 So why was Sanji so disappointed this chapter? It's not the reason you'd initially think, because my sources tell me that when he entered that specific building, he encountered a truly shocking sight, which was a subscribe D button for the ground on view, which meant that Sanji was already subscribed to this channel, and therefore was unable to invoke the pleasure of doing so again. However, for roughly 65% of you watching this video, that pleasure is still available to you. I mean, just look at that button sitting there and dressing you with its eyes, it wants you to push it, and receive regular One Piece content uploaded straight until YouTube feed. Hello and welcome to the Groundline Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of chapter 981, Joining the Fight. And if this wasn't about as close to a perfect chapter as there could possibly be in One Piece, I really don't know what is. With the sole exception of heartbreaking drama, chapter 981 encapsulates just about every primary feature that makes One Piece great, including superb action, brilliant comedy, and a super shocking hype reveal at the end. And that's where we're going to begin actually, because the undisputed highlight of this chapter for me was of course the appearance of Marco, an event which is both somehow shocking and yet expected. I say expected because his involvement in this conflict has been built up to such a great point that it would seem pretty much inevitable. For example, he was directly mentioned as an asset on Zo, we had this whole side plot of Nekomomushi going to recruit him, and having explored Marco's connection to Odin and Wano through the recent flashback, Marco not showing up here was just, yeah, look, it wasn't really an option. But it still is surprising because on a more literal level, we were led to believe that Marco's hands were tied, and there was even that whole thing about having Nekomomushi deliver a message to Luffy, which I suppose Marco can now deliver himself. But it does raise questions, many questions in my mind though, which mainly lay around Weevil, because he was the big threat preventing our bird boy from making his way here in the first place. And if I had to make a guess, I would say that we've now found someone, or a group of someone, to guard Whitebeard's home village in Marco's stead, and perhaps that's a rather large force of the former Whitebeard pirates who have banded together to allow Marco and Ezo to go and act on Wano, because remember that this is not all about helping Luffy. In fact, his involvement is a very minor issue of concern in the grand scheme of things. This is more about Ezo and Odin, because the majority of the Whitebeard pirates have such a strong connection to them, that it just makes sense that they would band together in some way, shape or form, and do whatever they can to help in this scenario. But that said, it is not entirely out of the question that there is a much larger force of them right here, right now. I mean, we only saw Nekama Muschi and Ezo in this chapter, but that doesn't mean that that's the full extent of things. And I have to say, I could not be more thrilled to see Ezo though. Just like Marco, his appearance was an inevitability, and even more so actually, because he was a direct vassal of Odin. And can I just say that the very simple and strategic shots of Ezo and Nekama Muschi at the end of this chapter were great. It's just a little zoom in on their mounts, which in theory seems unnecessary because we already know what they look like. But what this does is provide an effect of, for want of a better word, bad asary. You know, there's something really compelling about not being able to see someone's eyes when they're making cool statements like this, so it was a fantastic way of generating hype for these two known characters. And just while we're on Ezo, this is something I hadn't thought about before now actually, but this potentially brings the number of Odin's vassals up to 10, right? Because I take it we're accepting Shinobu into that group, because we've gone to a lot of trouble to technically include her. And you know what, that plays a little bit of havoc with Toki's prophecy of the nine shadows cast woven together and etc. And obviously, it's always been vague as to what this refers to. The standard idea was that it was the nine vassals, but another popular school of thought is that it was referring to the straw hats. However, at the moment, it can't really be either because with Jinbei, the straw hats now have 10 members, and with Ezo, the vassals were total 10 as well. Because even after discounting Khandro, we now include Shinobu in his place. So the idea of reaching that number nine becomes much, much more intriguing now, because the way to get there would be that we need to minus one if basic mathematics is serving me correctly. So look, maybe, just maybe, we should be bracing ourselves for tragedy in one of these groups. Like say the raid on Onigashima is not going very well, not very well at all. And if anybody had to die, I'm thinking that Kinamon would be a prime candidate for that, because of all of the vassals, he would hold the most emotional weight. And this is of course making the assumption that it has to be either the straw