One Piece, Chapters 986-989
It feels like it's been some time since I've last talked about One Piece, huh? Between breaks and me just not finding a whole ton to talk about the individual chapters, I have been kind of slacking.
Chapter 986: My Name
Episode 986 is perhaps one of the 'big chapters' that I remembered shocking and really shaking everyone when it first came out. Kanjuro dies off-screen? Everyone is crying? The samurai head into the palace? I don't care for Kanjuro specifically, but on the other hand having him be dispatched so easily without even a couple of panels to really showcase the moment of his death feels a bit odd. Sure, the Wano arc has been paced rather oddly, but even from a writing perspective surely this can't be it, right? I'm honestly pretty sure Kanjurou and Orochi still have a role to play at some point in the future of the arc. It's not even a 'no one dies in this manga' thing, it's the fact that the execution of their deaths is kind of underwhelming. Particularly Kanjurou.
Meanwhile, in the castle, Fukurokuju and some other punk-looking leader of the Mimawarigumi (yet another name taken from the Bakumatsu period) immediately pledge themselves to Kaidou because... well, we've had this running theme in the background just how much Orochi is disrespected even by his own men, who talk about him behind him.
Big Mom, meanwhile... holds Nami and Carrot hostage with her Homies (she doesn't just kill them? Plot convenience, I guess) while Shinobu goes off to free Momo. Speaking of which... Momonosuke gets to become the huge star of this chapter in perhaps one of the coolest moments yet. Kaidou goes into a bit of a speech, asking the beaten, crucified and bloody Momonosuke the same question he asks 20 years ago. "What is your name?" with the promise to Momonosuke about how he's even going to call off the execution and compensate him for a misunderstanding if he, in fact, is not Kozuki Momonosuke.
Then we cut away to a pretty cool montage of everyone moving towards the banquet hall. Ulti, the bull-helmet dude, Usopp and Chopper, the Scabbards, Zoro, Kid, Law... they're just slashing through things. (Oh, and Luffy takes off Yamato's exploding handcuffs... that sure is a thing) And Momonosuke? Sure, he's not a badass like the Luffys and Zoros and Sanjis of the One Piece world. Sure, he's a kid... but ever since we met this bratty kid all the way back in Punk Hazard, Momonosuke... has grown, and the character development as he declares with his half-bashed face that he is Kozuki Momonosuke, the man who will be shogun of Wano? That's stupidity. That's honour. There's sometimes a bit of a problem showcasing characters who do the whole 'honour before reason' style of things, but this? This is perfect.
I do absolutely love, too, just how much Lufffy holds back Yamato during this scene. He knows that they cannot be the ones to start the battle, because just as Momonosuke finishes giving his proclamation, the nine Red Scabbard samurai burst in and just absolutely do really badass things. Izo shoots King's sword out of his hands! Nekomamushi knocks away Kaidou's club! And we get a very cool page spread of the nine Red Scabbards all dogpiling Kaidou and stabbing him.
And, sure. it's easy to take the huge impending fight as the 'big thing' in this chapter... but I dunno. I am legitimately into the Momonosuke scene. It was a pretty cool one! And the buildup from Momonosuke embracing his impending death, to Luffy talking about who should start the fight, to the Red Scabbards' badass entrance... I'm all for it.
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Chapter 987: Faithful Servant - Kin
The chapter begins with the Red Scabbards pushing Kaidou off of a balcony... and they draw blood, just as Kaidou is flashbacking to his previous confrontations with Oden. Kin'emon draws blood! Kiku draws blood! Kaidou gets tossed and slammed into the ground as he wonders why the samurai are able to use Oden's Ryuo.
Meanwhile, Grandpa Hyou and the rest of the disguised yakuza and samurai begin to shed their disguises and fighting against the other mooks. Ulti clashes against Yamato. Big Mom gets distracted by Luffy, allowing Nami and Carrot to beat up the yokai homies and escape. And... as usual, disappointingly, Big Mom is handled almost like an afterthought. Kaidou gets these huge half-page panel spreads throughout these couple of chapters, gets badass lines and monologues and speeches, and Big Mom is just... kinda there. I'm someone who will go on record saying that I don't care about power levels, but between the amnesia earlier in Wano and her basically being sort of treated more like a nuisance than an actual character... sure, Big Mom's goofy, but I dunno. She feels like her threat has really decayed.
