Whenever Oda isn’t doing a cover story at the start of each chapter, he does requests from the audience. They’re often a little bit weird and regularly involve animals. But someone requesting a picture of “goats eating letters written by Caesar Clown”??? What kind of strange mind came up with that? I just want to talk. But before we talk, let’s dive into volume 93 as a ton of stuff happens this week.
Robin is deep undercover in the palace, while Brook, Nami and Shinobu are assisting her. Unfortunately, she gets caught by Orochi’s personal guard, who are a group of excellent ninjas and shinobis. Even though she tries to get out of it by being clever and pretending she is someone else, they don’t fall for it and restrain her. Fortunately, Nico Robin has been escaping authority for well over two decades and quickly the Oniwabanshu find out that they’re no exception to the rule. She hides in the best place, plain sight. As Robin joins in on the festivities in the chamber where Orochi is, we learn that the shogun is still very much terrified of Toki’s prediction from 20 years ago. He believes that Kin’emon and the rest of the Ayakaza Nine will show up to kill him and take back the country. He seems to be the only one who believes it but he happens to be right, as we of course know. In all of this chaos, while everyone is trying to stifle their laughter at how cowardly their shogun is, Otoko doesn’t manage to stop her laughter. She angers the shogun and needs to be protected by Komurasaki. This is about to go very poorly.
With Robin once again figured out and surrounded by the ninja from Wano, all hell breaks loose. Brook uses his ghostly abilities to scare everyone into running away while Nami and Shinobu get spotted by Hanzo, who knows Shinobu from back in her prime. They all come together in the banquet hall where a berserk Orochi is about to kill everyone. Then suddenly the yakuza Kyoshiro steps in and kills the Oiran Komurasaki in front of everyone for defying the shogun. Orochi is mortified by this but Kyoshiro thinks it is the most loyal thing to do. We leave the chaos of the banquet hall behind us to focus on my least favorite part of this arc.
Chopper, Kiku and the children are accompanying a Big Mom with amnesia to the prison in Udon where Luffy and Kid are currently being held. While on their way there, Momo continues to practice his swordsmanship, shouting a phrase from old Wano that he learned from Zoro. But how does Zoro know this shout? So much is happening so we’ll go through things a little bit faster from here. Robin’s group escapes back to town and Luffy is still in prison where he fights the guards to defend ‘old man Hyo’ who is the former yakuza Hyogoro the flower. While this chaos is happening, one of the headliners – Queen – arrives at Udon prison.
Luffy and boss Hyogoro get caught up in Queen’s antics and get a collar locked on them, forcing them to fight in a sumo ring that Queen has brought in for entertainment. Luffy takes care of most of the men thrown at him in mere moments, but I’m sure things will get more and more difficult as time goes on. For now, it barely constitutes training and that’s something Luffy needs so badly. With Big Mom quickly approaching, Hyogoro wonders who Luffy really is, with his abilities and his connection to the Dark King Rayleigh.
On the outskirts of town, Zoro is dealing with a whole bunch of chaos at once. The bridge bandit has stolen his sword, a woman and a child come running for his help while bleeding and a ruthless killer named Kamazou comes after them. Zoro defeats the killer but gets badly wounded and passes out, leaving the woman and child – who is Otoko – to heal him back up. And of course, in true One Piece fashion, this isn’t just any strange woman that Zoro randomly came across, but it’s Kozuki Hiyori who is Momo’s older younger sister. She has been alive and hiding in the capital with the help of a kappa named Kawamatsu who is also imprisoned in Udon. We see him looking on to the fight that Luffy and Hyogoro are having. The old yakuza boss might be the key to Luffy unlocking his next level up when it comes to haki.
Finally, we get to the big finisher of this volume. The man known as Yasu, who has been going around helping Zoro get lunch, making sure the people of Ebisu town are doing alright and even informed Shinobu and Kanjuurou of the dire straits their plan was in ended up being captured by Orochi’s people. We then learn that he was once Yasuie, one of the Daimyo of Wano and loyal to Kozuki family to the very end. He butted heads with Oden often, but he stayed loyal for all these years, making the poor Ebisu town a slightly better place. Otoko is also his daughter, which makes his execution even more sad. He takes the fall for the entire failed plan, making everyone believe that it’s not really a rebellion, hopefully saving many people from imprisonment or worse. We learn that he was an incredibly beloved figure in all of Wano and people are still incredibly loyal to him, even in the face of terrible danger. With Orochi shooting him he has all but guaranteed that the patience in all of Wano has run out. Things are about to get nasty. While Yasuie dies, everyone laughs and it is at this moment that Zoro and the readers learn that they’re not laughing because they’re heartless people, but this is due to the ‘smile’ that Kaido and Orochi have created. They are forced to laugh through their sadness. One of the more emotional chapters in the entire series, so heartbreaking.
I’ve tried to cover all of the important parts of the story here, but so much more happens. There’s a bath scene, Bepo and other members of the Heart Pirates have been captured, Dogstorm and Cat Viper are on their way, Big Mom is closing in on Udon prison, Caribou has temporarily allied with Luffy to help with the prison escape and Kid is missing, having escaped the prison completely. Things are still very chaotic on the island of Wano and the main act – Kaido – is barely in view. There is so much still to come so I hope you enjoyed this recap and will join me here again next week.
Opal Kaharis 