 Hello and welcome to the Ground Line Review, your source for everything one piece, and today we have a review of chapter 959, Samurai. And after what seemed like an eternal two weeks we aren't back in action, although it looks like we'll be putting the present events of Act 3 on hold for a bit, because we have rather swiftly kicked into the long anticipated Odin flashback. And I'm pretty thrilled about this for multiple reasons, one of which being that at the conclusion of Act 2 I made a very uncharacteristic prediction video where I stated seven things that I thought would be included in Act 3, and the Odin flashback was one of them, so we are off to a great start here. Not only that but while we're on this there were some promising flags for some other predictions as well, in particular being that the return of Jinbei is likely coming to fruition in one way or another soon. In fact one of the most interesting moments of this chapter for me was Luffy's look off into the distance moment, wondering what had happened to Jinbei in the short Whole Cake Island flashback segment. This feels a lot to me like Oda going, remember when this happened? Yeah, you know, keep it in mind because it may or may not be relevant in the near future. Although obviously it won't be coming too soon because we do have a flashback to get through, but I would not be surprised if Jinbei made his grand entrance afterwards. In the standard victorious moment we need to begin turning the tide of the arc. And in retrospect I really should have seen the beginning of the flashback coming actually. It's a very established Oda method of storytelling to place flashbacks at the moment where our protagonists are at their absolute lowest point, and then immediately afterwards kick into gear with that emotional backing to cause untold chaos. And you know speaking of the lowest moment that was what the majority of this chapter was about. Orochi, very uncharacteristically of him, perfectly foiling the plans of the Alliance in what seems to be every conceivable manner. There's even a page that would show what Oda has depicted as the destruction of the Thousand Sunny, which I think we can safely say is not the case. If one of the emperors of the sea was incapable of doing it, then three lackey members of the Beast Pirates certainly have not accomplished that goal. There's something like a billion different ways that the Sunny could have gotten out of this, especially if the Straw Hats were on board. You know, standard stuff like Luffy inflating himself to prevent damage. Robin could have created gigantic hands to stop it. The Sunny itself could have been a mirage made by an army. The ship may have been able to submerge thanks to something Frankie was cooking up. The point is that there are any number of options out there. So it seems like the sort of thing where after the Straw Hats appear once again, there will be a short flashback of how they cleverly escaped from this moment. And I think that goes for the rest of the Alliance as well. Because nothing that Orochi did during this chapter really struck me as something that would prevent anything from happening for too long. I mean, the bridge is a minor inconvenience, but it's not exactly a wide stretch of water. And through some ingenuity, I'm sure that everyone could still make their way across. And in regards to the ships destroyed at the Kuri Port, well, there's always the possibility that that was a fake out. I say this because Frankie actually said something very interesting during this chapter, where he yelled out that they should make sure they have enough ships for 5,000 people. Which is a weird thing to say considering his declaration of fair few chapters ago, which was to build enough ships to carry 100,000 people just to be safe. And yes, just on this, Frankie did say 100,000 in the official translation. I got a lot of people telling me that it was supposed to be 10,000, but that was a mistranslation by the scans, which is why we should always wait for the official translation. Now there is of course a chance here that Frankie's first statement was an enthusiastic overestimation to kick people into working harder, but I think it would also make sense if this batch of ships that Frankie is referring to are expendable and meant to be something of a distraction to cover up the movements of the actual fleet. Whatever the case, it doesn't really feel to me like Orochi has the upper hand here, and after the Odin flashback, we'll probably have some victorious gathering of allied forces right where the red scabbards are, just slightly delayed. I will say that it is kind of annoying that things were left in this cliff hanger-ish state as we go into the flashback, because I'm thinking it's going to be a long one, and as a result, this weird atmosphere of despair is going to be looming over the series for the next month or two as we dive into Odin. And yeah, I know I said it makes perfect sense structurally, judging from Odin's track record, and the eventual moment where things do shift is going to be glorious, but I can't deny the slight feeling of dissatisfaction here, primarily because we're essentially left on the same cliff hanger as we were two weeks ago. You know, the alliance didn't show up, the red scabbards are standing in the spare, and it was due to Orochi. In fact, when you think about it, apart from the beginning of the flashback, the actual state of the story has not changed at all from last chapter. What this chapter more or less gave us was confirmation of what we already know from last time, interspiced with some nice character moments, but there really was very, very minimal story progression. However, I must say that those four mentioned character moments were pretty brilliant, and my favorite was of course the brief interaction between Zoro and Sanji. You know, up until this point, Wano in general hasn't really taken this sort of time to deliver one of the shining aspects of One Piece, which is the casual interactions between the crew. We were just dumped on the island, and then thrust straight into pure plot, which is great, but I find it pretty insane that we're now what, 50 chapters into this arc, and we still have never seen all of the straw hats in one place, let alone one panel. In fact, we haven't seen them as a proper crew since the end of Zoho, and I think that was almost like 130 chapters ago a while. So Wano has been a bit lacking in that aspect for me, but this chapter gave me a fair dose of what I've been craving. Sanji bringing up the fact that his bounty is now higher than Zoro's is a comical confrontation that I've been waiting for for what seems like forever, and it was fantastic, especially with Zoro's hilarious