 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything one piece and today we have a review of chapter 955, Enma. And I have to say I'm pretty damn thrilled with this week's chapter, I think it was a very very solid way to end Act 2 of Wano, although I didn't quite have that dramatic umph of Act 1, but I'm primarily excited because of the implications for next week's chapter because I'm really hoping that we get another interlude and travel elsewhere in the world for a bit and you know, maybe experience some earth-shattering reveals like what happened with Blackbeard between Acts 1 and 2. But let's focus on this week for now because there is plenty to talk about, this chapter is incredibly packed, but given its title, let's talk about Enma first up. So in terms of the design of the sword and its scabbard, it doesn't strike me as anything particularly special. In fact, I think this is the most plain looking sword that Zora has ever wielded with the exception of the Wadoichi Monji. So it was slightly underwhelming to see it revealed with its sister blade the army Nohabakiri, but that feeling changed entirely as soon as it got into Zora's hands. The demonstration of Enma's power was pretty wild and the idea that it seems to forcibly invoke Armament Haki in the user is pretty cool to think about because one piece is generally a world of its own established science. There is very little quote-unquote magic or heavily unexplained phenomena, but one area in which we see that sort of thing quite commonly is through swords, be it a cursed blade or what we witnessed happened to Zora this week. So I have no idea how this occurred, perhaps it's an imbuement of Haki from the craftsman of the blade which we learned was a man named Shimotsuki Kozaburo. There's that word again, Shimotsuki. Because very recently I made a whole video on the idea of Zora's ancestry coming from Wano or at the very least Shimotsuki Village's inhabitants being the ones who came from there and this chapter goes absolutely berserk with giving us tantalizing details about that and as much as I'm not entirely convinced that Zora himself is a descendant of the samurai, Kuina 100% has to be and I would be shocked if she was not the granddaughter of Kozaburo and I just say that because the Wado was something of a family heirloom to her so I'm thinking perhaps Shimotsuki Kuina and Shimotsuki Koshiro and it's kind of weird because when we think about it Zora is now and actually was wielding a full arsenal of blades crafted by the citizens of Wano because we also have the revelation that the sandai Kitetsu was made directly by our good friend Mr. Dengu. So Zora's link to Wano is insanely strong right now and it's also starting to feel like almost every Meito grade blade in the world originates from Wano in some way. Miho Xioto would probably be the exception to that but I could see Whitebeard's Bicento having been crafted specifically for him by a Wano bladesmith. In any case there's lots of swords happening here. It's like a playground for Zoro so much so that there are many poor swords that don't seem to be getting any use like the Nide Kitetsu that was also in this week's chapter. I'm really curious to see what Otis plans for all of these blades are because surely someone at some stage needs to wield the full Kitetsu set. The last of which most likely belongs to this Gorusei dude bruh but really Zoro is getting major focus in this arc and the way this chapter ended he kind of felt like the main character or at least narratively equal to that of Luffy because we see them both training and preparing for the big battle with Zoro gaining a weapon of supreme relevance while Luffy seems to have developed his advanced arm and talky to a usable level. Feels a lot like Sanji's role during Holkake Island where he pretty much played the protagonist alongside Luffy and that has me quite excited for what's to come because you don't give a character this much focus and then waste that development. Zoro is going to get some kind of massive fight or moment and possibly play a much more pivotal role than he usually does in these kind of arcs which generally sees him taking down the second in command antagonist. That's enough about green hair and swords for now though but I must say this chapter quite surprisingly for how good it was didn't have a lot of huge things happening other than Enma and the conclusion of act two but where it really excelled was the plethora of tiny, tiny moments that have huge implications and one of these such moments is with Frankie where he says that he needs the ship sturdy enough to carry 100,000 people, you know, just in case. This came immediately after Kinemon established that their forces are roughly 4,000 strong and if this is not an obvious narrative drop that there is going to be another huge group joining the allied forces then I don't know what is like Frankie may as well have looked at the camera and address the audience directly when he said that we may need to carry 100,000 people and then afterwards he could have winked at the camera as well. And while 100,000 is well, I can't think of a singular force out there able to make up this number except for the Marines or actually the new fishermen pirates, I guess I should say the X new fishermen pirates. You know, let's not think about them ever again. I can however use some basic maths to find a group out there that when combined with the one our allies will make close to 10,000, let's just one zero away. And that of course is the Straw Hat Grand Fleet which boasts over 5,600 members. Although a natural question then would be why would you need the extra ships given that the Grand Fleet is already equipped enough on its own in terms of boatware and that might come back to the random thing that was stated in the last chapter about how there are two ways to enter Wano, the second of which being the Mogura Port, which according to the maps we were given lead directly to the land portion of Wano in the Hakamai territory. So if the Grand Fleet were to make their way through that port then they would theoretically be unable to sail directly to Onigashima and need to make their way to another port in order to do so, which in our case would be the Tokage or Habu Port which do not look far away from the Mogura Port at all. This is all of course insane speculation because how would the Grand Fleet even gain access or know that there's a port like that available for use? Well, let's talk about law, shall we? Quite possibly the most ominous part of this entire chapter was that singular panel we saw of law which was actually the very last thing we saw before the curtain closed on act two. And look, I don't wanna go too deeply into speculation but I've had the thought now so I may as well share it but law has been completely MIA for the Alliance for a while now and I think it's pretty likely that he has betrayed them at least superficially. A lot of days have passed now, a lot of chances for scheming and plotting. So you know, what if Lord did join Kaido's crew and what if he uses that connection to ferry the Grand Fleet through the Mogura Port? And he actually makes perfect sense to be their contact because the law was there when the Grand Fleet was formed, he knows all the main captains and most importantly, he's sensible enough to contact 5,600 willing-enable fighters to assist their cause. Which still, for no adequately explained reason has never been brought