 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today, we have a manga review of chapter 921, Shoot and Maru. And holy hell, we have an incredible chapter on our hands this week. I don't think I've been this energized reading a chapter since the events of the reverie, which weren't all that long ago really, but what we got here was absolutely not what I expected so early on in the arc. And I don't think there's any way around it, I need to just jump straight to the end because Dragon Kaido has been officially confirmed. And I just… I don't even. This is beyond my wildest imagination. I mean, I never expected Oda to go full Shenron on us. His design is nothing short of breathtaking in a very terrifying sort of way. It reminds me a lot of the first time we saw Big Mom in one of her full on hunger tantrums. Just that feeling of overwhelming power and utter despair for our chances of actually overcoming it. Like there is 100% no way that Luffy is going to be able to take this thing down. Not in a conventional fight anyway. And honestly this two page spread of Kaido makes Big Mom look like nothing in comparison. And that is not an easy thing to do because when she was in full swing it made me feel like she was the most powerful being in the world. Now in comes this big dude bra and she just feels… irrelevant sort of. So it's really easy to see why figures like Hawkins have had to submit to Kaido so easily now. Speaking of big, a couple of people have pointed this out by now, but there's a handy way to comprehend just how massive Kaido is in his dragon form by comparing his spiky wristbands. They aren't exactly small on base level Kaido who was already a hulking beast, so this dragon form is just absolutely absurd. Speaking of this whole dragon business is starting to put a few more pieces of the puzzle together. I'm now pretty much 100% convinced that Kaido was being experimented on in some way on Punk Hazard, and Vegapunk's artificial devil fruit which was eaten by Momonosuke was an attempt to replicate Kaido's Zoan, which surely has to be a mythical Not only that, but it looks to be more than likely the strongest Zoan type we've ever seen. Actually that might not be an accurate statement. It may just seem that way because Kaido himself is so incredibly powerful, but you know what, we are looking for that final devil fruit for Blackbeard to absorb. He has the most evil low gear, the strongest Paramecia. At the moment this particular Zoan is fitting that very desirable criteria. But what all of this does bring up is the age old question of exactly what is Kaido? Prior to this chapter the leading idea was that he was some sort of creature who had eaten a mythical devil fruit based on an ogre, and that was what resulted in his humanoid appearance. But now things are completely up in the air again. My best guess at this point is that Kaido is some form of life created on Punk Hazard, like an experiment by Dr. Vegapunk that was intended to create a super powerful being for the world government to use, and one that went very very wrong. All in all I can't stop looking at this final two page spread because it really doesn't feel like one piece, and I mean that in the best possible way, because it's a nice shock that the series really needs to continue escalating after a good two decades of publication, and I could not be more hyped for the rest of Wano than I am right now. With that in mind let's move on to the namesake of the chapter. We have Shutenmaru introduced, and with that I need to correct a mistake I made a couple of chapters ago when I assumed that lore was using Shutenmaru as an alias. And look these are just the dangers of reading early scan lations, as the one I read seemed to heavily imply that lore was the thief we'd heard about, but in the official translation it was made pretty clear that this was not the case. But for now that matters not because we have a very interesting character on our hands here. His initial design is very classically odor off-putting, I mean it's a fat dude riding a bull, although I actually really like the design of the bull, and it's a bit weird because the whole introduction panel of Shutenmaru seems almost structured to make the bull out to be the focal point, which is great because it really underplays Shutenmaru and helps reduce our expectations for the character so that when he does eventually slice Jack, well let's put it this way. That look of shock on Jack's face was the exact same look I had on my face when I saw that panel. And it's just crazy that this guy is going head to head with Jack, which actually makes him one of the strongest characters we've seen so far in the series. Also I should stop calling him this guys, if we have no idea who he really is. There is no doubt in my mind that Shutenmaru is actually Ashura Dolji, the guy that Odin defeated in the brief flashback we saw. The silhouette matches pretty much perfectly, so it would seem we're going to have to recruit him into the rebellion along with two other figures mentioned by Kinamon. Speaking of a fun little thing we learned in this