第81回：Sola Power

It’s been some time since we’ve taken a look at Big Mom’s family and with her offspring coming out of the woodwork now’s a great time to update a list of her family tree! We’re going to leave Mother Carmel out of the picture right now just until we find out precisely what kind of relationship she and Linlin had.

Charlotte Gala: 9th Son

Snack:
★★(Former?) Sweet Commander
(Defeated by Urouge)

Maybe it’s just me, but the Strawhats’ plan to assassinate Big Mom seems to be going way too smoothly. They’ve been chugging through the assembled forces of an Emperor with very little resistance. Their luck has to run out sooner or later because otherwise this just wouldn’t be One Piece!

It also looks like the Strawhats may have found an unlikely team of allies in the Vinsmokes. Do these cylinders being passed off to them contain the Raid Suits the siblings regretted checking at the door?

Luffy steamrolling through Grount led to an awakening that allowed the prodigious Marine to reel in the overwhelming power of his animalistic arm. While their battle ended in Grount’s *total* defeat, Luffy’s victory left the young Marine grateful rather than bitter towards the Strawhat!

Speaking of Grount’s revelation, what was the deal with that demonic arm anyway? We never got an explanation but might the ghastly arm be the result of experimentation that lead to the development of SMILE?

His arm looks strikingly similar to some of the appendages of Kaidou’s Gifters. Side note, I wonder if Kuzan petitioned Vegapunk to develop the containment armor.

Sanji fans rejoice! The gentleman cook is back and he’s looking delectable in Episode 783 which officially kicks off the Whole Cake Island Arc! While there’s a lot to talk about in this episode, the stand-out scene for fans was the decadently cheesy Sola segment! Playing off of tokusatsu-hero series, the Sola segment is at once familiar and fresh to fans of One Piece as it conjures up memories of the legendary Sogeking segments while forging new ground as an entirely dialogue-free instrumental scene nearly a minute and a half long! That’s a serious chunk of time for a cornerstone serial anime to go without dialogue but it’s *exactly* how the scene should have been portrayed. Remember, this is a *comic* Vito is talking with Sanji about! Adding fully animated motion and speech to it would have made the scene feel unnatural, unnecessary and far too much like Sogeking’s theme song.

The full view of Sola’s design from the front (despite his carefully obscured identity) is a huge treat by itself but we were also lucky enough to see what I can only imagine is the *official* design of Sola’s robot!

Take note of the robot’s ship feet which allow it to ‘walk’ on the ocean just like Sola!

A brief cut also shows the robot with what appear to be canons protruding from its head making it look almost lagomorphic!

Here’s hoping that one day we’ll find out Sola’s identity!