 Kumurasaki. The famed Oira are notable for deceiving men out of their entire fortunes, but you know what's worse? She also deceived them into unsubscribing from the Grand Line Review, preventing them from getting regular One Piece content uploaded straight into their YouTube feeds, so words cannot even express the true depth of her treachery. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today, it's time to talk about something that has bothered me with the One Piece manga for quite some time, and for anime only watchers, I'm just going to throw out an immediate spoiler warning for the events of Act 2 of Wano. There's some fairly significant stuff that, for the sake of solid discussion, I won't be able to avoid, so if you're not keen on spoilers, then please do come back to this video at a later date. But as for the topic of today's video, it has to do with Kumurasaki and Hiyori, and specifically, the jarring storytelling mystery left behind by the revelation that they are the same person. Now, I'll start off by saying that not everyone shares my perspective on this matter, and there have been a whole ton of people who have commented on my chapter reviews, who see what Oda did as perfectly natural, or weird, but not an issue. But this is really something that has kind of vested within me and remained throughout the Wano arc, and because I have a channel focusing entirely on One Piece, I thought why not make a video on it, because I've developed some pretty strong opinions on the matter, namely that this is either a case of phenomenal foreshadowing of the highest degree by Oda, or quite possibly, one of the worst technical implementations of storytelling in the entire series. Now, both of those options are pretty fantastical, and some may even say hyperbolic, but one way or the other, I absolutely refuse to believe what Oda has currently presented us with, because it requires an unfathomable suspension of disbelief. And to summarize the events in question as they appear chronologically in the manga, Kumurasaki is supposedly killed in chapter 933 by Kyoshiro. Her body is slashed, we see her lying seemingly dead on the floor, and that's that. Quite dramatic. Word about her death spreads in the next few chapters until chapter 937, where although her name isn't stated, a woman would appear claiming to be Kozuki Hyori, as well as the famed Oran, Kumurasaki. And I don't have any issue with this, in theory. I mean, using the Occam's razor explanation, everything checks out from a technical perspective. Kumurasaki's death could have been staged, more than likely with the help of Kyoshiro, who was secretly working for either the Allied forces or for his own individual purposes. And he then helped Kumurasaki slash Hyori escape along with Toko. So that's all cool. Part where I take issue with everything is that apart from their appearance, Kumurasaki and Hyori are completely different characters. Kumurasaki is portrayed as this cold, calculating, and effectively merciless mastermind capable of deceiving any man into parting with their entire fortune. Calling her intelligent doesn't even begin to describe how Kumurasaki was able to operate within the nation of Wano. Not only that, but she was also exceptionally proud, capable of standing up to even Shogun Orichi and delivering lines like, If you would prefer a weak woman, then strike me down right now. I am the daughter of a samurai. I will not disgrace myself. So Kumurasaki was a pretty formidable and unique presence on Wano, but to contrast that with Hyori, well, she is very much portrayed as the exact opposite. Hyori is a joyous, open and loving individual with an incredible degree of naivety about her. The kind you would expect to find in a young and inexperienced person. You know, like a Rebecca type of character, although Hyori is supposed to be 26 years old. These personalities really don't match though. In the space of a single appearance, the Kumurasaki slash Hyori character has changed in every single facet, except for that of visual design. And when I pointed that out in my initial chapter review, I had a lot of people making the basic argument that, well, Hyori was just pretending to be Kumurasaki to survive. And this is her real personality. And that particular thought is one that I just cannot accept. There is 100% guaranteed to be some deception at work here, but that cannot be it. Mostly because the way Hyori acts after encountering Zora gives us no reason to believe that she would be at all capable of manipulating the entire world around her. The thing about deception is that it really only goes one way and it is very difficult for a naturally naive and open person to commit such mental trickery. The explanation that I would find much more plausible is that the Kumurasaki persona was the real version of Hyori and what we're seeing right now in the current day is all an act. And that's because I could certainly believe that someone like Kumurasaki could pretend to be exceptionally naive, while I simply cannot believe that someone as frankly airheaded as Hyori could ever pull off being a mastermind that could rise to the level of the nation's