Today we have One Piece chapter review of 987 vassals of glory and yeah i think we can safely say that this chapter was pretty damn hype following the unexpected yet phenomenal ending of last week we are now entering total one piece anarchy which is that part of the arc where all of the one pieces finally come together and do the impossible it’s very much reminding me of the chapter during whole cake island where all of the luffy clones popped out of the wedding cake or dressrosa when the colosseum fight is charged towards the don Quixote family alongside luffyzorro and law so it’s taking quite some time but it looks like almost 80 chapters in we are now into the classical third act of a one-piece arc is looks like because yes this is wano and who knows how things could turn out from here but there is so much to be excited for in chapter 987 which actually takes place primarily within one location which is very rare for onepiece especially in this whole wano era.
But i really don’t know where else to start other than with kaido he was very much the through line of the chapter having essentially three different scenes which very much encapsulate a beginning middle and an end and i really like that the chapter began with thebrief flashback of odin or more accurately the very first panel of the chapter was kaido’s wound from odin andit was a very nice contrast to the first time we saw this event play out because back then kaido was all arrogant and are quite unfeeling in general but now we get to see these events catch up with him and i think it’s beautiful that the first panel we see of kaido in the modern day is this look of pure shock and honestly i would say fear and this is kaido like we have never seen him before in this very brief moment.
The strongest creature in the world is afraid and he should be which is emphasized by the wonderful shots of several of the vassals actually managing to penetrate his body with their blades which kaido seems to attribute to them using ryo and i guess in retrospect it shouldn’t be too surprising that they know this i mean according to kyogre’s explanation of it zorro has had this ability ever since alabaster when he cut through more but it is cool to know that the vassals can access it as well mainly because i feel like the vassals are very very underrated when it comes to combata lot of which spawns from the fact that we’ve not really seen any of them fight all that often but also because several of them have had primarily comical roles up until this dramatic arc and even within this dramatic arc actually but these guys are pretty serious business especially when they band together.
Butthrough all of this we get to follow kaido’s train of thought which is nicebecause we still have yet to really delve into this man or this creature thing whatever he is so i very much appreciate seeing his inner thoughts andin a weird way it’s nice to see him very much sort of empathizing with archie realizing that his deranged thoughts weren’t just pure insanity however the key difference between archie and kaidois on full display here as this kind of pressure led to orichi mentally crumbling whilst kaido is prepared torise to this new challenge which we seein his third scene in the chapter whic his by far my favorite due to this glorious panel of kaido’s dragon form framed by a snowy moonlit landscape like this panel could not be more wano if it tried it’s got the eastern dragon in the moonlit snow met by a band of samurai it is perfect and i cannot wait to see a whole ton of talented people color it and there’s just something so weirdly exciting about seeing the vassal stand off against kaido like this exciting and terrifying that is because there is no way that this is going to go well for them.
No way at alli mean it is all good and well to have this nicely set up revenge moment but with characters like luffy and yamato currently not in the main thrust of action it’s difficult to see this ending in any way other than pure tragedy and if anything this chapter is only sounding the alarms more and more in my head fora certain kinemon and that’s because he had some pretty great stuff in chapter987 actually.
Especially when he gave his equivalent of the pirate king speech you know that thing we see the straw hats and their ally stayed about luffy from time to time but kinemon looked kaido dead inthe eyes with his profound belief in luffy but then he also went on to casually flag the prospect of each and every oneof them dying everyone but luffy that is which ismildly concerning because no i don’t think all of the vassals will die but it does make me fear for kinemon individually whilst he also had a verynice moment of hitching a ride on kaidoand briefly addressing luffy with a smile on his face and just ugh wouldn’t this be a mostgut-wrenching final interaction inretrospect and i know i’m probably reading into this way too much that’sjust what i do but if there was going tobe another grand tragedy on wanna then iwould say that kinemon is very much setup to be the figure who bites that bullet but before we move away from thevassals the last panel of this chapteris absolutely fear-inducing it’s like stepping into alice in wonderland and coming across a cheshire cat who couldrip you to pieces in an instant because this kitty cat is about to turn so long and i just don’t know what to expect from that nekomomushi was already alarge towering power cat and if soo long becomes as anything to go by.
