One Piece 983-985 Review: Yamato

One Piece, Chapters 983-985

Chapter 983: Thunder

A bit of a more cluttered chapter, this one, jumping around and checking in on various people. There is Perospero apparently ascending the fountain and making his way towards Onigashima on his giant candy slug. There's a bit with Usopp and Chopper stuck in the 'torso' version of the Franky-tank, and they're sort of just running around in a headless, armless Franky-Shogun. Sanji is apparently off-screen looking for ladies, while Nami's group is being pursued by Prometheus and Big Mom. Zoro and Kid are fighting some gifters. Meanwhile... Orochi announces the crucifixion and the fact that, hey, Kouzuki Momonosuke actually exists. 

Lots of things that are happening, but none are ultimately very interesting. I feel like this is one of those chapters in the manga that are there to give the anime some interesting 'filler' scenes to expand over the course of one or two episodes. Like, okay, maybe the brief scene of Kid beating up Kaido's goons would be longer, and maybe Zoro fighting the bug trio could be one-third of an episode all on its own... stuff like that. Things like the Sanji/Page One fight that was off-screen in the manga but an entire episode in the anime. Ultimately, it does feel like some of the developments -- like Big Mom changing targets from Usopp/Chopper to Nami's squad feels very abrupt. 

The majority of the chapter is probably the first 1-v-1 fight we've actually had in a long while, albeit it's perhaps one that doesn't have a satisfying conclusion. One of the Flying Six, Ulti, headbutts Luffy and there's a huge clash of Haki. And we learn that Ulti's devil fruit is that of the Pachycephalosaurus, the 'headbutt' dinosaur, one of the cooler dinosaurs that have always sadly remained 'second tier'. It's basically a reflection of Ulti's hard-headedness, huh? Also, basically a confirmation that all of the Flying Six probably have dinosaur themed devil fruits.

In any case, Ulti and Page One apparently got pretty spooked by the clash with Luffy and transformed immediately, but Luffy also moves very quickly, doing a cool horn-grab maneuver to spin Ulti into the air, before Elephant-Gun punching Page One right in his jaw. And it's not like Luffy is entirely in danger for his life or anything, but he's certainly acknowledging that fighting the two of them would require a bit more out of him, and he was going to go into Gear Fourth when faced with Ulti's full dinosaur form. 

And then Thunder Bagua out of nowhere, and this person with kimono robes and a Hannya mask just takes out Ulti in one blow. It's apparently Yamato, the son of Kaidou, and after all the build-up to the character... turns out that he just picks Luffy up like a baby and runs away. Luffy senses no hostility from Yamato, and Yamato claims to have been waiting for Luffy for a long, long time...

______________________________

Chapter 984: My Bible

I do like that the chapter does spend some time making sure to tell us that while Page One and Ulti are certainly injured by the fight with Yamato and Luffy, they're also not entirely pushovers either and are quick to jump back up and go back to the hunt again. I'm not someone who really cares about power rankings, and certainly I'm not about to start to for One Piece of all things, but it does manage to sort of illustrate how Luffy and Yamato are definitely gunning for the higher-ups in the Kaidou/Big Mom alliance while the likes of Ulti, being strong enough to withstand blows from Luffy, would probably be a good challenge for some of the weaker Straw Hats or samurai. That's mostly the extent of their involvement here, because Luffy and Yamato gets a brief scuffle and a Red-Hawk attack ends up collapsing part of the castle and blocking Page One's pursuit. 

One of the other major parts of this chapter is Orochi announcing the execution of Momonosuke, and Orochi smugly proclaims how Toki is totally a witch able to send people into the future. And since the majority of the population of Wano doesn't know about devil fruits (and the Toki Toki no Mi is pretty exotic in terms of powers) most of the goons down there are merely laughing and mocking Orochi. We get a hilarious scene of Jinbe and Robin hamming it up as members of the Beast Pirates all talking about 'yeah bro, totally', and we briefly get to see other members of the huge alliance (including the grandpa) just kind of enduring it until the time comes to attack. That's a really cool set of scenes, actually. 

Of course, it's interrupted by Kaidou and his Headliners, and I really do like the composition of that two-page spread of Kaidou and his main henchmen basically just upstaging Orochi. He is pretty dismissive about the 'execution of the brat' that he doesn't think is lively enough, and the fact that Kaidou's arrival is greeted with great cheering while Orochi's arrival is greeted with 'lol what a paranoid loon', plus just how much Kaidou and his goons loom and take up the two-page spread compared to Orochi and Fukurokuju... it's pretty neat. 

Trafalgar Law and the samurai on the submarine teleport onto Onigashima (although the rest of the Heart Pirates remains in the submarine) and they end up in Onigashima and rendezvouses not only with Marco, but also Nekomamushi (he has a gatling gun arm) and Izo. There's a reunion, and it's pretty nice and all, but it's not anything particularly long. 

