 Is Black Maria...disrobing? Again, a first Yamato, now Black Maria, what a chapter. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of Chapter 1005, which I'm sure has an actual title, but it is known to me as Nico Robin Hype. This may very well have been one of the most exciting things that has happened in my entire career as a One Piece fan, and no, that is not an exaggeration, because not once in my 15 years of reading the series weekly has Robin ever had an actual fight. I reference this a lot in other videos, but the last time she did get a proper matchup was way, way, way back on Skype here against Yammer, and sadly I started reading during any sobbing, which notably is not Skype here. So this is long overdue, as is the idea of you subscribing to the Grand Line Review, which will result in consistent injections of One Piece culture administered straight into your YouTube feed. And if you are a new member of the Grand Fleet, please do say hi in the comments below, welcome. But to return to our person of the hour, it is indeed Robin a clock, and it's been a very, very long day to reach this time, but we have arrived at it once more, at least I hope we have. And this might be difficult to explain to newer fans just how monumental this setup actually is, but the entire concept of a Robin fight at this point in the series, well, it's almost a meme, really. I'd personally kind of lost all hope after Dress Rosa, where Robin was positioned to potentially fight Diamante, but ended up essentially being a babysitter for Rebecca. And that's why I don't want to get my hopes up too high here, because look, I have been hurt before. At the same time though, I can't help but be overwhelmingly excited, because Robin has been left on the sidelines for far, far too long, especially considering that her devil fruit is quite possibly one of the most combat-oriented in the entire series. I mean, Robin can sprout effectively in the Slims. Punches, kicks, slaps, anything you can do with your body, Robin can do like times a billion. And this is especially true post-times skip with the advent of giant limbs for body cloning and all of the other weird utility uses that the Hanahana Numi has. The sheer possibilities with a Robin fight are quite literally endless. But what I loved about this chapter specifically was being able to see a full spectrum of Robin emotion. This is something we don't often get with her in particular, one because in the New World Era, she's almost never the focus of any given scene, let alone an arc, but also because Robin is just a much more subtle and paired back straw hat in general. However, in chapter 1005, there were two expressions that really did strike me. The first of which was her serious eyes, which sent a pretty serious shiver down my spine. They're the same sort of eyes that you would commonly see come out of like a serious mode loofy, or a mildly serious mode Zorro. So seeing Robin with this expression feels exceptionally deadly because I don't think she's quite as kind to her opponents as Luffy and Zorro tend to be. So the one person on Onigashima that we really do not want to be right now is undoubtedly Black Maria. But Robin's second expression is the exact opposite when she winks at Sanji, which I was actually taken aback by at first. She winking? Has Robin ever winked? My brain, it cannot process this image. It's almost a very nami-like thing to do. She very much has that trademark playful wink, but it's really nice to see it coming from Robin because it shows a full range of Robin. This wink is Robin at her kindest and most loving, a face reserved only for the closest of friends. Whereas the killing intent glare is the exact opposite end of the scale, reserved only for those whom Robin detests the most. On top of that, she also had this bad Arsora moment as well, smack talking Black Maria, and yeah, I'm not used to seeing so much varied emotion from Robin in an arc or in the series as a whole. Let alone all in one chapter. I cannot wait to see where this conflict takes us with her. However, now we also probably should address Sanji. This is such a good chapter so far, but I can't help but feel like all of that is going to be forgotten in favor of complaining about Sanji. Look, yeah, I can just feel the chorus of Sanji hate being unleashed around the world as I speak, undeserved hate, mind you. And actually, this might be a good time to bring up the fact that I, apparently, accidentally called this entire situation in a video I made last year, titled Oda Hates Sanji. And in fact, whenever I hear complaints like that, I always think back to any slobby to Sanji versus Caliphah and how thoroughly thrashed he was in a great chemical way. Then I imagine what the reaction would be if something like that happened today. Like imagine we're on Wano, we've just begun the Onigashima raid, and Sanji encounters, say, Black Maria, who defeats him instantly, leaving