One Piece 1079 brings us the actual curtain call of any major arc: the big ol' celebratory cookout.
This is a time-honored tradition at this point, something all true fans of the series look forward to with excitement. Sure, the battles are fun, and the world-building is exciting, but at the end of the day, the real joy is watching Luffy obliterate a spread of food while Zoro and Sanji bicker violently in the background. You could say that the actual final boss of Wano was not Kaido but rather the five trays of food that came hurtling towards Luffy in Onigashima.
I am pleased to report that Luffy won this fight as well.
Wano's finale has a few twists on our beloved post-arc ritual to spice things up. The obvious one, of course, is the bathhouse scene, which has some tender moments mixed with the usual “tender” elements one expects in these scenes. The mad scramble of Momo, Yamato, and others to see Luffy and Zoro when they wake up was one of my favorite moments, not least of which because Mom finally got some comeuppance for his past behavior. Luffy and Zoro using their powers to eat and drink got the biggest laugh out of me by far; it created a lot of fun and exciting visuals for something other than direct conflict, and the sheer absurdity of using these world-ending powers in another context is excellent.
This is also like… what, the third time we've ever seen Zoro use Demon Asura form, and it's just to get drunk? Fantastic stuff, really, no notes from me.
My only recurring gripe about the events is how… shallow Izo's death feels. Given how quickly he was taken out of action, it's hard to care when his death is juxtaposed with everyone having all these silly honk-honk laughs. I suppose such is the nature of having so many characters to juggle and only so much time to do it.
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