 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything on peace. And today we have a review of chapter 968, Odin's Return. And here we go, 2020 is back in full swing and regular publication. And we are just in time to get down to the serious and dramatic end of this Odin flashback because this week we had a tearful farewell to the shenanigans of the Roger and Whitebeard Pirates. And now we've ended up back in mono for the inevitable tragedy that is Kozuki Odin. Before that though, we do still have some Roger wrap up to do. And this chapter very much hit me right in those fields throughout everything we saw with him and his crew, particularly when we got to see the moment that he decided to disband the Roger Pirates. And then once again, when Roger departed and the entire crew were in a flood of tears, nicely in contrast to Odin's narration, where he was saying stuff like, but this was a man's farewell and the crew of the Pirate King would never cry. It was one of those weird dual feeling pages that only Oda could craft, making me laugh and feel incredibly somber at the same time. Especially in that first group panel of the Roger Pirates crying, because if you look at the bottom left hand side, you can see Rayleigh, or miraculously the back of Rayleigh, who can't even bear to gaze upon his departing captain. Which is interesting because that's in very stark contrast to when this panel gets mirrored on the very next page with Rayleigh bidding Odin farewell with a smile on his face, whilst the rest of the crew remained similarly teary-eyed. And I guess this is because there was a nice bit of intrigue here because we had that panel lingering on both Roger and Rayleigh with Odin narrating that Roger told something to his oldest confidant. And this may or may not be the case, but we do know what Roger's last words to Rayleigh were, which was, I won't die partner. So maybe this is where those last words occurred. And Rayleigh, having been to Laugh Tale, obviously has some sort of profound understanding of what this means and what Roger plans on doing from here, which the rest of the crew may not be privy to. And I go into that because this chapter is all kinds of wild in terms of prophecies and such, which we will get to in a bit, but I just wanna float the idea right now that after visiting Laugh Tale and learning about the will of Dee, that Roger may have understood that his death was inevitable and in fact essential in order for another to inherit his will at a very convenient time to line up with Shiro Hoshi. So in terms of everything that One Piece has thrown at us in terms of fate, the entire idea of Roger being afflicted with this mysterious illness seems an awful lot like fate, making sure that things lined up properly. And as a result, it makes Roger turning himself over to the Marines and accepting his execution all the more powerful because he knows that there is absolutely nothing he can do to change it, nor does he necessarily want to because of his excitement and curiosity about the next era. And so what does Roger do? Well, he simply embarks on one last mission to ensure that whoever inherits his will becomes a pirate by starting the golden age of piracy with his final words. So we have some very powerful puzzle pieces being put together here. But back to Rayleigh for a second, I just want to clarify something because anime watches might get the wrong idea with the whole final words thing. And that's because in the anime, they took some liberties with Roger's final words to Rayleigh in regards to how they decided to stage it, which was beautiful, I might add. It's sort of like a funky split dimensional scene between modern day Shaki's bar and the deck of the Oro Jackson. And they even have Roger taking a drink and setting it down. But the future effect of this is that people who take things quite literally might dismiss that this moment in the chapter is Roger and Rayleigh's final moment together. But in the original manga version of the Sabati events, none of that happened. You just see a shot of Roger's face saying, I won't die a partner. So it's entirely possible and probable that this is the farewell of one of history's greatest partnerships that just played out very casually, right before our eyes there. And right at the beginning of the chapter, we had a very similar moment of which I have minimal explanation for right now, which was the conversation between Roger and young Shanks, which threw Shanks into a fit of tears, like proper tragedy tears as well. The sort of thing you'd only see from flashback characters after losing their mentor figures tears. And I suppose the easy explanation is that Shanks was aware enough of this will of D business and is asking Roger whether he really will die or something along those lines. I hope that's not it though when there's something deeper at play here that we'll only learn about during some sort of eventual Shanks flashback, because it's kind of insane how much of the Roger journey we've been shown. And there are still figures on that crew that we have yet to properly explore. So surely we've got to leave some mystery behind that is not regarding the One Piece, specifically. But moving on, we finally get to hear the exact message that was being conveyed by the Seekings when Roger and Odin visited Fishman Island. And it's pretty damn huge stuff. And I'll just briefly read it here. The birthing is at hand, now sovereign will soon be born. And another in a distancey, the whales are delighted in anticipation of the day the two sovereign shall meet again. We have been waiting for so long, it is almost here, and surely all will go well this time. Just 10 until the birth and another 15 to grow. So I don't know why the Seekings seem to have prophetic abilities, but that's a discussion for another time because this is massive stuff. And it may as well literally state that Luffy has inherited the will of Joy Boy, or is in fact some sort of reincarnation of Joy Boy, which also happens later on in this chapter, although it's less specifically referring to Luffy. And it's hard to know how to feel about this because to me it's like having this huge veil of mystery lifted because yes, we've known for an awfully long time that Luffy is the subject of fate and has some sort of inherited will, but having it directly connected to Joy Boy in this chapter is a bit wow and does another signifier that we are moving into the one piece end game. And for posterity's sake, I guess I should say that, you know, it's not 100% guaranteed to be talking about Luffy. Like it might be a Harry Potter situation where there is another being who, you know, technically fits the cryptic prophecy, but I don't think so. This is Luffy's story and he will be the pirate king. Although