 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. Today we have a review of chapter 940, The Spark of Rebellion. And look, I'll be pretty honest with the get-go from this one. I think I'm in a bit of a slump with One Piece Manga over the past month and a bit, which is not to say that these chapters have been bad, not at all. We're just in that awkward middle period of an arc where it feels like it's taking forever to get to anything. We've gone through this before with Okay, Kyle, Interest, Rosa, Pancasa, the list goes on. And this chapter continues that tradition quite strongly. And if I was to identify why, I'd say it was because half of the chapter focuses on an arc exclusive character who up until this point was fairly minor. And the other half focuses on progressing stuff we already know in the prisoner mine with very little new information provided. Once again, this isn't bad at all. It's just the nature of reading such a mammoth story on a weekly basis. In fact, I really liked the Yasu stuff this week. He's gone from somebody who I thought would have very minimal impact on the story to quite possibly one of the most intriguing characters introduced thus far. And a lot of that spawns from the fact that neither Kandra or Shinobu knows who he is. As a result, Yasu has this newfound air of mystery about him. And I have a profound desire to see more of him and discover his secrets. I'm also beginning to get an incredibly tragic vibe from Yasu because it would be a very odour thing to do to juxtapose his smiling and seemingly joyous attitude with something so incredibly terrible that it informs why he behaves this way. What I'm thinking of is something along the lines of Jagwadi's soul's fate and how he laughed through it and taught Robin to do the same. So then when you see shots of the two of them laughing it's even more tragic than if they'd simply been crying. So as of right now, I'm very much mentally preparing myself to be completely emotionally wrecked by either Yasu's past or whatever the future has in store for him. And I'll give this segment another piece of credit as well because I think this is the first time that I have felt legitimate sympathy for the citizens of Wano. I mean, they've been through some pretty horrific things but just like I mentioned above, juxtaposing that with laughter and smiles makes it all hit home so much harder. Like seeing all of those people, most of whom are likely to die imminently. Being taken care of essentially by the medicine of laughter is heartbreaking. It's like Yasu is a doctor attending to their wills and spirits as their bodies fail them. We did also learn that Toko is his daughter which, you know, explains a lot about her. But when everything is said and done, it's looking a lot less like Yasu was going to turn out to be Dendro, the third of the missing Scabbards we're looking for. And if anything, I'm starting to feel like his role may be even more important than being one of the Scabbards. And hey, look, I might be going overboard here but I could see a situation in which the entirety of the Wano arc rests on his shoulders at some point. Like at some desperate point during the final showdown when all hope has turned to despair, he'll pop up with his usual smiley persona and inspire everyone to keep going and turn the tide somehow. And maybe that could even be his tragic ending like he decides to take on Kaido alone, gets killed and causes a massive emotional response from everyone else shifting momentum to the good guys. Or maybe not, who knows? I just think that with this chapter, Yasu is being seeded to have a very important action coming up in the future. And speaking of that thing, the future, if there's one reason why Kandro and Shinobu wouldn't know who this guy is, it may have to do with that whole time travel thing. Like here's a crackpot idea. What if Yasu is actually a future version of Momonosuke who I just picked up because the two have very similar top-not things going on and that would explain why he knows everyone but they don't know him. I mean, yes, of all the time travel ideas I've had, I feel like this one is the least likely because it would involve traveling back in time and that's supposedly impossible. But you know, what if it were possible and there was a whole bunch of stuff like that happening right now all across Wano with Komorosaki being future Hiyori and Yasu being the future Momonosuke and maybe even some others. We've all come back to ensure that the events of Wano play out exactly as they need to. It would add such an amazingly incredible layer of tragedy that it is very unlikely to be the case. So the other half of this chapter happens in the prisoner mine and starts out with Luffy training which I find quite boring to be honest. One of the things I've always loved about One Piece is that it generally skips any form of training. Like looking back on the series, all of the gears just came out of nowhere and even in the new world when an explanation is needed for how Luffy can do something, it just comes in the form of a satisfying Rayleigh flashback which is great. The only thing I would really call training is when Luffy was honing his observation Haki against Katakuri but that was wrapped in such a nice package of glorious battle that it doesn't really matter. This is a bit different. It's just Luffy facing off against Komiko villain after Komiko villain and I do appreciate that he does now need to advance his arm and Haki but I'm getting a little tired of seeing him just try and fail. I also thought that this portion of the Sumo Inferno ended incredibly abruptly. Like Queen just says, it's bedtime and everyone just goes to sleep. I thought that the whole point of this Sumo Inferno thing was to bombard the combatants with endless waves of opponents so as to completely drain overcome and eventually execute them rather than giving them any time to rest. And yes, I appreciate that a line was dropped about not getting any food and blah blah blah but it still feels just a bit jarring to have this sudden interlude. Although it did go on to give us a very funny shot of Rizo popping out of Karabo and Luffy hilariously quick forgiveness off him. And it even started to remind me of Impel down a bit when Rizo said something along the lines of Karabo's power being quite useful in a very similar way in which it was even called, I think, said crocodile's powers would be very useful in their escape. That's not the only similarity to Impel down either as it looks like the plan is now to conduct a mass breakout to assist in the battle against Tokaido. And with that, the chapter ends with Olin encroaching on the prisoner mine which is very exciting but it was a bit of an underwhelming shot. It's very wide, very vague and it doesn't give me quite the oh shit stuff's about to go down vibe that I feel was its intention. However, I'm definitely thrilled that Chopper's group is approaching and I cannot wait to see how Luffy will react to Big Mom. And there were some other tidbits in this chapter like Haki and Wano being named Ryu all as well as Law leaving the group to go and save his own crew. He has a bit of a threat in regards to ending their alliance as well but I don't think that anything is going to seriously come from it. If anything, this seems like an excuse for Law to perhaps encounter Hawkins or Drake and start getting them involved in this whole plot. Look after going through the chapter like this it was actually pretty great. Although I can't deny that my immediate feeling after reading it was a bit meh but I think that's just how it goes in the mid-arc blues. There were a lot of great character moments this week and some fine storytelling so there's really nothing to complain about except that the things that are promised to come are seemingly so great that at times they overshadow chapters like this. But that pretty much does it for chapter 940. 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. Also do check out my Teespring store if you're interested in shorts, witties 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 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.