 When you really boil it down to basics, what this chapter did was confirm that two people were alive, one is definitely dead, and one other person is currently in a state of sort of both. We'll call it Shrodinger's Doji. Although because this is one piece, even with Ashura Doji in the box, we only know he isn't dead. This chapter is just everything that is wrong with death in one piece. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything one piece, and today we have a review of chapter 1008, which provided a pretty massive acceleration in regards to the raid, granting a plethora of reveals such as the cliffhanger at the end of chapter 1007, providing us with two quote-unquote dead characters being alive, and even answered one of our silhouette questions in regards to Mr. Kaider. Certainly not all of the silhouette questions though, in fact a grand total of 50% of the silhouette questions remain unanswered. Still it was a fast-paced and fairly packed experience, which mostly focuses on the vassal, so that's where we shall begin. So the Odin mystery is solved and, well, since every bit is anti-climactic as we may have expected. With that said, I've been thinking about this for a while, and as much as I do think it is a bit mere to like dangle the carrot in front of us, only for this to be the answer, I can't really deny that the cliffhanger performed its function pretty perfectly. Regardless of the resolution, all one piece manga reading fans could talk about for like a whole two weeks was whether or not this was actually Odin, and within about 24 hours this one page had been analyzed to exhaustion, spawning theory after theory and I really cannot call it anything less than an absolute success. No matter which side you fell on, it sparked discussion and kept an intense interest in one piece throughout the break. Although just saying another phenomenal way to achieve such a thing would be to subscribe to the Grand Line Review, resulting in consistent injections of one piece culture being uploaded straight into your YouTube feed, because the manga may take breaks, but we certainly do not. Although I have to say I don't think this Odin thing will be quite as successful in retrospect in volume format, unless it's the final chapter of a volume, but even so, like I said in my 1007 review, I can't help but feel a little bit cheated and, you know, used for some fake drama. However, at the same time, given who was responsible for this Odin figure, the words cheap and fake drama, they do seem pretty perfectly appropriate. Ah yeah, of course it's Khandro and he's just being a prick for the sake of being a prick. No wonder most people liked you better when you were dead. I'm definitely glad that Khandro was alive though, because as much as I tried to justify his death, through the whole and actor dying offscreen as the ultimate insult perspective, it was still a pretty gigantic waste of his potential. From the moment he turned trade, Khandro became, quite possibly, the most interesting antagonist in the entire One-O-Arc. He's deranged, he has a fascinating power, and is a true threat to be feared, although not one as impossibly overwhelming as the Emperor's. And also we've spent so much more time with him than many of the other antagonists, so I am 100% down with Khandro returning to cause as much chaos as possible, and he strikes it just about the right time as well. The last few chapters have all seen extraordinarily positive developments for the raid, almost to the point where you can very much see the writing on the wall for the Beast Pirates. So it is nice to have another problem come up rather than another solution. It also gives the vassals more of a purpose going forward, because other than the whole, you know, the jack thing, they'd really lost any kind of role in this raid, so to have them focusing in on Khandro and potentially even Orangey going forward seems like a great use for them because those two characters hold more personal meaning to the vassals. When you think about it, Kaido is just a guy who was there. He is incidentally despised for being the big bad enabler, but the true antagonists for the vassals have always been Orangey and recently Khandro. And Khandro, man, you're gonna cause me problems. So fun fact, roughly 40% of my audience are anime only watches, which is why I go out of my way not to spoil things by putting characters like say Marco or Yamato in the thumbnail, but I also have to be really, really careful with what I say in videos intended for both anime watches and manga readers. And Khandro in this regard is now locked in like a triple layer of spoilers. Alright, where are we up with Khandro? So I can't talk about the fact that he's a traitor because that hasn't happened in the anime yet. After that, I can't talk about the fact that he fake died because that hasn't happened. And even when he does fake die, I can't talk about the fact that he's actually alive. Why are you such a difficult ass clown? So Khandro is just not a character who is going to be touched outside of chapter reviews, most probably, but I am very thrilled to have him back. Also, this is extremely minor and something I only picked up on by chance, but the cover page of this