 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today, to cap off the year, we have a manga review of chapter 929, Orochi Kurozumi, Wano Country Shogun. And well, why not? Let's start with the titular character himself. After a decent level of teasing, the shogun of Wano Orochi has finally been revealed, and well, I'm not going to lie, it is incredibly disappointing. I think I've said this a couple of times during past reviews, but one of my biggest hopes in life was that Orochi was not going to turn out to be a spandem-like character, and we've taken one step closer to that unfortunate reality with this chapter. He seems like an unfortunately two-dimensional villain concerned only with power. In fact, the panel of the whole party reminds me of when we saw Blackbeard recently on his island. Both of these guys are attempting to gain power and build their own respective paradise, and both are ugly as hell. But you know what, in honor of the pretty fantastic character that is Blackbeard, I'm going to reserve judgment on Orochi for just a little bit longer, because he does also show a bit of potential in regards to whatever fruit he may possess. Which, by the way, we did get another hint of in this chapter when he partially transformed into three dragon heads, which surely has to narrow down the type of devil fruit he has here. Either it's a mythical hydra smile fruit, because they seem to only affect certain portions, or it's a logear, because the panel of him transforming just looks a hell of a lot like a standard logear user invoking their element into whatever shape they desire. Plus, Owen users aren't generally capable of controlling a transformation to that degree, although there are some rare cases such as Marko who mastered their zone fruit to the extent that they could choose to manipulate select portions of their body. But the question that then comes up would be, is Orochi that boss of a devil fruit user? And I'm inclined to say no, at least at the moment. He just doesn't really project any sort of strength whatsoever to me. Actually, you know what he seems like? This is like what would happen if Karabo became Shogun of Wano and started using his swamp logear to make dragon heads. That's exactly what's happening here just with a different element. So yes, I am disappointed with the design, which makes him look very much like Wario, but like with everything in the series, we do need to give it a chance because Oda is capable of pulling off miracles with these spiky choices. And just going off on a tangent for a second, something I really, really did like, was the two-page spread of Orochi's gathering specifically when the shop pans out from the flower capital and just shows more and more of the desolate Wano landscape immediately after Orochi has said not to confuse Wano with heaven. It's really simple but super effective juxtaposition. There's also another subtle thing when the chefs are offering food to Orochi and he's just all like refusing it and ordering it to be thrown away. And first, I thought this was just gonna be one of his weird character quirks, but actually when you think about the greatest situation of Wano with the sheer amount of citizen starving, it actually serves to make Orochi into a quite repugnant villain. Like this is a dude very potentially on a Saint Charles scale of dickery, which means that we can probably look forward to a nice satisfying punch at some stage. And also just still on that little party page, there is a panel of Kyoushiro, and good god does he look sinister. I would be shocked if he was not currently plotting to kill Orochi and become the Shogun of Wano himself. He just says that vibe about him. And you know what, he actually does have a connection with Komorosaki. So if there are underhanded tactics at play here, then perhaps she is in on them as well. And just a quick side note, I legitimately confused Komorosaki with Robin during this part of the chapter. It's just really weird because we see a small panel of Geisha Robin and then right below it is a bigger panel of Komorosaki. And because Oda draws women in essentially the same way, they just, yeah, I actually had to read the words Komorosaki before I realized it was her and not Robin. They just look far too similar, at least on that page for sure. Moving elsewhere in the land of Samurai, there was a nice little comedic section this week with Frankie running about and chasing up the blueprints for Kaido's estate. I feel like a lot of people are going to say that it was unnecessary and even a waste of pages, but I quite enjoyed it. And it was a nice running gag, seeing the reasons these random people gave for parting with the plans. And I actually feel like this segment is going to do quite well in the anime. For all of its faults, the anime generally handles comedic moments like this very, very well. So hooray for that. And when more comic gold was acquired from Kanjuro as well. I loved his masquerade as a fishmonger selling those absolutely absurdly drawn fish. And I mean, I just tend to love any time that Kanjuro draws anything. His art is so bad that it's just so good. And at the end of this arc, I really hope that he opens a gallery or something because his work deserves to be seen by the world. Moving along, there was a Zoro update in my thoughts on that, uh, okay, cool. We got introduced to another super wacky character named Yasu, who I feel like would have stood out as particularly weird in most other chapters. But there were a lot of secondary weirdos this week as well as Orochi himself. So Yasu really does become a bit of an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. Although he did have one great line where he said to Zoro, I couldn't go wrong if I followed you. And once again, he said that to Zoro. Oh, and something I probably skipped over far too lightly. Just going back to Orochi for a second. How about that CP0, huh? That was incredibly unexpected, at least to me. It's very interesting seeing that the world government is trying to deal with a nation under the control of a Yonko, although it is a bit difficult to see what their endgame is. I mean, it might be as simple as profit through trade, given the exceptional talents and materials available on the land of Samurai. What's even more interesting though is the fact that Orochi, a man who has presumably lived his entire life in a closed nation, seems to be well aware of the existence of Dr. Vega-Punk. Another name I didn't expect to see drop during this arc, let alone this chapter. But then again, it may make an awful lot of sense given Kaido's potential past and relation to punk hazard, which was a one-time laboratory of Vega-Punk. If the whole Kaido is a world government experiment gone, wrong theory turns out to be in any way accurate, then yeah, it makes sense that Orochi would know about him, because he would have heard it from Kaido himself, presumably. And I imagine that Orochi wants Vega-Punk to craft weapons for him so that he can secure more power and blah blah blah, typical villain stuff. And you know that's cool, but at the same time, dinosaurs. This year ended with a long awaited look at a certain deer's drake in his hybrid form, as well as dashing the hopes of everyone who thought he was a T-Rex, myself included. Because the name of his devil fruit is revealed, and it is the dragon dragon fruit, Model Allosaurus, aka the Mini T-Rex. I'm not entirely sure why it's denoted as a member of the dragon family, but here we are. Personally, I think Drake's hybrid form looks a lot like a Silurian from Doctor Who, just slightly more stacked in the upper body realm. And oh, he has a friend! And I am so so happy, because it looks like we have finally stumbled upon another pure Zoan user in the series, and not only that, but it is another ancient Zoan, same dragon dragon family actually, but Model Spinosaurus. And it's a bit tricky to see with the perspective of Drake in the foreground, but he is huge! Very, very cool, and I look forward to seeing both of them in action. And finally, I just wanted to touch on the color spread, because it's really cool as per usual. I mean, Luffy and Sanji in particular just look incredible, but just maybe pay some special attention to the legs of Nami and Robin, because I think we've just revealed that they are both members of the long leg tribe, because no regular humans could possibly have legs that are three times the length of their torso. Other than that, brilliant color spread. But that pretty much does it for chapter 929, as well as another whole year of One Piece. Getting to know one of has been a lot of fun, and I'm very much looking forward to kicking into proper gear next year. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces 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. Also, do check out my Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies and other miscellaneous items, with the proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. 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 ring takes place on a daily basis. And finally, please do comment with your own thoughts on the chapter. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next year.