That said, seeing Luffy take center stage again is very much welcome, and really all of the content with his match ups against Queen’s forces, and help from Hyogoro in mastering a certain Haki attack is great and a welcome change of pace. Oda tries to change it up, often by having an unrelated set of characters offer the exposition, but I’m not sure that works as well as he hoped. But the exposition dumps required to justify each character hit like a ton of bricks, slowing down the overall progress of the narrative. What’s here is interesting, and adds new layers to the battle: Hyogoro acting as a whole new way of obtaining a wealth of forces to challenge Kaido and the Wano’s lord, or Kawamatsu acting as an ‘ancient’ ally who could help to turn the tide through his sheer prowess alone. They appear organically, but are then followed by rather lengthy exposition dumps to try and explain their greater relevance to the plot. These two characters aren’t really introduced organically into the story. It can feel like we missed something this way, even if what we missed was ultimately not crucial to the story.Īnother semi-issue is the frequent use of exposition to explain who, say, Hyogoro is, or Kawamatsu. In cases like this it feels like maybe a little too much was cut, even if the basic idea gets across. Lately Oda has been ‘trimming the fat’ trying to keep what appears on the page as only what’s absolutely necessary. It’s places like this, which are generally few and far between, where it feels like Oda is struggling to fit in all the developments he’s aiming for. One minute Luffy is on the ground from being attacked and by the time we cut back to him he’s halfway to escaping. The trouble is 935 gets a bit jumpy with developments.
Starting with Chapter 935 the story picks up speed, quickly moving Luffy from merely a captive, to a man fighting for his life in a game developed by Kaido Minion Queen. For as much as Oda has settled into a fairly workable formula, there’s little places where things are more confusing than necessary or extra details that then require additional dialogue to explain, making the story more complicated than it truly could be. We also have a few more characters of the Wano Country formerly introduced, such as Hyogoro the former big boss of the Wano Yakuza, or Kawamatsu, a potentially powerful ally who use to serve the former lord of Wano 20 years ago. get some attention now and again as well. 935-940 Mostly focus on Luffy and Zoro’s efforts, although Nami and Co. Oda seems to have found a nice balance of late, keeping primary focus on one or two plot lines a chapter, with mini-updates on the rest of the gang, who are usually sitting around doing very little, but having aspects of the plot relayed to them to act as exposition dumps/catch up/refresher moments. When Luffy happens upon a young girl named Otama, who becomes poisoned from the polluted river, he reunites with Zoro, taking on the wealth of corruption threatening to strangle the struggling citizens of Wano.
arrive, only to become separated near instantly.
Successfully saving Sanji, and evading capture by Big Mom, Luffy rushes with half of his crew to rejoin the rest, lead by Zoro in an effort to challenge Kaido in the country of Wano. She sought to force Sanji into a politically driven marriage, with the true intent of killing his estranged and powerful family, the Vinsmoke. Luffy recently challenged Big Mom, one of the world’s most deadly Pirate Warlords. But against his better judgement he ate the Gum-Gum Fruit, gaining the power to stretch like rubber– but in return lost his ability to ever swim again! Eh, no matter, Luffy decided to become a Pirate anyway, his dream to one day in fact become King of the Pirates! Over the course of his journey he assembles a crew of bizarre characters, from Zoro the three-sword wielding swashbuckler, to Nami the treasure obsessed, and more.