Great chapter, six double spreads revealing my beloved Zoans. God Enel blessing us with the momentous Chapter 999 and Chapter 1000 around the corner.
Marco bringing the sizzling pineapples this chapter needed. Very cool that Marco can firebomb people with his blue flames, but obviously pheonix flames only heal so he won't ever try to burn his enemies except some homies. Casually dodges an attack from Brook and Zoro, which I suppose was reasonable since those have never met him. Marco and Zoro look to the roof while Chopper (obviously taken a big toll), even Drake and Apoo are forced to stay back. Could Brook and Robin be assisting Sanji and Jinbe? Apoo got back up only to get chomped by Drake, but apparently Drake believes Apoo will just keep recovering and causing trouble to the point that he's forced to stay behind and actively suppress Apoo. Impressive endurance from Scratchmen. I hope the two Supernova get over their differences and join the fight against Kaido in the future.
A triceratops can do swag? Now I've seen it all. Sasaki with a knockout design by Oda. An iconic defensive dino for the leader of the Armed Squad. Surprisingly that he's bigger than Shogun Franky. Seems to be standard as Who's Who and especially little spider Maria are all oversized animals. The hybrid form will most likely remain just as big. Oda delivering a mecha vs kaiju showdown.
Black Maria, so icky but so sexy. Credit to Oda for hitting the books and finding an extinct spider just to keep Maria in the same class as the other Ancient Zoans, even if modern spiders evolved to be more efficient killers than ancient spiders. Because everyone else (even Drake) is in their animal forms, I'm going to assume the same for Maria with the spider face being her animal face and the human half as the "lure". Turtles that have tongues that look like worms, snakes that have tails that look like insects, they lure in prey while the predator body itself is largely camaflouged. The Jorogumo preys on young men, Maria's upper body acting as the perfect bait organ, her behavior even mimics a camper spider as she stays away from battle in her chamber luring good-natured samurai men to fall into her webs. That or Maria could simply be partially transformed like Marco as the other spider Onigumo can transform only his hair if he wants. Ancient Zoan are a poorly understood class, but variety is appreciated. Also giving us Maria's Jolly Roger from her captain days. Maybe the gimmick here is that while Sanji can't harm a lady, he has no problems kicking the face of a spider.
Jinbe walked into the wrong cat cafe. A posse of pussies think they can snack on some shark? Who's Who as a big Smilodon with a long fluffy tail looks amazing. Who's Who VS Jinbe is the surprise match up of Wano. Even Jinbe is asking who the hell is Who?! If they have some sort of connection, it's unlikely they will clash then go their separate ways. A new character would mean we get a flashback between Jinbe and WW to flesh them both out, but a random background character we've seen before hiding behind the mask would be funny but humiliating for WW. Jinbe hasn't gotten a fight on his level in the manga, even the Ace battle happened offpanel. He's always against an overwhelming opponent like Big Mom or Akainu, or someone he easily trounces like Opera and Moria. A cool cat squad and Who's Who giving Jinbe a hard earned struggle has me licking my lips. You could say Jinbe shouldn't be dealing with an opponent of the same class as Nami and Usopp's foes, and it is true Robin and Brook are on the way up. I don't expect Sanji to stay behind either, so we'll have to see how things play out as this is still Act 3.
R.I.P. the monkey stalling Ulti and P1. Yamato sees a roasted dragon and sends us into flashback land with Ace. I thought the same about the 984 ending but it turned out Yamato remembering Ace was a fake out. Is this another tease? An Ace chapter for 999 and Luffy reaching the roof with Big Mom and Kaido for 1000 would be a nice combo. 997 set up the island catastrophe of Onigashima moving, 998 we get match ups and the remaining Ancient Zoans at once. Oda is ramping things up to a climax. If he wants to end Act 3 in a chapter or two, Big Mom and Kaido killing the Scabbards only for Luffy to find their bodies would do just that. The issue announced all the Jump mangaka will be involved in drawing the WSJ cover featuring OP characters for 999 and 1000. The largest one in magazine history. Yep. I have been taken hostage by the runaway hype train.