hats or the vassals that are being referenced, which may be far from the case, but that's just what the arrival of Ezo threw into my head. And at the same time, I think it could be incredibly foolish to assume that we can go up against two emperors of the sea and come out of it without a loss. But let's get back to Marko now, because as hype as his appearance was, it was much more of a comical scene, featuring the big mum pirates where Marko just went and did the exact same thing King did, and kicked their ship back down the waterfall, and the look on Perus Perus' face was priceless. Especially because right before it happened, he was thinking about King and it was just the perfect comic timing. But this is actually pretty massive news being masked by a moment of glorious comedy, because if I understand Marko's implications correctly, then this is already pretty much directly saying to us that the big mum pirates will not be a part of this battle on Wano, which is not to be understated, that is a massive factor. And for the first time in, I think, ever during the Sark, the odds have begun to be evened out a little in favor of the Allied forces. Yes, they still seem completely outclassed, but they no longer have to deal with the heavy hitters of another emperor of the sea. So this is very good news for them, although slightly conflicting news for me personally, because I was hoping that Wano might be used as an expansion of Holkek Island, and maybe provide some focus to characters who were neglected there, like say, Smoothie for example. Although at the same time, I am definitely a fan of this development. Involving the greater forces of big mum always seems like a convoluted endeavor to me, even if it did hold a lot of really cool potential. But zeroing in more on the beast pirates and the worst generation is, I think, an acceptable trade off, especially if it adds to the logical aspect of how we are eventually going to succeed on this island. And speaking of, let's now move to the ever-growing chaos on Wano, and this chapter opens up with Kid and Apu, and I really hope that this whole segment has put a bit of a full stop to all of the Apu crap that certain people are spouting. This has more or less confirmed that yes, he has a weird unexpected power, but that ability also comes with an incredible drawback. In fact, this is an even bigger drawback than I expected, because all you need to do is not hear his music. So it makes Apu pretty fantastic for surprise attacks, but in this brief exchange, it would seem like his whole hand has pretty much been revealed. I mean, I have to believe that Apu has another way of fighting for those who are immune to his music, because I just don't see him getting this far in the world without having that kind of diversity, but yeah. As expected, Apu is indeed not as OP as many have posited. The opening of this chapter was still amazing though, because it is undeniably fun to see a clash between members of the worst generation, especially when it doesn't involve Luffy or Zoro. And that's a very rare situation actually, and come to think of it, I feel like the only other time we've properly seen such a thing was on Sabotee, where Drake broke up the fight between Killer and Rouge. I mean, I guess there's also been the lore versus Hawken stuff on Wano, but nothing that we got to see any decent action out of. So this chapter was very satisfying in that regard, and it makes me want to see an extended bout between Kid and Apu, or Kid and anybody, or Apu and anybody. They both have incredibly interesting abilities, and I just want more. Which luckily enough, I'm sure we'll get in the future. But some more subtle appreciation needs to go to the aftermath of the fight, where we have four, count them four members of the worst generation being Kid, Killer, Luffy and Zoro, running and conversing, which is so simple but very great to see. You know, both captains and vice-captains joining forces, and also with a hint of comedy as well when they're covering their ears. And I would also be remiss not to mention that we are introduced to one of the keenly anticipated numbers in this chapter, whose name is Hotchar. And I really don't know what I was expecting from these guys, but he does seem to very much fit the bill. A sort of weird, dirty odor design gifted with some incredible raw power is honestly very much what I expected all of them to look like. In this guy's individual case though, he seems kind of like a budget doflamingo, you know, one who couldn't afford the fancy designer glasses, and whose teeth were just nowhere near as perfect. And of course the hair cut, I guess that's what we'll call it, the he-man haircut. He does appear to be a giant though, which is always fun. I'm usually keen to explore more of the giant cultures because they've always been this background feature of the series, and you so rarely meet one who is clearly antagonistic. Like yes, we fought giants before, in the case of Voimo, Kashi and even Harudin, but by and large, they were all mainly protagonistic presences. In fact, I'm having a really hard time thinking back to a giant that was not. But I don't see that happening with this guy. He seems to enjoy destruction far too much, and so maybe he's a giant from one of