a cheat for the next chapter to immediately cut away from Big Mom and Kaidou's fight and sort of off-screen most of it, but eh, I'm not that bothered by it. Ultimately, while I do still think that there are a bit too many moving pieces in the Wano-kuni arc, it's definitely been improving a lot more compared to how I felt when the arc started.

Random Notes:

• We get a new cover story, this time around starring Capone Bege's crew as they sail the ocean on top of the stolen tart ship, with Chiffon's stated goal being a reunion with Lola. 
• I'm still not sure if Kawamatsu is some dude who ate a Zoan Devil Fruit since all the Wano-kuni people aren't aware of the existence of the fruits; if he's a Fishman, or if he's just a straight-up Kappa race. In One Piece, any one of those could end up being true. 
• One of the scene in 948 has a random prisoner calling Kiku as the "most beautiful man in Wano" or something along those lines, and she doesn't really deny it, replying with an off-handed "I'm a woman at heart". As far as I can tell, the fandom is completely split on whether she's a woman hiding her true gender, a transgender born male and now presenting as female, or something in between. 
• I missed it during my first reading, but Luffy apparently has a far greater control of the future-sight Observation Haki, as he used the prediction to make a move against Babanuki.
• Chopper doesn't actually get a whole lot to do other than brewing the antidote against the Excitement Bullets off-screen, but he did get to do a combo attack with Luffy in heavy point when he gets so outraged at chemical warfare. 
• I'm still very unsure about Ashura Doji as a character, honestly. Like, he basically jumps back and forth from being a massive dick in his first appearance, having that whole 'wild card' bit when his bandits were framed for burning a forest to randomly being buddy-buddy with Inuarashi, and I just kinda wished that there was a bit more of an organic character growth to him. 
• We also get to see a bunch of samurai punk-cops, the Mimawarigumi, based on the special police force in real-life Japanese history that were active during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Like the Oniwabanshuu, they have shown up in a bunch of other manga that draw from that time period, most notably Gintama. 
• I do like the little scene where Shinobu and Sanji just gives a recap of the political situation after Yasuie's execution, about how Orochi's still keeping the crescent moon tattoo people prisoner, because it'd be too embarrassing for Orochi to admit he's made a mistake. 
• There's a panel about random people making Sky Ships for the Fire Festival... which, knowing One Piece, will probably be important in some way or form. 
• I absolutely love the Japanese painting style wanted posters that sort of act as chapter intermissions in 950. 
• Even more so, I love Usopp and Robin recreating the "EEEEH" expression to make them look different from the wanted posters, while Brook pretends to be a haunting spirit to play off of the Wano-kuni superstitions. 
• Big Mom wants King to join his crew, not because of any real attempt at poaching talent, but rather because she's missing three races... and King's one of them. Huh!
• With the revelation that Big Mom and Kaidou served on the same crew and has a huge, huge disagreement that basically results in them wanting to murder each other... but also Kaidou respecting Big Mom enough to give her a fair fight, a lot of fans have drawn comparisons between the two of them and the Zoro/Sanji rivalry. After all, we still haven't gotten a resolution to that one line that Zoro said during the Zou arc about how he's not going to forgive Sanji for essentially fucking over the crew by making a selfish decision...