Volume 104 is a volume of convictions. We start off this volume with a couple of chapters where everyone lays their personal convictions bare. Momonosuke is asked by his mother and the samurai to give them another chance to fight. As a young child he allows them to do so, tears streaming down his face but his conviction is there. The samurai fighting in Onigashima show us their conviction to go down with the ship. If it means their family gets to live a happier life due to Kaido dying then they have no issue dying alongside him. Meanwhile Usopp thinks otherwise and is desperate to keep living. Respectable in its own way. We end this section of the story with Denjiro’s conviction of protecting Hiyori from Orochi. His twenty year quest of madness has finally come to an end as the fool of a lord falls for the last time, ending the Kurozumi line for good it seems.
We learn the names of the CP0 agents here in the SBS question corner, although they aren’t all that important since most of them are dead by now. I believe Joseph is the surviving member on the island. We also learn a little bit about Oda’s inspiration for Kanjuro. It’s based on a Rakugo play about a sculptor who is so talented that his sculptures come to life, so he switches hands to prevent this. Let’s go back to the main story though.
With a punch to end all punches, Luffy finally manages to defeat Kaido once and for all, with both the – now former – emperors of the sea disappearing into an underground volcano, dead for good from the looks of it. That’s kind of wild to be honest with you. As bad as some of the villains in One Piece have been, I can’t think of a single time where Luffy has actually killed a major villain. Crocodile is thriving in the crew of an emperor, Enel is chilling on the moon, Hody Jones and Doflamingo are in prison, Caesar Clown is still around and even Katakuri is still okay. The only one that Luffy might have killed was Wapol all the way back in Drum island since he kicked the corrupt king all the way into the ocean, but we all know that Wapol survived that encounter. Now two emperors are dead and someone needs to take their spots. But enough of that for now, let’s focus on the emotional conclusion of the raid.
Momonosuke crashes the celebration, terrifying all those present when a dragon suddenly shows up. He tells them not to be afraid as a new age is coming. That’s when Komurasaki – Hiyori – shows up alongside the surviving Ayakaza Nine. They introduce their new shogun, Kozuki Momonosuke, to the world. We see a large part of this through the eyes of Tama, who has had to go through so much pain and hardship just to survive and make it to this day. She lost everything she had, lived in poverty and persisted. She even played a key role in the fight against Kaido and she’s only a child. I cannot tell you how many times I had to take a break from this chapter to wipe the tears from my eyes. Wano has been saved.
Oh and speaking of Caesar earlier, he reappears here in the cover story of the Germa siblings saving the ones that have been caught by the Big Mom pirates. It’s a small world.
In the wake of Wano being saved, the entire country celebrates for days on end. Everyone gets the time to rest up and waits patiently for Luffy and Zoro to recover, which they eventually do. Yamato doesn’t even eat until both of them wake up, and neither does he bathe. So the first order of business when the captain and right hand man of the Straw Hat Crew wake up is to get some food and booze in them before relaxing in the bath. Unfortunately Wano does not have mixed baths so they all have to go into the bath that belongs to their gender. This means Yamato goes in the men’s bath and Kiku goes in the woman’s bath. If that bothers you after 104 volumes I don’t know what else I can tell you but “get out”. You’re not wanted here, and Oda is making that clear in his writing as well. I love how this manga can be read as a fun pirate story for teenage boys yet have some incredibly deep social commentary at the same time. But no time to worry about gender and hatred, because big things are happening. Morgans got his hands on the information about Wano’s changes and has taken the liberty to print a picture of Luffy in his Nika form. The whole world now knows about this and all three of the captains present at the raid have their bounties raised to 3 billion. But only one of them has made it to be on the list of the four emperors. The new generation of emperors are now Shanks, Blackbeard, Luffy and…. Buggy? Something very significant must have happened while we weren’t paying attention to the world. Our next big villain even says so, as Ryogyoku, one of the navy admirals, lands on Wano to come and take Luffy’s head.
With the remnants of Kozuki fighting off Ryogyoku we see what is going on in the world. Sabo has allegedly killed King Cobra of Arabasta and Vivi – who would now be queen – is missing. Akainu seems to be mostly in the dark of what is going on and why his job has become so complicated. In the holy land a brawl broke out and the revolutionaries managed to retrieve the cyborg that is Bartholomew Kuma. If I ever meet the man that made him into what he is I have some choice words. We get our first mention of the Holy Knights, a force of formidable warriors that work directly for the Celestial Dragons. Zooming back to Wano, we see Shanks reminisce to things that happened in the past. He remembers how he stole the rubber fruit from Who’s who and “gave” it to Luffy, who has now become an emperor, a being who is on equal footing with Shanks. Then again, Shanks just has to look at Ryogyoku to get him to shut up and leave Wano alone, so it’s hard to say how close Luffy and Shanks really are. Luffy realizes who releases the monstrous Haki but he is unaware that his old friend is now going after the One Piece in earnest. We also learn that Barto has been rampaging through Shanks’ domain in Luffy’s name, which the crew is not quite happy about. Volume 104 is where – at least in my opinion – the final saga starts and it is a wild ride that just keeps getting more and more crazy. Next week we will cover the remaining bits of Wano, as well as some of the stuff that happens throughout the world before we dive into the next arc. I hope to see you there and as always, thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 