admittedly it would be hell of a twist if there was another D out there who is the actual inheritor of Joy Boy's will. In any case, what this chapter does is further solidify that, whether you like it or not, Princess Shirahoshi is one of the most important figures to have ever existed in the entirety of One Piece. Now, Roger rather smugly thinks that the person to take on this mantle of Joy Boy would be his own son and oh, how wrong he was. But this brief conversation between Rayleigh and Roger was a lot of fun because it replays a scene that we saw or more accurately heard in One Piece Stampede. And my sincerest apologies if you have not seen One Piece Stampede yet. Although I think it's just the UK and a bunch of other scattered countries that have yet to have it released, which is simply awful. I have no idea why it's taken so long. But yes, for the rest of us, we have seen these three panels play out in the film. So that is a very nice connection there. But the next piece of fascinating information comes when we are dropping Odin back at Wano, revealing that his entire reason behind his last message to open the borders of the country is that for reasons, it needs to happen before the day that Joy Boy appears. And this is the one thing that does give me slight pause to the idea that Joy Boy and Luffy are intertwined beings because Luffy is already on the island while it is isolated, although it's not a huge problem at all. And I think it would be quite poetic if he was the one to ensure the end of Wano's isolationist policy. But there is also an argument to be made that Wano's borders will open and then the Joy Boy figure will stroll on in for whatever reason. It's a bad argument, but it's there. But with that, we are back on Wano, which has been ravaged by factories at the bequest of one Kurozumi Orochi who was working with some guy named, what's his name, Kaido, I think? I wonder if he'll be important in the future. Nah, probably not. But this is intriguing because judging by the ages of Momonosuke Hiyori and even the young depictions of Raizo, Kinemon, and Kanjiro, it should still be a few years before Toki sends them forward in time. Everyone just looks far too young right now for the Kaido takeover to play out. But at the same time, Odin is about to start some shit with Orochi, which you would think would be the catalyst for that event. And that's because if nobody steps in right here and now, then surely Odin would deal with Orochi and just become the shogun of Wano, which I don't believe ever happens because he's always been referred to as the Daimyo in future discussions. So I can't quite place what happens here in order for Orochi to maintain power and bridge the time gap for the eventual Wano tragedy. And of course, there also has to be some sort of scheme put into place here to turn the people of Wano against the Kozuki clan because Odin is absurdly popular at the moment. And I suspect that that may involve the user of the Mani Mani no Mi. Although a fun alternate scenario might be that the Orochi we're seeing at the end of this chapter is the user of the Mani Mani no Mi and maybe next week Odin actually goes so far as to kill them only to have the real Orochi still alive. There's just so many options you can have with a doppelganger device in play. Something that really got me thinking far, far too much though is a very minor segment of this chapter where they're explaining how Toki got hurt and Odin goes to some seemingly great lengths to make sure that we get a shot of the scar on her thigh. Now I'm fully willing to accept that I'm going into the realm of conspiracy theory thinking here, but if that scar was not going to be in some way relevant in the future, then I honestly don't know why Odin bothered to show it here. I mean, you could argue that it is the motivation for Odin to go berserk and launch an attack on the capital, but I think that could have been achieved without showing it. Like you could just mention that Toki was injured without showing the injury in question and Odin would have convincingly gone berserk anyway. And I just say this because at this point in the series, Odin has storytelling down to an efficient perfection. He doesn't show many unnecessary things because they take way too much time away from streamlining the story. But in this case, he has taken the time to show us a very specific looking scar on Toki. So what I submit to you now is, keep an eye out for this scar on a certain Kozuki Hiyori in the modern day. Hiyori and Toki look exactly the same and this scar could be the device that Odor is setting up for some sort of eventual revelation that Hiyori and or Komarasaki was Toki all along. But once again, I'm fully prepared to admit that this is a very far-fetched idea based on pure narrative speculation. But at the same time, Odor has done a lot more with a lot less before. And the last thing I'd like to mention here about this chapter is the whole Iso situation. It really doesn't sit quite right with me that Odin never returned to Whitebeard's ship the way he said he would. Although I guess Iso is going to get the message from Roger, so whatever. But it's still odd because I don't think we've had that moment we need where it becomes clear that Iso's undying loyalty to Odin and the Kozuki clan is overtaken by his love for the Whitebeard pirates. Iso starts out his journey very uncertain and then just sort of stays and now he's never coming back. I guess what I want is just to really see that moment of choice made by Iso to abandon everything in favor of being a Whitebeard pirate. It also makes me wonder if Iso actually knows that Odin is dead because if he never returns to Wano then maybe he wouldn't have heard about it but no, no, no, that can't be right because eventually he would have found out that Kaido took over the country and was using it as a base of operations. And then in that case, in what universe does Iso not return to Wano to help overthrow Kaido and restore the Kozuki family to power? No universe, that's what. This guy is showing up probably with Neko Momoshi and I would be shocked if he didn't bring the other remnants of the Whitebeard pirates with him with the exception of Marco because I've come to accept that he may not be coming to Wano due to needing to protect Whitebeard's village but as for the rest of them, well, they have no excuse but that pretty much does it for chapter 968. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line review Patreon because the support of all of you 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. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my Discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retex plays on a daily basis. 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.