One Piece 1026 Review: Splitting the Sky

One Piece, Chapter 1026: Pivotal Clash

Okay, this one is a pretty hype one! It starts off with a brief check-in with the civilians in the Flower Capital, before cutting away to the rooftop battle. It's pretty interesting that at some point, a random Mary got to the rooftop and started giving commentary on the dragon battle to the rest of the combatants. 

I do like that the exchange of attacks at this point isn't anything quite as action-packed as the previous chapter, but it's more about Luffy motivating Momonosuke to get over his fear. In-between Elephant Guns, Luffy manages to convince Momo to do just one thing -- bite Kaidou. After a flashback to his dead parents and how Kaidou strangled him back in the past, Momonosuke decides to fly in and chomp down on Kaidou. It really doesn't look like anything too damaging -- Kaidou really is someone who makes the 'surprised when someone lands a hit' face a lot of times. But I do really like the growing character growth for Momonosuke over this arc, and I really cannot believe I'm saying this considering how much I was irritated by this brat in the Punk Hazard and Dressrosa arcs. Between the huge 'sunacchi' chapter and this moment of him glaring at Kaidou through his fear, good old Momonosuke has grown so much. 

All of this turns out to just be Luffy trying to get Momonosuke to have enough of a confidence to use the storm-clouds to lift up Onigashima. After all, if Momonosuke already has the balls to bite down on the scariest person in the world -- a Yonkou -- surely he wouldn't be afraid of something like this? 

Meanwhile, as all of this is going on, we cut away to two of the secondary fights that we haven't dealt with yet, and as I noted in the previous chapter, looks like we're wrapping all of these up. Both Jack and Perospero have the advantage against Inuarashi and Nekomamushi respectively, because the moon gets covered and the Minks were knocked out of their Sulong transformations.

Meanwhile, as Luffy is giving his dramatic speech that all of his allies in Onigashima can hear, we get him clashing with Kaidou, fist-against-fist with the Haki lightning all around them, we get this glorious two-page-spread of the heavens parting, a huge, badass moment that actually took me by surprise because I really didn't expect this to happen in this fight. It's the same thing that happened when Shanks faced off against Whitebeard so many chapters ago, and... it is pretty badass. 

Just to add even more impact, the parting clouds in the sky reveal the moon long enough for Inuarashi and Nekomamushi to go Sulong one last time, and then one-shot Jack and Perospero respectively. The chapter ends with Orochi (who's of course alive) witnessing this from behind a sliding door. 

So... yeah. Pretty hype stuff, and I really do like that Luffy's cloud-splitting act is tied into the victories of his allies. I still do find Luffy's newfound moxie a bit questionable -- probably the only weak link in this whole Onigashima Raid arc, I feel. In-between Kaidou tossing Luffy off of Onigashima and him getting ready to fight Kaidou again, I feel like we're kind of missing a character beat between the two? Unless the idea is just that 'Luffy never gives up' like what he says in this chapter and that's the simple answer. I don't know -- I really kind of felt like whether it's from an anime-superpower standpoint or from a personality standpoint, this could've been smoothed up a bit better with a better transition. Still, overall a pretty fun chapter!

Random Notes:

• Yeah, the manga is pretty much telegraphing that we're getting a parallel of Oden lifting the giant bowl with his Scabbards, with whatever Momo is going to do with Onigashima, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. 
• I, for one, am very happy that Momonosuke doesn't have instant mastery of all his dragon abilities, and that his child mind is still coming to grips with all that's happening to him. 
• It gets a bit lost with all the dragon-wars stuff going on, but Jack's hybrid form is actually a mammoth-centaur! That's actually pretty damn cool, shame it only shows up for like, three panels. 
• Perospero's candy arm gets absolutely shattered by Nekomamushi's blow. Actually, speaking of him, Perospero has been around for far, far longer than I would've thought him possible. I know he's not the villain trope that most people find to be cool, but I do respect him for lasting this long. 
• My guess is that Denjirou's going to be the one that deals with Orochi. In an ideal world, Hiyori or Momonosuke would be the best ones to do this, but other than them, Denjirou's probably the one with the biggest narrative connection with Orochi.