 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review Source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of chapter 1001, and this week sees a direct continuation of the eternally glorious chapter 1000, because we are straight into action here and it's almost surreal really. Reading some of this stuff does genuinely make me wonder if I'm actually awake, because this is the sort of chapter I've been waiting for ever since the beginning of Warner. In fact, no, much longer than that, since the Ninja Pirate Minx Samurai Alliance against Kaira was formed on Zoho, except probably longer I would say ever since Luffy and lore formed an alliance to take down Kaido on Pongkazid, after which point Luffy made lore press the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, which granted him regular One Piece content uploaded straight into his YouTube feed, and it can do the same for you as well. Say hi below if you're a new member of the Grand Fleet, welcome. Except that in all honesty, it's probably been ever since Garth first revealed the existence of the four emperors way back in the water seven saga. I remember reading that exact chapter weekly in 2006 and just saying to myself, well it's going to be a long time before we take these guys on. Although even I could not have predicted just how long that long time would be, because 14 to 15 years later, here we are finally doing the thing and it is fantastic. This is the sort of chapter I've been waiting for my whole life. But here's the thing, for such a grand scale chapter, 1001 actually felt surprisingly intimate. And that's because it took place all in exactly one location, with a focus on seven characters. Five members of the worst generation and two emperors of the sea. And that might sound like a lot of characters, but this is actually a very small pool for one piece, especially during our climaxes where all of the crazy stuff is happening all of their time. For comparison, just think back to some of the recent chapters featuring the vassals versus Kynar. Those scenes alone had 10 characters to juggle, and they weren't even the only scenes in those chapters. So focusing on a mere seven characters gives the time and opportunity to make sure that they all have something of a moment of resonance here, which they do. And to start with, the character who was most prominent to my mind after having read this chapter was of course Trafalgar Law. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Chapter 1001 made me a much bigger fan of Law than I previously was, and it's not just because of the face fault either. But I think what this chapter achieved was the same sort of thing that Wano has done really well for Robin, by which I mean that Oda hasn't been afraid to use Robin for jokes and some pretty weird physical humor as well, whereas previously Robin was a more stoic and untouchable figure by comedy, especially this kind of comedy. And Law was in a very similar position. He's the established cool guy who plays the straight man in any jokes that just so happened to be in his general vicinity, but he steps up on a couple of occasions here, the first of which was saving Luffy from Kaito's attack, only to chastise Luffy for ordering him to send Kinemon and the others downstairs. What are you doing, Law? You're acting all, uh, all cindereal all of a sudden. Baka! It's not like I wanted to obey your orders or anything. It's another great example of Oda being greedy as well, because due to these experiences of Law being separated by chapters, you get the full dramatic weight of Luffy's order in Chapter 1000, but then also some great comedy spawning from that moment here as well. And of course it all just seems so natural, but that's a tough thing to do as an author. It's sort of like how Oda used Kikuzan for two different purposes, one being the shock of losing it, and the second being to activate Zora. Oda is just really stupidly efficient with events and actions like these. But in essence, this chapter gave Law a shot of personality that I always crave from him. He's cool and all, but I want a bit more, and that's exactly what I got here, before even moving on to the face fault. And in general, that was amazing just all over. Very classic one piece. You think you're getting into the most serious of battles ever within the series, but instead you get a joke. And it was so good as well, because it pretty much justifies every time Big Mom or Kaidov called the worst generation members brats or kids or whatever, because they kind of are. Our three captains here all have this innate immature nature, as well as fierce competitiveness, even in the face of what looks more like overwhelming defeat than not. And it's times like this where I can just imagine Oda laughing uncontrollably to himself whilst drawing in his studio, and you can tell that after more than 20 years of doing this, he's still having a lot of fun with his work as we are reading it. When it comes to some form of seriousness though, the second character most pronounced here to me would have to be Kaido. It's so subtle, but he makes some crazy expressions during 1001 that we've just never seen before. The first of which is that smirk he makes right before initiating Thunder Bagua. It's just so cheeky. And what's more amazing is that it emerges from what looks like a state of complete anger, like between these two panels Kaido flips an emotional switch, and in his own way he's being incredibly playful. And then after Luffy sort of dodges the attack, there's this panel where he has the look of a proud father about him. You know, I wish that my father looked at me the way that Kaido looks at Luffy after dodging an attack. Granted, Kaido would be a very abusive father, with all of the clubbing and such, but still. It's so wholesome though, or about as wholesome as Kaido can get, which still would probably involve child abuse. One thing it does bring up though again is the sheer speed of Thunder Bagua. Something that I actually ranted about at great length, when the first one was adapted in the anime during Act 1. The anime did not portray Kaido's sheer speed or the surprised nature of the attack. It was very, very slow and like Luffy didn't want to dodge it, in fact he actively attacked into it. Whatever the case, there was no element of speed at play. It was all power. And having dug that hole, it makes me wonder what they'll do when they reach this episode in about a year from now. Probably some sort of clash where Luffy removes himself for the last second. But in regards to the manga, this was a great moment, because it's a tangible cue of Luffy's progression. He will not be taken in by a blitz attack like that again, and so we have a much more serious fight on our hands, which is very much thanks to Future Sight by the way, so Whole Cake Island is still paying off a lot in the section. Although something I did skip over is my favourite panel of the chapter, where Kaido is having a sort of inner monologue, regarding the fact there have only ever been a small selection of people capable of fighting him. And then these beautiful Oda-style silhouettes appear behind Luffy. Roger, Whitebeard, Odin, and… is that Rocks? Yeah, it's gotta be. There's so much more definition