Kaidou's confrontation with the Scabbards is pretty cool. Sure, they drew blood, but he's still Kaidou, and a simple hit or not isn't going to decide a battle (no matter what the section of the fandom obsessed with power-scaling will tell you) and I do like that Kaidou gives this whole speech about how they did well gathering a resistance, but the nature of pirates is treachery and how the samurai will be betrayed... something that Kin'emon delivers a great rebuttal to.
After Luffy gives his huge declaration, we get four glorious pages of Kaidou transforming into his big scary dragon form and rise up into the sky. All the samurai follow Kaidou into the top of the castle, while Kaidou coils around under the moon and declaring how he's finally getting serious since he's sober now. Pretty cool shot, even as Nekomamushi declares that the entire Mink tribe is gathered to go all Sulong on Kaidou's dragon ass.
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Chapter 988: Sorry for the Wait
This one starts off a bit slower, showcasing the random named Minks like the musketeers all going Sulong to fight against Jack and his own army of Gifters. It's nice -- we're not going to really see this fight (other than the anime, which needs filler content) but it's nice to see that the absolute Z-listers are not standing still. We don't actually see much of the fight, which is kind of a bummer, and also leads me to believe that we might just very well have Kaidou just defeat the Scabbards off-screen. I would believe it.
Shinobu, meanwhile, does the great job of trying to free Momonosuke while everyone's distracted with the fighting, but King just grabs her and tosses her halfway through the giant hall (she survives via parachute)... but then Momo's chains shatter and he starts floating around mid-air. For a moment I actually thought that this was Momo using his own dragon smile fruit powers, but turns out it's invisible Sanji! He's not wandering off in a brothel somewhere, and we get a badass moment as he and King exchange a bit of a kick-strike. Sanji tosses Momo to Shinobu so she can get him to safety, but then King just swoops and tries to impale Sanji with his pteranodon beak and they kaboom away to the side.
Finally Big Mom remembers that she's around and actually fights. Oh, hey, maybe we're going to get a badass Big Mom fight, right? Her strike is like, a huge panel where it shows Big Mom blowing a big-ass hole with his Ikoku attack... but then, hey, Nami steals Zeus again, there's a comedy moment with Big Mom grabbing Zeus back and forcing him to obey... and then Big Mom just gets smooshed in the face by Franky and Brook in the rhino-bike while Brook uses his soul abilities to slice Zeus in half.
It's... eh, I dunno. I know Big Mom is easily the most comedic character among the Yonko. She's the equivalent to someone like Kizaru among the admirals or Bon Clay among the Alabasta villains or something. But at the same time, she hasn't had a good moment at all in the entire Wano arc, and while I don't expect (and don't want) her to be a card-carrying flat badass baddie like Kaidou all the time, I really do want her to at least be treated with a modicum of respect, y'know? (Although, granted, being a huge Franky and Brook fan, seeing them do something pretty badass is definitely something I like)
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Chapter 989: I Can't Imagine Losing
Oh, yeah, that ominous title's going to mean that Big Mom or Kaidou's going to do something that'll totally make the good guys imagine that they are losing, huh. 989 is the 'chapter filled with a lot of small huge fights' chapter. All the previous chapters have some sort of focus here and there, mostly surrounding the samurai and Kaidou's crew, with the rest of the Straw Hats and their allies ever so slowly making their way towards the central chamber.
Big Mom rises up and acts all scary and shit, but I absolutely love Brook and Franky not giving any shits to her. Franky just tells Nami that they shouldn't be scared of the Emperor of the Sea, because, shit, they want to make their captain the Pirate King. And he's definitely about to fire off his Radical Beam towards Big Mom before he gets distracted by the arrival of the Numbers.
