One Piece chapter review 551

(Scans in image courtesy of Hueco Mundo)

Chapter 551: Yonkou Whitebeard

 

What a chapter! I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed and yet so satisfied! Oda delivered on so many levels, and yet didn’t quite give us what we were expecting. I wanted a flashback to see more of Roger and Garp’s deal, but instead of learning that much, now I have even more questions – who is Dadan? How old was Luffy when he met Ace, anyways? And who was Portgas D. Rouge?

 

I wanted to see Whitebeard’s dramatic appearance. I expected to see his full fleet of ships sailing into Marineford. Well, we got a fleet of ships doing that, but it was a bunch of random pirates. People are being quick to label these New World captains as fodder, but I think they’ve already established something vital – the world of One Piece now is truly an age of Whitebeard. Not just in terms of who the public fears, but in who most pirates are ready to fight for. Until now, we had only seen pirates who were all too ready to take advantage of the war to replace Whitebeard in such power, so to see him getting so much support from other pirates adds yet another element to this story. Whitebeard’s position on the always increasingly complex scale of good and evil keeps getting harder to pin-point, which will make whatever he ends up doing in this war all the more interesting.

 

He definitely will be doing something, too. That much is clear. Roger’s entrance is not what I predicted, but the page of the Moby Dick popping out of the water is clearly too awesome for me to even begin to imagine. I really cannot describe how excited I was when I got to that page. I actually remember squealing with delight out loud. And who would have imagined that this was the first time we would see a coated ship? It seems like they’re entirely enveloped in a bubble. I’m still not discounting that Rayleigh has some sort of sky fruit that lets him do that, it just seems to make so much sense with his name. Of course, that doesn’t explain how there are other coating mechanics besides him.

 

I was expecting a really dramatic scene wherein Jimbei throws them over the Gates of Justice, or something else amazing happens to get them by. If it wasn’t for the hilarious Buggy as Moses scene, I would probably be a bit disappointed with how anticlimactic getting in the second gate was, considering how dramatic and heartrending getting past the first gates had been. Of course, Oda figures we need yet another mystery to sit unsolved for chapter after chapter, taunting us – who opened the gates? Dragon is a safe bet, if only because any action he takes could conceivably make sense. Or is there a traitor amongst the Marines?

 

All things considered, it was a very exciting chapter, but it neither began the war nor began to explain the backstory of Luffy and Ace in any satisfactory detail. We still learned a fair bit, and yet another step has been taken closer to all hell breaking loose with the war, but these things have been true for many chapters now. Honestly, though, I can’t imagine what this war will actually entail, I have no idea how he will depict it. Like I said before, I don’t see this going match by match like Alabasta. And now that there’s some new faces on Whitebeard’s side to deal with some of the more interesting Marines, I almost see it unfolding like the battle between the Straw Hats and waves of Marines at the end of Eines Lobby, where we’re treated to no more than a few panels of each fighter displaying their talents. It will probably be amazing, though, considering how much exciting hype it’s been getting.

 

So was this a good chapter? Of course! The scene between Roger and Garp was instantly classic, and Whitebeard’s entrance and his friends were exciting to the point of complete lower jaw dislocation. But compared to the last few bombshells lobbed at us, this one was more sizzle than steak.

***