第72回：“Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t.”

Of *course* the Soul King would have the power to move transposed souls. The answer has been right in front of our faces and Oda-sensei laid the truth on us like a boss!

Similar to how Luffy is impervious to Ener’s attacks, does this suggest that our boney bard’s Devil Fruit power make him Big Mom’s natural bone enemy? (boom)

The tiny ‘hi-ho’ inscribed on this shield set me to counting the number of warriors in this panel; gotta be the seven dwarves, right? I was puzzled when I only came up with six. How could Oda-sensei resist an opportunity to add all seven dwarves from Snow White in one panel? Like Brook’s soul power, the answer was right in front of me. The man with a shield isn’t one of the dwarves, *that’s* Snow White! That’s why there’s an apple stem coming from his head which makes his entire rotund form appear like an actual giant poisoned apple! What’s more, his armor is designed after the classic Snow White dress which Oda-sensei has previously depicted in his short comic, Straw Hat Theater: Marchen TIME.

The fairy tale nods don’t stop there either! The panel below depicts Little Red Riding Hood and the nefarious wolf rolled into one.

Speaking of fairy tales, Oda-sensei previously drew nods to the Town Musicians of Bremen in color and cover page so maybe they’ll show up somewhere in Totto Land as well!

Alice’s words might apply to this chapter’s cliffhanger as Big Mom’s Wonderland of delights seems to be on the brink of turning upside down. We see Reiju wounded and stumbling through a castle, but are these the hallways of Whole Cake Chateau [WCC]?

The establishing panel clearly shows us a scenic view of Sweet City and WCC but curiously, there’s no label to tell us *exactly* where the setting is even though Oda-sensei has been keen on telling us where each movement of this carefully orchestrated arc takes place.

The hallway certainly appears to be inside a castle so we might assume that it’s WCC nor is it *too* different from some of the hallways we’ve glimpsed in the depths of WCC but somehow…this feels off. There aren’t any signs of homies, bustling servants or Big Mom’s family. She’s left blood all over the wall which could easily be discovered and her brothers stand a chance of running into her. Is the architect of this plan willing to risk Reiju being found by one of her brothers or father? So here’s a riddle, when can a castle be within a castle?

Way back on Sabaody Archipelago it seemed straightforward to assume that Capone’s basic ability was to house a finite number of items in his body. We then learned that he could also control rooms and items within his body.

These two ideas seemed to be par as far as Paramecia powers go. However, during his escape from Zou, Capone turned his legs directly into working tanks treads and that, well that just seemed a bit overpowered, didn’t it?

What’s the logical relation between a castle and tank treads? If he can do that, what’s stopping Capone from turning into a steampunk golem? Whenever I think ‘overpowered Devil Fruit’ I’m reminded of the terrifying ends to which Mingo extended his abilities. Has Capone awakened his Devil Fruit abilities!?

Excluding the film-related television specials, the One Piece anime has been (sadly) bereft of original stories that tie-in to the canon storyline so imagine my surprise when we were introduced to the ‘sutchies’, large wasp-like insects that suck a host’s blood for sustenance.

Their name is a play on the Japanese words for ‘suck’ (suu) and ‘blood’ (chi) combining them to ‘succhii’. Basically their name means ‘blood-suckers’ ^O^

And at last, Episode 765 brought us the anticipated anime debut of ‘Going to Meet Catviper! I hope they cover the recording of this in Kappei-san’s column!