One Piece Chapter 952-954 Review: Of Swords and Alliances

One Piece, Chapter 952: Hiyori & Kawamatsu; Chapter 953: Once Upon A Fox; Chapter 954: Like Giving Wings to a Dragon

An interesting trio of chapters. 952 and 953 sort of form their self-contained arc regarding the whole Gyukimaru/Kawamatsu storyline, which was... the chapters themselves were great, even if it does kinda feel somewhat detached from everything else that's going on. It does help to, again, contextualize Kawamatsu as a person. It's kind of... not the most ideal way of storytelling, honestly, but it sure is something.

Basically, these chapters put to rest any of the doubts that Hiyori and Komurasaki are not the same person. I honestly was half-believing that it's not the case, that it's a misdirection and we might get another plot twist that someone else is Hiyori, but with the flashbacks showcasing Kawamatsu basically becoming Hiyori's guardian, it's pretty much confirmed.

We do get a brief bit of Queen being hilarious in chapter 952, pretending to put up a brave front while also obviously making up excuses to get the fuck out of where Kaidou and Big Mom are rampaging in the background. The fight is mostly off-screen, of course, with us just seeing Queen's POV, but as the revelation in 954 shows, it's for good reason. Basically, Tama's dango ends up allowing Team Luffy to take control of Babanuki and have him deliver a fake report to tell Queen that everything is all right in Udon, while Luffy and his allies are basically doing some recapping. And it's... it's admittedly not the best pacing, with our heroes just solving a lot of the problems somewhat anticlimactically. Ashura Douji turns out to be the man in possession of the blueprints Franky was looking for early in the arc. Franky is fixing the fleet. Luffy has provided them with manpower. While I do appreciate that we're not bloating up the arc with what amounts to side-quests, it does feel like a lot of these conflicts are basically introduced, ignored, then sort of resolved with a handwave.

952 introduces the fact that these samurai and ex-samurai in Udon prison can only fight with swords, so they totally need a huge influx of swords... and thank goodness that Zoro is fighting against Gyukimaru, the sword-stealing dude with Daruma face-paint... and also Kawamatsu shows up! Gyukimaru books the hell out of the bridge at the sight of Kawamatsu, but also while crying. Meanwhile, Kawamatsu and Hiyori have a tearful reunion, and apparently Hiyori left Kawamatsu so he wouldn't suffer.

953 basically contextualizes the entire backstory for Kawamatsu, recapping how after being separated from Hiyori, he sort of wanders around until he walks up to Ringo, the "Eternal Grave", and Kawamatsu ends up befriending a Koma-Kitsune (spirit fox, I guess, is the closest translation?) called Onimaru, who guards the fallen graves of the dead warriors who fought and died in the fortress. And it's a pretty well-written backstory. Kawamatsu basically tearfully desecrates the dead bodies with the justification that "their battles aren't over yet" and likening it to a warrior taking the blade of his fallen comrade in the heat of the battle. The argument between Kawamatsu and Onimaru, as much as it's technically just Kawamatsu monologuing. It is definitely well-written, and also flows into the theme of the revolutionaries of Wano-kuni bending their strict traditions in the name of their values and pragmatism.

We get a montage of Kawamatsu and Onimaru's past, including Kawamatsu taking the identity of the first Gyukimaru in order to stockpile weapons, and also using the justification of attacking the graverobbers attempting to defile Ringo. This is intercut with the present-day stuff of Zoro, Kawamatsu and Hiyori tracking down the wounded Gyukimaru and realizing that there is a MASSIVE storehouse of swords underneath Ringo, and then the revelation that... Gyukimaru is actually a shape-shifted Onimaru, and has been doing his buddy's wishes all throughout the years. Pretty great revelation, pretty great story, and even if it is a little overly convenient, I did like what we get here, and Gyukimaru is sort of built up in previous chapters.

954 is a bit more standalone, initially starting off with a conversation between Hiyori and Zoro. Both Gyukimaru and Hiyori have both sort of asked Zoro to return Shusui to Wano, because of some sword-related superstition, and Hiyori promises to give Zoro the blade Enma (named after the King of the Underworld in Japanese mythology), Oden's old blade. Apparently Zoro's game for making the change, although honestly... we don't get a whole ton of focus on Zoro's swords all that much that I really don't feel like this is any sort of significant change.

And then we get the interesting encounter between Law and Hawkins, and apparently we get to see a scene where Law holds Hawkins at sword-point, and Hawkins tells Law about what happened between their three-Supernova alliance. Apoo was already working underneath Kaidou all along, apparently, and Hawkins ended up seeing that his fortune telling gave him a better chance to survive if he submitted. We don't exactly get to see the conclusion of the conversation, with Hawkins sort of faux-mocking Law's alliance with the Straw Hats before we fade to black and Law apparently slashes Hawkins. And... I dunno. Part of me realizes that we've had Law as basically a guest star among the Straw Hats for nearly half of the post-timeskip stories, but at the same time, Law was introduced as a character who views his alliance with Luffy as something more of a business proposition, and while I wouldn't be surprised if this is just more misdirection, I do think that it'd definitely be interesting if either Law or Zoro ended up coming to blows with Luffy over his happy-go-lucky attitude.

