One Piece VI: Wano Piece

[Razade]

I've always treated that defense as the speculation that it is, absent of any actual proof.

Sure, and I'm not saying you need to believe me without actually finding the quote. You're conflating things there though. The they is Oda and his team. Obviously I can't find the interview, it's old and I don't remember what venue it was given in. Things disappear off the internet from time to time and I'm honestly not that committed to hunting it down.

[LaZodiac]

... I mean, you're almost right. She died at Enie's Lobby, but yes.

Aah, right. Skypeia is just where we first learned Merry is more than just a boat. My bad.

[lord_khaine]

Sure, and I'm not saying you need to believe me without actually finding the quote. You're conflating things there though. The they is Oda and his team. Obviously I can't find the interview, it's old and I don't remember what venue it was given in. Things disappear off the internet from time to time and I'm honestly not that committed to hunting it down.

Well it sounds believeable. People did go strangely crazy over that thing.
There were people wanting to change the title of the 2nd LoTR movie.

[Traab]

MERRRRYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, thats the arc where I knew oda was a god of manga. That he could turn a BOAT into a character that makes you sob like a child when it "dies" is just unbelievable. I didnt even watch/read the entire arc, I get most of my one piece knowledge from clips on youtube, and I STILL cried when Merry was set on fire and had her goodbye scene. The scene where they jump from enis lobby to merry, that scream of joy and triumph that their ship had come for them, it was beautiful. Then when it fell apart right after they got away safely. Oh man. The flashback of all the adventures they had with her, it felt like all the times we saw the smiling figurehead that the ship was truly smiling and feeling joy because it was on an adventure. The whole thing was just about perfect.

[ellenate]

I don't know why oda felt the need to hide that guy's (the one in the cage) face for so long... it felt like he was building up to something but it's just some side character.

[Braininthejar2]

It's the guy who got the young princess out of the burning castle.

[Razade]

I don't know why oda felt the need to hide that guy's (the one in the cage) face for so long... it felt like he was building up to something but it's just some side character.

It's one of the most important side characters of this Saga. We know the Nine Scabbards are going to be instrumental taking down Orochi and Kaido. The build up was so we didn't know who "the Kappa" was, as evidenced by the fact that people in this thread were confused as to who was in the cell even when the hints obviously pointed to who it was.

[ben-zayb]

It's the guy who got the young princess out of the burning castle.

I didn't realize Shrek was in this chapter.

Spoiler: New Chapter

Show

I'm pretty sure Kawamatsu looks like a Pokemon...can't remember the name though. He doesn't look emaciated at all, which I guess makes sense if you put in no work and still get fed boneless poisoned fish daily.

Luffy could save the prisoners all the trouble by just activating Conqueror's Haki, but I guess it probably has some cooldown? At least we now know why Queen is called the Plague.

O-Kiku wearing a Hanya mask looks badass. Not sure if Oda intended more symbolism with that, as the mask traditionally is a representation of a jealous and woeful female demon.

[ellenate]

It's one of the most important side characters of this Saga. We know the Nine Scabbards are going to be instrumental taking down Orochi and Kaido. The build up was so we didn't know who "the Kappa" was, as evidenced by the fact that people in this thread were confused as to who was in the cell even when the hints obviously pointed to who it was.

Excluding the end, perhaps even what's left, this has to be one of the weakest arcs.

[lord_khaine]

It's one of the most important side characters of this Saga. We know the Nine Scabbards are going to be instrumental taking down Orochi and Kaido. The build up was so we didn't know who "the Kappa" was, as evidenced by the fact that people in this thread were confused as to who was in the cell even when the hints obviously pointed to who it was.

Those people kinda had to have directly worked on their ignorance though.
As we got extremely many hits to it.

[Razade]

Excluding the end, perhaps even what's left, this has to be one of the weakest arcs.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion but I've been hearing this exact thing every arc since before the time skip. You've admitted you don't read all that closely so you'll forgive me if I don't really take your opinions into consideration. Especially since reading week to week doesn't give you an accurate feel for what is otherwise intended to be read as a whole piece. I always go back and read arcs all the way through once they're finished and generally feel more excited for it. Dressrosa really improved with that treatment.


Oda's also taking a really weird style with the Saga's post time skip. Where each arc builds on the next until the final pay out. We're not there yet.

Those people kinda had to have directly worked on their ignorance though.
As we got extremely many hits to it.

I absolutely agree.

[ellenate]

Oda's also taking a really weird style with the Saga's post time skip. Where each arc builds on the next until the final pay out. We're not there yet.

He's done that from the very beginning-

Though since you called it weird... perhaps not as well executed as in the past.

[Razade]

He's done that from the very beginning-

Though since you called it weird... perhaps not as well executed as in the past.

