 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we have a manga review of chapter 924, ha! And hey, isn't that a very weird name for a chapter? I very much want you to keep it in mind though, because it will become very important later on in the review. But for now, as the entirety of the internet predicted, Luffy has been thrown in prison with a certain useless kid. And as much as I really didn't want to go back to the well of putting Luffy in prison, I have to admit that at least this time around we have a semi-decent reason to do so. I like the whole break his spirit thing and turn him into a powerful ally angle. Seems legit. Much more so than on Whole Cake Island where the Big Mom Pirates really should have just killed both Luffy and Nami immediately, or on Punk Hazard, or any other of the multiple arcs where Luffy has been caught. But the best outcome of this situation is that we are now able to commence the inevitable bromance between Luffy and Kid. Although before we talk about that too much more, there is a third figure present in Wano's miniature in Pelldown who is the one who shot the fishbone at the guard. The natural solution for who this may be would be one of the samurai that Kinemon is looking for, so Kamamatsu or Denjirou, which I think would be incredibly cool because it would mean that they may have been imprisoned for up to 20 years and still not had their spirit broken. Who knows though, it could be anyone, perhaps even killer and we just don't recognize his eyes in the shadows because well, we've never seen his eyes. But back to Luffy and Kid, seeing those two side by side on that final page was incredibly satisfying even if they are both looking completely wrecked because I love the look of pure fury in their eyes. And I absolutely would not want to be on the receiving end of their wrath when they finally do make their escape effort, especially Kid's given his reputation for brutality. Just thinking about it, Kid must have been here for quite some time now and his spirit doesn't look anywhere near as broken as Kaido would prefer it. And that makes me wonder if Hawkins may have been subject to a similar torture or if he just took an emergency tarot reading and immediately pledged his allegiance to Kaido. But speaking of Mr. Hawkins, he got the better of law this week through the unexpected device of a seastone nail, after which point there is a very interesting sequence, I guess, basically due to the power of somehow law ends up escaping, which was a shock to me because I thought he'd end up captured and imprisoned as well. And given that he was seemingly unable to use his devil fruit powers, it feels an awful lot like Hawkins let him go, like for law to have escaped in that scenario would have required some serious incompetence. So I'm going to call this as another point to the Hawkins is working against Kaido camp. However, a nice handy piece of information that came during this conflict was in relation to seastone, which was apparently a discovery of the Wano country. And this does answer one question that I think we've all had since its introduction, which is why don't the Marines just refine it to the point where they can make it super small in order to more efficiently capture and combat devil fruit users. And it turns out, well, they were actually incapable of doing it. And the only craftsman that can hail from the realm of Wano does bring up a new question though. And that is exactly how and why the people of Wano discovered the use for such a substance. They seem to have little to no knowledge in regards to devil fruits, which was perfectly displayed by Kinamon, who was a devil fruit user himself and not really aware of it. So it's unlikely that it was developed for that purpose. The other primary use of seastone is to line ships with in order to travel through the calm belt without alerting ceakings. But that's also not a great fit for Wano because they are an isolationist country completely unwilling to venture out of their borders, let alone sail the calm belt. So I hope we get a decent explanation for why seastone was cultivated here, because at the moment it doesn't quite add up to me. But with the advent of miniscule seastone objects, I do see some opportunity for this to be potentially adopted by the straw hats, Usopp in particular. If he were to acquire some form of seastone sniping ability, then he would become quite legitimately dangerous in this world. And with the mention of Usopp, I have to address some of the phenomenal faces made during this chapter. These face faults are priceless. It's such a wonderful mixture of shock and disgust. Robins is most certainly the best. I know she's had a couple of unexpected expressions in the past, but this is one for the ages. Another nice little thing that happened this week, which I wasn't aware possible, was the unconscious use of conqueror's haki. And what an extremely handy defense mechanism that is. Even if you're knocked out cold, a user is still capable of producing a burst to protect themselves from generally weaker predators. Oh, and also very importantly, we learn the kid also possesses conqueror's haki in addition to Odin. And it's also heavily implied that Kaido also has it given his statement about their only needing to be one conqueror. That's like three new users in one chapter. That's insane. Especially considering that prior to this, there were only like 10 confirmed users in the series. So much for that super rare ability, eh? So Odin is starting to really build Odin up here to be a figure of far more importance than I originally thought. I mean, every arc has their specific central figures, be they modern day people in Need or Flashback Heroes. But Odin seems like he may be in a completely different league, having sailed with Roger and now a conqueror's haki user. I mean, the more I hear about the guy, the more I am excited for his eventual story. Now, this week did end on a rather interesting note for one piece, with a literal curtain drop signifying the end of the