#onigashima raid

Starting with the cover story and of course it's Reiju and Ichiji. Mans got no qualms throttling a kid with a knife but I'd rather have had Baeju front an centre. Told you it wasn't Blackbeard though

We pick up where we left off, Kaido crashing through the ground, even reverting to his human form

Excuse Oda but 'Hole made by *Law', he made the hole with his monster Shock Wille BM is simply falling through it

Nice touch though that Kaido only has one horn

I do wonder about those cracks though, it may destroy the waterfall entirely and make Wano easier to access for the WG ships

Yamato is on scene to catch Luffy too

Aha, title card revised, I guess that means Kaido is officially out

We also get some more flashing back with the festival as Toko and Hitetsu release their balloons

Yasu being a good dad and even eating the SMILE so Toko won't be ostracized is bittersweet, as is Hitetsu telling Toko that their dad let themselves die for a rebellion to continue

Knowing the message, Toko changes their message from 'wanting to see' Yasu to thanking him, which just hits you a little in the heart

We don't say it enough, but the festival panels have been wonderfully drawn, I hope somewhere Megumi Ishitani is rubbing her hands together in hopes of working these shots into the anime too

From the dome roof, Nekomamushi (moved pretty fast there) announces victory, as well as revealing that Momo was the pink dragon to the Samurai and that he pulled the island to safety

Oh hey Inu's alive, tbf we hadn't seen him since he beat Jack so I was thinking he might've died from overdoing Su Long

Raizo's still working though, meanwhile Kawamatsu and Denjiro have the luxury of not having to do much after fighting Kaido

Aw Bepo, and I guess aw Killer but I guess that's more non-physical

Yeah eat shit Apoo! Tell Morgans everything!

Marco you little stoic pineapple, I guess this is like a wednesday for him back in the day

No Carrot though which I'm sad about, girl's birthday was yesterday let the rabbit have her friends and be happy

No rest for Chopper though; Usopp and Franky have arrived with the wounded, boy could use some more doctors *looks directly at Law, his crew, and Marco*

Interesting, it seems through Momo's dialogue that Zunesha was to be used to open Wano's borders, but now Momo's decided against it - which to be honest is fair, but the structural integrity of the waterfall may make that border thing more difficult. He should at least issue a less stringent rule towards wanting to leave the country though

The remaining members of Kaido's crew still attack though (oh god if the waterfall breaks then Big Mom's force could come in too! Can't knock them off a waterfall if there is none!) being in denial about Kaido's defeat

Yamato though starts using his rank, telling them to honour the fact that Momo saved all their asses from Onigashima. I'm surprised they took it really, Kaido has never offered such honour, but I guess they don't wanna face Yamato (or Franky who Brook needs to hold back)

The ground rumbles though as Babanuki witnesses an underwater volcanic eruption, caused by Big Mom and Kaido's plummet

The scariest part of all of this though is that I don't think that would even kill them, if anything the eruption (which should really be a class A disaster for Wano with that much ash and magma) is probably gonna spit them out of the ocean

Luffy gets the win card too

Oh so you see and hear THAT do ya? Not the giant island that has been hurtling towards you or the gigantic clash of a flaming dragon and giant fist?

Momo comes to the flower capital to calm things, but of course everyone thinks he's Kaido

After Momo reassures everyone he decides to change back, leaving the dramatic smoke for the figures of the past to emerge

Of course, everyone sees 'Komurasaki' first, proceeding to simping (I mean, I still don't think she's top 10 but okay) and then 'Kyoshiro' without his hair

And we cliffhang on Denjiro announcing the next shogun of Wano

So it was indeed the end, no twist in the tale. And while I've said it before I'm fine with it.

People do invest too much stake into fan theories sometimes; would it have been cool to see ghosts or Zoro kill Kaido? Sure, but it would've also been cool to see Tashigi in Wano, and for Drake and Hawkins to fight alongside the supernova, and for Kaido to take particular interest in Chopper for his zoan army before fighting against the entire straw hat crew, sometimes the story just doesn't go that way and in this case, Kaido getting up one more time wasn't in it.

And let's not act like Kaido lost to 'just a big punch', he was slammed down by a Conqueror's Coated, Awakened Mythical Zoan punch the size of a small island coated in Ryou, and then it seems the eruption finished it. Given how much Kaido had survived up to this point it's fine, it's not like Luffy does much else anyway, his key attack is Punch, next people will be asking Zoro to win a fight without cutting.

And it still worth noting that he's going to have to wake up, I sincerely doubt that he and Big Mom are dead, so it does matter what their next moves are. Especially Big Mom's, the territory is likely lost for Kaido but BM has her crew still at full strength, does she sting or extract? Can even pick up some surviving scraps from Kaido's crew, and a Poneglyph if she's extra sneaky.

But yeah, this was a 'nice' chapter, one where you feel the dust starting to settle. Of course, more stuff can still happen; the volcanoes should be a problem but who knows in One Piece, Zunesha and the WG are at the back door, there's a lot of dead but a lot of living, Wano's leadership is going to change and Kaido's crew will likely need to tuck their tails between their legs. Then of course there's Zoro, Kiku and Kin'emon to deal with, and we haven't seen if Sanji survived his episode carrying Osome, Robin and Jinbe were absent from this chapter - as was Carrot, and Wanda, and Caribou, and Shinobu... - and outside of the fact that we're gonna have one hell of a rager, there feels like more is left to discover in Wano itself.