He really hasn't though. Pre-Time skip, the arcs have been a bit more self contained. The East Blue Saga doesn't really flow quite like the Dressrosa Saga. Orange Town to Syrup Village to Bartie don't quite work together quite like Punk Hazard to Dressrosa itself. Alabasta arguably has a bit more of a flow to it but the actions in Reverse Mountain don't impact the story nearly the same way to Drum Island as say...Zou does to Wano. Or even Whole Cake to Wano.

I imagine a lot of this is because in the pre-time skip arcs and sagas he had more time to have breathing space where as now...Oda is just trying to finish the story. He's already said that he's cutting a lot of things down and pushing them together to make sure he actually finishes. Which is understandable. Dressrosa was going to be two separate arcs and he blended them together.

[lord_khaine]

I imagine a lot of this is because in the pre-time skip arcs and sagas he had more time to have breathing space where as now...Oda is just trying to finish the story. He's already said that he's cutting a lot of things down and pushing them together to make sure he actually finishes. Which is understandable. Dressrosa was going to be two separate arcs and he blended them together.

Something to be graceful for.
I mean, noone likes a pushed ending.
But better that than another Wheel of Time.

[ellenate]

He really hasn't though. Pre-Time skip, the arcs have been a bit more self contained. The East Blue Saga doesn't really flow quite like the Dressrosa Saga. Orange Town to Syrup Village to Bartie don't quite work together quite like Punk Hazard to Dressrosa itself. Alabasta arguably has a bit more of a flow to it but the actions in Reverse Mountain don't impact the story nearly the same way to Drum Island as say...Zou does to Wano. Or even Whole Cake to Wano.

Yes, it's a lot more malformed due-

I imagine a lot of this is because in the pre-time skip arcs and sagas he had more time to have breathing space where as now...Oda is just trying to finish the story. He's already said that he's cutting a lot of things down and pushing them together to make sure he actually finishes. Which is understandable. Dressrosa was going to be two separate arcs and he blended them together.

to events being rushed, but he's still following the same methodology.

[deuterio12]

I imagine a lot of this is because in the pre-time skip arcs and sagas he had more time to have breathing space where as now...Oda is just trying to finish the story. He's already said that he's cutting a lot of things down and pushing them together to make sure he actually finishes. Which is understandable. Dressrosa was going to be two separate arcs and he blended them together.

Well it's his damn fault for trying to scale things up so much.

Start is just:
-Luffy going "I'm going in an adventure to get the legendary treasure and also pretend I'm a pirate while making friends for my crew and running into a bunch of exotic islands, yay!"

Now we have:
-Multi-layer corrupt world government that clearly needs to be toppled but is still going pretty strong.
-Not one, not two, not three but four giant pirate empires, each one would probably make for a long full story for themselves. And that's not counting the super pirates backed by the government.
-Then blackbeard shows up out of nowhere and also becomes a top-level enemy because clearly we didn't have enough of those yet.
-Sanji pulls a "actually I come from a super powerful family" background out of his ass.
-Luffy turns out to be the rightful lost king with super rare conqueror's haki or something.
-Devil fruits! Haki! Cyborgs! Cenetically enhanced clones! Genetically cloned devil fruits with terrible secondary effects! Countries wasted by industrial pollution! Wait, when did the fantastic pirate story turn to cyberpunk? Oh wait, more secret super martial arts.
-Still looking for that legendary treasure, and by "looking" I mean "didn't even get the full map yet" hundreds of chapters later.

Now world building is nice and all, but Oda went way overboard. There's like 5 evil super empires around when usually one is enough, and the number of smaller factions with open plot threads just keep going up and up.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm kind of amazed that people are complaining about that. One Piece is the Wheel of Time of Manga/Anime, it is why I still read it over a decade in. The world is surprisingly coherent for its craziness, and so far every faction has felt distinct and interesting.

[Razade]

I'm kind of amazed that people are complaining about that. One Piece is the Wheel of Time of Manga/Anime, it is why I still read it over a decade in. The world is surprisingly coherent for its craziness, and so far every faction has felt distinct and interesting.

It's a weird complaint to me too. Oda is a masterclass on building a world and making events matter. Coby being a character even to today is something no other manga I can think of has done.

People have had these complaints from the start however. I don't pay them much mind. Especially when people start making crap up, makes it easier to disregard their complaints.

[deuterio12]

I'm kind of amazed that people are complaining about that. One Piece is the Wheel of Time of Manga/Anime, it is why I still read it over a decade in.

Berserk/Jojo's Bizzarre Adventure say hi.

The world is surprisingly coherent for its craziness, and so far every faction has felt distinct and interesting.

