 Hello and welcome to the Grand Lone Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we have a manga review of chapter 909, Sepuku. And just like that, it feels like we've picked up exactly where we left off two years ago. Being reintroduced to all of the plotlines surrounding Wano, the Samurai, the Minx and Marco, honestly makes World Cake Island feel like a gigantic filler arc that really just stood in the way of progress. Not that I mean to throw any shade onto Whole Cake Island, I loved that arc in general, but it does feel like we could have gone straight from the end of Zoo, right to this point, and still have it feel quite natural. Just before I get into things proper though, it looks like we may very well have left the reverie behind for now. I think that's a real shame because I was loving each and every one of those amazing chapters. And you know what, I would have been keen for an entire volume without the straw hats, because the reverie chapters have proven that the auxiliary characters of one piece can really hold their own. I mean, I guess there's every chance that we've just cut away from it for this chapter, and that the reverie events can still be injected into the next few transition rechapters. But personally, I think that the events of the reverie ended on a dramatic high. The conference began and will no doubt play out in the background while we tackle the beast that is Wano. So without further ado, let us jump into this long-awaited, wonderful country. Wano is pretty damn spectacular. It gives me huge Roroni Kenshin vibes, well if Kenshin was a more stylistic series to say the least. But this feeling is very much to be expected, I guess, because both settings are now modeled on Classical Japan. I think it's also pretty common knowledge that Oda was once one of Watsuki's drawing assistants, so that experience over two decades ago will finally start to pay off right about now. The main centerpiece, which I'm assuming is some sort of palace, is very intriguing because it has such extreme bridges on either side of it. Like surely no human would be able to comfortably walk up or down one of those. I do quite enjoy that the palace is set on a tree, as well as the curvature of the tree itself, making its way around to form a nice crescent. It is a very appealing image to look at, nice and balanced. And of course in typical Japanese style, we have Sakura petals dropping gracefully from the air at all times. One particular detail I really love though is the Classical looking Japanese style Oda boxes. It's such a simple little decision to make, but it very effectively conveys the idea that we are now in an entirely different part of the world, which is very important because Wano is an isolated nation and should feel unique and not at all like the world as we know it. But the highlight of this chapter for me is rather predictably Zoro. It's been a bit painful to go almost two years without the sky, but he's finally back and in fine form. He looks very much right at home in Wano in his quote-unquote disguise, and it's just about everyone predicted. Shusui, the sword that Zoro acquired from Rima during Thriller Bark, is playing a fairly important role here. And to all of a sudden I feel a lot more weight being added to the idea that Moria might become quite involved in the Wano arc. I'd not thought of this before, but at some stage Moria or his crew must have snuck into Wano and acquired Rima's corpse. Add on top of that his ambition to defeat Kaido, and I now think it would be a missed opportunity not to wrap up Moria's story right here and now. But back to a much more awesome character, Zoro. He gets framed for murder and sentenced to commit seppuku. But of course being the boss that he is, Zoro decides to have none of this shenanigans conduct some detective work of his own, and provides us with a fantastic action panel of him slicing up the joint with the seppuku blade, which is blatantly stated just moments before that it is not designed for use in battle. I love everything about this panel and I want it in a poster form on my wall somewhere. The action is just so refined yet incredibly destructive in perfect samurai fashion. This scene reminds me a lot of Zoro's fight back at Baratier, where Mihawk consisted on using his kogutana. Mihawk's movements then were stripped back and confined to only what action was absolutely necessary and yet his mastery of the sword resulted in absurdly powerful attacks regardless. So Zoro here looks an awful lot like he is getting very close to catching up to Mihawk. In fact, Zoro's slice even looks strikingly similar to the ones Mihawk planted on Don Krieg's ships. Moving to Frankie, he is definitely the least subtle of all of the straw hats, but as usual, loving the new hair and his reintroduction has really made me realize just how much I missed this damn cyborg. He adds an awful lot to the crew in terms of bizarre diversity, a trait which Brooke had to shoulder all on his own during Hawkeek Island. It's also worth noting that Frankie is actually working with Minotomo-san. If you don't know who he is, that's very understandable. Like Momo Usagi, Minotomo-san is a joke character, invented during an SPS. Except in this