 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece and today we have a review of chapter 996, Island of the Strongest. And holy crap, this chapter is absolute insanity and features two pretty gigantic developments, one of which is absolutely world shaking, completely unexpected on my part, but it does very much vindicate some momentous gay theorists out there and I cannot wait to talk about it. But before we completely lose our minds, it's time for a swift round of Poneglyph puzzle party, very simple minigame the rules of which are as follows. Here we have three regular Poneglyphs, one of which is going to be upgraded into a road Poneglyph at random, and your job is to guess which Poneglyph it will be by selecting either A, B or C. If you guess wrong then your merciful punishment will be subscribing to the Grand Line Review and if you do guess correctly then I suppose you can go to Laugh Tale and become some sort of pirate king, yeah. But here we go, choose your Poneglyph now and let's get ready to upgrade. Will it be A, B or C? And it turns out it's B. If you selected either A or C then you need to hit that road subscribe button right now and say hi in the comments below if you are a new member of the Grand Fleet. But that's enough of my crap for today, with chapter 996 I'm going to have to jump straight into the Amato section because of the bomb that was dropped on us this week, that allegedly a momentous gay is the character destined to guide us to the dawn of the world. Now if you're a new or casual One Piece fan this statement might not quite hit you as hard as it should, but the dawn of the world is a vaguely defined event that both the Mink tribe and the Kozuki clan have been waiting for for centuries on end. It's an event that could be something as simple as maybe opening the borders of Wano or more than likely something far more profound like overthrowing the world government and creating a new age for the planet. I and most people are much more in the camp of the second when it comes to this thinking, but it was a concept mainly delivered to us by one Jaguar Mink, Mr. Pedro on Hawkeek Island, except very interestingly he stated that he had a strong suspicion that it would be Luffy and his friends who would guide us to the dawn of the world. So we actually have a bit of conflicting information here with Yamato, which to be fair I guess Yamato has access to information that we as readers could only dream of primarily through the vessel of Odin's journal. And if Yamato says that Momonosuke is going to be the one to perform his feat, then I really have no reason whatsoever to doubt that. Although this isn't to say that Pedro was necessarily wrong because who's to say that Momo alone will be charged with his task. It might be Momonosuke and Luffy for example. So both Pedro and Yamato could be right. It's just, you know, a pretty massive development because it implies that Momonosuke is going to be a figure whose relevance goes far beyond that of the Wanoak. And as much as I really don't want to be one of those people right now, it may even signal his joining the crew. If not permanently, then temporarily. Like how Odin traveled with the Roger pirates or something like that. And I really don't think this is jumping the gun because Yamato's words are not to be understated. If this is indeed true, then Momonosuke, like Luffy and like Shirohoshi is now a character of supreme magnitude going forward. Unless Yamato is wrong and misinterpreted something, but I doubt that. Now, before all of this, we had another tantalizing mini revelation, which is not one of the two I was referring to in the intro, but there was some kind of quite terrifying hint of Yamato's inevitably Zoan related abilities. There was this fairly small and understated panel with a close-up on Yamato's teeth as if he was preparing to do a transform right before Frankie ran in and quite frankly, ruined the mood. So let the speculation begin. Is Yamato going to be a dragon like Papakaito? Will Yamato be another miscellaneous dinosaur ancient Zoan? Or will we see an entirely different thing altogether? In terms of being a dragon, there's an interesting possibility that Yamato is actually a natural dragon. Much like the idea that Kaito is a dragon who ate an only related devil fruit, which is still always weird to think about. We are so, so deep into Wano and we still have no confirmation on exactly what Kaito is, not even so much as a devil fruit name. But this sort of situation may very well be why this information is hidden. It would be kind of cool if they were both dragons because with Momonosuke, they would then make a trio of dragon people in existence. But this is a criminally underrated moment of chapter 996, but to be fair, it is overshadowed by ever so much. To complete this section, though, I really like that Yamato recognized Frankie or more accurately General Frankie, which is important because General Frankie is what's on Frankie's bounty poster. So Yamato more than likely would not have recognized just