What's exactly coherent about navy ships sailing around with black gunpowder cannons when they've started mass producing laser cannons years ago? Or supposed "pirates" that run empires with their own laws and taxing systems and research centers and personal education system and farming and industry and whatnot? Because at some point you simply can't call them a pirate anymore when it turns out they're actually a ruler running their own independent nation with clear borders for decades.

There's super martial arts that supposedly anybody can learn in a few years with bonus like making you bullet proof but they're nowhere to be seen for all the early story (and if anything "top 4 pirate" Shanks loses an arm to a mook at the start of the story, when super martial arts should've allowed him to easily shrugg that off). Also not even the official navy can be bothered to teach the super martial arts to anybody but a tiny fraction of their numbers, and will instead send mook waves that can't even scratch the people who do know the super martial arts.

Or you know, just replace the useless mooks with super cyborgs, which the navy has also been shown to be able to mass-produce for years now.

I'll give you that the factions indeed feel distinct and interesting, but the interactions between said factions have been turning into a massive jumble. The "world" government doesn't seem to actually control that much of the actual world with all the pirates around, including their main prison actually has what is a small independent nation inside, then there's also the rebels faction and big momma revealed that her wedding offer to Sanji's family was just a massive trap but her reputation didn't take any hit for that. So what did big momma do to get enough reputation so people would trust her wedding offer in the first place? And how will anybody trust her after she revealed she intended to kill them all along? Nobody knows!

And now in Wano Country we got time travel added to the mix because things clearly weren't complicated enough with all the cyborgs and super martial arts and seastone craft everything and "we have sleep juice, but let's use that only after the target is already unconscious."

[Tvtyrant]

Berserk/Jojo's Bizzarre Adventure say hi.



What's exactly coherent about navy ships sailing around with black gunpowder cannons when they've started mass producing laser cannons years ago? Or supposed "pirates" that run empires with their own laws and taxing systems and research centers and personal education system and farming and industry and whatnot? Because at some point you simply can't call them a pirate anymore when it turns out they're actually a ruler running their own independent nation with clear borders for decades.

There's super martial arts that supposedly anybody can learn in a few years with bonus like making you bullet proof but they're nowhere to be seen for all the early story (and if anything "top 4 pirate" Shanks loses an arm to a mook at the start of the story, when super martial arts should've allowed him to easily shrugg that off). Also not even the official navy can be bothered to teach the super martial arts to anybody but a tiny fraction of their numbers, and will instead send mook waves that can't even scratch the people who do know the super martial arts.

Or you know, just replace the useless mooks with super cyborgs, which the navy has also been shown to be able to mass-produce for years now.

I'll give you that the factions indeed feel distinct and interesting, but the interactions between said factions have been turning into a massive jumble. The "world" government doesn't seem to actually control that much of the actual world with all the pirates around, including their main prison actually has what is a small independent nation inside, then there's also the rebels faction and big momma revealed that her wedding offer to Sanji's family was just a massive trap but her reputation didn't take any hit for that. So what did big momma do to get enough reputation so people would trust her wedding offer in the first place? And how will anybody trust her after she revealed she intended to kill them all along? Nobody knows!

And now in Wano Country we got time travel added to the mix because things clearly weren't complicated enough with all the cyborgs and super martial arts and seastone craft everything and "we have sleep juice, but let's use that only after the target is already unconscious."

In OP the World Government is deliberately keeping tech levels down; they made only the most passing efforts to reclaim the super-weapons from the lost century, they avoid using their high tech weapons unless absolutely needed, and we see the average citizens life as being Eighteenth Century in most regions despite post-modern tech being available to the government.

The WG is a despotic organization determined to maintain stasis, why would they acknowledge super-pirates or risk teaching tens of thousands of people powers they could use to revolt when they still control most of the world and the pirates give them a convenient excuse for things being terrible?

[Razade]

Berserk/Jojo's Bizzarre Adventure say hi.

You mean the manga that's been running since 1989 and until recently was "it's the 100 year war. But with a pretty dude oh and some demons" that moves at such a glacial pace certain politicians around the world are using it to disprove climate change and JoJo's "a magic space rock made it so a falcon can have cryokinetic powers" Adventure which was a fairly niche title outside of Japan until crazy recently....

Yeah.

What's exactly coherent about navy ships sailing around with black gunpowder cannons when they've started mass producing laser cannons years ago? Or supposed "pirates" that run empires with their own laws and taxing systems and research centers and personal education system and farming and industry and whatnot? Because at some point you simply can't call them a pirate anymore when it turns out they're actually a ruler running their own independent nation with clear borders for decades.

There's super martial arts that supposedly anybody can learn in a few years with bonus like making you bullet proof but they're nowhere to be seen for all the early story (and if anything "top 4 pirate" Shanks loses an arm to a mook at the start of the story, when super martial arts should've allowed him to easily shrugg that off). Also not even the official navy can be bothered to teach the super martial arts to anybody but a tiny fraction of their numbers, and will instead send mook waves that can't even scratch the people who do know the super martial arts.