his broken and bloodied body on the hard, hard Onigashima floor. The fan base would lose their minds. Oda hates Sanji, Sanji, as a joke, Sanji never gets a decent fight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there you go. So I guess I'd like to thank the fan base for proving me right there. And if you are a Sanji hater, please, please do go and watch that video because it breaks down why Sanji is, quite frankly, unfairly well treated by Oda in terms of character. The other straw hats could only wish they had as much to work with the Sanji does. And this particular situation is no different. I'm sure there's a lot of cringing and sighing because, oh, Sanji, useless simp, blah, blah, blah. I mean, all it takes is one gorgeous spider woman and he's finished. But the thing we need to remember is that one of Sanji's main roles throughout this entire series is to be a support character. What he does very, very well, possibly better than any other, is compliment every straw hat because he's the only one other than Luffy who has fluid access to peak comedy, action, and drama. You can put Sanji in any situation and have him enhance someone else. And in this case, this chapter is not about Sanji. It's about Robin. This entire situation is about Robin. And to that end, Sanji is used flawlessly. There's this particular panel I love where Sanji is yelling for Robin to rescue him, which immediately gave me the super hardcore any slobby flashbacks of Robin yelling to the rest of the crew that she wanted to live and then pleaded with them to rescue her. And I think that this panel is a clear call back to that moment, a sort of humility filled declaration to the world. And just over 600 chapters later, we have now come full circle with Sanji placing the exact same faith in Robin as she had in the crew during any slobby. And I think that's quite beautiful, really. And to think that such a moment spawns almost directly from Sanji's crippling female flaw is also quite nice to know, because this isn't just Otis setting up Sanji to be a joke. I mean, yes, there were jokes included, but it led to such a phenomenal setup for Robin. Sanji is the support character we need, but not the one that Sanji complainers deserve. And there was also that pretty funny gag with all of Black Maria's women minions or womenions for short, but they were all admiring Sanji and even falling for him before being promptly shocked by how quickly he called out for help, which once again, it's pretty brilliant use of Sanji because you get that gag and but you also have that dramatic any slobby callback. For lack of a better word, it's very efficient. And yes, I know that lacking a better word is in and of itself quite inefficient, but look, I don't care. I've said it now and I'm not changing it. Someone who we have yet to speak about though, a very important someone actually happens to be Brooke. He was a very surprised contender in 1005 and is also extremely appropriate. Just as Sanji served as an any slobby callback, Brooke is here to remind us all of Thriller Bark where he rescued Robin from being caught in a spiderweb, except this time he does the same for Sanji. And I'm very glad he's here because as much as the Robin hype is just flowing through my veins right now, I'm not sure if a one-on-one with Black Maria would feel quite right. But having Brooke as support doesn't take anything away from Robin because he's one of the the least monstrously powerful crew members. So it feels more like an army and usop style of situation where we have this team up of weaker members to overcome a greater threat. With that said, I ultimately don't know quite how useful Brooke will end up being against a topless spider lady. Is Black Maria disrobing? Again, they first Yamato, now Black Maria. What a chapter. And Sanji isn't around for either of them, so yeah, forget it. Maybe, maybe Yoda really does hate Sanji. Moving to Black Maria though, towards the end of the chapter, she presents some very intriguing things, one of which is the weapon that has come out of nowhere, which I believe is known as a wanudo. Or sort of, it's based on a Japanese yokai known as a wanudo, which are admittedly very creatively designed wheeled demons who are said to like wander back and forth along the road between hell and reality. And I can't say I'm entirely certain as to why Black Maria wields a weapon like this, and in fact, the even weirder thing is that it looks very much alive. And at this point, if we didn't have confirmation of Black Maria's double fruit name, this is where I would likely endlessly speculate that she is probably a mythical zoan user with some kind of deceptive demon fruit. And that would even be backed up by the ever reliable source that is Wikipedia, because it has informed me that one of the most famous legends involving a wanudo is about a mother catching sight of one and then being told to look at her