One Piece 1007-1009 Review: The Not-Return of Kozuki Oden

One Piece, Chapters 1007-1009

We take a brief break from your regularly scheduled MCU movie reviews to talk about One Piece.

It seems like forever since I last talked about One Piece! There was a break between chapters and so I ended up starting to reread the manga! And watch the anime a bit! If you haven't checked it out, I reviewed the early filler arcs of One Piece, while at the same time watching the Wano arc. Man the animation glow-up after a decade and a half is pretty damn awesome, huh? How great is the Wano arc in the anime, really? I had attempted to watch the anime back when the Dressrosa arc concluded and didn't quite care to really continue and only watched the huge action highlights, and the same feeling happened during the Whole Cake Island arc. But Wano? With its fancy artstyle and the utterly over-the-top zoom-ins during action scenes? Also, one of the bigger complaints I had with the earlier parts of the Wano arc in the manga get explained in that the massive dump of so many characters at once is a lot more easy for the audience in the anime; and having the action scenes like the Hawkins fight or the Page One fight actually shown to us beyond two pages is certainly something I approve of.

Anyway, the three newest chapters! I really don't have as much to say about them, although as I understand it apparently the fandom was foaming at the mouth at the end of chapter 1007 due to the cliffhanger? It's what's so fun about reading manga weekly, really -- it's seeing each and every cliffhanger drive people crazy. Man, wonder how the speculation game was back in the early days of the internet during something like, say, Marineford or Sabaody?

Chapter 1007: Mr. Tanuki

The big cliffhanger that Hyogoro is probably going to die in 1006, for one, is a cliffhanger that I really didn't believe -- for the simple fact that, well, this was basically already set up to be Chopper's big moment, that he's going to be able to make a cure for the disease that is ravaging his allies. If Chopper makes the cure but loses one of the major secondary characters in the process? It really would feel like a pretty terrible gut-punch, right? So of course 1007 ends up with Chopper eventually coming up with the Chopper-Phage Nebulizer; a giant chemical bomb that has the shape of Chopper's face. That's cute! It does take around half a chapter to reach there, and we get a pretty cool speech about how Chopper uses a 'good' virus to counteract the 'bad' virus. I'm not sure how topical Oda planned the whole ice oni virus out to be, but... okay, sure! That's honestly about how I expected it to be, although they sure really dragged this out for half the chapter. 

Queen, meanwhile, does something kind of stupid and just rants about how stupid and worthless and useless everyone there is,  and how the only thing they can do is to die for the cause since the Smilers and Waiters are essentially dead weight. In the grand scheme of things having a bunch of fodder characters really isn't going to turn the tide in any meaningful way, I don't think, but it's still a nice moment where the samurais and random Beast Pirate goons' faith in the pirate-doctor got rewarded.

And then Chopper goes into monster point and just slaps that fuck out of Queen. Hell yeah, Chopper! It's a pretty awesome partial two-page spread, with the glorious angry "I'm not a raccoon dog!" yelling from Chopper, who has been mistaken for a tanuki for damn near a decade by everyone. And I love the little set of panels of everyone raising their hands to their mouth going "oh... sorry" in their minds. And this includes not just Hyogoro and the random goons, but also Marco and Drake. Fun!

This chapter ends with three seemingly unrelated scenes. Momonosuke transforming to a dragon while lamenting his cowardice (which leads into 1008); CP-0 talking about the 'failure' of cloning Kaidou's still-unnamed fruit via his DNA bloodline element; and the Scabbards waking up to see Kozuki Oden alive. 

So yeah, there's probably something about the fruit that Momonosuke consumed that's going to be really relevant in fighting Kaidou, I think! And the Oden cliffhanger... well, obviously since we're covering the next two chapters we all know who 'Oden' actually is, so let's jump into the next one.

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Chapter 1008: Atayama Thieves Brigade, Ashura Doji

And turns out that "Oden" is just a painting made by Kanjurou. And only Ashura Doji and Raizou actually realize that this isn't really Oden. And... not that I actually believed that this is ever going to be Oden alive and well, but I am glad we went with the most sensible option here. Many other theories that abound include Onimaru (that's a fair point, whatever happened to that little fox?), a ghost (all right), some sort of time-delayed hologram message but with a fantasy layer, Catarina Devon, or them seeing Yamato or Hiyori as Oden because of some will-of-Oden stuff.

But no, it's just Kanjurou, using a painting of Oden to get under everyone's guard and to twist the knife in a bit more. Honestly, after that amazing death scene in the flashback, having Oden back alive would undermine that entire chunk of the manga, some ten to fifteen chapters and the whole message of 'my death is something I accept if my will is carried by others' that Oden's story hammers into us. Narratively, Oden's story is complete, unlike Kanjurou and Orochi who return in this chapter. 

So yeah. It doesn't keep Kin'emon and the rest from believing that it is Oden, though... and Ashura Doji is the one that charges in and proves that this Oden is a painting. Ashura Doji is, I think, the least interesting and the least developed of the Scabbards, but his one big scene in Act 2 was showing off that massive graveyard of all the people who couldn't wait for 20 years and had gone off to fight Kaidou on their own. So of course he's going to be a lot more cynical and realistic about things, accepting that they have lost their master.

The fake Oden is carrying a bunch of dynamite under his kimono. Ashura Doji charges Kanjurou and they blow up outside of the building. We don't see a body, and this chapter alone shows two characters coming back after ambiguous deaths, so I suspect we'll get a Pell situation out of Ashura Doji. If we're going to kill off one of the Scabbards, though, Ashura Doji is probably the one you can write off without being too sad. 

