#chapter 1111

I have so many thoughts about this latest chapter, but I'll start with this.

Oda having Zoro's finishing attack against Rob Lucci not actually take him down was such a good decision narratively, if Oda's building to what I think he's building to with Zoro's character.

Zoro obviously thought that he was the one in control of this fight, that if need be he could end it at any time, and him not doing that was more of him testing his strength/not viewing Lucci as worthy of his full strength. (Which we as the audience can recognize is horrible timing to be playing around during a fight, but if I remember correctly, Zoro is not aware that the Gorosei have arrived, and as such views his actions as completely fine for the moment.)

Then Sanji insults him, which strikes a nerve with Zoro and makes him go to one shot Lucci. Only it doesn't work. Lucci, while obviously hurt, does not fall. And then Zoro makes this face.

And maybe I'm reading too far into things, but the dialogue "He's still standing..." paired with that face just screams disappointment to me. Not his usual annoyance, but disappointment in himself for not being able to end the fight with that one hit. And with the additional context of him not once but TWICE being called a burden/deadweight, which he was denying on both occasions, the second time being him attempting to show that he could have ended Lucci at any point only to FAIL at that????? I think Oda might be setting up Zoro to have his own Water 7, Whole Cake Island moment, where his deep buried feelings of not being strong enough finally rear their ugly head. Or at least I hope that's where Oda is going with this.

No I will not go one step further until we address this. Gnawing a tree down into a big baseball bat is one thing, I can understand that. The hair aviator goggles were pretty believable. Did...did this mofo just conjure paint and a batter's helmet? This is seriously the strangest G5 bit by far and that's saying something when we also had:

Getting the cuffs smacked off is my favorite touch. The baseball gag though, it's so funny and I love it but it really does feel like a new level of cartoon silliness. Trivia time! Where else have we seen a baseball theme? Baroque Works, Mr. 4 & Mr. 9. And I can't help but notice the more cartoon art style is leaking. The demon Gorosei are evil looking but it's still a very flowy family of designs. The giants do too, lighter and sillier. Even get some weird stuff like an almost Dutch Angle shot as they're running away. Noticed last night the anime is getting in on this too. It slowly escalated throughout manga Egghead, so if we're doing stuff like introducing sparkly transitions now I'm curious what Toei does with this leg of the arc.

Two things.

First, can I be Jinbe here?

And second, just this!