One Piece, Chapter 1052: New Morning
So... yeah, I do still have a lot of opinions about how Wano ended. Still sorting through them. I'm not of the opinion that I was extremely disappointed about a huge amount of it -- but there were definitely parts of this arc that felt inadequate. I think I've ranted about them enough in some of my previous reviews, and now that the dust is settled, I felt like... well, there were certainly ways that the fall of Kaido could've been done a bit better. It's not a bad ending at all, though. Wano just ran on for so long that everyone went just a bit too wild with speculation -- it's just that with the exception of Gear Fifth, the arc does end in more or less the most obvious and straightforward way possible. Thankfully, though, as with most major One Piece arcs, after the end of a major arc we're going to get a couple of arcs of craziness, and while 1052 is still in 'tidy-up' mode, we're not focusing the whole chapter on a specific part (i.e. Momonosuke's status as the new shogun) and we're just jumping all over.
Starting off in Mariegeoise (I'll never get used to that spelling) we get the Gorosei discussing how, yeah, it's impossible for them to cover up the fact that two Yonko has fallen. This chapter seem to be ticking off a bunch of plot points that we're wondering about, and we get to see that Zunesha has... disappeared after Momonosuke's talk with her in the previous chapter. It's something that I feel will be explored in depth in subsequent chapters -- what Zunesha knows about Joy Boy, what Zunesha talked to Momonosuke about, and the meaning of Momonosuke closing the borders. Right now we do have kind of an answer to that -- that Momonosuke not opening the borders causes the World Government ship to be unable to invade.
...admittedly, I thought that the giant volcano, would've played to it, and the idea that 'oh, the World Government could just invade if Wano opens its borders' is a bit questionable... but oh well.
There is a bit of a hilarious moment where the surviving CP-0 agent, the one with lines on his mask and a flower neck-thing, is all panicking when the Gorosei asks him "well, we can't invade Wano and Nika awakened... but we could get Nico Robin brought to us, right?" Man, that CP-0 guy looks like he knows he's in hot water and he's really considering his options and what he can do. The transponder snail ends up getting hijacked by another person, though, a mysterious person who claims he or she is 'heading there'. It's heavily implied that this is Ryokugyu at the end of the chapter, but I do wonder.
Speaking of Robin, the fact that they bring her up does lead me to pay special attention to the fact that... Robin does not appear at all in this chapter. I personally do feel that it's a fake-out for the simple fact that everyone is partying in contrast to when Robin got kidnapped pre-timeskip or when Sanji left during the Zou arc. People obsess a bit about pre-timeskip and post-timeskip parallels, but I really do feel like sometimes people look way too much into things.
We do get a bit of a closure to a pair of under-utilized secondary characters that I don't think we were going to get. Drake is just laying there wounded as he meets Hawkins -- Drake getting defeated off-screen is still pretty damn unfortunate -- but the two then discuss about how Hawkins' cards should've told him that he was going to be safe. Hawkins then talks about how he didn't have the pride to stick with Kid back when Kaido first attacked them... and now, he has enough pride to not 'come back crawling to Kid'. It's... it's a bit interesting, and it does flesh out Hawkins a bit more. We do get a revelation (in actual opposition to what the anime says!) that Hawkins reveals that the 1%-fate-man was actually himself.
And then he slumps to the ground as he bleeds out of his back. And... normally I wouldn't say that he's dead, but he is an antagonist, we do get a pretty neat wrap-up of his (yes, under-utilized) character and... this chapter also kills two other characters? Even if Hawkins ends up being relevant in the future I don't think it's going to be a particularly big role. Bit of a shame, since I really did enjoy his Devil Fruit and he was actually my second-favourite Supernova introduced in Sabaody. It is a nice enough end, though.
Speaking of Hawkins, we really still don't get any definite conclusion on what happened to Big Mom, Kaido, King, Queen, the Tobiroppo and the other villains. I'm sure they're not dead, but it is interesting that the manga is still keeping their fates ambiguous for now.
In Ringo, we get Kin'emon and Kawamatsu hanging out on the 'eternal shrine' of Ryuma, and they talk about how they're going to put Oden to rest there, surrounded with all of his fallen allies -- Yasuie, Ashura Doji and Izo. Marco also shows up to mourn his fallen ally, and talks melancholically about how another good friend of his has passed on.
(Also, good boy Onimaru gets a bit of a cameo! Good boy, that Onimaru!)
And... well, at least we do finish Wano with some character death. Admittedly, Ashura Doji and Izo aren't particularly well-developed characters. Out of the Nine Scabbards, Ashura Doji probably had one very strong moment, which was the moment of him showing the graves of all the people who died during the twenty years... before really not contributing all that much to the story. It's just that... his death was also kind of... not that great of a death? He jumps on a bomb and kind of just fizzles out in that chapter named after him, and everyone wasn't sure if he died because it's a bomb instead of an epic moment (i.e. when Kaido stabbed Kin'emon, or when he bashed all nine Scabbards to the ground on the roof). Izo... Izo died to an offscreen fight, but he at least had a pretty badass pre-asskicking one-liner and he got to presumably kill Maha or whoever that CP-0 guy is called. It's just that... I don't know. I am definitely very happy that we're not doing the Fairy Tail move of having everyone survive after getting grievous wounds throughout a supposed war arc, but it is kind of vexing that the actual deaths happen in conflicts that felt a lot more ambiguous.