It also deals with another aspect of this arc that I wasn't the biggest fan of -- Kanjurou's seeming death. Kanjurou was dealt with basically off-screen. We see the beginnings of the confrontation and then we cut to Kiku with a bloodstained katana over Kanjurou's dead corpse. Thematically and in a meta sense it is a karmic death for a stage actor like Kanjurou to die off-screen... and that's the only reason I can kind of believe that. But from a narrative writing standpoint, Kanjurou not only has been a long-time supporting character since Dressrosa nearly four years ago, but he really didn't get a satisfying narrative payoff. So yeah, bring it on, and Kanjurou being a pretty huge jackass and mocking everyone is certainly something I like in a villain. 

Kanjurou goes off to murder Momonosuke, and the surviving eight Scabbards go off to hunt him down. Jack gets in their way, and Inuarashi (alone?) stay to hold him off. I love the little pissing contest between the two "No moons here, Mink." "Yeah, no poison gas here, jackass." Oh, also, honestly kind of randomly in a single panel? Orochi is alive, hanging out with his goon Fukurokuju, and he's setting fire to the castle... I really don't think Kaidou of all people is going to be bothered by you setting a bunch of rooms on fire. We get a brief Momonosuke scene again where he apparently has some sort of ultra Observation Haki? Or the Voice of All Things? Or are the two of them the same? He can tell Luffy's condition. The final page basically shows the battle on the rooftop, with Luffy going Leeroy Jenkins and getting batted around easily. The others basically try and formulate a plan to separate the two Yonko. Oh, we also get to see Kaidou's hybrid form and it's... it's basically what we kind of expect? It's a lot cooler in 1009 when we see it in action and from profile shots. Nothing that blew me out of the water; it's a pretty cool form. 

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Chapter 1009: Hell

The first scene opens up with the surviving Scabbards meeting Orochi -- and one of the biggest things that made me steadfast that Orochi isn't dead is that... we never saw him really do anything with his orochi devil fruit, and why design such a fruit if you're not going to use it? Orochi transforms into his orochi form, but the Scabbards just... absolutely behead every single head. I'm not sure if this is it for him because, again, maybe it's a thing where you have to cut off all eight heads at the same time and we only have seven Scabbards here (Kin'emon, Denjiro, Kawamatsu, Nekomamushi, Raizou, Kiku, Izo). I'm not sure who would be the most impactful to get the kill on Orochi... I kind of want Hiyori to do it since the first act of Wano really builds it up... but at least the Scabbards get some catharsis out of it in this chapter.

The other Scabbards go off, but Raizou stays back to fight with Fukurokuju. I guess this is what's going on? Each Scabbard stays behind to fight off one of the warriors as they make their way to Momonosuke? We're already down Ashura Doji, Inuarashi and Raizou. I'm not sure who else is left to fight, though, unless some of the Scabbards will get in the way of the Straw-Hats-vs-Tobi-Roppo battles. 

Almost half of the chapter then cuts back to the rooftop battle, and in one of the biggest writing moves I appreciate, we get the explanation why Law doesn't just Room-Shambles the two Yonko and call it a day. Rip their hearts out, swap their limbs and attach them to rocks, or something... well, turns out that his powers can't affect people with too strong of a Haki. Is that just a limit on the Ope Ope no Mi, or is it all Devil Fruit powers that affect other people? It kind of reminds me of that scene in Bleach where Soi Fon uses Suzumebachi on Aizen and it's ineffective because of the 'gulf in reiatsu' or whatever. I'm not sure how I feel about this -- narratively of course we need it because I don't want Law to end the fight anticlimactically in two panels, but I've always found One Piece fights to be the most entertaining back in the day because it's more about the power application and less about who has more chi or whatever.

Kaidou and Big Mom do a combo blow called 'Ocean Sovereignty' that looks pretty fucking impressive... but more impressive is Zoro blocking the move. Holy shit, Zoro, this arc is good for you. Zoro is confirmed to still be alive, if quivering on the floor... and honestly, I'm pretty sure he's going to still jump into the fight anyway. Luffy continues to fight Kaidou and I really like the little shit-eating grin Luffy has when he mocks Kaidou for dodging his Red Hawk -- 'are you afraid that it'll hurt?' Of course, Kaidou goes full on berserk on Luffy for that, spitting out fire blasts from his mouth and unleashing a massive swing down of his club called Ragnarok.

But while all of this is going on, the rest of the Supernovas attack Big Mom, and they basically do what Nami, Brook and the others did near the end of the Whole Cake Island arc -- focus on the Homies. Kid creates a little shock-proof cell and Law teleports Zeus into the metal box. Zoro just slices the shit out of Prometheus over and over and over again (he can cut flame, remember?) while Killer bullies Napoleon. Big Mom herself is still pretty strong and pounds Kid into the ground, but she gets close enough for Kid to wrap her in metal and repel her away, and then Law launches a massive boulder to push her over the edge of Onigashima, with no Prometheus or Zeus to come and save her. 

...I don't think this is how Big Mom is taken out, but if it was? I don't have any complaints about it. Pretty cool scene overall, and if she gets saved by Kaidou or her children (they're still on the candy ship somewhere after Marco dropped them, right?) I wouldn't be mad either. Pretty cool, either way.