A good chapter, but not quite the earthshaker that was promised. It’s mostly for the ending.
Gaban vs Sommers was brief but cool, but I’m still not convinced that Gaban is needed, or particularly interesting. His storyline has went the exact way everyone predicted it would go. Now he’ll go exposition training mode, maybe recover enough for a feat at the end, before more exposition. Oda’s relying too much on his role on the PK crew to excite people rather than doing anything interesting with the character. I don’t believe the translation actual calls him Ray’s equal, Oda never does stuff like that. It’ll be another metaphor for the two being the main legendary figures of the Roger crew.
It certainly looks far more like ACoC this chapter, although I do hope that isn’t the way to deal with regen. What’s curious is I don’t really see how this would translate to Luffy’s fighting style- the cut doesn’t seem to be hurting Scopper, otherwise he’d be dead. It’s just stopping him heal. How would that work with a punch, which doesn’t disable him?
Far more interesting is Oda actually giving us a Brook backstory? One that ties with Imu? I don’t think anyone would have seen this before Elbaf lol. I’m not sure Gunko is his daughter (why call him Brook and not father?) but I think she was the princess of the kingdom that Brook was fighting for. Some sort of disaster obviously struck and she was taken, as a noble, to be a HK.
Imu having the ability to take over bodies directly raises big questions about “desiring Vivi”. Is it creepy bodysnatching rather than creepy incel behaviour? Also I think ties back to Doffy’s grand plan to take over the world, and his weird mention at Imu’s introduction of how power needs to be used or it will go off, or something like that. Did he not also mention in Dressrosa about the importance of the personality surgery as well?
Is Imu jumping from body to body, needing a new one because it goes off due to Imu’s power, and wants Vivi’s since it couldn’t get Lili’s (or had to replace Lili’s)
Now, on to a week of Zoro vs Sanji proxy arguments through Gaban.
What happens now is more interesting. There’s no one who can cyrrently stop the HKs (unless the way to hurt really is just ACoC, which would be bleh). The M3 should be coming back soon though. I’m guessing Brook’s singing will snap Gunko out of Imu’s control, that’s the sort of approach I feel is quite Oda, although it might not happen until later.