regular old Frankie, which is a piece of consistency there that I really love. One piece is so, so good at small details like that. And the whole situation kind of reminds me of Dressrosa, where we got to see Bartola Mayer recognizing all the straw hats, except Yamato is a lot less fan boyish. But in the end, it looks like we've done something of a swap. It's now looking like Frankie is being left to deal with Sasaki, whilst Yamato absolutely wrecked Harcher, which is a scenario I'm quite on board with. Even if it doesn't work out too well, I would love to see Frankie take on a Toby Roper member because Giant Cyborg versus Big Dinosaur is a fight that nobody can deny a desire for. Moving along now though, Trafalgar Lord is my other main focus of this chapter. And really it's been a while since he's had some real centerpiece time. But we have this quite cool scene of him discovering a ponyglyph in a very well drawn room. I really like the lines of this room. You absolutely cannot go wrong with basic patterns of vertical and horizontal with some depth seemingly extending into eternity. But this ponyglyph, eh? It's kind of understated, but this is our second big revelation of the chapter. Although I think we may have seen so many of these by now that they might have lost their effect, but these stones are super, super rare. Even if this wasn't quite the one we were looking for, which also probably contributes greatly to that underwhelming feeling because we have lore looking at it and going, eh, this isn't really what I wanted. I want the red one. But I think that makes this the 14th ponyglyph that we've actually seen in the series. However, we do know the location of at least one other which is on one or no less because Brooke managed to find one underground in Orteez Castle, although he stated that it was also not a road to ponyglyph. And so as a brief recap, this now makes three ponyglyphs on one or one of which we have yet to find, which coincidentally or not, is the exact same number of ponyglyphs that were present on Holcake Island. One road ponyglyph and two regular ponyglyphs, which now come to think of it, we never found out what was on those ponyglyphs, did we? Robin wasn't on Holcake Island and as soon as we got to Wano, it was straight into action. So I think that by the end of Wano, we might be in for some sort of huge info dump coming directly from Robin because excluding the road ponyglyphs, we now have four stones that she has not read, which is pretty cool and I'm very much looking forward to that. But just on Robin, her flashback with Law was also quite nice to see. I guess, more accurately, Law's flashback with her, it doesn't matter, either way. It didn't quite hit me at first, but this shows Robin prior to her Wano costume incarnation. And there was something very nostalgic about that because this is the style of Robin that we haven't seen since the end of Zo, which, just to put that into some perspective, the last chapter of Zo was published in April, 2016. And so that immediately explained to me why seeing Robin like this felt so nostalgic because it was years and years and years ago. It was also great to see Law and Robin coming together to share what information they have and also just having this renewed focus on Law in general. After Dressroser, I've had this distinct feeling that Law was more or less done in terms of grand relevance, despite the fact that Law is a D and the ultimate ability of the Opioopinomi still has yet to be performed. But it was just the way he was instantly cast aside into a supporting character role, which has been most of his Wano CV. To be fair though, that's also been most of the straw hats, but here we have Law contemplating his inevitability and it's actually very in keeping with the other major development of the chapter. Flagging both Momonosuke and Law here very much speaks to the greater end game of One Piece, which is also nice because I don't think Oda gets enough credit for this, but generally One Piece chapters have a common theme that is explored within those 15 to 18 pages. And in this case, that thread is focused mostly on the meta narrative, looking forward into the future directly from the chaos of today. With that said, there was still quite a bit of progress and some nice catch-ups for the Onigashima raid all around in 996, and we did pick up exactly where 995 left off with Tama rescuing Usopponami. And very vague explanations were given to how Tama happens to be here along with Komainu and Hihimaru. And usually, you know, I would probably question how a giant dog and giant baboon stealthily snuck onto an island. However, given that an entire army of samurai managed to do exactly the same thing, I can probably let this one go. Watching Hihimaru face off against page one was quite the sight though, actually, and it further reinforces the focus I have on Tama. Because long, long ago, Hihimaru was actually the character who Tama initially tamed. So thoughts spring to mind if Tama just gradually building her own army during