 Hello and welcome to the Groundline Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of Chapter 999 and how absolutely insane is that. Because even though this was not the big 1000, this was still a pretty incredible chapter all around, and it gives us the answer to a question that we've been asking ever since the introduction of a certain character. Very big, very important stuff, and one hell of an ending. Before we get into all of that though, it's time for a quick round of Spade or No Spade, a very simple minigame, the rules of which are as follows. We are going to be drawing a card from the One Piece deck, and it is simply your job to guess whether the suit will be a Spade or not. And if you're guessing correctly, then your punishment will be subscribing to the Groundline Review in order to receive regular One Piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. And if you do guess correctly, then you will be gifted with a magical fish-related fruit. But make your guess now, will this card be a Spade, or will it be a Not Spade? Because we will find out in 3, 2, 1, and bam, it is indeed a Spade, a Spade pirate to be precise. So if you did guess incorrectly, then you know the thing to do. Now, stepping into this beast of a chapter, there is a lot of crazy stuff to go through, but I can't bring myself to begin anywhere other than the ending. Because firstly, what a terrifying couple of pages, and it reminded me of what it's like to see two of the four emperors together in a single panel, which is one of the rarest things that this series has to offer. And even though it has happened a couple of times now with Kaido and Big Mom, the impact on me doesn't change at all. I was looking at these last two pages, and I was hit with this overwhelming feeling. And I really can't wait to see how Luffy ends up reacting to this as well, to finally reach the roof and be suddenly facing off against both Big Mom and Kaido. It's hard to know how he'd react because he's quite unpredictable. Luffy could either comically crap himself or clench his fists and go, well, I said I was going to be both of you anyway, so I may as well do it at the same time. That's a discussion for later though, because Big Mom and Kaido have a very casual conversation about seemingly every profound thing in One Piece during the section. Because, you know, they mention rocks, God Valley, Road Ponyglyphs, keeping Robin alive, the One Piece itself, and of course our major chapterial revelation being Kaido's Devil Fruit. So it's official, Kaido is a fish man, or a fish creature, fish only, fish demon, something along those lines. It is going to be mixed with a fish though. And as left field as this type of mythical zone might seem in the West, it makes absolutely perfect sense. In fact, we can even put it into terms that we'll understand. Because in Pokemon, you know how a flailing useless magic art just up and evolves into a Gyarados? Well, that is effectively Kaido. The whole thing is based on a myth about a koi fish trying to reach the top of a waterfall, and once it eventually does, after hundreds and hundreds of years of trying by the way, the gods recognize the koi's persistence and turn it into a dragon as a reward. So I don't know if Kaido's mythical zone has a similar requirement to unlock the dragon aspect, but if it does, then Wano is a pretty perfect place to do it due to needing to ride up a waterfall just to get there. A waterfall surrounded by all sorts of gigantic koi as well, clearly it's just such a perfect location to show off this particular double fruit. And I have a relatively strong feeling that it might be formally introduced in Chapter 1000. There is a potential pattern happening here. Being that in Chapter 998, we got a formal showcase of the Tobi-Rupper fruits. Meanwhile, 999 did the same thing with both King and Queen, which was a very cool spread actually, but arguably there's no need to give them those formal introduction segments, because we know who they are and we are well aware of their abilities. However, this idea does work very well if in Chapter 1000 we finish this pattern with the formal introduction of Kaido's fruit. And maybe even Big Mums as well, because why not? She's, you know, she's also there. But as for the fruit itself, I would probably like to talk a bit more about it once we have an official name with the model and everything, as well as just a bit more information, but I'm pretty thrilled with this twist. I'm quite glad that it isn't just a flat-out dragon fruit and I am incredibly keen to know what the base form of this fruit was because it seems very unlikely that you would achieve the dragon power immediately. In fact, the whole dragon aspect might even be the awakening of this particular fruit if such thing is even possible for the mythical subclass that is. It might also explain how Kaido has been beaten so many times if he was essentially fighting as a fish before evolving into a fully fledged dragon. Also, I suppose