chapter features something very interesting and it's not Robin nor is it the Pegasus. No, it's these two very plain looking birds, which surprisingly enough are actually a straight up Khandro reference and basically foreshadows his appearance in the chapter. So if you're not familiar, these two birds appeared in a flashback panel after Khandro and the others were sent into the future and they are, how shall we put this, adequate versions of his bird drawing on Dress Rosa. And they are also how Khandro got the message to Orochi that they were still alive, so that's extraordinarily minor, but a pretty cool tiny detail dropped in by Oda there. And while we're here as for Orochi, this is, well, it's nothing unexpected, is it? One does not simply slice a single head off an eight headed snake monster and call it a day, so he's now become as predicted another X factor on Onigashima. Someone with no particular allegiance, but in a fight against overwhelming odds, that is going to be far more beneficial to the allied forces and the beast pirates. Just a nice added element of further chaos to continue to destabilize things. Entirely unnecessarily as well. So this is the part of the arc where we traditionally start to question the main antagonists and call them out for being the absolute morons they are for sowing their own demise. Kaido did not have to attempt to kill Orochi in the same way that Queen did not have to betray all of the waiters and pleasures on the performance floor. This is the part of the arc where unnecessary and frankly, arrogant mistakes are starting to add up, very akin to Dressrosa. I mean, it does make me wonder if Kaido knew that Orochi was a Delferet user, because if he didn't then I suppose that confidence in killing him would be natural because most of us can't live without heads, most of us. Then again, Orochi didn't exactly keep his power a secret. In fact, he would host entire parties in his mythical snake form, so I see no other explanation then. This was a very foolish move from Kaido, especially with his personal experience of mythical fruits. Yeah, let's kill the magical eight-headed snake man by chopping off a singular head, that seems legit. No more, no more necessary, he's probably dead. While on something fun that I didn't even notice in my first read-through, is that Fukuro Kujou is seen alongside Orochi, and I'm quite legitimately surprised that he remains loyal to Orochi, because there's nothing really in it for him. No matter how the situation turns out, Orochi has no real power anymore, or in fact, any power. However, this Fukuro Kujou development is a very very bad thing for Kaido, because he assumedly commands the allegiance of the entire Onewabonshu, and that is yet another force that could be turned against the Beast Pirates, provided any of them can still stand after being beaten by Hyogoro, that is. But it further goes to show what a terrible terrible move it was from Kaido, and it will be one of many many factors that will inevitably lead to his downfall. Stepping back a bit though, one of the greatest things to come from this chapter in the whole Oden situation is actually the moment where we focus in on Ashura Doji. Now he is a vassal that I often kind of forget exists, because he just he hasn't really done anything, but I really like that he was the one to twig that Oden was fake, whilst everyone else was blinded by that delightful wash of hope. It either would have had to be him or Dendro, because all of the others are quite foolishly optimistic beings. Now that that's a bad thing, that's what makes them quite charming. I am however very unconvinced about this whole Ashura sacrificing himself business though. It is nice and all that he heroically tanks a deadly explosion, but at the same time this is now chapter 1008 of checks notes, one piece, and characters do not die from pissy little situations like this. If anything the smarter move may have just been to let Oden set himself off, because explosions in this series are so non-lethal that they're really just not worth giving any attention to. Pedro being the sole exception of course. But as a result I really feel nothing in this scene, and I would be shocked if anyone anywhere read this part and went oh no Ashura Doji, I wonder if he's dead. Especially in a chapter where we just revealed that not one but two characters previously portrayed as dead are actually alive. The idea of death and fatal wounds outside of flashbacks is almost comically meaningless in one piece, like this scene is supposed to evoke drama, instead it's just it's kind of funny because I know that Ashura Doji is going to be fine. I should also mention that in this section an effort was made to reiterate to us that people cannot travel back into the past, so it's almost like Oda was watching the videos and reading the reddits and just went yeah let me make this clear again because none of you seem to listen, myself included of course. Although the conspiracy theorist within me wants to say no no no Liam, this is Oda reminding us of the rule that he set up ages ago so that he can break it while it's fresh in our minds, that is until deep my one piece psychosis goes. I just really want this time travel thing to actually