Volume 82 is upon us and when I look at the cover I get the feeling some interesting stuff is about to happen. Who is that in the background? That blue haired princess that we haven’t really seen much of in a while. I guess we’ll have to read the volume to find out!
Also, I’ve mentioned this before, but Oda does these fun little bits of random story at the start of each volume and for this one he talks about a Japanese game called “Achi muite hoi” in which you have to point in the direction that the other person will look (up, down, left right). So the goal is to say the words and then guess where the other will look, kind of like in rock, paper, scissors. What it reminds me about it the minigame in Mario Party where you do effectively the same. I’ve been watching a lot of Mario Party vods of my favorite streamer, so I’ve seen it pop up a couple of times.
We finally get the reveal that Momo and Kin’emon are not actually related but Momo is instead the son of the legendary Kozuki Oden. Kin’emon as well as Raizo, Nekomamushi, Inuarashi and Kanjurou were all vassals of this Oden and now act as vassals to Momo. We also learn that Raizo was held captive as the country protected him. He shows off some of his ninja skills to the Straw Hats while Robin is much more captivated by the red poneglyph they find here. This turns out to be a Road Poneglyph, one of the four texts that when combined lead you to Raftel, the final island. Of the other three, one is currently unknown and the other two are in the possession of Kaido and Big Mom respectively. And who made these poneglyphs you ask? None other than the Kozuki clan, Momonosuke’s ancestors. And the reason why they’re all on the run is because Kaido and the shogun of Wano put Kozuki Oden to death. They wanted to know the secrets of the world since Oden traveled to Raftel with Gol. D. Roger. But none of his vassals have the secrets. With a common goal the four groups come together to start the ninja-pirate-mink-samurai alliance and just in time as it seems that reports of Jack’s downfall were highly exaggerated and the angry mammoth is on his way back to Zou.
Both Luffy and Momo are able to hear the voice of someone in pain. This is the voice of Zunisha, the elephant that Zou is located on top of. Zunisha is asking for permission to fight back, which Momo gives. A moment later, Jack and his cronies are obliterated and we see that Scratchman Apoo relays this information to Kaido himself. We then quickly establish a team to and retrieve Sanji which consists of Luffy, Nami, Brook, Chopper, Pedro and Pekoms. The other members of the alliance will travel ahead to Wano instead and wait for them there. Going into spoilers a little bit, people would really start joking around this time how long we would have to be without certain characters. For the previous arc we missed out on half the crew for quite a while and it’ll be similar for the upcoming arc. Putting this all aside, let’s move our eyes towards another part of the world as elsewhere Vivi is getting ready to go to this year’s Reverie, the gathering of rulers.
We then get a lot of worldbuilding done in a very short amount of time, so strap in for a highlight reel. We learn that Cobra has gotten quite sickly over the past two years. He was already getting up there in age and the whole situation with Crocodile likely aged him significantly. He’s on his way to the Reverie to get some answers about how the world works. We see some other rulers, including the ones we just saw on Dressrosa and a newly crowned king of the Goa kingdom. Sabo must be fuming. Speaking of Sabo, he’s currently missing alongside the revolutionary army as Baltigo was attacked by Blackbeard. We saw Burgess sneak in a while ago and this is the result of that. It seems like they probably managed to get out safely though and the Blackbeard pirates were chased off shortly after by CP0.
The gang now heads for Whole Cake Island with Carrot having snuck aboard as well. They finally make it to the territory and due to Luffy cooking up all their food on day one and ruining it, they’re beyond starving. A fish from the boiling sea will solve that for Luffy but unfortunately it’s incredibly poisonous. Luckily they’re saved by the villains from an old comic about Sora and the Germa 66. Sanji’s younger brother and older sister show up with the latter, Reiju, sucking out Luffy’s poison. She seems nice. Finally we get a little bit of a window into Big Mom’s territory. It’s an Alice in Wonderland-esque place made of candy and inhabited by strange soulful creatures. Pudding, the daughter that is supposed to marry Sanji, has her own cafe on one of the islands and meets with the Straw Hats who have just landed. What a strange coincidence right?
We’ve reached the part of the story where recapping really doesn’t do much justice to the volumes as a lot happens all at once. I didn’t even really mention that Pedro knows people here, Jinbe is nearby with his crew and that someone who looks to be Lola’s sister is on Bege’s crew. Then again I’m assuming all of you who are reading these recaps have read the volumes at least once else you’d be very confused. And by doing so you are making my day, so as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 