 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we have a manga review of chapter 910. Onwards to Wano Country. So this week felt distinctly familiar, as all sailing chapters do. Sometimes I complain about how we really don't get a lot of sailing on ships in this pirate-based manga, but in reality there's just not a hell of a lot of story to tell, whilst I isolated aboard a ship, not in this series anyway. With that said, I'm incredibly surprised at just how quickly we've reached Wano. Oda really is not messing around here, which is good and bad. Great because I for one want this Danmark to kick into gear already, but I can't help but feel like we've had a bit of a Game of Thrones syndrome happen here. And what I mean by that is particularly referring to the latest season, where all of a sudden people can just move freely around Westeros, covering distances that were taken tire seasons previously in less than an episode. Luffy's group moved from Totland to Wano extraordinarily quickly, or at least it feels that way. And to me, it makes the world feel slightly smaller and a tiny bit less realistic. And yeah, I know that's a dumb thing to say about a manga with magical fruit mermaids and cyborgs, so it's a minor complaint, but hey, that's what reviews are all about. So as is customary with each new arc, we have some new straw hat outfits, not Luffy though. He's returned to his classic post-time skip look, which I really like, but the stand out here is Nami's new outfit actually. It reminds me a lot of something that Robin might wear, very leggy and covers a bit more of the Bristol region than most female outfits. Come to think of it, it's very Robin from Thriller Bark specifically, especially with the simple patterning adding a nice bit of necessary detail. I also quite like the idea of it being black as it's displayed here in the manga form, but I've resigned myself to the fact that the anime will probably make it some stupid color. But for now, well done, Oda. It's a nice sleek choice. I am, however, a little underwhelmed by Brooke though. His outfit also evokes Thriller Bark, and I think that his fashion has come so fast since then that it's a shame to be reverting back. It's classy, I guess, but I'm going to be honest, I really miss the soul king look. I just want Brooke in that crown at all times because he looked amazing. But man, I'm sure everyone's outfit will change eventually on Wano anyway, so let's go with this for now. Speaking of visuals, much like how Totland turned the environment into a Disney film, Wano seems to be turning everything into a stereotypical Japanese painting, and I am completely on board with this, especially after seeing the octopus with the hachimaki around its head. I'd also like to note the very Hokusai-esque waves. There's a lot of character happening in this area of the world, which is why I don't really care that not a lot technically happened during this chapter. I've read a lot of comments saying stuff like, boring chapter, or Oda really needs to pick up the pace. But this chapter beautifully displays the groundwork that makes this series so great. Within one chapter, I am now completely invested in the style that is Wano, even more so than last week when we were actually on the island. And there are just so many beautifully drawn pages that I find myself gazing upon them for a much more extended amount of time than I ever did anything from the reverie chapters. They were very story-centric, with shocking events occurring one after another. The art was completely secondary. But here we have the exact opposite, where the art takes center stage and the story gets to chillax for a bit. Not every chapter can be shanks talking to the Gorasei, because if it were, it would become a soap opera with needless cliffhangers and as an audience, we'd burn out. But you know what, we do get one teeny tiny nugget of intrigue about the world at large through the newspaper that the crew are reading. Well, not reading, more like cutting up really, but there's a pretty damn important figure on the front of that paper, and it's some dude named Kaido. And the article continues to name Big Mom as well. So I suspect the news of their alliance has spread and the straw hat's cutting out pieces of newspaper is going to make this one hell of a shock. And just as a side note, fuck being the photographer who was charged, we're taking a photo of Kaido. Like, can you imagine that assignment? All right, we want you to get close enough to one of the four emperors of the New World. Not only that, but arguably the most terrifying of the four emperors. So props to whoever did it, they got a decent shot, and I'm assuming they lived to tell the tale. But another really weird thing here is that we don't see a photo of Shirahoshi in the newspaper, which is odd because Morgan's practically fell in love with her at first sight. So you'd figure he'd showcase her in some way, possibly even on a double-page spread. Plus, you know, Fishman royalty on the blue sea would be incredibly big news, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there. And just a final note on the newspaper, my favorite panel has to be the photo of Wapol, looking all smug. Not so much because of Wapol, but because of Dalton in the background, just staring at his former king with utter disdain. It's just a beautiful piece of artwork, I love it. So in predictable beginning of the Archmander, the straw hats appear to have been forcibly split up once again, in a very similar sort of vein that happened on Fishman Island, actually. It's pretty funny, really. Of all the things you cannot predict in one piece, this is one of the very few constants you can count on happening. So yeah, it's a bit tired, but I understand why it needs to happen. Splitting up the characters leads to more efficient storytelling because you can bombard the readers with a lot of information emanating from a wide variety of different sources. Whereas if you keep an entire group together, your only choice is linear progression, which makes learning new information quickly very difficult because your group needs to move from source to source in a somehow compelling manner. By necessity, it also means that some characters get pushed into the background and become useless because there's only so many people who can act at once in a large group. So yeah, the standard separation has to happen, although there's a bit of a twist this time around, in that Luffy is the one who gets stranded with the sunny. Usually when the straw hats separate, it's a good excuse for Luffy to adventure and stumble into a bizarre or important place. But that's much less of an option now because he's very much weighed down by the ship. You can't just leave it out there in the open because well, there are vicious giant baboons with katana. But you know, with the appearance of all of these cool animals, Kaido's interest in Wano is making a lot of sense all of a sudden because of his whole beast motif. But regardless, this is an interesting situation for Luffy. I suspect the result will be encountering some new or even familiar character who will be able to take care of the sunny, while Luffy goes and does Luffy things. That pretty much does it for chapter 910, a strong beginning to a nice long adventure, I think. If you enjoyed this video, then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe. 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