The final part of the chapter, of course, is what got everyone and their mother losing their minds for the past couple of weeks. Yamato is a woman! Sort of. Yamato is biologically a woman but she (he?) wants to be Oden. Both Kaidou and Yamato refer to Yamato with male pronouns throughout not only this chapter, but also every chapter before and after it. Again, similarly to Kiku, it's a bit of a tricky subject to broach, but for the most part, the consensus is that we're going to use the pronouns that Yamato himself seems to prefer, so 'he', I guess. More eloquent people than me have put it into words.

Yamato tells Luffy that he's apparently been around since Oden's execution 20 years ago, ended up being a gigantic fan of Oden, and got super-duper touched by Oden's speech back then. He found Oden's journal, turned into an even bigger fan, and decided to carry on Oden's will. And, well, he's biologically female, but decided to call himself a man because, well, isn't Kozuki Oden a man, too? So yeah, we've got Kaidou's self-styled Kozuki Oden, Yamato. Oh yeah, and just to pile the bombshells on each other, he also knows Ace! And that little bait-and-switch to not only fool the in-universe characters but also the fandom certainly really, really worked. A great chapter and a great revelation for sure. 

_____________________________

Chapter 985: New Onigashima Project

The chapter starts off with a confrontation that I didn't think was going to happen until much later, but here we go anyway. Kanjurou against most of the Scabbards! Kanjurou shows up with a headless knight drawn with his paintbrush powers, as well as a small army of Gifters, and we get Kanjurou gloating about how he totally beat the shit out of Momonosuke for daring to wound him during the escape bit, as well as the execution. After a bit of gloating, we get our first fight between Kiku and Kanjurou. Kiku is donning a very cool samurai armour. The two of them clash and apparently Kiku can cut someone's soul and the wound would remain all the way to the afterlife. The other Scabbards also fight, and apparently where Nekomamushi's got a gatling gun arm, Inuarashi's got a peg-leg sword. 

Meanwhile, as for Luffy and Yamato? Yamato makes quick work of the obligatory "X for next Straw Hat" that follows any remotely likable character, because she actually asks Luffy to bring him onto the ship because Luffy is Ace's brother. It's also kind of interesting that Yamato sort of immediately admits that Luffy might be 'more Oden' than him, because he's apparently shackled since he was eight years old and can't go out to sea and see the world? Okay? Apparently those are exploding cuffs, and Yamato is scared of them? I dunno, though. The conversation feels weird and I feel like Yamato is hiding something, because the response to Luffy's simple offer of taking off the chains gets cut off. I'm not sure if there's something more. Is there a Devil Fruit power that the chains are suppressing or something?

The interruption, of course, is Kaidou talking about how the Marines are growing arrogant with their SSG and their Shichibukai abolition, but they're going to go on the offensive not only with the Kaidou/Big Mom alliance, but also the fact that they're going after the Ultimate Weapons! Finally, after a decade of the Ultimate Weapons not really being brought up, they're back in the story. The question is... which one? Also, they're going to gun for the One Piece immediately, which gets everyone all hyped up about the endgame of the story and stuff. 

Big Mom (or 'O-Lin') also shows up with a huge triumphant entry, apparently having herself a small army of Yokai. Apparently Big Mom defeated Nami and Carrot handily off-screen to grab Zeus back, although Big Mom doesn't kill either of them? I dunno, I guess it would be too unbelievable for all of the weaker Straw Hat members to continually escape Big Mom in the harem building, but on the other hand it's also kinda weird that everyone's just basically getting themselves spared by Big Mom. 

And as everyone is hyped... Kaidou makes yet another announcement. Wano is a natural fortress that the marines can't really reach easily, and Kaidou basically wants to make a nation of pirates. Orochi objects because that's his territory... but Kaidou very easily beheads Orochi with a sword in a surprisingly graphic manner. There's blood and everything! And... holy shit, it sure is a shocking moment. Keeping aside any sort of narrative counter-arguments, though, I don't think that this is it for Orochi for the simple reason that One Piece, even among other Shonen Jump manga, has always been pretty... tame in terms of violence. Even its deaths tended to happen either partly off-screen, silhouetted, or involving an explosion. Any sort of dismemberment tended to be limited to things like Logia users or someone who'll show up all fine later on.

And not to mention, from a narrative point of view... as neat as it is that Orochi gets killed by the true evil power in Wano, the fact that there's no sort of resolution between the samurai, Hiyori or Momonosuke against Orochi feels very, very odd and shallow. And there's the oddity of introducing a character with a devil fruit but not having the character use it at all. But it's still a pretty badass moment nonetheless, and Kaidou essentially causes everyone there that used to be loyal to Orochi to be converted to his side. Kaidou does a huge talk about how there'll be New Onigashima, a pirate kingdom... and his son Yamato is the one that'll rule it. And then we cut to, uh... Yamato and Luffy charging at Kaidou all angry and stuff. Yamato wants to bonk Kaidou in the head, and Luffy wants to save Momonosuke. 