most revered Oran. But then of course you have to come up with a reason why Hyori is deceiving people into thinking that she is less mentally capable than she really is. And I have two answers to that, but at this point I also want to introduce another significantly less satisfying idea into the mix. And that is that Oda, from time to time, does have a tendency to drop the ball with auxiliary female characters and relegates them to a very technical role in the story. For example, Viola on Dressroser, she was introduced as a merciless femme fatale of the Don Quixote family but almost immediately after encountering Sanji, her personality flipped to a caring, gentle and morally upstanding individual, which was her quote-unquote true personality and her time as an officer of the Don Quixote pirates was a twisted lie, narratively intended to provide a neat twist to introduce a princess of the Riku family. And this is a surprisingly common arc of a classically beautiful female character in one piece. I mean, going way, way, way back, that's also how Vivi was introduced as well as current straw Hatnika Robin herself and even Rebecca was briefly presented to us as an antagonist. Oh, and there's also Pudding, but her character is much more of a complicated mess. Being introduced as good, then turning bad, and then good, and then just becoming a big bipolar, something or other. But the general idea is that the femme fatale turned good is a painfully common trope used in one piece. However, the difference with the Hyori situation is that none of the other characters I've just mentioned have had such a radical personality shift upon the revelation of their true self. Pudding accepted, but that was kind of the point of the bipolar character. But take my first example of Viola for instance. She appeared as an antagonist holding a certain level of maturity and none of that was lost when she suddenly converted into a protagonist. The core value she presented changed, but her overall character remained solid and consistent. But in her transition from femme fatale to I guess we'll call it a damsel role, Hyori did not retain a shred of her former character. She lost all maturity, a huge degree of general intelligence, and had a complete personality shift from cold mastermind to warm bubbly, lovable girl thing. And I'll say it right here and now, if this is all there is to Hyori, then this is quite possibly the worst written character in the entirety of One Piece. Thankfully though, this story feels quite deliberately unfinished. It is a shock to the system to see Komarasaki and Hyori juxtaposed, but there are a lot of mysteries that need solving behind it. Such as how her death was faked in the first place, as well as the motives of Kyoshiro, and quite possibly whether or not Hyori has an ultimate plan of play as she has expressed a desire to kill Orochi herself. But putting the potential of awful character writing aside, one must come to the conclusion that the Hyori we are currently seeing is an act being put on by an individual whose personality resembles something closer to that of Komarasaki. Now why would she be deceiving Zoro and Kawamatsu? Well one simple explanation is that Hyori may be the traitor of the Alliance, and the reason why Kinemon's efforts keep being undermined at every step. However given that Hyori has clearly stated that she does want to kill Orochi, I find this to be, well, unlikely to say the least. Unless it's part of an even more convoluted plan to feed Orochi information that will eventually structure his downfall. That is an incredible stretch though, and I don't feel like either of those thoughts are going to be the answer. So naturally, my next explanation is going to be even more left field than that. And it's born from the fact that Hyori is currently deliberately hiding herself from the rest of the Scabbards and Momonosuke. Now this is allegedly because she doesn't want to distract the Alliance. And I don't know, maybe this makes perfect sense in like a manly Japanese mindset, make sure the woman isn't being a distraction at all, but I don't personally buy it. I think that once again putting the idea of bad writing to the side, there would be a consequence to Hyori showing herself to Kinemon and the others. And at this point I'm going to put out there the idea that this is not in fact Hyori, but Lady Toki pretending to be Hyori. I propose this because it's the only thing that even comes close to justifying her actions in my mind. It would make perfect sense for Toki to not want to see Kinemon, Momonosuke, and everyone else. She sent forward in time because they would immediately recognize her as they would have seen Toki very, very recently in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, you could reveal yourself to someone like Karl Matsu because he's had to live through the last 20 years, so his memory is hazy and he'd be more willing to accept such a thing. Actually come to think of it, despite the fact that Hyori slash Komarasaki is physically a carbon copy of Lady Toki. It's very important to point out that Karl Matsu did not recognize her at all at first. Of course, Karl