it's worth noting that this is another aquatic zoan fruit, the first being the Sarasara No Mi model Axolotl, which is always interesting because the very concept of an aquatic zoan is completely counter to the idea of devil fruits, given that their users cannot submerge themselves in water. So yes, I'm pretty wildly keen to learn more about this particular fruit, especially if it is indeed a Magikarp-style situation and basically completely useless when you first eat it. That would be quite a fun twist on devil fruits. Oh, and of course, this also turns out to answer another question as well, which is the debt that Kaido allegedly owes Big Mom, so it's a bit of a two-for-one deal in this chapter. And like I said, they do talk about all sorts of grand stuff, like the One Piece, Rocks and God Valley, but there's nothing particularly new to examine with any of those topics. They more or less just add a ton of epic flavour to the scene. What I did appreciate though was the brief reference to Charlotte Pudding and the supposed abilities of the three I tried members. Although it is done in such a dismissive way that it makes me wonder if we'll ever really delve into the mystery of that race or just kind of leave it lingering. I also do like that Big Mom makes a specific note to keep Niko Robin alive because she is probably the most underrated and underappreciated existence in this world. When Luffy becomes the pirate king, it is going to be as a direct result of her and as such it is refreshing to see someone of prominence recognising how ridiculously important her abilities are. Now there's also a topic that gets brought up in this section by omission and that would be the fate of the vassals. As far as I can tell there isn't even a hint of them here, no bodies on the floor, no nothing. However Kaido has clearly concluded their battle of screen and is now sitting quite comfortably after their failure to bring him down. Which leaves us with a few possibilities regarding their fate. My standard thinking is that they're just scattered around on the battlefield, mortally wounded and such, but the real question I have is did anyone die? Like if say Kinemon has bitten the dust already, Luffy might reach the top and we see a flashback of the fight. That or a vassal heroically stands up and gets taken out right in front of our eyes or maybe no one will die at all because this is one piece. Whatever the case I just want to note the choice to omit them here by Oda. Featuring them in any way during this scene even if they were just bodies on the ground would have pulled focus from the point of the scene which is to showcase Big Mom and Kaido. And as a result it also creates this brilliant mystery surrounding what happened to the vassals as well. It's another example of Oda being able to make really effective choices and enhance multiple aspects of a chapter. Now I suppose we should probably get into Ace because despite everything I've just spoken about the primary through line of 999 was Ace and those who knew Ace. Which was done quite brilliantly actually because speaking of great technical choices this flashback was told in quite a special way because it has a multitude of narrators. By which I mean we start with Yamato who briefly covers Ace's time on Wano as a spade pirate. Then there's a small break and we pick up his flashback from Mako's perspective who gives us some of Ace's time with the whitebeard pirates and finally we also land on Nami who ties everything together by linking Luffy and Ace to Wano by revealing to Tama that Luffy was Ace's brother. And I think that last section in particular will probably go a bit underappreciated but that moment really does bind the chapter together because it brings this crazy rich history together with our series protagonist. And it makes the alliance between Luffy, Mako and Yamato look a lot less like a chaotic group of misfits and more like a cohesive unit because they all have the commonality in Ace. And yes I'm more than happy to eat my words where I stated once again that the Ace on Wano stuff has always seemed a bit out of place to me but I really do like what Oda did with it here because in the space of a single chapter he has very neatly tied most of our major alliance factions together. And also I did get what I wanted which was an explanation of why the whitebeard pirates never did anything about Wano given that they did know about all of the suffering and stuff through Ace and I get it it would basically involve starting a war between two of the four emperors with huge, huge casualties but I guess in times like this I'm a little bit too used to the Luffy mentality because if it was him he would just declare war on Kaido and march in no matter what anyone else said which I guess Ace tries to do there is that attitude about him but the whitebeard pirates are able to convince him otherwise. The only thing that still makes me feel a bit weird is Iso I just really want to know what he's been doing for the