And 985 is a pretty huge hype chapter for sure! Orochi dies (for now), Kaidou gives the grand big villain plan, and we get to learn more about Yamato. And... and I actually like him a whole lot. Right now the biggest contenders for being part of the Straw Hat crew, I believe, is Carrot for the simple fact that she hung out the main cast for so damn long. And a lot of argument has been made for Momonosuke as well, if you subscribe to the theory that when the arc is done it's Hiyori that becomes the leader of Wano. But I dunno. Yamato has been a lot likable and pretty dang popular, and he really wants to get on board? We'll see. I really wasn't sure at all about Yamato before, but so far he has proven to be pretty likable! 

Random Notes:

• Yamato wears a Hannya mask, yet another nod to Japanese theater, and the mask itself portrays the souls of women who have became a demon out of obsession or jealousy. The mask itself is designed so that it looks like a fierce, angry demon from the front, but when angled downwards, the mask appears to be sorrowful and crying, and it's meant to cite the complexities of human emotion. 
• I mostly know about the Hannya from the character Momotaros in Kamen Rider Den-O, but even One Piece have had a character inspired by the Hannya mask -- Impel Down's Hannyabal. 
• Yamato's robes are also Shinto priestess robes (which I didn't recognize) which is also yet another subtle clue of Yamato's gender.
• Granted, in popular culture Hannya masks aren't exclusively worn by women anymore, which is also part of the huge fake-out here. 
• Big Mom's Homies in Wano, instead of being fairy-tale inspired, are all taken from Japanese yokai! Specifically, tsukumogami, or items that have gained sentience and soul of their own. Most prominently seen would be the Kasa-obake, Chochin-obake and Bakezori. (Umbrella ghost, paper lantern ghost and ghost sandal respectively). 985 gives us a bunch more, although I can't identify most of the newer ones beyond the Biwa-bokuboku, the Biwa (Japanese lute) yokai. The Biwa yokai comes with its own sentient Biwa pick! In addition, among some of the notable ones include a creepy little doll girl, what looks like a sheet ghost, a mass of hair with a face, and a living candle.
• Cover story! In 983 and 984, we get, of course, the expected meeting between Capone and the Lola/Chiffon twins with Pound. It's basically what everyone expects and, I guess, it's the end of this cover story? As usual, it honestly ran on for a bit too long. With everything that happens in these three chapters, suffice to say that I don't really care about the cover story. 
• Perospero does only have like one brief scene in 983, but on the other hand it's really, really neat that even Big Mom's real motivations in this arc is a bit of a mystery to even her children. Perospero clearly doesn't give a shit about an alliance and just wants to make the Big Mom Pirates reign supreme. I guess this is eventually foreshadowing some sort of split down the middle with Big Mom's family who approve of the alliance and those who don't?
• Among the cool gifters seen facing Zoro are a trio of pretty iconic insects often found in Japanese pop culture -- a giant four-armed man with stag beetle horns jutting out of his back; a regular-sized man with four arms and a rhinoceros beetle horn; and a lady with mantis scythe-arms. They apparently all used to be pirate captains, too. 
• Marco heads off because he sees a 'strange shadow at sea', which I can only take to mean Perospero? We might be having a Marco-v-Perospero fight, but considering Perospero's fluctuating allegiances I wouldn't actually be surprised if Marco somehow gets it in Perospero's mind to help them out until he can divine what Big Mom's playing at. 
• During Oden's execution... there is someone with a kimono pattern that actually looks remarkably similar to what Yamato is wearing right now!
• Part of what I think is the main themes of Wano would be 'girls can too be great warriors', so an alternate take on this might be less of Yamato being essentially trans and more, later on, characters like Yamato and Hiyori walking around in impunity as women in positions of power, and, if you believe the Kiku-is-a-woman-pretending-to-be-a-crossdresser-man theory, her, too. Between the 'sit pretty at the home base' attitude the samurai have towards Hiyori and Zoro's old master's attitude towards women, that, I feel, might actually be a theme in Wano as a whole. We'll see, though. Either way is fine with me. 
• Kaidou might respect his child's preferred pronouns, calling Yamato his 'son' consistently throughout the series, but at the same time he beats up Yamato a lot, apparently. Okay.
• Izo uses a gun, which is something I completely forgot about!
• One of the big theories about Orochi's potential survival is that maybe it's part of his Yamata-no-Orochi fruit powers. We've seen that the Orochi heads when he transforms all have different personalities, so maybe Kaidou just killed merely one out of several personalities? It's certainly not going to grow new heads, the hydra an orochi isn't. Or it could just be something as simple as a Kanjurou ink clone.