child only to discover that said child had been eaten. And that whole idea plays very nicely into the deceptive nature of Black Maria. What we've seen of her seems very focused on tricking the mind, which is not such a bad match up for Robin, but may very well be for Brooke. To move to a completely different scene, now one of the other story threads continued within this chapter was the whole Yamato Shinobu Momonosuke group. And from what I can tell, the only real reason why we have this scene is to explain all of the small animals scattered across Onigashima. Turns out they're actually mechanical, and the fact that Oda has taken some rather extreme lengths to point this out strikes me as something that is going to be potentially very, very relevant in the future. For example, I could see some sort of situation where, say, Frankie finishes up his fight, then gathers all of these animals, reprogram them, and then they become a method of scouting and communication for the allied forces, in conjunction with whatever weird power is being used on them, of course. That or it just becomes a major plot point to shut down the beast pirate's communications, which may seem incredibly minor, perhaps even ridiculous, but communications are a factor that Oda pays a lot of attention to. Like, a good example would be Prowling disabling all of the territorial sea slugs on Hokkeik Island with her singing. That took away a ton of information from the big man pirates and basically allowed the straw hats to escape. And in a situation of warfare, communication is kind of everything. So taking all of that away would just inevitably see the beast pirate forces crumble like some sort of, you know, block of delicious Parmesan cheese. Meanwhile, Momonosuke appears to have been thrust into his third pair of breasts of the series and not the biggest fan of this. I mean, yeah, the joke is kind of funny for the shock factor alone, but Momonosuke has been doing so, so well during this raid. He was really stepping up and moving away from his keep of Oda trait. So it's a little disappointing to see Oda fall back on that because look, we know what's going to happen in a future chapter, either Sanji or Broke or someone else is going to see Momonosuke's situation and become jealous whilst Momo makes his classic face. Although I have to say that the situation does come with a dose of extra weird due to the whole Yamato becoming Odin thing. So just imagine this, right? Your father coming up to you and just going son, nestle between my breasts. And in this case, is it an Oda complex or is it an Electro complex? I don't have the answer to this. But someone else who we do need to touch base with is Jack. This mammoth man is up and running, which I'm glad to see. There was never any way that he was down and out for good after the rooftop conflict and he is now heading directly for the vassals, which very interesting because that's also where Sanji happens to be heading. So that does set up a very potential Sanji versus Jack style situation, which yeah, that would be pretty cool. I also like that Jack has like this raging elephant hate boner for Nekomomushi, Inorashi and Raizo, like he is still hurting bad from that Zo incident and will not stop until those three are quite dead. Meanwhile, a very underrated feature of this chapter are also those little micro check-ins throughout the raid. And I think this was done quite brilliantly, one because it's another great use of Sanji to enhance the situation. In this case, an entire chapter. I came away from 1005 feeling very full, I suppose we'll say. And that's because despite the fact that we primarily focused on this one story thread, Oda made the chapter feel incredibly expansive by including these shots from all over the island. Seeing what characters like Marco, Chopper and Beppo were up to is a nice reminder of the ensuing and growing chaos on Onigashima. It's also nice to see Jinbei in particular, who apparently has the luxury of just not needing to pay attention to his fight against who's who. And of course, we should also probably mention the cover page for this week featuring the legendary Kartakuri. Very cute image of him sharing forbidden immoral donuts with puppies and kittens, assumedly, suddenly in the seducing woods. And while this definitely isn't the way I was hoping to experience Kartakuri during the Wanoak, I can't deny that it was great to see him, even in a non-canon cover page request. Although after having been revealed as lesson perfect, I would like to think that this is now canonically just how Kartakuri spends his time, you know, eating donuts wherever he wants out in the open, anywhere on Totoland. And that does pretty much do it for chapter 1005, but if you would like another hit of One Piece, then please do check out this video where I bust some of the greatest myths of the series, very intriguing stuff, and I look forward to seeing you there.