- Poor Chopper wasn't taking the news about Luffy very well at first
- Sanji finally uses a weapon again, and it's Zoro lmfao
- SANJI VS QUEEN LET'S GOOOOOO!!! This whole scene is amazing. I need to see it animated to fully get it, but basically Sanji kicks Queen hard enough to not only damage him, but also blocks all of Perospero's incoming arrows, but also temporarily removes him from the battlefield.
- It's been a very, very long journey to the inevitable endpoint of Sanji taking on a Yonko Commander, the Black Maria detour being particularly rough for his fans, but we're finally here! A small part of me is a bit disappointed we're not getting that aerial battle with King, but hey, fighting Queen is damn hype as well. (And more importantly, people can rejoice that he's not fighting Jack, Perospero, etc.)
- As has been stated, a Sanji vs Queen fight has felt like a certainty for quite awhile. They're both the 3rd strongest (presumably on Queen's part) of their respective crews. Queen is a scientist who is familiar/has worked with Judge in the past, the strongest hint so far. They've both fallen for Hiyori (watch this end up getting a payoff once she shows up lol) And in terms of Sanji fighting a Yonko Commander to begin with, his earlier clash with Pay Pay while wearing the raid suit made it clear that a Tobi Roppo wouldn't be a satisfying matchup for him. If Luffy's fighting a Yonko, then Sanji and Zoro have to be on the level where they can fight against Yonko Commanders themselves now. While Chopper was admittedly an even better fit due to clashing with Queen's ideology, it is painfully obvious that Chopper is not strong enough to beat Queen by himself. So it'll be interesting to see what Chopper does next after patching up Zoro.
- Speaking of Zoro, as we all suspected, he likely won't just be in bandages the entire time the rest of the raid plays out. I still heavily lean towards Zoro having some other big moment, not him having a proper fight against some big shot antagonist. While I still really don't see Zoro getting a big 1v1 fight (against King at this point let's be real) given his injuries, nothing's impossible now that Sanji is fighting Queen. Maybe it'll play out in a way where Marco severely injures King beforehand before getting defeated or something. Dunno how I'd feel about that, but I guess I could be okay with that provided the execution is believable.
- Despite all the memes of Sanji being kicked out of the Monster Trio, the reality is that Jinbe is fighting Who's Who, while Sanji is fighting Queen. It's clear now that when all is said and done, Oda wants the endgame of Zoro and Sanji continuing to be viewed as the strongest fighters after Luffy. Though I guess there might be a potential asterisk, in that Jinbe could be considered the 2nd strongest when he's underwater or at least near a large body of water.
- Love all the blatant Enies Lobby parallels here. In short... he's back:
- As I expected, Kinemon survived that clubbing. But what I didn't expect was for Kaido to immediately go in for the kill again, this time stabbing through the gut to the point that the sword has pinned him to the ground. Good lord, pretty graphic for this series. As someone that at first felt a little weird about the Scabbards not being killed off in the leadup to Ch. 1000, so far I've been preferring how things have played out in terms.
- Seeing Kinemon desperately try to fight back against Kaido, complete with the flashback of showing when Kinemon and Momo started to pretend to be father and son, had me emotional ngl. I'm fully convinced after this chapter that Kinemon will ultimately die by the end of this arc. However, still not entirely convinced that it'll happen right here and now. Despite the brutality of this scene, Kinemon still has not reunited with Tsuru. And on top of that, we now have Kaido practically daring Kinemon to find a way to struggle against him one last time, where he does not accept defeat.
- Oh wow, I honestly didn't expect for Luffy to be the one that was speaking to Momo. Some people theorized this I think, but I largely wrote it off lol. This whole VOAT thing truly is some crazy shit huh?
- This is a really good moment for Momo, as he's unexpectedly the one to restore morale among the alliance.
- As expected, the most logical course of action in how Luffy would be saved was through Law's submarine. Surprised they could hear Luffy though...
- Wtf at Zeus merging with the Clima-Tact itself, not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, it might improve Nami's techniques outside of just her lightning. But I swear if this robs us of my dream of Nami going full Son Goku D:
- And at long last, Yamato has finally confronted Kaido! Didn't realize how hyped I was for this until I saw it lol. Also Yamato has subtly come a long way since he was first accused of having Nami-face syndrome
-----------------
Great chapter. As I said last week, the tone would be decided in the next 1-2 chapters. Given this chapter, seems like we're sticking with a more hopeful tone despite Luffy's condition and Kinemon's fate being up in the air, which is fine by me. That said, still super curious on what what happens with Onigashima.
Also damn, when we getting that Kaido flashback