chapter, apparently Kinamon is married to Suru, and this could not be more perfect, they are such a nice stereotypical Japanese artwork couple. Quite cute really, although it's a bit odd to think that Suru has aged 20 years, while Kinamon has remained the same. In any other circumstance that would make Suru a bit of a cougar really, unless of course Kinamon was already much older when they married, in which case maybe they're roughly the same age now, because yay time travel. But moving on to something slightly more relevant, this week we also got confirmation that Onigashima is indeed a different island, not too far from Wano though, kind of like a satellite island really. So when we do get around to implementing the plan, hopefully it won't feel like going to any lobby from water 7, it should still ideally feel like the Wano arc, although depending on how long we're there, Onigashima may end up being considered an arc of its own. In any case I feel like we have an awfully long way to go before we get there, so my speculation on this matter is kind of pointless. Another point of interest this week is that the rest of the Sanji retrieval team now have their Wano disguises, my favorite of which is definitely Brooke. I mean, how do you disguise a skeleton really? Well, I guess a Japanese ghost works pretty well, yeah. I also really love Chopper's outfit, he looks far too adorable as a ninja, and you can tell from the absolutely elated expression on his face that he's just loving life at the moment. Sanji I'm much less keen on because of the short sleeves, I've just never really been a fan of that sort of style when it comes to traditional Japanese clothing, but it makes sense because he's a chef and would need some degree of exposed arms in order to work efficiently. It's also the patterning as well though, the vertical stripes just don't quite cut it for me. Carrots you cut on the other hand, sports a much more appealing design, and just on Carrot, in the outfit reveal panel she really does look like a legitimate straw hat. She fits in with this crazy crew quite well, so the Carrot-Fanakama train is slowly, very slowly I might add, gaining momentum for me. Finally we have Nami and it's pretty much what I expected, the outfit itself is quite cool and well designed, there's just not quite enough of it. And I get it, yeah, one of Nami's roles in the series is to be overtly sexualized in order to appeal to teenage boys, but surely we can give her a shred of dignity whilst doing so. I call it really needs us for the lower portion of the outfit to cover just a bit more than the bare minimum and then I'd be thrilled. As it is the attempt to hypersexualize her is a bit immersion breaking for me at least, which is a shame because this isn't otherwise incredibly amazing chapter. And I'm not saying don't make Nami look hot, it can just be done more tastefully, like in the color spread this week actually. We have various female characters modeling what I'm assuming are outfits that have either been showcased or will be showcased as part of the Tokyo Girls Collection, which is a fashion festival in Japan. In particular I think Boa Hancock looks fantastic and is a perfect example of what I was talking about with Nami's outfit in the chapter. Boa's dress covers just that tiny bit more but it makes the entire world of difference, simultaneously leaving a lot more for the imagination to work with and maintaining a level of dignity that the character just plainly deserves. Plus Boa looks like a complete boss sporting that attitude, I love it, I love it a lot. Something else I really enjoy is that Big Mom was included in the spread which was a surprise, but as one of the most important female characters in the series I'm glad she was here and the dress she's wearing is quite cool actually. The only outfit I'm not 100% sold on is Robbins. The color and the patterning of the shirt are just kind of murder me. Oh and also Toshiki who's wearing those same sort of vertical stripes that I really didn't like on Sanji, I also don't like them on her. Or anybody, vertical stripes are evil. And finally I just want to touch on the cover of Weekly Shonen Jump. I don't usually talk about the cover even when it's one piece related, but this week it was just too cool to ignore. It's a shot of Luffy and Zoro crossing their Kitetsu blades with Kaido ominously in the background. The swords look particularly amazing. I love any time Oda gets a chance to show off his coloring skills on something metal because it is a masterclass of how to portray light, which can be seen particularly wonderfully in the sword guards. Also Zoro's on the cover so it's pretty much mandatory for me to love this cover. I don't buy Jump all that often, but this is one I'm actually considering picking up and adding to my small collection. But that pretty much does it for chapter 921. If you enjoyed this video then feel free to like, favorite or subscribe. And if you are in any way inclined to help support 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. 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.