第172回：Beng Beng, You’re Dead

Throughout the years we’ve talked about Momotarou’s influence on this arc and at long last, it appears that our team of warriors who will take down Kaido have taken their places on the grand stage of One Piece!

While we can’t say for certain whether Odacchi will limit himself by having a 1-1 representative of the team. He’s already bent the rules by fusing Luffy and Momo as Momotarou with Luffy playing double-duty as the hero *and* monkey. So while there may be some clever twists of the roles, the character assuming the role of the pheasant, despite Marco’s proximity to the events on the battlefield, would seem to be Oden’s daughter herself, Hiyori!

Oh…almost forgot! What makes Hiyori the pheasant? Look no further than the stitch work on her kimono that displays a peacock and her Vivrecard which lists her image animal as a peafowl. As it turns out, peafowl and pheasants are closely related! There’s still a fine chance that Odacchi could weave in *both* Marco and Hiyori as the ‘pheasant’ if he takes some artistic creation with a mythical creature like the two-headed hiyokucho but for now, I’m Team Hiyori for the pheasant!

So how will she participate in the battle against Kaido? I believe she’s already unsheathed her most deadly weapon, song. Hiyori is not wearing her fox mask and since Orochi made no particular mention of the song, it’s possible she isn’t playing ‘Tsukihime’ yet. Even so, Zoro showed signs of being able to hear her handiwork. Curiously, no other characters in this chapter made mention of being able to hear the sound of the shamisen…yet. Why was Zoro one of the first to pick up on the melody?

At this still early point in her performance, I think it may because Enma, Oden’s longtime sword, is reacting to the sound of Oden’s daughter’s music. If that’s the case, it might be possible that those who have some sort of connection to Oden will eventually be able to pick up on Hiyori’s work, even perhaps those in the capital, while they’re in the very midst of celebrating the departed.

But more so than even Orochi, for Hiyori to be a part of the team that takes down Kaido, her strumming MUST affect Kaido in a way that reminds him of Oden and their duel. In doing so she may create an opportunity for the other members of the team to topple the titan.

Something was bothering me the entire time I was looking at Kozaburo…where had I seen him before?!?!

Yes, he’s definitely a *unique* fellow but that’s exactly the point, his design was *so* over the top that I knew there was somewhere I’d seen it before. Finally, it hit me!

“This man….is a sword!!!!”

Well, sorta, this sword…was actually a man!!!

In traditional Odacchi fashion, while we’ve been wondering what the mysterious Kozaburo Shimotsuki might look like, the answer has been right in front of us for over 2 years! In the Volume 92 SBS Odacchi depicted Zoro’s swords as humans and it turns out that Kozaburo is the (older) spitting image of his sword!

This chapter went to great lengths to remind us that swords have a ‘personality’ and it turns out that personality is (fittingly) based on if not identical to the individuals who forge them!