the course of the raid, One Piece of Dango at a time. And elsewhere on Onigashima, Kid and Killer got about a page and a half to themselves, which is quite rare. What's more is that it was mostly comedy-centric as well. We have Kid building up this gigantic massive metal and it was very reminiscent of Luffy, actually. Like I can picture he and Zora running in a similar manner to Kid and Killer, which is quite endearing. In terms of location, Kid and Killer seemed to be a whole floor above Luffy, Jinbei, and Sanji at the moment. So they've definitely been busy and I wonder if Kid's Chaos is ultimately going to make it easier for Luffy's group to progress. And as for that, this chapter actually ends in what I think is quite a weak way, considering everything else that happened in 996 with what basically seems to be Sanji's perverted senses kicking into gear. Because I suppose we do know at this point that Sanji kind of possesses the voice of all things if the voice of all things was exclusively the voice of all attractive women things. Something which he demonstrated on Pankazza to very cool effect, actually. I just, oh, I don't know. I do question ending the chapter with this moment. Like of all of the full stops Oda could have chosen, this is the one. I think you could have very easily swapped this scene with the Yamato one and had the very final panel of 996 be Yamato revealing Momonosuke's destiny. If Oda did that, this would easily be an internet destroying chapter because most of it would lead you into a false sense of fun and then it would just drop that revelation bomb leaving you to stew on that for a whole week. Instead, the really amazing stuff was all front loaded into the chapter, which was all then watered down by the ending. And I don't know, I just don't think that comedic endings to chapters work very well reading one piece weekly. And actually, I don't think it works particularly well reading them in volumes either, at least not in this kind of stage of an arc. To be clear though, I have no problem with the situation in general. I mean, if Sanji is going to make a comedic full of himself, then that's what I expect. It was just a weird choice to cap off the chapter because that final image is meant to be one that stays with the readers all throughout the next week because it is the very last thing they see. Like Kikuzan being sliced off at the end of chapter 993 is a perfect example. Now let's construct an alternate version of that chapter and imagine that Kikuzan being cut off happened right at the beginning of 993. And our final image of the chapter was Luffy and Sanji meeting Brescola guerrilla fist man. As a whole, the chapter probably wouldn't quite land in the same way. And I can't help it feel like that's what's happened here. But something else I haven't mentioned yet is that 996 presented us with a very interesting scene featuring Kaido and the vassals. It was about a page and a half long, completely devoid of dialogue. And if I had to condense what it expressed into one word, that word would probably be brutality. The vassals are certainly not in a good way, but this gives rise to my favorite panel of the chapter which is this close-up of Kaido. I was kind of in shock when I saw it and I wasn't quite sure why at first, but it did just strike me as very different. And I think that's because when Kaido is usually depicted, Oda goes to some pretty great lengths to emphasize his size and physique. To present him as intimidatingly as possible as a main antagonist should be. And yes, Kaido does have close-ups, but usually only when delivering dialogue. Whereas this was a very intimate shot. No words whatsoever and a lot of detail invested into shading and pure facial expression. But I feel like it says all it needs to and acts as a good prologue to the ensuing brutal mess that we see. It was definitely the emotionally lowest point of the chapter and quite starkly contrasted as well because elsewhere things are going fairly well. Even with Zora's group facing Queen's Ice Plague, there's a lot of comedy to be had, not on the rooftop though. On the rooftop, there is only pain. And also speaking of the rooftop, we have one big mother currently making her way up there. I'm not entirely sure why or even sure at all. None of her very limited goals currently coincide with either Kaido or the vassals, at least none that I'm aware of. But then again, maybe it's just an uncharacteristically intelligent move. Say for example, instead of chasing Luffy, Big Mom is just going to go where she knows that Luffy will be or something like that, but probably not. It is very interesting though, interesting and terrifying. You know just the thought of Luffy reaching that rooftop and staring up at not just one, but two emperors of the sea. That would be a pretty despairful yet pretty high way to end a future chapter, but that is not this week. And actually that pretty much does it for chapter 996. But what do you guys think? Please do 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.