use of enma afterwards. It wasn't just that though, because there was also some fun with Luffy, Brooke and Chopper donning the cup of Tuama, with Robin in the background making a classic Robin comment. I think all three of them look pretty fantastic though, and Luffy's pants are particularly cool, because they have the Kozuki sigil embedded within its patterning. Chopper is adorable as always, and I would buy a figure of him posing like that in an instant if it were available, and as for Brooke, well, he seems to be able to own absolutely any style given to him, but because of his height, he actually looks like the most proper samurai out of the three of them. And moving on, there was also a nice moment of regrouping with the minks, and a reminder of some of their major players with the musketeers and Wanda. A lot of that was focused on bringing up the thought of Sulong transformations though, which just like the Jinbei thing, I feel was very much Oda casually dropping in a little reminder into the story, being like, so you guys should probably keep this in mind, because once again, it may or may not be a thing later. There was an interesting idea though, which is that even though tonight is a full moon, it might be covered by unfavorable weather conditions. Gasp. That's something I don't think I've ever thought about actually, and a great opportunity to really amp up the drama during the final battle. Like I can imagine a moment during the inevitable conflict where things are going absolutely terribly for the alliance, and then the moon briefly peers out from behind the clouds and kicks the minks into gear for a limited amount of time before it vanishes once more. Or you know, maybe if you had someone present who was proficient in manipulating the weather, then perhaps they could use that to their advantage. But where would we find such a person? Hmm. In any case, there was a fantastic panel on this page of Nami being garchewed by Carrot and Wanda, which is incredibly cute, and another hit of classic straw hat Probably the least interesting part of the chapter for me though, was definitely that section in Okuboro town, because you know, if there's one character that I was really waiting to see more of, it's Holden. But I think this was the weakest aspect of the chapter, because all it really does is go to serve Kinamon's anguish later on, about his wife being in the village and such. Although seeing Suru again was nice, especially with her inner thoughts about Kinamon, Kiku, and wanting one to return to the Kozuki clan. I'm just not sure how ultimately necessary it was to spend two pages on it. I mean, Kinamon himself says that the town was burnt to the ground and that Suru was there in his own portion, so I think that would have been enough to convincingly portray that, and perhaps those two pages of Okuboro town could have been used for something else. Look, all I know is that the moment I saw Holden, my brain had this immediate urge to just switch itself off. But by the end of the chapter, my brain greatly regretted its foolish leanings, because the site of Odin set everything into motion again. I don't think I've ever been more excited for a flashback than this one. In fact, usually when flashbacks begin, I sigh quite a bit because I know they're always fantastic pieces of story, but when you need to read them week to week, they could feel like they are more of an obstacle to overcome in order to get to the reason why I really read one piece. But recently, that has not been the case at all, because I also remember getting this excited for the Big Mom flashback, I guess primarily because it came out of nowhere and I wasn't expecting Oda to take the time to examine a villain that thoroughly. Plus, it was also a first sighting of Elba I guess, so you know, lots of hype there. And this has me in a similarly excited mood, not just for Odin actually, but more so to finally see Lady Toki at some point and properly examine how the whole time travel thing fits into and impacts this world, because if there's anyone that has been covered in more mystery than Odin, it is Toki herself. But from what we saw of Odin in this chapter, I love his character already. He seems like he's going to be a classically quirky and bizarre individual, and I really liked his line about how the country felt too cramped, which would have come after he'd explored an incredible amount of the world during his time with Whitebeard and Roger. That's another thing that worked really well though, the fact that this flashback is a direct continuation from the short one we saw before of Odin aboard the Oro Jackson, which sadly means that we're unlikely to see much more if any of that journey, but it flows very nicely here, because we as readers know where Odin is coming from. So I can't wait to see Odin's rise to respect and power, which I imagine will be swiftly followed by the tragedy of his downfall and death at the hands of Kaido. Although speaking of, it's going to be pretty amazing to see a younger Kaido, especially because there is surely no way Odin can get away with not showing how Enma managed to wound him here. So even though there is profound tragedy to come, I think that this is going to be a flashback to remember. And finally, back to the land of cover stories, and it's really cool to see more of Dressrosa, especially when Dolphamingo's presence is still so visually distinct with the damage the bird cage has caused. In fact, Beige appears to have mistaken it for an active battlefield on his hunt for Lola. And I'm not sure if this has been seen before, but it looks like the citizens of Dressrosa decided not to keep the lovely spikes that Pika created for them with his devil fruit, possibly a wise move I guess, but it's really nice to revisit Dressrosa and see the ridiculous destruction of that arc still having some serious long-term effects. In fact, it's one of those things where you can imagine one or two hundred years from now, Dressrosa actually becomes really famous for its uniquely engraved floors, thanks to the bird cage and all of the tourists who come from across the world to marvel at such architecture are treated to the story of how the former pirate king Monkey D. Luffy brought down a warlord of the sea. Just a little reminder that we are making history as we speak here. But that pretty much does it for chapter 959. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon, because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. And if you'd like to see more videos like this but applied to other anime and manga series, then please do check out my second channel New World Review for all of your wider needs. 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