the other various clans because remember that Elbaaf is not the only source of giants in this world. Well maybe he isn't a giant at all, because Oda could come up with any number of explanations for his size I suppose. Meanwhile, Who's Who also deserves a very specific mention this chapter, because I think he makes Queen's Vendetta pretty clear. They have the desire to bring the other one down, which would seem only works in our favor because that may turn Who's Who into a potential ally. Like I know this isn't specifically stated, but I feel like there is more to this than just wanting to take Queen's place. Feels an awful lot like there is a proper grudge at play here, which you know maybe spawns from a situation where Queen was the figure who initially defeated Who's Who and his crew and forced them to serve Kaido, because that would seem to be a trend, which can also be seen in figures like Hawkins. And Who knows how many other figures there are like this amongst the Beast Pirates, who were incorporated through sheer domination rather than any actual desire to join the crew. What I really like though is that we seem to be introduced to some key members of Who's Who's band, which is mostly full of cat people or cat impersonators, which sure, let's do that. Except for one, and that character is very important because he seems to be yet another dude bra who has that weird fabric mask with the eye symbol on it. And including Who's Who, that now makes four characters bearing this eye, with at least one of them being directly connected to Who's Who. So I'm very keen to continue exploring this avenue, because he's now being propped up as a pretty major player in the saga. Moving elsewhere in one or another now, and there are a lot of hilarious moments in this chapter, but none more so than Chopper encountering Big Mom again, after being abandoned by all of the forces around him. And there is this beautiful shot of a teeny tiny looking tank just staring an emperor of the sea dead in the eyes. And I don't know how this plays out, but it's a really fun development. I love this ongoing Chopper-Big Mom interaction, and I do wonder if this is going to call back to her amnesia time. Like maybe Big Mom doesn't remember Chopper from Hawkeek Island and only recalls him from her time as Olin, and they form a very odd duo going forward. But actually, just on that, before that interaction happens, there is this really, like, really strange scene where it looks like Big Mom is talking to herself. I say it looks like because I guess it was implied that someone else is there because there is a separate voice referring to her as Big Mom, but we only see a singular silhouette. It's a weird scene. I mean, I'm sure someone else is there. Otherwise, things are getting very, very strange indeed. And mid conversation, she questions what it was that she had said. So if anything, I would say that this is her slipping back into that amnesiac state, which I have to say excites me quite a bit. The potential of an Emperor just running loose as a third party is the kind of chaos that I feel like Wano really calls for. And maybe it could even go back and forth. Big Mom has her memories and loses them again and so on and so forth and just turns Wano into this giant ball of unpredictability that may even cause Kaido to take action and potentially bring her down, thus resulting in our first inevitable Emperor defeat. It's just a really, really weird panel though. And the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that Chopper is not seeing Big Mom and instead, he's met Olin. So there's also a point in the chapter where we have a Sanji joke about him being all disappointed, but I do wonder to what extent that is. Is he just disappointed that there was nobody awaiting him upon entering? Or did something much, much worse happen? And did he say catch a glimpse of Big Mom in a state of undress? I feel like even though his reaction is purely comical, that that would be the only thing that could drive him to this dark, despairful panel that we see of him. Of course, there is a logical argument against this, a purely logical argument, being that he would have mentioned the presence of an Emperor, but I think I like the comedy version of this tale much better. And who knows, maybe he only saw her from behind and didn't recognize her. Somehow. And the last thing I have to mention this week is the colour spread because damn, this is my jam. As someone who works as a lighting designer, I cannot help but be in love with Oda's use of colour here. This is quite possibly my favourite colour spread that has ever been put to page. Orange and Teal is always a fantastic combination and it's backed up by this nice deep red and black as well. But everywhere I look here, I am in love with the lighting effect, even if it is a bit realistically inconsistent in places, like it is hard to solidly determine a light source, and it seems to move around a bit, but who cares because this is phenomenal? And I would love to see Oda reply his mastery to more work like this, rather than almost always staging colour spreads outside and dealing with that boring, boring old son. But that pretty much does it for chapter 981. And 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.