第71回：Pony Up for Poneglyphs

*PUHAAAAAH!* That’s the sound I made after reading this chapter! I’ve been holding my breath for 15 years waiting for Oda-sensei to give us a solid idea of how many poneglyphs exist! The magic number is ‘about 30’. Excellent! We’ve also learned that nine poneglyphs make up the so-called ‘Rio Poneglyph’. Let’s use this opportunity to take stock of all *known* poneglyphs. (There are other potential instances of poneglyphs but I’m only counting what the main story has confirmed as poneglyphs.)

*(The ‘Rio Poneglyph’ is comprised of 9 of these poneglyphs)

This pose! This is probably the pose that Big Mom took back when she was revealed in Chapter 651!

Research from a study in the 1990’s suggests that the casual Japanese manga reader spends less than 10 seconds reading a single page of manga. At longest, a seventeen-page chapter would take a casual reader 2 minutes and 50 seconds.

My first time through, this chapter took me over an hour to read.

Suspense, action, danger, struggle, intrigue, character development, world-building, a cliffhanger, and those oh-so-delicious secrets! All accounted for and present in a single chapter! While I wouldn’t say it’s the ‘best’ chapter from the arc so far it’s certainly the one that I’ve enjoyed the most. For minutes on end I lost myself in scouring pages for hidden details and often finding myself rewarded!

There’s a great deal to find hidden away in this chapter and I don’t want to ruin it all here but for starters, try reading the text on the pages in the book in which Luffy and Nami are imprisoned.

Oda-sensei, we appreciate all the hard work and attention to detail!

Here’s the fellow who first appeared back in Chapter 827. There’s still no confirmation on whether or not Randolph or Amande are (respectively) ministers of fruits or eggs but if they are then that would probably make this longarm gentleman the Minister of Flour. As I suggested, back in Column #60, the wheel wasn’t simply a cart and does indeed appear to be part of his body!

Is this a modification to help with flour-related Devil’s Fruit abilities?

Sanji’s wildly valuable Sleeping Mermaid ST Dupont lighter –famously
flaunted in Film Z- is the rare and valuable ‘Prestige Edition’ lighter. Of
the three available levels of decadence (Prime, Premium, and Prestige) the
Prestige Edition is the rarest and most valuable; only 55 of them were made
available for purchase worldwide! Sanji may be seen using the lighter twice
in this episode.

In addition to the lighter, Prime, Premium and Prestige editions of pens
were also created by Oda-sensei in collaboration with ST Dupont. Might we
see one of the Strawhats using one of those pens someday?

This episode revealed not only the full-color version of Big Mom’s invitation to Sanji but also, for the first time, a detailed and unobscured look at the full invitation!

That map in the bottom right probably represents Whole Cake Island. Assuming that north is ‘up’ on the invitation -given the size and location of Whole Cake Chateau in this picture from the comic- those concentric circles probably represent Big Mom’s gargantuan headquarters!