 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Last week on the Arc Review, we spent some time, well, a lot of time, defeating Donkey Hote Doflamingo on the island of Dressrosa. And this week, we are off to visit the realm of the minks on the island of Zo. Zo is the 28th arc in the series, consisting of 23 manga chapters and 29 anime episodes. A downright, merciful amount coming directly from Dressrosa. And I don't just mean that in a joking way either. One of the main appeals of Zo to me is its length. For more specifically, the sheer amount it manages to achieve within such a short time. First up, we get to explore a new visually stunning location after having some fairly visually flat back to back arcs during punk hazard and Dressrosa. Zo was a feast for starved eyes. Especially in the anime where Toei made some uncharacteristic use of fantastic colour. But the setting of Zo really speaks for and becomes a character itself. And that's probably helped by the fact that the island is, in fact, a giant elephant. It was just such a cool idea and it paid off during the climax of the arc with Zunesha absolutely wrecking Jack, a character who we will speak more about right now. Jack acts as the main antagonist of the arc, but not in a traditional way. In fact, his part in the story is told almost entirely through a flashback involving a five day long battle against the mink tribe. And I love Jack as a villain. He's powerful, relentless, and has a legitimately terrifying presence, much like his Captain Kaido. It also helped that Jack was introduced with a bounty of one billion fairies. And I'll say that number once more, one billion fairies. Even if you don't put any stock in bounties, this number was absurdly high for the time, and you know it still is for today. And it really lets us know that we are about to tangle with some of the world's most powerful individuals. And you know, speaking of powerful individuals, we cannot ignore Inuarashi or Nekomamushi, the two figures who were able to fight on par with Jack. These guys were a very unexpected dose of amazingness into the story, with great designs and wonderfully over-the-top personalities. Although I have to say that despite being a dog person, I definitely prefer Nekomamushi's character design. I mean, he's just so big and fluffy. All in all, I find it absolutely ridiculous that I love these two characters as much as I do. Because we are over 800 chapters into the story at this point, and these two characters have no right to just stroll in out of nowhere and be as amazing as they are. And that also applies to the entire mink tribe in general, who were pretty fantastic. It was a huge boost to the depth of the one-piece world to have an entirely new race introduced. That explained intriguing mammalian characters such as Beppo and Pecoms, rather than just leaving them completely unexplained, like the random cat and dog people in Dragon Ball. Very importantly, Zou also saw the reunion of the Straw Hat crew, well, most of them. This half of the crew vanished halfway through Dressrosa, and they were sorely missed, at least for me. At the same time, this made me realize that I really do appreciate the idea of the crew being split up, because it allows for certain members to receive an increased level of focus that they would otherwise be unlikely to get if the entirety of the Straw Hats were present. But splitting them up also benefits the Straw Hats who take a break from the story, because when we get to see them again, they come back almost completely fresh. Every panel featuring Nami, Chopper, Brooke, and Sanji had me completely hooked, simply because they were there. And I was really keen to follow them all into a new arc. But with that said, I was also more than happy to enjoy my time during Zou, because it's such an unconventional arc for one piece in terms of structure. I think Zou is best described technically as a bridging arc connecting Dressrosa and Hulkic Island, kind of like how Jaya connected Alvaster and Skypeer, and usually those sorts of arcs, well, they're alright. But at times they can feel very much like a stepping stone in order to get to the real meat of the story, especially in Lesser Manga. But Zou very competently tells a compelling story of its own, with some very unexpected plot twists. The one I'm particularly referring to is the Rizo is safe moment, which is one of my favorite portions of the arc. Before this point, we as readers were led to believe that should the minks discover the samurai allies of the Straw Hats, all hell would break loose. However, in a classic Oda-esque fashion, this was flipped on its head entirely and resulted in a moment with a disgusting amount of emotional depth. Sadly, I can't quite say the same for Rizo himself though, because I've not been too keen on the designs of the citizens of Wano up until this point, and Rizo really puts me off. However, I do very much enjoy that there is a ninja with such a gigantic body. I mean, how can you possibly be stealthy, crazy Rizo? So he does have that nice bit of charm going for him. But that brings up the other wonderful aspect of Zou. Not only does it act as a bridging arc between Dressrosa and Hawkeic Island, but it was also a very strong seeding arc for Wano through the formation of the Ninja Pirate Minks Samurai Alliance, as well as the aforementioned events featuring Jack. In fact, it did such a good job of hyping me up for Wano that I was actually pretty disappointed, when we transitioned into Hawkeic Island. But hey, that is not the fault of Zou at all. Zou also dropped a bit of a bombshell on us in the form of the Road Poneglyphs. The existence of these items offer a direct connection to Raftel, and for the first time in the history of the series, it flagged that we might actually be getting pretty damn close to the goal of finding the One Piece. Or at the very least, it solved the mystery of how to get to Raftel and why no one else has managed the task up until now. Because, very cleverly, two of the Road Poneglyphs were in the hands of Yonko. Also rather cleverly, this gave the straw hats a personal reason to get involved in the conflicts against Big Mom and Kaido, rather than simply fighting for the sake of others as per usual. Something else that really surprised me during this arc was the presence of Capone. And what surprised me more is the fact that I actually quite liked him. Capone had traditionally been one of my least favorite members of the worst generation, but seeing him in action here very quickly changed my mind about his character. In a similar vein, Pecom's part to play in all of this was also quite a pleasant addition. I didn't really care too much for him after Fishman Island, but just like Capone, I warmed to him quite quickly on Zoo, especially while he was wounded and quite literally being carried around by Luffy. It added a lot of levity to this previously super serious lion, and it made him an enjoyable figure to follow during a highly enjoyable arc. And I mean, Zoo is just great. It's not an arc that holds most of the great moments of the series, and as a result, I believe that it will never really stick out in the minds of fans as one of the truly great arcs in the series. But I find it very difficult to criticize Zoo for, well, anything. The length was perfect, the location was intriguing, characters were amazing, the pacing was on point, the story revelations were highly impactful, the action in the flashbacks was beautifully drawn, and it was the break we needed between two massive arcs segueing seamlessly into the future of the series. And because of all of that, Zoo ended up on my top five best arcs in one piece list, and if I were to remake that list one day, I feel like its position would be pretty damn secure. But that pretty much does it for Zoo. Next week, we will be declaring war against one of the four emperors as we depart on another colossal adventure to Whole Cake Island. If you enjoyed this video, then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe. And if you aren't anyway keen on supporting this independent channel, then please do feel free to check out my Patreon, Discord server, or Twitter, the links to which are in the handy description below. Finally, please do comment with your thoughts on Zoo. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.