 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. And today we have a review of chapter 950, A Soldier's Dream. And just before we get into things you may notice that this review is a bit later than most. And that's because due to receiving a strike on the last chapter review, I've decided to push these videos up until the chapter has been officially released. Which you know is ideally what would always happen because One Piece is a series that I love and I certainly don't want to support piracy, but the YouTube game is a bit different and by the time the chapter is officially released, generally people have stopped caring. So if you're one of the absolutely amazing people watching this video right now, I'd like to say thank you. You're the reason why I love doing this. And without any more YouTube BS, let's get into it. So this was a super solo chapter and it really flung a surprise at me first thing, with the whole kid exchange. This is because I was feeling pretty good about him joining up with the Alliance after the events of the prison, but over through something else my way and introduced kids complex with alliances, which I love. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it. I mean it seems quite obvious in retrospect for him to have a lot of trepidation considering how he was betrayed. I suppose it's just one of those things where I didn't expect a figure such as kid who was always so staunch and ready to have any worries in that regard. Especially after seeing what Luffy did, but hey this is what we got and I think it's great. It's a level of emotional complexity added to kid that I didn't even know I needed and it gives him a nice arc to go through during Wano because here's the thing, if he does join up and yes I say if as opposed to when, that moment will carry so much more weight because of what we've set up here and possibly meet a highlight of the entire arc. Now I'm no longer 100% sure that he will though. I mean I suspect he'll end up assisting Luffy and the others, but not necessarily intentionally. It might be a situation where it's more that their paths were just crossed and the chaos that each party causes is mutually beneficial, kind of like when Blackbeard invaded Impel Down. And of course the more I think about it the more this has the potential to completely go up in flames and this is because for the longest time I've been operating on the potential of the entirety of the worst generation on Wano teaming up and having that be the only way to stop Kaido. But that's going to be difficult enough to do with just Luffy, Zoro and Law, let alone even posing the idea Kid allying with Hawkins and Apu again. So that's definitely pushing me into the camp of Kid acting as a third faction in this upcoming shenanigans. Also this has nothing to do with the chapter, but this has just made one piece stampede really awkward because we know from the trailers that the worst generation do fight together against Douglas Bullitt at one point. So it's going to be hard to watch that without thinking of this very moment and then looking at Kid and going wait don't you hate a couple of these people. But what I'm also really enjoying this week is the clear respect that Kid has developed for Luffy. I mean it was really brief but the two of them had a proper captain's chat and it intrigues me that Kid went so far as to ask if Luffy was going to fight Kaido again. He's clearly interested in Luffy, he just doesn't want to admit it. And one final thing before we move away from Kid, the artwork of his devil fruit abilities in action was stunning as per usual. Kid definitely has one of the most aesthetically intriguing devil fruits to watch in action like looking at him building that arm is insanity. Surely Oda curses himself every time he has to embark on drawing such a thing that his assistants curse him. However my eyes certainly do appreciate it. Oh and I know I said last thing but this is sort of a transition I guess. But I thought it was quite clever that immediately after Kid left all of the prisoners were saying that Luffy was a pirate and there was no telling when he may decide to betray them. It was very nicely juxtaposed against Kid's scene which was all about being betrayed by pirates. But the highlight of this portion was a certain Momonosuke and I really liked his parts this week especially the inner monologue about how the prisoners weren't seeing him so much as they were the shadow of Odin. It shows a pretty incredible maturity then I'm honestly surprised that Momonosuke is capable of. I'm thrilled to see it though because in many ways this really is his arc. The stuff that we as readers are excited for generally has to do with Kaido in the worst generation but in terms of the deeper story of Wano this is Momonosuke's journey to becoming a leader of one of the greatest nations we've ever seen in the series. So it is pretty serious business and it is nice to see him kicking into gear. He didn't let the weight of expectation crush him and he even went on to address the prisoners in one of the most useful ways possible by telling them of the maddening events that have brought him to where he is today. Now for something I was less keen on it's the teeny tiny bit of Kawamatsu. Essentially we spent about a billion chapters wondering what he looks like and pretty much immediately after we find out he's off elsewhere for no specifically stated reason and with the vague promise of reuniting with everyone before the final battle. And I know this probably isn't the last we'll get of him before then he'll probably have his own little subplot going on with Hiori it just kind of works me that we finally break him out and he's gone. Look I'll be honest I just wanted to see more kappa action so wherever he's off to there had better be that. And of course we catch up with Kinamon Inorashi and Ashuridouji and for the first time in a long while I feel like I do actually care about this story thread. Learning about the failed rebellion 10 years ago was pretty heartbreaking but so understandable. Like what is everyone supposed to do there's no guarantee that they'll survive the coming weeks let alone another decade so that was a very palpable bit of tragedy in the chapter there. Thankfully we're not going to be chasing Ashuridouji anymore though because he and his forces have joined up which is cool because this timing correlates with the prisoners joining the allied forces as well. So this chapter really has made a