 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything one piece and today we have a review of chapter 980 Fighting Music. And this is a kind of bizarre situation for me because I very, very recently wrote a video claiming that more people might, you know, like Scratchmanapu once we got to know and see a bit more from him. That video is coming out later this week, but that moment may very well be upon us because the definite highlight of this chapter for me was watching another of the worst generation leap into combat and quite frankly completely wreck face in regards to Zoro and Luffy. I mean it's always great to see Apu in action because his ability is just so unique from every perspective one can imagine and even seeing him activated on page is a kind of surreal experience just watching him, you know, play with himself. What's interesting though is that there appears to be a much greater degree of depth to his attacks than the morsels we've seen thus far would initially suggest. Like in the initial panels of his action he's doing the same sort of stuff we've already seen before, you know, playing his piano teeth, hitting his head like a symbol and then beating his chest like a drum. That's the same sort of combination we saw him use against Admiral Kizaru on Sabati, only there was one key difference. Right at the end in this chapter, Apu turned his forearm into a string instrument, probably a guitar, I guess, considering his modern musical tastes and the impact that this attack had on Luffy was much more precise. Still a blunt foreshort but very precise as opposed to the bigger explosion attack that happened in regards to Kizaru. Although Apu did use that explosion attack later on against Luffy, but it's interesting to think about the potential, and I hesitate to use this word, but logic happening here? Like what instruments build up which part of an attack? And I guess I should also say that in Kizaru's case, Apu also played his arm like a saxophone, so there is another key difference at play there. The more interesting thing though is what happened immediately afterwards because with one hit of Apu's head, he was able to conjure some sort of slash attack against Zoro, one that was completely unseen no less. And just like that, the top two members of the straw hats are effectively down and forced to retreat, which is, look, it's not the greatest of starts to the invasion of Onigashima, but what's worse than that is that, and I've already seen several comments floating around like this, the internet is very much highly in danger of overestimating Apu and taking this singular encounter as a definite set in stone piece of power scaling. And there's a lot of people that are kind of upset that Oda so easily dismissed both Luffy and Zoro and I would urge you, please do not be like that. I will admit that I myself was incredibly surprised in regards to this conflict, but at the same time the answer is likely going to be fairly simple. It's like pretty much everything else in the series. There will be a trick or a tell to Apu's abilities, and it's all a matter of discovering what that is, which hopefully maybe a certain useless kid may be able to enlighten us about. But really, it's like every other time we've encountered a situation like this, and the standard to go back to would be Luffy vs Crocodile. Not understanding Crocodile's powers made him seem like a godlike entity on a completely different tier. Apu's ability is unexpected and something that the crew have not even come close to encountering, so of course he is going to take the only advantage in battle. But I guarantee you that will not be the case when the mental playing field evens out. So don't go mad with power scaling, it's just a waste of time. And I think we do get a glimpse of things evening out at the end of the chapter with the encounter with Kid. I mean I say encounter more like slaughter. Kid, who somehow managed to be the most stealthy of this bunch, did manage to take advantage of the element of surprise to get in what looks like quite a good hit on Apu. Although it could go either way really because we don't see his face after impact. So I could see the next chapter starting out with Apu being more or less knocked out, or even the exact opposite with him being perfectly fine, with some sort of musical defense. But this does potentially highlight the greatest flaw in Apu's powers, being that they don't look incredibly versatile. Like I cannot imagine Luffy or Zoro being so unable to react to Kid's attack here, whereas Apu may be more like a Trafalgar-Lostyle existence where he needs to achieve certain conditions. So in Law's case that would be trapping his opponent in a room, and for Apu he may very well need to undergo a targeting process, and of course play his various styles of music, which really doesn't lend itself to improvised combat, unless he becomes a jazz musician I guess. But I'm actually really keen to see how Apu holds up in a proper fight, because my impression at the moment is that he is not very well suited for the more one-on-one combative situations, and instead he is much better placed as a guerrilla combatant that can pop in and out at opportune times. While we're here though I do want to briefly talk about Kid some more because he has quite the murderous look on his face at the end of this chapter, which yes I did very much enjoy, and I think it would be a fun exercise to compare this look of sheer anger to that of a similar look of sheer anger in Luffy's eyes at the end of the previous chapter. Both of them are super serious faces, but I really enjoy how Oda is capable of portraying subtle emotional changes through imagery alone. So for example in Kid's case he exudes an immense aura of selfishness, like he himself was personally wronged which is true, but in Luffy's panel his anger is much more selfless, almost as if he is a surrogate vessel for someone else's emotion. But the rage is undeniably there as shown in the beginning of this chapter, where he straight up destroys those guys with an elephant gun, which you know I think might have been a little bit of overkill. I was expecting more of a straight up punch to the face, you know, St. Charles style. But Luffy went full on no mercy against these poor poor saps, gear third punch coated with haki. And you know if this wasn't one piece I would say that those guys are probably well and truly dead, but that is not the case. They've probably just been comically flattened like many loony tunes. Although this does lead to a fantastic moment in the chapter where Zoro arrives, accusing Luffy of causing a fuss, but having done so himself in the process. The dynamic between these two is so perfect. Like I said a great length in my video entitled The Captain and the Swordsman, Luffy and Zoro are just on the same wavelength of life. Zoro is quite possibly the only straw hat who can relate to Luffy on this very basic, simple-minded level, which is shown again when Luffy explains his reasoning for elephant gunning down a pack of