up by Luffy, Kinamon, Kanjiro, Momonosuke or any of the Straw Hats who are present at its formation. And this is something that's actually starting to bug me quite a bit because this is a sort of situation that the Grand Fleet exists for. And yet everyone's over at Wano being all like, damn, we only have roughly 4,000 people to go up against 30,000. If only we could find 5,640 people who would fight for us in an incident provided they knew about our plans. Wouldn't that be convenient? Of course, there is another option for gathering a large enough force to fill Frankie's just in case, which may be the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates. Neko Momoshi is still missing and that big kitty's got to be doing something. So even if Marco isn't inclined to join the fight, then perhaps the rest of Whitebeard's old crew and some of his ally captains will be because if they were all willing to fight for Ace, then why not Ace's brother? But in any case, things aren't going exactly to plan anyway because we have also been made aware during this chapter that Orochi is keyed into their plans, including the change of port. Now I should say that this could all be clever trickery as well. Like I don't think Kinemon or anyone else ever confirmed that they were going to use Yasu's change of plans. So leading Orochi to believe that they'll be departing from Tokage while they stick to the original Harbu port might be a nice idea. But still the fact that Orochi knows about this as well as the fact that Hyori is alive certainly adds evidence to the idea that there is a traitor amongst the Wano allies. Now the whole trait theory has been going on for years and years now and it originated when people were speculating about how Jack found Zou, not once but twice and that then led to the idea of the so-called traitor being a member of the mink tribe. And I feel like I know where fingers are going to point after this chapter. So there's a moderately popular idea out there that Carrot is in fact the traitor if there even is a traitor. And personally I find it a bit difficult to swallow just because of how everything went with her own Hokei Kailin, especially with her emotional Pedro moments. However, I cannot deny that there was a bit of an odd Carrot panel in this chapter. And it's when the group are looking at the graves of Yasu and Pedro. So you've got Toko crying over Yasu, Wander is crying for Pedro and Cecilion is infuriated by Pedro's death. And then there's Carrot just seemingly completely emotionless. Now yes, I think I am reading a bit too much into this one panel, but Carrot at least to me has never seemed like a calm and collected character. If she was thinking about Pedro I'd kind of expect her to have some sort of expression on her face, likely sadness, or perhaps some sort of profound drive because she doesn't need to be crying like Wander as she's had more time to digest Pedro's departure. But in this panel, she looks undeniably robotic as if she feels nothing at all. And it's a very interesting juxtaposition to the other three characters. So you know, maybe the Carrot for traitor idea has some legs after all. It would certainly be one hell of a twist if it were true. Now as for some more general thoughts on the chapter I enjoyed it a lot because of the sheer pace. Currently Wander was going on for something like 56 chapters and for every arc that isn't Dress Rosa or Hokei Kailin, that is an incredibly long time and yes, it has felt like it. The pacing of Wano has been very slow which is not a bad thing. I think we've really needed to take our time establishing this island and its characters. I mean, there may have been a few segments that have lingered on a bit too long here and there like the whole prisoner mine stuff. But in the last two weeks Oda has really hit the fast forward button in an effort to bring us to the good stuff. The odd thing is while it would seem like we're jumping into the action-based conclusion it really does not feel that way to me. Like comparing Wano with Hokei Kailin it was around this time that the wedding crash began and that explosive conclusion made a lot of sense because by then we understood all of the major players their allegiances and the mission that we had to complete. And that sort of clear placement of people and allegiances has not yet happened on Wano. There are still a lot of question marks in the air regarding characters like Neko Mamushi, Drake, Kiyoshiro and even Law now. And we still know incredibly little about the history of Wano and its figures. It just doesn't feel like this arc is ready for an action-packed conclusion, not yet. The way that crashing the wedding did on Hokei Kailin or even the invasion of the palace on Dress Rosa. If anything, it seems like we're still very much in the midst of complications. Nothing's ready to be resolved because we don't even know what all of our problems are. So unless Oda is really amping up the pace to try and get us through the story I think we're still in for quite a long slog. And remember that act three isn't necessarily the final act of Wano. The three act structure is what has become the norm for modern stories but many Japanese narratives followed a four act structure being Kisho Tinketsu meaning introduction, development, twist and conclusion. And I bring this up because at this stage I just don't see the third act being the last. The story just isn't ready for that kind of resolution. I also wouldn't rule out the idea of a five act structure either although the last two acts would likely be much shorter than the middle two. Like, you know, we're not about to go through another 30 chapters for each of those acts although we definitely will for act three if not more perhaps. In any case, I'm still loving Wano and this chapter has filled me with even more excitement than the news of Big Mom and Kaido making an alliance because of the progression we're making and the promise of what's to come. And finally, I just wanted to touch on the cover story because how can I ignore this? It looks like Beige is about to land at Dressrosa. Now I'm pretty sure I actually said this a couple of weeks ago the potential of him exploring locations that we've already been to and I may have even mentioned Dressrosa specifically. So I don't think that Beige's story takes place concurrently with the Wano timeline. I think this is what Beige did immediately after leaving Totland while the crew were sailing to Wano which is why last week Beige was halted at the red line by the reverie still taking place. It's interesting though because this would signal that we won't run into a lot of characters that we're terribly familiar with because King Riku, Viola, Kuros, Rebecca, Leo and Manshari should all currently be at the reverie. So whether the miscellaneous members of the Tontata tribe I'm not exactly sure who Beige might run into here but it's an interesting development and it certainly has my attention. I'm pretty captivated by this cover story actually which really is all you can ask of them. But that pretty much does it for chapter 955 as well as act two of Wano. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review 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 and 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 shenanigans takes place on a daily basis. And finally, please do comment with your thoughts on the chapter. This has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.