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Part 1: Kuri-Okobore Town
We start off this week’s chapter seeing the poor conditions the people under the Beast Pirates rule live under. Starving children are being told not to cry and show weakness, the surrounding areas are being polluted and exploited leading the townspeople, specifically the children, to take drastic measures to ease their pain of hunger. We cut to the Harvest where the towns’ people give their food to the Beast pirates in exchange for an abysmal amount of money that won’t be able to sustain the people. All of this s a reminder to the reader of the conditions that the people are going through as a result of Kaido and his rule over Wano. It’s an allegory to feudal times be it Japan or kingdoms in the west. This system of peasants supplying their rulers with crops and livestock during famine ends up in mass death and an eventual revolution in historical context.
We are introduced to another Headliner, Speed of the Beast pirates. She has the Horse smile devil fruit and is collecting the harvest of the villagers. A fire breaks out and the commotion and chaos leads Speed and her men to decide to head toward the commotion where Luffy and Holdem are.
Part 2: Run and Gun
The latter portion of the chapter focuses on the conflict with Holdem having O-Tama in the Jaws of his Lion Belly. Holdem brings up the accusation that Luffy and party are members of the Atamaya Thieves, a group whose leader is Shutenmaru. With this, we can safely speculate that Shutenmaru has a group who steals food and gives it to the people, a Robin Hood figure. O-Kiku asks Luffy not to make Holdem any angrier implying he gains strength the angrier he gets. I’m going to assume this applies to all smile users.
O-Kiku goes on to reveal the real man in charge of this area of Wano is none other than Jack. He’s been seen recently in the areas. Last we saw him, he was in the bottom of the ocean, and it’s a welcome surprise to know he made it back to Wano. As a result, Luffy and Zoro plan to grab O-Tama and run to prevent provoking Jack to come out and destroy the people of the town. Speed shows up with her men and Luffy notices the food, he also picks up on the fact that only the Beast pirates will be eating the food and not the starving people he’s been running into. Luffy is infuriated about that. We cut to Hawkins approaching the main gate of the town and also see Law in a disguise covering his face, both confronting each other. Supernova rumble 2? And just like that Luffy and Zoro show their impressive speed feats moving so fast, Holdem doesn’t notice Luffy taking O-Tama. Luffy notices O-Tamas cheeks and she tells him Holdem was using pliers to get the kibidango. Again, this pisses Luffy off to the point where he doesn’t care about the consequences. He rushes Holdem as Holdem attacks with fire from his lion belly, dodges the attack and BOOM, Red Hawk and it appears to be lights out for Holdem. Luffy is continuing to show how strong he has gotten by breezing through the Headliners. It seems the only people on the crew that can challenge him at this point are the top of the top Headliners such as Hawkins, Drake or Apoo or the Calamities themselves.
Prediction
Next chapter we’ll see the Law and Hawkins confrontation. They may hear/see that Holdem has been defeated and both rush to the scene to see Luffy. From there, I do believe we will see a glimpse of Jack again. Maybe just a den den mushi call with him saying he’s on his was on the last page of next chapter.
Conclusion
We got good plot progression in this chapter. O-tama was saved, Holdem was taken care of, and we got even more information about the area of Wano they are in being Jack’s territory. I really like Luffy’s mentality in this chapter. At first he actually listens to O-Kikus plea to not anger Holdem anymore and decides to just take O-Tama and run, but even that has its limits when Luffy sees his nakama being hurt. Looking forward to more chaos as a result of all this.
TO BE CONTINUD X
~ S