Big Mom takes time to give us exposition, telling us that the Numbers are failed Ancient Giant attempts from Punk Hazard. Okay? Meanwhile, Franky and Nami compares them to Oars from Thriller Bark... and everyone has already been talking about how Onigashima being a giant skull might have something to do with Oars. Franky then unleashes a Radical Beam to blow up one of the random Numbers in the face.
Big Mom tries to bash Franky in when he changes targets... but then Jinbe! He fishman-judo's Big Mom's arm, and then tosses her into a stream of arms made by Robin and just gets smashed onto a gateway by the little pathway made by Robin. Pretty neat little combo move if, again, it does come at Big Mom's expense. Again, I really do like Robin and Jinbe so seeing them do something cool is definitely welcome. At least Jinbe himself recognizes that that won't do anything but slow Big Mom down and make her angrier.
Luffy and Zoro meet each other and rocket up because they want to go and punch Kaidou in the face! But then Queen goes brachiosaurus, chomps Luffy, and lobs him and Zoro back down to the ground while King and a small army of flying Zoans fly in the sky. Well, they're not going to be able to help the samurai for now, then. We get all sorts of things going on, too. Franky becomes Franky Shogun for the first time in the manga in like over a decade, Sanji simply walks up from being whacked aside by King... and everyone joins up together, leading to the very badass shot of all the Straw Hat crew members assembled together ready for battle for the first time since... shit, since Fishman Island? Punk Hazard maybe? The crew kept being separated in the past couple of huge arcs, and seeing the entire crew, with Jinbe, all ready to rumble, is certainly a badass shot.
So yeah, that's an interesting set of chapters. I really do think that Kaidou's going to easily take down all the Scabbards, while the Straw Hats might combo-take-down King and Queen in the upcoming couple of chapters? Big Mom's still there and hopefully will make something out of herself in the upcoming chapters, though, and I really do feel that this chapter's title is a pretty ominous 'death flag'. That, and the fact that we really should be ending the third act with a huge tragedy if we're actually following the traditional Kabuki structure. The question is whether it's just going to be some minor characters like Hyou or Ashura Douji that die, or if it'll be someone we actually care about? And what about Orochi and Kanjurou? Surely that can't be it for them, right?
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Random Notes:
- The cover story is just Pound chasing after Lola and Chiffon, who leaves the weirdo claiming to be their dad behind... and I don't think I'm alone in saying that this has been dragged on for way too long and they really could've just ended it four or five chapters early.
- On the other hand, Kanjurou is bleeding on the ground. He could still be wounded-and-not-dead, he might've done something with ink, and I think there's even an ongoing theory about how the Kanjurou we see might not even be the full body since all the Kanjurou we see in the flashback is depicted as a blob... I dunno.
- On the other other hand, it's poetic that Kanjurou's whole 'I want to be on stage' life gets ironically crushed by having him die off-screen... but that's only for the perspective of the readers, who just get cheated out of a confrontation.
- Among the reports of the Huge Luffy-and-Buddies forces rampaging through Onigashima is a single panel showing that Marco and Perospero have met up and teamed up and are charging into the castle. Perospero is an interesting wild-card, and presumably his attempts to talk to Big Mom and figure out what's going on is going to be a big Big Mom moment with her cchildren? Eh.
- It's a small moment, but Sanji giving Momo a thumbs-up and praising him for being a man is a nice moment for Sanji.
- I've seen some people complaining that the Numbers are treated as disposable and unmemorable in 989, but... they were always kind of utterly boring and disposable, aren't they? They're like the equivalents to the musketeers or BB from the Minks among the Pirate-Samurai-Mink alliance, or like the constantly-available stream of disposable vice-admirals, just there to be someone kinda-cool for characters that the story cares about to beat up and rack up accomplishments without having to make it a huge thing.
- For all the Carrot-is-nakama speculators, she doesn't make it into the huge 'we're the Straw Hat crew' spread, unfortunately. Not in this arc, it seems.
- There's a fun bit in 989 where Yamato follows Shinobu and Momonosuke and cheerfully states that 'I am Oden', leading to a huge 'nani the fuck' moment from the other two. Despite Yamato's big introduction he's kind of fallen to the sidelines in these four chapters, huh?
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