fools and Zoro becomes instantly enraged as well. Which was both terrifying and hilarious because of kids in a monologue over the top of the scene, because he just doesn't understand how one simple food can effectively trigger them like this. Also correct me if I'm wrong and this is the internet so I know you will. Did this chapter deliver the very first face fault that we have seen from used as kid? He made a proper comical shocked expression after Zoro emerged and it really struck me because I'm legitimately not sure if we've ever seen kid portrait in a purely comical context. I mean I love it because it's always fun to see heavy hitters like him become far more relatable and down to earth individuals and actually you can even see Killer in the background having the exact same reaction as his captain which is a very nice touch. I guess that confirms that though in terms of sheer outrage, Luffy and Zoro have no equals within the worst generation. I think that kid may have been our only chance of having a character who sees their madness and just jumps on board with it. Well actually I suppose that Blackbeard still remains so there's a chance there. I do like how the end of this chapter is set up with the potential proper alliance between Luffy, Zoro, Kid and Killer though. That is a fearsome foursome of worst generation members but really I know that this was entirely expected but it is amazing just how quickly this entire plan was ruined and the chaos has begun. And even now there is an overwhelming sense of how do we make it through this? It's a powerful team up here but pretty much the entirety of the Beast Pirates will now have their sights set directly on them. Which in one way is great because it creates a nice distraction for the rest of the forces to act but given that these four are our key figures in this battle or some of them anyway theoretically it's probably not so great to have so much damage inflicted on them at this stage. And actually you know what this was something I was speaking to Ohara and Mr. Mojbout on the Wano Report last week but it's still kind of hard to believe that what we're seeing right now is the final conflict at play. I know that we're on Ono and Kashima and everything but this still feels like more of a mid arc skirmish than a final climactic conclusion given that there is still so much brewing in the background. And with that I'm referring to stuff like Yamato and Drake and everything else there is a lot to solve and it feels kind of like Oda is knocking down the sand castle before he's finished building it which is fine I'm not opposed to that at all. I'm just very curious to see how it all plays out. And one other thing before I move on I could not be more thrilled that Luffy and Zoro ditched their Beast Pirate outfits during this chapter. I think that I very clearly expressed my disappointment when they received them courtesy of Mr. Kinamon a couple of chapters ago because I really liked Luffy's outfit in particular because with the cloak he looks like a proper captain and it's glorious. And Zoro's staple outfit has become one of my favorite costume designs in one piece so yeah very excited that they've gotten rid of the whole S&M vibe and are now kicking into some more comfortable action. I will say now though that quite possibly the most intriguing thing to happen in this chapter came in the form of Queen who was overseeing all of the chaos happening but he made a very bold announcement that today they were going to be removing a member of the Tobirapo which is pretty well and kind of out of nowhere. And obviously now we need to ask ourselves who he is referring to and the obvious answer would likely be Drake. And this is simply because we know he is a member of Sword and if that information were to be discovered by the Beast Pirates then he becomes a very natural target. But at the same time that does feel like it may be a bit too obvious and not really in keeping with Oda's surprise narrative methodology. If I had to guess right here and now I would say that Queen is either referring to Husu or Sasaki because they are the only other two who have really had any special focus. All tea in page one seem like very minor concerns plus they do come as a team so taking one out makes for a little sense. And who else does that leave Black Maria? Who we know exactly nothing about so I don't think we're heading in that direction either. So if it isn't the obvious candidate in Dears Drake then it surely has to be Sasaki or Husu. And speaking of the latter there has been a lot of talk regarding the tattoo on the chest of Husu and the similarity with the symbol covering the face of Bahwang. The squirrel smile girl who was introduced in the last chapter. Basically they both have very similar looking eyes and I really didn't care to speculate on that too much because sometimes elements like this are just very coincidental especially if you only see them two times. And far too much mental energy can be wasted on trying to form a connection. However in this chapter we have a third appearance of the symbol on a member of the Beast Pirates which we see in this panel. So now and only now am I willing to accept that something bigger and actually planned is happening here. Now that there are three examples of what looked to be the exact same or at least a similar eye I would find it very very hard to believe that Oda just slapped that tattoo onto Husu as a purely aesthetic design element. And I suppose the natural speculation would be that the members of the Beast Pirates with this eye maybe former members of the pirate crew led by Husu because they did mention that he was a former captain in the last chapter. You know maybe he had this bizarre face hiding cult kind of crew? And those elements were kept when they were all incorporated into Kaido's crew. It's a very cool little background touch though and I think it's definitely going to make me pay just that much more extra attention to every crowd panel in coming chapters. Just to see if there are any other subtle characters in play bearing that same symbol. Also just going back to this panel of Queen how great is it to have a flat black background which is very difficult to say quickly flat black background flat black background. You try it it's fun. But anyway it makes Queen look infinitely more ominous and I think it's fun because in a lot of these kind of serious statement moments Oda will elect to use a flat white background the purpose of which would be to ensure that all focus is pulled onto the character but in this case it's more like Queen is inhabiting the realm of the dark statement that he is currently making. So it certainly did strike me that's for sure as did most of the chapter because it's been a while since we've had a decent action piece between major characters so overall it was very highly enjoyable. And that pretty much does it for chapter 980. But what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my discord server. 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