on him, I think we've ever seen before. And the shockier to me was the appearance of Rocks. I mean, it shouldn't be a shock appearance, it should be a given, since Rocks was the one who wrangled Kaido in the first place, but the whole panel itself was so unexpected for me, so it was a nice surprise appearance. And it makes me salivate just a tiny bit more for some information on Rocks in the future. Ah, ah, Shanks is there as well. He's hiding behind Luffy, sneaky one-arms ninja. And it took me a while to digest this, but Shanks is also in this image strategically placed right behind Luffy as if he was some sort of role model figure. But I legitimately did not even register that he was here at first, because when you're surrounded by Roger, Whitebeard, Rocks, as well as partially blocked by Luffy, it's just not the first place my eyes are going to go. But it is some very nice confirmation that Shanks and Kaido have indeed fought in the past. In fact, it would now seem like Kaido has fought against every other Emperor, with the exception of perhaps a Blackbeard. The Shanks stuff is important though, particularly to nit-picky people like me, because it's generally accepted that Shanks and Kaido fought offscreen during the Paramount War or just prior to it. However, that has always been very vague and unconfirmed. I have a whole video outlining why if you are interested to find out, but this pretty blatantly says to us that even if they didn't fight at that exact point of time, they have indeed battled before. And this is one of the rare tangible cues that we have of Shanks' strength. But in the end, none of that matters, not one bit, because all of this goes to serve exactly one man and that man is Luffy. This panel is like an injection of inherited will straight into the veins of the manga paper. Because with the exception of Rocks, these are all very fundamental figures in Luffy's journey, and he embodies the hopes and dreams of the large majority of them. And right now we are seeing his rise to prominence. Yes, so one who is there, it's a very make or break moment. Either this is where the legend of Monkey D. Luffy is born, or this is where the will of D goes to die. And given that Luffy is the protagonist thing, it's probably going to be the former. Continuing with Luffy, though, he is immediately thrust into serious mode, having activated Gear 4th, which is kind of worrying to be honest, because we still don't seem to be anywhere near the serious culmination of this fight. Especially since, at least traditionally, we'll need to travel back to everyone else and watch them defeat their respective members of the Beast Pirates before we really dive into the main meat here, um-nom-nom. There's also the very real problem that it seems like Luffy is the only one that can deal any real damage to Kaeda at the moment. Kid did the best his could with his brilliant Mecha creation. I'm really enjoying seeing more of his powers. Even if it does bring up how sort of limited he is in terms of strength, I mean being constrained to whatever happens to be around you can't be an easy way to fight. He's a bit like Douglas Bullard from One Piece Stampede, just lacking any sort of physical force behind him. And in terms of lore, he's even more underwhelming in the action because his big plan is to drop lots and lots of rocks on Kaeda, which he surely knew would have next to no effect. Unless he's going to chop Kaeda into pieces or swap his heart with someone else, unfortunately I think lore is much better used to support in this fight, mainly to remove other worst-generation members from tight spots or for surprise attacks. I mean, lore's fruit is so deadly and versatile and generally amazing, and right now it is being used to start a rock collection. Very admittedly impressive rock collection, but still. I also find it interesting that by the end of the chapter, Kaeda went into his dragon form, which made for an amazing spread along with Big Mom, really showing the scale of their power versus the worst generation. But, and I said this with the vassals, I can't help but feel like his dragon form is more of a hindrance than a benefit. It makes him a very, very big target, and the vassals didn't start seriously losing until Kaeda turned into his more humanic incarnation. Then again, to say that Kaeda was actually taking this fight seriously, that would be a lie, it would just be a blatant lie. He's still very much in worst-generation beta testing mode, where he's still seeing if these goofy chumps are worthy of a serious fight, or even better, worthy of a serious death. In other news, Zorro, just Zorro. That man is always big news, but especially here when he's taking a lot of initiative, and actually he's the only one who got a hit in on both of the emperors during this chapter. One more meaningful than the other, which is when he sliced up Prometheus, which I actually thought was pretty funny because now two of Big Mom's homies have been cut in half like that because Brooke sliced up Zeus and Hawkeyeke Island, so I'm just waiting for the trifecta now. Someone needs to cut Napoleon in half, and this pattern will be complete. Also, Zorro in true pirate style quite literally stole an attack in order to perform this, which is great because I think people have been speculating on Zorro learning something along these lines ever since we first saw Foxfire style back on Punk Hazard. So whilst it's not quite advanced arm and tarky, it is still a legit upgrade, and there's room for improvement as well, because this chapter seeds some future in my action. We are just warming up here. Although the crowning moment of Zorro to me of course was when he put on the bandana. Wait a minute, he put on the bandana. I'd say, you know, things are getting serious. Bandana's a pretty serious stuff in one piece, and we haven't seen Zorro done here since Dressrosa, and I have just missed this look a lot. Happy to have it back. Also, Zorro had this fun little interaction with Killer as well, who is not to be left behind as he joins Zorro for an attack on Kaido. He's still very much kind of the odd one out here to me. I mean, Killer has always been that sort of outcast member of the worst generation, because he wasn't a captain, and he definitely wasn't Zorro, so he's just a little less attention grabbing by default. However, he does have just as much reason to be here as anyone. Even if he wasn't just happy to follow Kid blindly into battle, he has business to settle for the whole being force fed a smile, fruit, or deal. And all in all, Chapter 1001 was a fantastic continuation of the hype from 1000, which is probably very well expressed in the final pages as well, with Kaido stating the stakes of this fight, which is basically that whoever wins is going to be disgustingly close to becoming the king of the pirates. And I suppose we shall see which Monkey D. Luffy comes out on top throughout the rest of this year. But that pretty much does it for Chapter 1001, and what do you guys think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this, then please do go and check out some of my other content, or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece Business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.