Wonderful to see everyone coming together.
The Strawhats all one ship again. The alliance is looking so good. I'll miss Brook's Samurai armor and katana, but Franky, Nami, Usopp, Sanji with the gloves, and Luffy with the coat look incredible. On Kid's crew, Killer is hiding for now but it doesn't look like Heat or Wire got SMILE'd. Denjiro is the man for putting together all the lost pieces for the readers and bringing the entire army of 5400 men together in one chapter. I'll miss him as Kyoshiro, but the Denjiro design of chapter 973 is just as badass. I seriously have no idea how these three battleships were expected to sink the Samurai when Denjiro can slice ships like that and Kin'emon is the only DF user. Maybe drunken Kaido was eager to squash some Samurai as part of the celebration after all.
Some SMILE guys (butterfly girl looks as good as a legit Zoan) drop a huge bomb that Big Mom is having a banquet over in Onigashima. It confirms that in fact the alliance had no idea this was going on in advance, and now it's way too late to modify their strategy accordingly. Honestly, with news like that dropped at the final hour I would be tempted to call the whole thing off. You can deal with an increase of fodder to Kaido's side, but throw on top of that Yonko Big Mom and her Commanders? You think they'll appreciate the Strawhats ruining another of her meals? Forget about it, I'm out of here.
I don't know what it is about Kid, but he always manages to rile Luffy up. In Sabaody, he blasted a bunch of marine riffraff with the power of Gear 3rd and Kid made a giant metal arm. Here he destroys a battleship with Boundman and easily changes back, I assume Rebel Punk is an equivalent attack. Nice to get some more insight on Kid's abilities as he propels himself through the air with magnetism. Law talking so much smack, he better be ready to back it up. The Auction House trio is more mad at each other than they are at the presence of enemies lol. It's such a fun dynamic to see this competitive Zoro vs Sanji side of Luffy.
I wonder what the Big Mom news will do the alliance. It seems so hard to believe they might not even be convinced it's true. Are they planning to split up their forces for each emperor? Will they ignore Big Mom and go straight for Kaido and Orochi? Big Mom might not think of Kaido as her best friend and might instead enjoy seeing him killed off, but the banquet celebrating their alliance only just came together. It's far too early for those two to be betraying each other. Big Mom's #1 priority for sure will be going after Luffy and Zeus. Even if the alliance tries to ignore her or reason with her, she sure as hell won't be having it. Thanks to this chapter, it doesn't look like there's anything left to flashback to except maybe how Kid ended up here and I wouldn't mind seeing more Kid. Next chapter, I could see the alliance entering crisis mode but then reassures themselves of their capabilities.
