 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of chapter 964, Odin's Adventure. And this week was just amazing. I can't remember the last time that I was this on board with the flashback chapter in the entire history of me reading this series weekly. I mean it really just has everything going for it with incredibly hyped characters, great comedy, a charming story, and a profound sense of adventure that oddly enough doesn't show up a lot in One Piece in the post timescape era. Add an incredible cliffhanger-ish final page and you have all of the ingredients that make One Piece an incredible experience to read and not a single straw hat was even required to create it. Although I guess technically one literal straw hat was featured in the chapter, but none of our primary protagonists in any case. To really start delving into this though I do need to begin with Whitebeard once again because it's pretty incredible to think that almost 10 years after his death in the series he can still continue to be developed and rise in my personal rankings of characters. I said this last week because we got one panel of Whitebeard in complete shock and it wasn't an expression that we'd ever seen from the strongest man in the world, but this chapter went full on and gave us an incredible spectrum of Whitebeard expressions including happy cheeky, shock once again, and my favorite pure disgust, which Merid Odin's disgusted look in regards to Wano and was a brilliant piece of comedy. Actually though you know what my favorite moment of the chapter was when he and Kinamon had their little bro fist agreement in regards to not taking Odin out to sea. Seeing that panel was absolutely surreal because in the story we've come to know up until now Whitebeard and Kinamon have been completely separate entities. Like we weren't even introduced to Kinamon until way after Whitebeard's death and it's cool to see this connection being forged as I'm sure we'll also see with Roger eventually because Momonosuke did say that he'd met the man himself so Kinamon probably has as well. It was also nice to hear Whitebeard mentioning his former crew being the Rocks Pirates and the experience he'd had when a whole ton of leaders get together as well as the chaos that such a thing can cause. It makes me hungrier and hungrier to take a step back just a little bit further into the past and explore them but I'm sure that will happen at some stage in the future possibly even during the Wanowak with some sort of Big Mom Kaido flashback but right now I think we have quite a bit to captivate our attention. Back to Whitebeard specifically though he did have one very interesting phrase this chapter when he welcomed Odin aboard his ship and decided to call him Little Brother instead of a son which is how Whitebeard would typically refer to his crew members and I thought this was a wonderful touch because the entire discussion up until that point had been surrounding the idea that Odin isn't the type of man to be a follower and Whitebeard recognizes and respects that by referring to him with a term implying a large degree more equality to himself. So if anything this doesn't simply make Odin a brother amongst the Whitebeard Pirates but in fact something more akin to you know a quirky uncle and speaking of his quirkiness it was certainly on full display during this chapter as Odin blatantly refuses Whitebeard's refusal and attempts to force his way aboard the ship leading to Whitebeard's bargain that if Odin could hold on to the chain for three days then he would allow him to join his crew and this moment was also commonly gold because Odin emerged proudly exclaiming that I knew you would try this Whitebeard followed immediately by Iso emerging and yelling I knew you would try this Odin which had me laughing probably a lot more than it should have and actually just briefly speaking of Iso he and Whitebeard are off to a bit of a turbulent start with Iso claiming that he would never forgive the pirate captain for what he put Odin through. Of course we all know that that's going to change quite significantly although I am curious about how exactly that's going to play out because at some stage Iso's loyalty is going to need to switch from Odin and the Kozuki clan to the Whitebeard Pirates. He is going to become a son of Whitebeard and it wouldn't surprise me if when this occurred we actually got a mirror of the scene where Whitebeard invites Odin aboard as little brother and in this case he refers to Iso as a son. Weirdly enough though Iso actually reminds me a lot of Ace at this point traveling aboard the Moby Dick hovering such animosity for Whitebeard although I guess I suppose at least Iso isn't actively trying to kill him for now but it's that same sort of situation and I do wonder what that moment of epiphany is going to be like how Marco's discussion with Ace is what changed his outlook it's going to be interesting for sure but back to the chain gambit this sort of thing is just classic one piece the idea of some impossible task being pulled off by a person whose sheer willpower cannot be broken by anything and watching Odin endure it was a visual feast seeing him get dragged for days on end through water giant aquatic life and smashing into what looks like icebergs he's such a legendary yet somehow believable feat for a man like Odin to be pulling off although the greatest part of the entire sequence is definitely that one panel of Odin holding on to the chain fast asleep this whole scene was just brutal beautiful and hilarious all at once which is a great little microcosm of what one piece is and all of those ideas are very much consolidated in that moment where Odin emerges from a sea to save Toki and everyone thinks that he is an Umi Bozu and what legitimately made me laugh out loud was the close-up of Odin's face when he's asking Toki if she's safe and what looks like to be as serious a voice as he can muster but his bloated waterfield face is just such a wonderful comic contrast and now that we've mentioned her I have to say that after what seems like an awfully long wait we are finally able to properly introduce Lady Toki whose name is actually Amatsuki Toki and that is a very interesting development because how Amatsuki is spelt in kanji actually contains the character for moon just as the Kozuki name does and also Toki's kimono is also plastered in moons so the connection here is it's fairly obvious I mean at this stage I would not go so far as to say that Toki herself is necessarily from Wano but perhaps her parents or grandparents or some sort of relative was and that's why she's so keen to visit the nation of course this would have been a Wano from 800 years ago which is a very very important number actually because that would plonk Toki's point of origin as smack bang in the void century which is supposed to have taken place eight to nine hundred years prior to the current timeline so all of a sudden things have gone from extremely interesting to the idea that we're going