case, it was very early on, way back in the realms of Volume 7, and he was essentially created to fill a minor continuity error involving Higuma the Bear and his bandits breaking the bar door open when they entered. However, upon leaving, this door was magically fixed. And to get himself out of this situation, Oda proudly declared that there was no mistake and a carpenter by the name of Minotomo-san happened to be passing by and repaired the door prior to the bandits leaving. It's such an obscure reference, but here he is in Wano and I love it. Next up is Robin, and she looks quite stunning in full geisha attire. Sadly, I can't say I've missed her all that much because even when she is around, Oda gives her next to nothing to do. Yes, more than two years on, and I'm still quite bitter about how she got jipped during Dressrosa, but having said that, Robin is the only straw hat here whose goal while being disguised seems to be presented. This appears to be an effort to get close to the Shogun through the alluring art of traditional dance. Very reminiscent of Robin's role in film Z, actually. By the way, we have a name for the Shogun of Wano, and it isn't Kaido. It is a man by the name of Kurozumi Orochi. In retrospect, I don't know why I always believed that Kaido would have supplanted himself for Shogun after killing Odin, but I guess I just thought of him in a similar way as Dolflamingo, where he chose a country to be his base of operations and then just made himself the king because why not. Finally, we have Usopp. And yeah, it's Usopp. Nothing special to report as of yet, but he does, as usual, have the most comical disguise, and he's performing the role of a snake oil salesman, or quite literally, in this case, a toad oil salesman, which is a great part for him because it takes advantage of his supreme ability to lie. I've always thought that if Usopp didn't become a pirate, he would have made a great used car salesman. And with our core reintroductions out of the way, Wano has begun with a bang. Despite Kinemon requesting that they complete their mission quietly, Zoro has gone and done a Luffy on us and has caused trouble. And this could end up being quite a bad situation because if Kaido discovers what is happening right under his nose, then this tiny force of the Ninja Pirate Minx Samurai Alliance may need to deal with the direct wrath of Ionku, which, after experiencing Hawkeek Island, is much more than they are capable of right now. It could be a case of them getting captured and needing to be rescued by the inbound Luffy troop, but I'm glad that the chaos has begun so early on in the arc. Usually we have an awful lot of setup chapters before any sort of dramatic action takes place during a new arc, so I am all on board for this. However, moving far, far away in the new world, we have a reunion with Marco, who looks exactly the same as he did two years ago, except now wears glasses and calls himself a doctor, which I guess makes perfect enough sense. For some reason, I was expecting him to be a bit more ragged or injured as a result of the payback war, but the dude has healing flames, so yeah, obviously he isn't going to have any injuries. In this chapter, we also learnt that he can use his blue flames on others, which is cool, although it does have its limits. Through this encounter, we have a one panel flashback of a certain Edward Newgate. Crazy to believe that the boy there would go on to become the strongest man in the world, but I'm glad to know a bit more about where he came from and why he became a pirate in the first place. His dream, as we know, was to have a family, but he was also caring for the people of this country by funnelling all of his wealth their way, and the fact that he was an orphan really makes the whole wanting to have a family dream much more impactful, and seeing this young boy here and knowing what he grows up to achieve is quite heartwarming. But back to the pineapple head and the most important thing we learn about Marco is that, well, he ain't coming to Wano. Edward Weevil seems to have his sights set on taking out Whitebeard's last remaining legacy, and this is a huge shock to me because I'm not entirely sure why we bothered with the whole Marco plotline in the first place now. As it appears, Nekomamushi has just wasted a whole bunch of time, and I mean, I guess it won't be entirely pointless because Marco has given him a message to give to Luffy, but just like that, every theory involving Luffy's defeat of Kaido with the help of Marco, possibly the rest of the Whitebeard pirates, and even more possibly Weevil, has gone up in smoke. And finally, just one little thing right at the beginning of the chapter, Oda appears to have spelled the word Guardians as Guardians. And sadly, I think this is confirmation that we need to take Oda's Romanization with an entire shaker's worth of salt. He clearly means to say Guardians, so all of you people who are spelling Reverie as Levely, just because that's how Oda foolishly wrote it that one time, should stop immediately, unless of course it's for comic purposes, in which case it is quite hilarious. But that pretty much does it for chapter 909. 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