ton of progress in that regard and I feel like it was a smart move to have both of these events happen here rather than split it up because there's only so many times you can muster forces and have it be in any way exciting so I do like that Oda put both of these moments into a singular experience. What really struck me about this portion though was when Ashuridouji asked why it took 20 years which is a question I've never pondered before because yes Lady Toki's prophecy did state 20 years but I've not to this point question how she came up with or even structured that number. First of all though I think the answer is pretty obvious it took 20 years because that's how long they needed to wait for Luffy and the other West Generation members to come along with the proper circumstances to bring down Kaido. What we then need to ask is how Toki knew that because while it would have been perfectly possible for her to travel into the future and see this occurring according to what we know of the Toki Toki no Mi it would not have allowed her to come back to the past and deliver the prophecy so there's definitely something very interesting happening here maybe her fruit also allows her to peer forward in time or maybe she was able to travel into the past through an awakening or whatever or maybe it's one of those things where traveling into the past drains her life force something along those lines but I really like that idea because it brings up the potential of seeing Toki or even a glimpse of her in the modern day for example say the moment that Kaido is defeated some character maybe a straw hat or a red scabbard catches a glimpse of a woman in the distance before she promptly vanishes back into her time satisfied with the eventual outcome and then goes on to deliver the prophecy I guess I'm just quite keen for some nice satisfying use of time travel to really wrap this arc together but with all of that this chapter isn't even over because we also have some Zoro and a bit of law starting with Zoro though he's still on the hunt to get his sword back and I don't think that he necessarily will this just seems like too amazing of an opportunity to get a hold of the second Kitezu blade and start wielding them as a set however even more intriguing than that is that Zoro showed a rare burst of emotion here and when I say burst I guess I mean something closer to a a calm declaration but even then it's odd for Zoro to go out of his way to say that he will avenge someone now I don't know if that sets up a potential Zoro versus Orochi situation I kind of hope not because I'd really love for Zoro to have a proper opponent on Wano but yeah a swordsman has some work to be done which is also rare for him because usually Zoro is the straw hat who's just kind of there and ready to fight when necessary so it looks like Wano is really being used as a chance to have him stand out a bit more and ending the chapter we have the incredibly menacing Trafalgar law I don't know why he looks so confident because not a single thing has gone his way for the entire time that we've been on Wano but I can't deny that he looks amazing and it was a great way to end the chapter then again thinking about it law is also a D something I often forget because he just seems far too reasonable but the Ds are well known for smiling in terrible terrible situations there was also a weird bit of dialogue though before we see law with Hawkins commenting that Drake is acting strange so it's entirely possible that Drake and law have formed some sort of agreement but Drake is another weird one though because he joined Kaido on purpose and has done some pretty awful things since being associated with the beast pirates so unless he has some sort of incredible Capone gang beige style of plan it's much harder to see him just up and joining the alliance as opposed to Hawkins or Apu who were assumedly given very little choice in the matter and you know what just going back to the worst generation discussion I did at the beginning I've just had a thought and that is why do any of them need to join the alliance I think I'm pretty crazily guilty of assuming that the only way out of Wano is to unite the worst generation so much so that I've not really given any serious thoughts to an alternative but one piece has gone on for a fair while now and Wano isn't ending anytime soon so maybe this is actually the appropriate place to start taking out some of the worst generation or maybe not taking them out in terms of the greatest story but legitimately defeating them and rendering them irrelevant to any kind of future conflict against the straw hats and yeah I don't know the more I think about it the more I feel like I'd be okay with Hawkins Apu and Drake going balls to the wall and siding with Kaido and helping to make Wano the most spectacular conflict the series has ever seen by providing that firepower to the antagonists and you know just to cap things off I do need to mention the cover page because it does feature Capone gang beige and that makes him the ninth member of the worst generation to appear in this singular chapter which is crazy I can't remember the last time we had membership of this scale represented in a chapter and it really is a shame that we couldn't squeeze a rouge bonnie and black bead into it for a full compliment but as for the fine tank pirates as I suspected it looks like we'll be using their cover story as a hunt for Lola and I really enjoy that it looks like chiffon is the one taking charge in her very captainly pose while spade is just taking care of pez in the background the expression on his face is pretty priceless as well so this cover story should be good fun but that pretty much does it for chapter 950 and this video was actually brought to us today by shogu samurai project orioku by shinry a man who has written an astounding amount of books in this series all of which takes stylized inspiration from the wonderful world of manga with this particular one featuring a young samurai with an incredible hidden power on a quest for revenge the link to which is in the description below as well as a pinned comment and shinry is also a huge one piece fan as well so let's show him some love and if you'd like to see more videos like this but apply to other anime and manga series then please do check out my second channel new elder view 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 the chapter this has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time