 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we have a manga review of chapter 913, Suru Repays the Favour. And we are wasting no time this week whatsoever, almost immediately jumping into a confrontation, involving three members of the worst generation. Now we didn't get to see a whole lot, but it was pretty damn awesome, especially the panel of Zoro slashing up Hawkins face. I really enjoyed just how mildly annoyed Hawkins looks as he takes the strike, or I guess more accurately, he absorbs it into one of his voodoo minions. And it brings up a thought I've not really had about Hawkins before, which is just a pondering about his strength and speed in general. With his sort of powers, there would be a huge temptation to just do nothing, because you have an even better damage barrier than Bartolomeo. Then again, his dolls, and for that matter, his living meat shields, are limited, so surely he would do everything he can to avoid using up too many unnecessarily. So there's a few reasons why he might be wasting them like this. Firstly, he simply isn't that strong, and he relies on a very unique combat style, having to deal with opponents within a certain amount of lives, like a game. Which certainly could be the case, as he says something along the lines of not being honourable enough to face two of the worst-generation head-on. Then of course we can go all conspiracy theory and say that Hawkins was taking damage on purpose in order to rid himself of Kaido's minions. But that's maybe a bit too tinfoil for me. It's more likely for the very meta reason that Oda simply wants to show off his admittedly cool-as-hell ability. Sometimes things just don't need to make perfect sense in order to be awesome. But Hawkins in general continues to intrigue me, mainly because he's using three very different powers. Firstly, he can obviously transform into and manipulate straw, via the use of the straw-straw fruit, which I'm assuming is a paramecia type, and would be a simple enough devil fruit on its own. But then you get into the whole voodoo stuff, and that's a lot harder to justify being a part of the fruit ability. But then again, I guess if something absurd is the op-op fruit can exist, then so can that. However, when you bring the tarot cards into it, things get mighty confusing, because they're not related to the straw at all, even if they do seem to have the effect of manipulating it. If anything, the tarot card ability strikes me as more similar to Kite's crazy slots ability in Hunter Hunter. I say this because Hawkins appears to let the cards dictate the flow of the story, much like how a tarot card reader should, much like how Kite did with his ability. But I do quite like that Hawkins has cards he can draw that are just plain bad, like the fool in reverse shown during this chapter. It's a nice way to balance out this fairly crazy ability. It also brought to light a huge weakness though, because when the fool in reverse was played, Hawkins lost a minion and therefore a doll, and therefore therefore, one of his free lives. So I imagine that a fairly simple way to beat Hawkins would be to dispose of his minions rather than waste time fighting Hawkins himself, and if that is the case, I'm not sure why he would bring his minions into battle with him, because on Sabotee, he just seemed to make random people elsewhere on the archipelago his targets. But essentially all of this makes me wonder if all of his voodoo style abilities are completely separate to his devil fruit, sort of like Miss Golden Week's painting powers. And you know, Hawkins just happens to have the perfect, seemingly benign devil fruit to best make use of this separate ability. And last thing about Hawkins, I swear. But I'd just like to briefly discuss his line early on in the chapter that Luffy and Zoro have a 19% chance of being alive within a month's time. That might just be reading into this too much, I do that a lot. But Hawkins doesn't look like he has his usual neutral face on whilst conducting this reading. To me, he looks a bit more intense and absorbed within the results of his divination. Now if you told me I only had a 19% chance of being alive in a month, I'd probably have at least that sort of look on my face, if not shockingly high a level of concern. But I'm thinking that Hawkins may be surprised at just how high their probability of still being alive is. I mean, he must conduct these readings quite regularly for every issue under the sun, but I'd wager that he has never seen such a high percentage of coming out alive against Kaido. Though this tiny, tiny moment could be what sparks Hawkins to change sides. Should he choose to do so. And the other thing I came very, very close to glossing over is the fact that he mentions a period of time being a month. Once again, I could just be reading into these things far too much, but I don't feel like this period of time was chosen randomly, which indicates to me that Wano could be set to take place over a much longer period of time than any arc in the series thus far. Most arcs only span a couple of days of in-world time, sometimes much less. But should Wano play out for an extended period of