#ch 944

Things just keep moving forward, don’t they?

Also - found my very first Pandaman! My joys is infinite and my pleasure wast as the ocean.

Yes, you are Momo. Although I wager that he will have to learn how to conjure clouds of his own when Kaido is defeated and his powers stop working.

I’m just really enjoying the very graphic difference in might and power. Last week we saw King tower over Zoro; now it’s tiny blob-Sanji standing against huge blob-Queen.

Is Sanji’s speed approaching that of Kizaru? If Sparking Insert-Attack-Here is some sort of loser modification, he jumped out of the way quicker than the speed of light. That’s some oomph.

I also love Queen’s attack naming strategy. Wonder what the official translation will say, but it’s just so… him to just tack “Queen” on to every attack of his.

And this makes me want to learn more about MADS and Judge and Vegapunk! Why are the attacks called Sparking and Henry and Winch? Is it the first names of the involved scientists — how come they both use the same names for the techniques?

Just look at this beautiful panel.

Sanji’s motion continues around Queen, the broken wall behind the dinosaur lining up with his current trajectory. Queen is just standing there, unmoved (and unmoving) and enjoying the carnage with a little smile on his face. Reminds me of the scene in Udon where he deflected Luffy’s hit:

So self-assured.

But then, Straw Hats V: The Cook Strikes Back!

The limbs really are a-flying in this arc, aren’t they?

Flabbergasted Sanji is so cute.

And Queen’s malicious grin… <insert evil laugh here>

Few do Shocked Pikachu Face better than Queen.

However, here we again see Oda’s masterful storytelling.

Both adversaries are now hidden and probably keeping as silent as possible, so as not to alert the other to their position. A treacherous calm descends on the scene as they weigh their options.

An unwary passerby could even be fooled into thinking the corridor is deserted.

And of course it’s the geisha from earlier.

This is one of the drawbacks of the breakneck pace mangaka have to deliver at. With a little more attention to detail earlier on (or a more fully formed plan), her presence and the Did Sanji Hit A Woman???-question introduced in chapter 1031 wouldn’t feel so shoehorned in. Hopefully the anime can expand on this and make us care for her —and question Sanji’s humanity— a bit more.

Some more thought-text-blocks, following last week’s Zoro-contemplations.

I’ll have to start my re-read of the manga at some point, but I don’t recall many earlier info-dumps through thought-bubbles, which has been one of the strengths of One Piece. Oda has always been great at showing rather than telling and that has made earlier upgrades feel more natural. When we don’t see things happening, the power-up feels like… a power-up, not natural progression and development. He tried ‘showing’ with Zoro and Conqueror’s haki, hinting at it in the beginning of the raid, but maybe that’s what still irks me about it; there were a few “could have been haki, could have been the castle falling on top of you” and so the introduction last chapter felt a bit forced. Sanji’s upgrade is a bit more natural, more showing than telling: we have seen his exoskeleton take hits for quite some time now (but why did Black Maria’s hits hurt him so bad then?) and how he can combine his newfound abilities with his existing ones is more an internal revelation which would be difficult to show externally, so the internal monologue is more justified in this case.