Matsu also brings up the biggest piece of evidence that contradicts the thought of Toki impersonating Hyori, which is that Hyori proceeded to explain why she ran away from him, which is something that surely only Hyori would know. So once again I have to perform a bit of a stretch here and propose that Toki has been in contact with Hyori and knows if her past with Karl Matsu and for reasons is currently pretending to be her daughter. I don't think that maths checks out. So I'll move on to the next thought, where the ideas get more insane. When you consider the idea that Hyori and Toki could be in league together because they are near perfect physical copies of each other and whenever there is a doppleganger in a story you can rest assured that there will always be some sort of crazy reveal at some point. For example, maybe for a time both Hyori and Toki were playing the role of Komarasaki with Toki taking on the calculated dirty work in order to keep Hyori safe. Then in an ultimate sacrifice to free Hyori from this life Toki allowed Kyoushiro to actually kill her in front of Orochi thus removing the Komarasaki persona from this world also removing the need for a narrative explanation of the fake death because it would have been a real death and one that may hit incredibly hard in a future flashback. Now I've gone on and on about this sort of stuff before in chapter reviews to which I often get a lot of comments with people bringing up the quote-unquote fact that Toki is dead. And you know, once we actually see what happens in the Odin flashback then I might just give up on all of this. However, right now all we have are the words of other characters to show as actual evidence for her death and something just really does not sit right with me about a woman with time travel powers dying in a blaze when she could have easily just gone forward in time again. Plus there's also the fact that very very recently Oda revealed that Toki had received a distinctive scar and I'm not saying that this is proof for anything but he went to some pretty great lengths to make sure that we saw the scar on Toki's thigh in a scene where it would have been just as easy to state that she had been injured and then have Odin go crazy from there. Oda doesn't often waste pages on unnecessary details unless it's for comic effect of course. So when I see something like this it immediately makes me think that this distinctive scar is being set up as some sort of dramatic revelation down the line. So I would keep an eye out for this little feature. Although maybe I'm wrong and Oda just felt like drawing some thighs. Nothing is said in stone but the whole Komarasaki Hyori Toki dynamic has far too many of these weird little features going on and I know I probably sound like a raving mad man going over all this crap but I would rather believe this than a world where Oda designed two female characters who look exactly the same for no good reason and proceeded to pull out his tried and tested femme fatale tones damsel card in the laziest way yet. Instantly taking one of the more intellectually fascinating characters on the island of Wano and dumbing her down to a naive girl who does nothing but fall nervous aura. And if this were almost any other story I wouldn't really care either. It's only because I have painfully high standards of One Piece that I have wasted my life thinking this in depth into something like this. But the One Piece fan within me just can't bring himself to believe that Oda would have done something this poorly. He is a master of characters and even if his female designs and personalities are a bit cookie cutter at times they have never been this bad. Although one final nail in the coffin of my hopes may actually come as per usual in the form of the anime because Hiyori and Toki have different voice actors and you'd figure that if some sort of super Hiyori's Toki twist is going to take place then they would probably be the same person but then again that would completely give away the game and possibly spoil the manga so I'm not putting too much stock in the anime handing us evidence. In any case what this video effectively amounts to is a long rambling about an obscure topic that I've spent far too much mental energy on. The logical side of me is resigned to the fact that this is probably just Oda lazily writing yet another femme fatale turned damsel princess into the series to act as an object of motivation and that I should just give up on ever expecting something more. But the other part of me really wants to believe that there is a greater purpose behind the jarring contrast between Komarasaki and Hiyori. But that pretty much does it for what will probably amount to a pointless character rant. If you somehow enjoy this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Groundline 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 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 shenanigans takes place on a daily basis. And finally please do comment with your thoughts on Komarasaki and or Hiyori. And you know what, Toki as well, why not. This has been the Groundline Review and I'll see you next time.