And then we get to see Law apparently being allowed to escape from his jail cell by someone (Drake? Hawkins?) six days before the raid on Onigashima. Again, especially with Law's body/soul-swapping abilities, I'm not sure what Law's plan is. I'm more inclined to believe that Law isn't a traitor and is just keeping his side of the plan a secret in order to not get his plan fucked up by the Straw Hats. Law's one of the more interesting characters in this arc at the moment, and I guess I just really want more of, y'know, Law or Zoro more than a Kawamatsu two-parter, is all. Still, chapter 954's middle act ends up being a set-up of most of the Straw Hats and the Wano samurai gathering together to discuss a meeting, particularly with the revelation that Yasuie had helped them out in delivering a huge message to tell them to change targets or something.

And it's all well and good for the Straw Hats and the Samurai, right? They've got the manpower from Udon, they've gathered almost all of the samurai allies, they have ships, they have a plan, they have weapons, and, shit, other than Kaidou himself, none of the Beast Pirates really end up feeling all that insurmountable.

And then we finish off the chapter with Apoo calling Kaidou, telling him that the "Numbers" are gathering for the festival, and we briefly get to see massive, gigantic oni-like figures walking through the mist. Which, considering that the Beasts Pirates works off of a card deck, probably means that we have ten extra sub-commanders (including Apoo) to contend with. But most of all... apparently, Kaidou and Big Mom have been drinking together instead of fighting, and they end up basically deciding to form a pirate alliance. And... it's not too far off, I guess? They decide that they'll kill each other after they rule the ocean, but the implication that the two of them used to be crew-mates, Big Mom's modus operandi of gathering as many people under her banner, and Kaidou being a somewhat impulsive drunk... yeah, this was foreshadowed all the way from the Reverie, I believe, but everyone just brushes it off as being kinda-impossible. It's definitely not something I expected, but not something that made me go "what the fuuuuck, where did this come from?" It kinda makes sense, especially after the whole Rocks Pirates stuff being waved all around. I just, again, really feel that we could've had a lot of better pacing, y'know? Maybe it's something that the anime is going to fix, but Big Mom's arc as a whole in Wano has been very, very messy and all over the place. I just wish that we get actual screentime for more important, major characters like Law or Big Mom instead of just jumping all over the place in-between 'huge' events just to be mysterious and surprising.

Overall, though, not a whole lot that I want to complain, because taken as individual chapters, 952 and 953 make a pretty neat little mini-arc, while 954 ends up being a pretty grand "oh shit we're getting some escalation here" chapter.

Random Notes:

• In cover-page story land, Bege and Chiffon are basically going of on their little tart-ship to go off to Thriller Bark and find Lola. 
• Zoro thinks Kawamatsu is a Fishman when he first sees the dude. It's up in the air on whether it's confirmation, or Zoro just being as confused as the readers on whether he's a Kappa, a Zoan fruit eater or a Fishman.
• Chopper cured the Excite Bullets off-screen. It's nice to see Chopper do some doctor-y things every now and then!
• We're also introduced to four random yakuza bosses that are super-protective of Hyogoro and don't give two shits about Luffy. They have unique designs, but ultimately I really can't bring myself to care about them. It's nice to have some faces and names to represent the large amount of random goons that Luffy's samurai-pirate alliance is going to have under their wing, though. 
• A lot of the Onimaru/Gyukimaru storyline actually draws a lot of parallels to Benkei, a historical Japanese figure. 
• Momonosuke has the Ame-no-Habakari, another one of Oden's blade. Also, Oden apparently was the one who gave Kaidou his scar, so Oden's actually a pretty fucking badass dude prior to his death! I always thought he was just a 'mere' samurai, y'know? 
• Absolutely love that Zoro just casually talks about how he met Ryouma's walking corpse without really explaining about what's going on with Gekko Moriah's devil fruit, and Kawamatsu just acts throughout the chapter like Zoro's a wacko. 
• Kid's crew is apparently alive, or at least most of them are, held under the threat of "we will kill your captain if you do not serve us". 
• Ieyasu's two-lines-on-the-old-mark thing is meant to be a sign to everyone on Wano to swap targets from the snake port to the lizard port. Neat!
• Chapter 954 also shows off the two ways to enter Wano-kuni. There's the carp waterfall, but there's also a regular tunnel under the huge island that Kaidou and Orochi's men control, allowing them to sail in and reach Wano with a lift. I'm also pretty sure this is the first time we get to see the anatomy of Wano-kuni's bizarre elevated-island-with-its-own-ocean geography. 
• So are the Numbers a bunch of oni-style giants in the same way that Oars is? Or are they something completely different? With the Kitsune apparently just straight-up being a magical being, this could go any way, honestly.