No tags yet.
Man it felt like today’s chapter just flew by. We finally got to see two opposing supernova captains/crews clash with each other! On top of that we got good plot progression for this arc in finding O-Tsuru, who will help us take care of Tama’s fever.
Part 1: Clash of the Supernova: Luffy and Zoro vs Basil Hawkins
Man oh man; I have been waiting to see this happen. Finally being able to see more of Hawkins’ powers and seeing our captain and vice-captain team up in a skirmish; Hawkins says something very interesting about the fate of Luffy and crew. He states that they have a 19% chance of living past this month. That’s a pretty spooky premonition. Near death encounters are on the horizon, the obvious one is Kaido. So let’s talk about what we saw of Hawkins’ devil fruit ability. This man has a straight up stand. If you recall, Daifuku of the Big Mom pirates had a genie devil fruit ability that was also stand like. It appears that there is a sub-category of paramecia devil fruits that have a stand like quality to them. I’m excited to see the full extent of these stand-like devil fruits. We find out that Hawkins' devil fruit is the Straw-Straw fruit. The first ability we see is the one we saw before in Sabaody, the voodoo doll ability. It allows Hawkins to have multiple lives. Let’s not skip over the fact that Zoro got a hit on Hawkins that would have killed him otherwise. The basis of whatever ability the Straw Demon uses is based off the cards Hawkins draws. An ability fully dependent on luck and the heart of the cards. Like we saw in this chapter, Hawkins can draw a card that actually hurts him in battle. He also mentions something very interesting I believe will be utilized later on in this arc. Oda specifically decided to mention that some of the cards in Hawkins deck gives him the ability to “give an individual the ability to surpass their limits. This will probably be used in their future fight with Kaido after the alliance is formed. If it’s used on Luffy, It’ll be really interesting to see just how powerful Luffy will get. Zoro is able to get in another blow that had the potential to kill Hawkins since another one of his strawmen were sacrificed. The fight comes to an abrupt end, as expected, with the woman that saved Zoro offering help.
Part 2: O-Tsuru
We find out the name of the woman Zoro saved last chapter, O-Tsuru, the tea house owner. She appears to know who O-Tama is and offers to take her back to her tea shop in order to help her river fever go down. We were also introduced to a new character, O-Kiku, the tea house poster girl. I like her quirky personality and character design. The chapter ends with Bepo and the Heart pirates, minus Law, locating Luffy and Zoro.
Verdict
Overall, I really enjoyed this chapter. We saw some nice action between Supernovas, as well as good plot progression for the Wano arc. Looking forward to this arc more and more as each chapter passes!
Predictions
I expect that the Heart pirates will confront Luffy and Zoro next chapter. O-Tama will be given the tea to help her fever but I don’t think it’ll be enough. Cue Law’s entrance to the Wano arc. Law will help O-Tama recover and we’ll see Luffy, Law and Zoro unite. Law will explain to them what the current status of the country is and potentially talk about any plans he has come up with to take out Kaido’s rule over Wano.
TO BE CONTINUED X
~ S