past year or so because he knows that Wano is in turmoil and after the dissolution of the whitebeard pirates well what else does he really have to do? And this could be explained really easily like if he set out to do a Kinamon style thing and gather allies to attack Kaido but I just hope that we find out eventually and just briefly on Iso though the only thing that probably could have made this Ace flashback better would have been having a segment briefly narrated by Iso like Marko and Yamato because he represents the Kozuki faction but I completely understand why he needed to be omitted because he's with the other vassals and their situation needs to stay all mysterious for now but with the Ace flashback we also have some very rare spade pirate cameos one of the most mysterious crews in one piece because they were all just engulfed into the whitebeard pirates and then never seen again remember I appreciate seeing most as Kotatsu who is the end of the links sort of like the spade pirates equivalent of Chopper which works really well because Kotatsu was also a bit of a coward at first you know who we don't see though who we still don't see ever and that would be masked juice probably the most important member of the spade pirates other than Ace himself who has never actually been seen in the core series just the Ace novels but canonically he is still meant to be with them right up until their amalgamation into the whitebeard pirates so I always keep my eye out for him and maybe one day that vigilance will pay off not today though definitely not today now for the most unexpected moment of the chapter that award would go to flashback Ace for mentioning some very familiar names to us we hear about Cavendish used as kid Kapungangbejian even Trafalgar Law which is fun because these specific names have now each made an alliance with Luffy to some degree but I do find it very intriguing that Ace is paying close attention to the world of piracy I mean for a pirate captain currently sailing in the new world he is incredibly knowledgeable about the rookies in the four blues and it further reinforces to me that Sabo must have gotten his bounty during the time skip after Ace's death because otherwise I see no reason why this very worldly and attention-paying Ace would not have stumbled across the name Sabo and come to a startling realization oh and also we have to mention Blackbeard makes an appearance in the Ace flashback because when exploring the whitebeard pirates Oda very rarely misses an opportunity to remind us of this lurking threat and here he is being perfectly pleasant but it still sends chills down my spine and if anything seeing him all jovial here is quite gut-wrenching because of the knowledge of Blackbeard's future betrayal and the subsequent deaths of Thatch, Ace and Whitebeard because he's just there right in front of everyone the man whose actions will ultimately destroy the whitebeard pirates and none of them have so much as a clue so this whole segment was quite tragic in many ways back in the present though another development is that Zoro is now officially flying straight up to the roof courtesy of a phoenixman and here's a weird situation to think about that Marco can avoid King and Queen Zoro may actually reach the roof before Luffy and end up being the perspective through which we view the fate of the vassals which may even be more appropriate because for whatever reason Zoro seems to have developed this intrinsic link with Wano and its people so it may even be more effective to see his reaction to the vassals defeat than it would be Luffy's still Luffy and Zoro versus Kaido and Big Mom this fight is mildly unbalanced to say the least and it's really craving some sort of support from elsewhere however most other major players are tied up quite literally in the case of Sanji and the only others who are kind of unaccounted for right now are Kid and Killer who are indeed on their way up and I suppose the lore could also emerge from nowhere but the last time we saw him was in the basement and as we all know the basement is the natural enemy of the roof meanwhile Drake is seemingly committed to holding his position Yamato is busy telling stories around the campfire and our poo is, well he's a poo so our rooftop forces are looking very limited right now I suppose Hawkins could have his sudden moment of betrayal yeah I do look forward to seeing how Oda blasts through this impenetrable barrier of emperors that he's created I mean two of the four emperors simultaneously is simply too much for any group to handle really so please do feel free to blow my mind and bring on chapter 1000 and that pretty much shows it for chapter 999 but what do you guys think please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my discord server and if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious one piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds yes but for now this has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time