Very disappointing that the way to beat regen is officially just CoC. Now it’s a case of pick your poison. Either it gets handed around to everyone come EoS, or the majority of the crew is absolutely useless against the weakest Holy Knight. Or Oda retcons it later and finds another way. Does just reaffirm to me that the regen was a writing mistake. Okay, the scene of Nasujuro blocking Zoro rather than just allowing himself to get hit takes sense, but then Luffy was just a flatout moron in Egghead by not even trying to use ACoC.
I also don’t know the point in having Zoro not know that he was using CoC. This would maybe be a scene that worked if Oda had left it a bit debatable whether he was using it or not, but he made it blatant in Wano. Would make more sense for Gaban to tell Sanji he had it instead.
Speaking of Sanji, oh look, he’s wildly insecure about Jinbei’s reputation being higher than his. Funny that, given the arguments people were giving me last chapter about how that wasn’t the case.
Rest of the chapter is a lot better. I never really took the idea of Loki as a crewmate seriously, primarily for the reason Zoro said- he’s way too big. But, if Luffy’s inviting him? Different story. I think my gut feeling is still that he doesn’t quite join, but interesting to watch.
I’m also quite looking forward to this flashback. I think Oda’s learned a lesson from Oden’s divisive flashback here. Harald’s clearly being setup as an important character throughout Elbaf, we know his (eventual) philosophy, but we haven’t had all the nonsense of him being the most absolutely beloved person of all time, silhouetted for years. Think it’s better this way, where he doesn’t have this colossal reputation to live up to.
Why does Gaban think that Shanks is special? The Roger Pirates knew the special ones hadn’t been born yet, as far as we know. That’s why Roger had a child to begin with. But that tattoo is very interesting, looks like Shanks did spend some time as a Holy Knight after all. I think it could also be okay for a sea king to take the arm and cause the immortality to be lost if it’s tied to the curse of the sea. Rather than just chop off the arm and they lose immortality for god, in which case, Gaban is a moron for just taking Sommers hand.