to receive potentially well-changing information in this flashback because barring any crazy theories about him or the Gorase being immortal Toki is the first character we've actually met who has firsthand experience of the void century and there is no way that a character like that is going to be included here and not provide us with some tasty tasty information in fact it's entirely possible that Toki being from this time understands the will of D as well as the ancient kingdom which is yet another intriguing idea because of course Odin and Roger are destined to be on a path of collision so if Toki is present and he is of a man named Goldy Roger and she could provide some casual insight that could even shock Roger himself thus leading to a situation where she Odin, Nekomoshi, and Inorashi join the Roger pirates now I have to say that the other less fun thing about Toki is how expectedly disappointing her design is it's the complete opposite of Odin where Odin presented this grand figure who could never be mistaken for anybody else and in contrast to him we have Toki who looks like every woman in one piece ever she's classically beautiful and has the same stock standard body type and really if we did not know that this was Toki or if we weren't aware of her incredible time related devil through powers then her introduction probably would have been the low point of the chapter and just wish that Odin had the balls to really diversify his female designs in the same way that he does with his male ones he definitely has the talent to do so probably more talent than any other mangaka in the industry he just chooses not to push the boundaries when it comes to female designs which is a shame but like I said this was not entirely unexpected and of course this is just my opinion I'm sure that there are a ton of people out there who are going to be completely satisfied with Toki's design and are going to post mildly aggressive comments about how I'm not a true fan although I should just draw my own manga but whatever look it's a valid criticism and one of the greatest flaws of an otherwise near perfect manga series but while we're on this the most obvious resemblance Toki has is to her daughter Hiyori these two are identical but the reason why I don't bring that into the realm of criticism is because I'm hoping against hope that this is on purpose and that in the future there is going to be some sort of revelation that Komorasaki slash Hiyori was Toki all along and the real Hiyori is someone like Toko although it actually can't be Toko because Hiyori and Kalamatsu were separated when Hiyori was 13 so Toko is far too young but you get the idea that that's sort of a timey-wimey thing and it's entirely possible for this to be the case actually more so the most of my time travel ideas because it just requires Toki to fake her death which you know being trapped in a burning castle is a good start to that and then to travel forward in time find Dendro the most mysterious of the retainers and take on the identity of Komorasaki however the issue does come up with the whole idea of why Toki would bother to pretend to be Hiyori in the first place but at the same time it also makes the whole Hiyori not wanting to see Momonosuke think a lot more reasonable because he would surely recognize her as his mother in fact come to think of it Hiyori hasn't met any of the time traveler retainers yet either the only one she's spoken to is Kalamatsu and he having lived the last 20 years would certainly not have as fresh of a memory of Toki as the others would so you know perhaps there is method to the madness of keeping Hiyori away from the allied forces and yeah there are options here and I'm really hoping that an idea like this is going to play into the Toki character but at the same time one piece isn't exactly a stranger to daughters looking exactly like their mothers so meh. Moving to the final page of the chapter now and it's time to talk about Roger this was an incredible ending to a chapter because young Roger is quite a fine sight and he just looks so much like Ace at this point in time I mean if you got rid of the moustache that is but it's bizarrely nostalgic and I don't know if this is just me but Roger looks so full of life compared to pretty much any other time we've ever seen him and I guess this might be because we almost always see him at the end of his life you know being executed or behind bars or his final chat with whitebeard but this bright young future pirate king really is a sight to behold for me as is very young shanks and very young buggy they look simply adorable and you know what if there was one thing this flashback was missing up until this point it was an injection of buggy it's pretty crazy to think that they were not only sailing with Roger at such a young age but also sailing in the new world I mean shanks isn't that old actually I think he's 39 post timeskip which actually means that he was born when Odin fought Ashura Doji and went on to cling curry so that actually makes shanks nine years old at this very point in time so what the hell is a child like this doing in the new world buggy as well he's the same major shanks I think which would make him nine as well so I really can't wait to discover what circumstances brought them aboard the aura Jackson and while this clearly isn't shanks as part of the story to shine it is entirely possible that we may get an answer or at least a hint of an answer here but to conclude this was a brilliant chapter of manga it was the tensions easing from beginning to end and evoked a profound sense of one piece that I don't think I've truly felt in the post timeskip era also I didn't even mention Marco's words of there being something like 10 to 20 million islands in the world which is absurd and he may be exaggerating but hey there it is it's entirely possible somehow all in all though it was a lot of pure concentrated adventure content and a lot of fun it really was like stepping into the early days of the series where Oda crafted shorter arcs and made swift moving but highly potent chapters that tell their story gloriously and don't outstay their welcome I think that this flashback really is on an upward trajectory and who knows how high it will reach it still feels like we have so so much left to explore before moving back to current events and I for one cannot wait although I guess I will have to wait because there is a break next week but you know if there had to be a break then I think that this was a good lasting impression to go out on but that pretty much does it for chapter 964 if you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the ground line a few patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible and if you'd like to see more videos like this but applied to other anime manga series then please do check out my second channel New World Review 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 shenanigan retakes 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