Then we are in for a real treat here not just with nekomamushi either but with the revelation of all of the minks lying in wait which shows some pretty incredible planning actually they basically lured kaido into a vulnerable moonlit spot and we are about to see a whole band of very real monsters on ogashima and i’m really hoping for a potential spread below the soo long minks either charging at or attacking kaidoin the same way that the vassals did but this is definitely a big game changer and probably what i am most excited to hopefully see from the next chapter it might not necessarily be the next chapter though we could skip it and come back to this event later as oda often does but soo long mink tribe incoming.
This chapter is incredibly packed with other interactions though a lot of which iwould refer to asmounting chaos like there’s no real development or grand progression inthings like seeing hyogoro and the samurai reveal themselves but there is avery satisfying sense of seeing the antagonists practically shit themselveswhen they realize all of the information that we as readers already knowand definitely the greatest example oft his would be queen who does histrademark shock face when the accurate reporting gets through to him and man doi love queen the more i see him the morei realize just how integral he isto breaking up the flow of the beastpirates some people do hate this aboutone piece but there is always aninherent goofiness presentsomewhere in a band of main antagoniststhere’s a whole argument to be made thatmakes it difficult to take them seriously especially at this kind of level but i am much more in favor of this brand of goofiness than not queenis pretty much the sole reason why thebeast pirates are not just this monolithic entity of silent brooding imean kaido king and jack are all quietheavy hitters who we haven’t really gotten to know at all and it would just be the epitome of boring for queen to be the exact same character as well so i continue to be really glad that oda has once again gone all outweird with someone in queen’s position.
Queen’s reaction is followed by a series of four very fun panels though that kind of mirror the trio of panels i loved from the last chapter being the ones of zorokid and lore they were all showcased more or less a close-up of their own whilst in this chapter oda veryspecifically zooms out and shows that each and every one of them now have wanoallies fighting alongside them and thiscomes with a huge sigh of relief because zoro and kid, in particular, looked a bit tired and bloodied in 986 but here thetwo of them look like they are back in peak condition and it’s a cool yet subtle way of showing that the tides are indeed beginning to turn on onigashima one thing i am quite interested about inlaw’s panelis whoever this person is with the longhair because my initial reaction waswaitis that basil hawkins and that made me realize that we haven’t actually seen hawkins in act 3 yet which is a bitweird given he was such a major aspect of acts 1 and 2.
We have had a lot of drake in a lot of our poo which has been nice but no hawkins so this is probably just me wishfully thinking you know catching a glimpse of light long hair and reading some great meaning into it or forgetting about a character that may have already been with or but it does make me incredibly curious as to what hawkins is actually up to right now but joining this trio is a very understated fourth panel featuring what would appear to be the most ambitious crossover of 2020 with marco the phoenix and charlotteperesbera very much indicating that perispero was the strange shadow that marco saw earlier and i can only assume that they have temporarily joined forces because perespero of course does not approve of this whole kaido alliance business and may very much be attempting to intentionally sabotage it in which case we now have a most unexpected ally in this candyman not at all unwelcome but definitely unexpected and as for other major events there’s a fair bit of yamato in.
This chapter very casual yama tore mind you with a lot of very neutralfaces actually which given the thingsthat yamato is saying is kind of crazybut also kind of cooli did like the verbal confrontation with ulti but i do like most things featuring alti but this definitely was just not achapter geared at having yamato shineand the whole scene very muchimmediately got stored away in the back of my mind in favor of some of the otherinsane events happening right next to itactually like luffy speaking to big momis always fun they have such a neatdynamic because both of them are justovergrown children so they tend toconfront each other in verystraightforward and almost pure wayswhich eventually culminates in luffyjust claiming that he’s here to beateveryone but it was also a great subtle callback to their interaction on wholecake island when luffy initially claimed that he was going to be kaido and i mean it feels like an eternity ago that thatwhole mess happened and while luffystill has not made good on their wordswe are still seeing them in action righ there right now which is quite satisfyingi very much enjoy little connective moments like these that tell their ownstory and there is also a brief scene ofnami and carrot in this chapter .