We then cut to the Flower Capital, where Luffy and Zoro finally wakes up after sleeping for a while. No real severe backlash from Gear Fifth or Zoro meeting the grim reaper, although the former might be just damage that accumulates to the end of the story, while the latter might be addressed later? It would be really lame if the reaper thing isn't at least addressed a bit.
Anyway, Luffy and Zoro eat meat and drink booze, Momonosuke summons them for a banquet, and there's a funny joke of none of them recognizing Momonosuke after his age-up. We get the joke that the fandom kind of speculated was going to happen -- of adult Momonosuke trying to do the boob-thing with Nami and getting bashed because of it. Sanji and Brook get the most hilarious shit-eating grins on their faces that Momo has lost his 'privilege'.
We also get a cute little moment of Yamato showing up and putting a plate on Momonosuke's head to make him mimic Oden, and throughout the chapter everyone's been pointing out how 'sturdy' Momo's body is.
Speaking of which, it is played up as a lead-in to the hot springs scene, but Nami and Jinbe explain that people of Wano have a custom of having prayers, giving up certain things until their prayers are answered by the gods. Yamato gave up eating and bathing until Luffy and Zoro recovered. Now it is a cute little thing, but with how jam-packed this chapter is, it's admittedly a weird bit of world-building to be snuck in here... unless you remember that Admiral Ryokugyu is first shown to us and told that he hasn't eaten for years. Is he from Wano, then, and is he holding a vigil for something?
We also get a resolution to Sanji's suicide pact with Zoro, and it's just played up as a joke. And... I think I'm fine with that. I would've preferred to see a version of this conflict where it's played up for drama and for angst and all that, but I do like that Sanji's 'no longer myself' character arc is resolved on his own without any input from outside sources.
And then we have the huge bath scene, and good god the amount of confused people online is hilarious. Yamato joins the guys' bath, while Kiku takes a bath with the women's side. It's really kind of hilarious to see the sheer amount of drama this ended up causing online, but of course it does.
We cut to the port to see Usopp and Franky have missed out on the bathing to work on the ships, and Franky also offhandedly rebuilt the Franky Shogun. I expected an upgrade to BF-39, but... okay. Bepo and Killer are amazed at the giant robot, while the Kid and Law pirate crews are discussing about how information is going to leak. And just like he's been waiting for his opportunity to do something, Apoo (who is somehow alive and uninjured) shows up with a bunch of papers, all but confirming that he was the one leaking information to the world. I guess that is the reason why Oda needed to keep him around and conscious to the end? I don't know, I feel like having him actually be taken out and wounded by Zoro or Drake or whoever would've still worked.
We don't quite get bounties this chapter yet, and that's kind of a cliffhanger, but Apoo talks about how he's got all the new bounties... and the new 'Emperors of the Sea'.
And then the last two panels show some goober with an Admiral jacket and a plant sticking out of his back helicoptering along to Wano... and this is Ryokugyu, arguing with Akainu over the den-den mushi as he has entered Wano, and Akainu is all angry and tells Ryokugyu that he's not to do anything unnecessary lots of speculation about Ryokugyu's role and motivations, why he (apparently) felt the need to hack into CP-0's communique, the association with his 'vigil' and that of the newly-introduced Wano custom... all we can agree is that he's a plant-based Devil Fruit user, right?
Anyway, a pretty damn great chapter. Lots of laughs, lots of callbacks, a lot of really hype-building for the next chapter and the next arc, and it's kind of interesting to really discuss how this arc has handled death. And there's that whole Robin issue to think about, too....
Random Notes:
- Oda's going to take a break for one month after chapter 1053 to plan out for the 'final saga'. It does mean no One Piece for a month, but I'm actually going to be pretty busy for July, so it actually worked out pretty good for my schedule!
- The cover page has Caesar Clown (still with his 'Gangster Gastino' hair) encounter the Germa siblings. Apparently he failed to get away. Caesar, you nincompoop, you could turn into gas. How... how difficult was it to get away? No, seriously.
- Hiyori totally drop-kicks Momonosuke, although both of them as an adult. It's a joke that we all expected to happen.
- There's also an off-handed joke about Hiyori totally taking advantage of the situation and constantly giving the unconscious Zoro and Luffy baths. Sanji got super offended at that.
- Ryokugyu with that helicopter flower really does give me Doraemon vibes. If you know, you know.
- Kiku still is missing one arm. With her wearing a kimono for most of her scenes and being bandaged up in the bath scene, it took me a while to realize that.
- Inbi, the Satan-looking Number, despite last seen fighting with Apoo, is apparently happy enough to hang out with him and carry him around.
- Along with Robin being MIA, Inuarashi is also not around. I think Denjiro and Raizo are also MIA?
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