time, that is absolutely huge, because it would mean that the reverie will have concluded long before the end of Wano, and it also opens up the door for other factions to get involved in the arc. For example, maybe Luffy loses the initial assault on Kaido, and summons the grand fleet for backup. They would then actually have the time to act and show up on Wano, which almost never happens during an arc, because the meaty moments of conflict happen within such short periods. It also leaves the door open for Marco to change his mind and make his way to the island, as well as the marines, should the reverie have concluded. In any case, I'm very excited for the potential that this arc will actually span a decent amount of in-world time, because you know, if we're going to take down a Yonko or two, then I don't think we can just dismiss them in a day. Alright, moving far, far away from Hawkins, Yonko and other speculation, it is my duty to inform you that it has finally happened. The One Piece world is officially big enough that Oda has had to start re-using character names. After the Hawkins conflict, we are introduced to Otsuru, who we can simply refer to as Suru. But sadly, we already have a Suru in this world, the elderly vice admiral with washing-related devil fruit powers. I suppose the Suru in Wano is at least extraordinarily different in terms of design, so much so that she really doesn't look like she belongs in One Piece. Although I guess that's not entirely true, because I remember when Kinamon was talking in a perverted way about how men and women dressed in Wano are very similar caricature popped up. So hey, there's a tiny bit of continuity there, I guess. But depending on the translation you've read, we are also introduced to Yokozuna, who you may remember was the name of the frog from the Water Seven saga. And the frog was also a Sumo wrestler, by the way, just like Yokozuna here. But before I complain too much about characters having similar names, I feel like it's important to highlight the fact that Yokozuna is actually a wrestling rank in Japan. In fact, it is the highest rank that a Sumo wrestler can attain. And a couple of different translations have already chosen to interpret that by having him say something along the line, if I am the strongest Sumo wrestler in Wano, Uroshima. And you know, given that we are on a Japanese themed island, I'm inclined to think that Yokozuna is probably being used much more as a title, and there may even be other Yokozuna within the country. So this is one of those situations where I will simply have to wait eagerly for the official translation. But his second name, Uroshima, is also quite interesting though, because what immediately comes to my mind is the Japanese folklore figure by the name of Uroshima Taro. Now he has absolutely nothing to do with Sumo wrestling, but he was a fisherman who visited the undersea palace and met with a certain princess by the name of Otohime. Furthermore, he was given a tamatobako, which he was told never to open, and which of course he did, because they always do. Everyone always opens the forbidden box, and he aged about 100 years in an instant as a result. Once again, this could have nothing to do with anything, but I thought it might be interesting to point out. In any case, we now have a Sumo dude in the story for some reason, and he's hitting on yet a nothing new character by the name of Okiku, or just Kiku, who looks like the perfect fusion of Nami and Robin. And Mr. Uroshima lays down the very traditional Japanese line of being able to eat as much rice as Kiku wants, which probably doesn't sound like much, but hey, for the most part, a meal in Japan without rice is not considered a meal at all. But Kiku's appearance in the story immediately raises warning flags for me, because I don't want her to turn into another damsel in distress female character, and right now she sadly fits the bill quite perfectly. She's typically beautiful, clearly in her mid to late teens, and seemingly helpless, so in before we have another Rebecca. What I really want from Kiku is to have it turn out that she is a fully trained konoichi, and what we've seen of her currently is but a clever ruse to remain hidden in the shadows. And the last thing we have to mention, of course, is the Heart Pirates. Now I'm not the biggest fan of lore, but I am a pretty huge fan of Beppo, and my god, he looks amazing in his one o' attire. I'd also like to point out that the Heart Pirates insignia is on all three of their garments, which is a nice little touch. I'm assuming Kinamon made them, and if so, then well done good, sir. You are wasted as a samurai, and should move to the fashion industry immediately. But that pretty much does it for chapter 913. If you enjoyed this video, then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe, and if you are in any way keen on supporting this independent channel, then please do check out my Patreon, Discord server, or Twitter, the links to which are in the handy description below. Finally, please do let me know what you thought about the chapter in the comment section below. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.