first act of the 1-0 country story. And as someone who works in the world of theater, I love this. Now, most of you are probably at least somewhat familiar with an act structure as it applies to film, which almost always adheres to the three act formula. Theater does not play by those rules. No, no, no. It is much more diverse. I mean, yes, your mod musicals will generally be performed in two acts. But if we delve into more historically based work, like say opera, then we could be running anywhere from one to five acts. And I bring this up because of how heavily certain elements of 1-0 seem to be inspired from the practice of Kabuki. Now, I am by no means at all an expert in this style of performance. It's rarely if at all presented in Australia, but I do know that the large majority of Kabuki plays adhere to the five act structure. Very similar to that of Shakespeare, actually. So if things are looking to go in that direction, I believe that we can expect four more acts, each with their own curtain drop style ending. Now, I was always expecting this to be a huge arc, possibly one that even now does dress Rosa in length. And if we take the first act of 1-0, which has spanned 15 chapters thus far, then it would be a natural conclusion to say that the next four acts of 1-0 will bring us at least 60 chapters. But that is a very crude method of measurement in the theatrical arts. And on that note, I would like to go over the concept of jo ha q. I think I've spoken about this on the channel at some point before, but to put this as simply as I can, this is a structural concept that can be applied to most traditional Japanese arts and even modern arts around the globe. But should we apply it specifically to theater, then jo is our beginning, which spends time on introducing our characters, their relationship, and the world they live in. Next we have the ha portion, of which the kanji representing it has a ton of different meanings like damaged, broken, destroyed, defeated, etc. This is where a singular event occurs that will forever change the characters or the world going forward. Ha is also by far the longest portion of the story, usually accounting for anywhere between 50 to 80% of the total performance. And this is also where the name of the chapter comes into things. It just so happens to be called ha, which would be perfect as it does signify the beginning of the next segment of the story. Now this may strike you as a bit odd, because act one of one of country ended during this chapter while the ha began. But it all has to do with the dramatic flow of the story. And in this case, I think ending the first act during the beginning of the ha rather than the last chapter with Luffy being defeated adds much more intrigue because we have the additional problems of Luffy being thrown into prison as well as the introduction of Eustace Kid into the mix. And before I get a butt ton of comments, yes, the heart in the chapter does seem to be directly referencing the sound that each straw hat is making when discovering Luffy's fate. The title is written in the Hiragana Ha character and it's meant to express a noise of surprise. But it could also very well be a pun. It just lines up too perfectly for me to believe that this was not an intentional decision made by Oda. Finally, we have the Q. And look, this isn't something we're going to need to worry about for quite some time. But this part entails the climax of the story, which has resolved swiftly. Sometimes making audiences feel that it was quite sudden, but not in a bad way. The best example of a Q that I can think of in the series thus far was the ending of the original Sabati acapellago arc, where Kuma just showed up and sent the straw hats flying all over the world. And just like that, the arc was over in a chapter in a bit. I don't think that Wano will be the same, but it should have a Q proportionate to the length of the arc. But with that, you should now begin to understand why an estimate of 60 chapters in Wano is very unlikely to be accurate. If anything, I would say that we'll have at least 60 chapters of the half portion alone, if not closer to 80. It's the dramatic bulk of the story and I don't see it being wrapped up in a measly 45 chapters or so. On the other hand, I highly doubt that we would receive 15 chapters for the Q portion, because that's just not sudden enough. If we do adhere to the Jo Ha Q style, then my guess would be maybe six chapters from Kaido's defeat to leaving Wano. And my theater rambling is almost done, I promise. But I should also mention that given that we have quite a literal act ending here, it is entirely possible that we will have an intermission. So if there was any chance of returning to the reverie, it's now or never. I personally thought that it would be never, but I cannot deny that there is now strong potential for us to travel elsewhere in the world for a couple of chapters. It might not even be reverie related either. It could be looking at Marko, Nekamamushi, the Grand Fleet, the mysterious missing Kozuki retainer or any number of other things. It may even function similarly to a cover story in that we have an interval story occurring in tandem with the Wano arc that towards the end could even become involved with it. Which might be pretty damn cool actually. And finally just a quick note on the cover page. It's Sentomaru chopping wood. Nothing special, but the bears are cute. And you know it is nice to be reminded every now and then that Sentomaru actually exists and may someday, far, far into the future, actually play a part in the story. But that pretty much does it for chapter 924. If you enjoyed this video then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe. And if you are in any way inclined to help support this independent channel, then please do check out my Patreon, Discord server, or Twitter. The links to which are in the handy description below. And finally, please do comment with your thoughts on the chapter. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.