pay off and on that something that may have been forgotten in all of this Kandro conjured craziness is that we still do not have an answer as to who that crying female silhouette was. Right now what we can guarantee is that it was not Kandro because he is all about killing them vassals while the silhouette was all about healing them so I think that either one of Hyori or Toki is still very much on the table and considering Kawamatsu's words that may point to a more Toki based solution rather than Hyori because Kawamatsu has met with Hyori and knows that that would be entirely possible so I don't know there is that. Let's not forget about this little mystery because this whole Odin situation was just one big red herring to distract us. At the same time let's also not forget about mammoths because Jack is back and is about to engage in a 1v1 with Inorashi and as for how this is going to play out look I have no idea part of me says that Jack is just too juicy of an opponent to be defeated by a singular dog based vassal but the other part of me says who else is better to do it. Inorashi has a pretty visceral connection to this man elephant thing and it would certainly be satisfying to see Jack put down for good by a mink however the real reason why the section is worth mentioning at all is because of the smack talking dog because Jack being the eternal failure he is takes a verbal so he tries to be all clever and says I don't see any moon mr. dog. Do it Inorashi just snaps back I don't see any toxic gas this time you elephant and man that was pretty savage also a true reminder that Jack has done nothing but lose ever since arriving in one piece he couldn't overcome the mink leaders without the gas then he lost to Sengoku and Fujitora after which point he got trunk slapped to the bottom of the ocean by Zunesha then on Wano he was manhandled by a singular Ashura doji and most recently during the raid he was defeated off-screen by Nekomomoshi and Inorashi so we may very well have another contender for most losses in this series and maybe just maybe we should start to give smoker a bit of a break or not probably not. Chapter 1008 then went on to grace us with a short Yamato segment and it looks like the primary purpose of this was to enlighten us to an ability possessed by Momo or maybe not enlighten but remind us because we did know that he possesses the voice of all things however what Momo displays seems to be more akin to observation haki in particular the brand that allows its users to feel the emotions of those around them like isoakobi which is fascinating because this is an extraordinarily valuable skill to have in such a chaos filled situation information is everything and momo's ever watchful eye could turn him into the sort of viola of this arc the person capable of conveying not only important information to the characters but also to act as a summary of what's going on to the readers so i am liking this development because as much as momo was still upset about how he has no strength to help the raid as it turns out he might have something far more valuable to offer which does lead us to the rooftop to visit our main event for the first time in a while where we promptly feast our eyes on hybrid kaito another silhouette that was pretty damn hyped at the end of a chapter and well i think it's pretty much everything we expected right it's not overly surprising and it really doesn't look all that different from base form kaito he just has as a tail now and he's a bit more scaly although i suppose in color he will also be a lot more blue doesn't matter though that's not the point of this scene this part of the chapter is all about luffy there's a palpable sense of despair surrounding kid killers or our own law a feeling that they're just repeatedly smashing their heads against a wall and at the same time we also have luffy who is indeed aware of the wall but keeps willingly smashing his head against it figuring that the wall will crack before his head does which is an idea we get to see in action really because the other four spend their time standing statically whilst luffy is the sole character shown in motion being successfully repelled twice actually and this really is the power of luffy when i discuss things like the importance of will this is exactly what i'm talking about it can be difficult to see in one-on-one fights like say luffy versus kata kuri but side by side with other allies it is incredibly obvious where everyone else is becoming mentally worn down luffy is just getting started and look he's even getting noticed by kaito senpai who seems to very much be enjoying this aspect of luffy i mean at the very least he's mildly entertained but i'm afraid that we still have yet to come anywhere near a winning breakthrough for this one it's going to be a rough rough road ahead and i can't help but feel like all five guys are still missing some very necessary help from perhaps i don't know four other figures and if you'd like to explore some other figures and please do check out this video examining the lost emperors of one piece there are many characters who have had the opportunity to achieve that mantle it's very fascinating and so i look forward to seeing you there