Or you know, just replace the useless mooks with super cyborgs, which the navy has also been shown to be able to mass-produce for years now.

I'll give you that the factions indeed feel distinct and interesting, but the interactions between said factions have been turning into a massive jumble. The "world" government doesn't seem to actually control that much of the actual world with all the pirates around, including their main prison actually has what is a small independent nation inside, then there's also the rebels faction and big momma revealed that her wedding offer to Sanji's family was just a massive trap but her reputation didn't take any hit for that. So what did big momma do to get enough reputation so people would trust her wedding offer in the first place? And how will anybody trust her after she revealed she intended to kill them all along? Nobody knows!

And now in Wano Country we got time travel added to the mix because things clearly weren't complicated enough with all the cyborgs and super martial arts and seastone craft everything and "we have sleep juice, but let's use that only after the target is already unconscious."

The amount of hyperbole and just flat wrongness here...just startling really. The list would be way too long. We're never told that the World Government can mass produce Pacifista. We're never told they can mass produce any of their super tech and even if they could why would they need to send it out past the Grand Line? The Blue's are, as mentioned, technologically held down. They can't trade between each other without the World Government because only the World Government can get past the Calm Belt.

Complaining about the word Pirate...is just silly. The word used in the manga is Kaizoku or 海賊 and translates less as Pirate but "sea robber" or "sea thief". Which...even the Yonko are. They pirate goods from the World Government and other islands in their area. They just have control over them through military might. Doesn't change the fact that they aren't pirating the stuff and there were totally pirate crews in our own world that did similar things. Especially out in China, Korea and Japan.

Big Mom may have lost standing. We don't really know, as the story isn't about Big Mom's influence around the world. It's about Luffy. It also helped that the Vinsmokes were desperate for the marriage and it wasn't one out of mutual trust. We're told straight up that the Vinsmokes don't trust Big Mom as far as they could throw her. It's also implied that she's done this tons of times before. That she is more than happy to kill her husbands. Some people are either too greedy, too stupid or both.

[lord_khaine]

"we have sleep juice, but let's use that only after the target is already unconscious."

Thats actually already explained in Capone's plot to kill Big Mom.
You cant inject an awake Big Mom under normal circumstance, her body is tough enough to shrug off a battleship cannon.

The amount of hyperbole and just flat wrongness here...just startling really. The list would be way too long. We're never told that the World Government can mass produce Pacifista. We're never told they can mass produce any of their super tech and even if they could why would they need to send it out past the Grand Line? The Blue's are, as mentioned, technologically held down. They can't trade between each other without the World Government because only the World Government can get past the Calm Belt.

Yeah the source of the super tech is Vegnapunk (or whatever his name was). So i doubt anyone else can replicate it.
And we were told a single pacifista costs more than a battleship.

[Traab]

After marineford, the only time I recall seeing pacifistas offhand was at sabaody when that bounty hunter with the big axe had two of them for luffy to demonstrate how absurdly powerful he is now in comparison to pre timeskip. Do they show up after that? Or are they basically a failed experiment because it turns out they are only useful as a terror weapon against mooks to mid range at best opponents? Effective gatekeepers for blocking pirates from reaching the grand line/new world maybe, but other than that, not so useful.

[Razade]

After marineford, the only time I recall seeing pacifistas offhand was at sabaody when that bounty hunter with the big axe had two of them for luffy to demonstrate how absurdly powerful he is now in comparison to pre timeskip. Do they show up after that? Or are they basically a failed experiment because it turns out they are only useful as a terror weapon against mooks to mid range at best opponents? Effective gatekeepers for blocking pirates from reaching the grand line/new world maybe, but other than that, not so useful.

We're told those are out-dated so there are obviously more being built or have been built. We've seen Kuma recently and he's technically a full Pacifista currently. They are, as mentioned, super crazy costly so I'd imagine they wouldn't be used except in high stakes battles. You don't want to throw away something that expensive just dealing with low rung pirates, even if there's very little chance of them being damaged.

Things like lasers and robots seem pretty rare even for the World Government and as Khaine mentioned, only thanks to Vegapunk. Combined with the crazy low mobility outside of the Grand Line and how the Grand Line is where most of the pirates are, one would imagine that's where the bulk of new World Government technologies are going to be. You don't put your weapons in locations you already control or at least have a high amount of control over.

Wano is also not at all more advanced than the rest of the world, I don't think that's been hit on. Wano has a lot of highly skilled craftsman but they've been isolated from the rest of the world for a really long time. Look at how they have to use Den Den Mushis. The rest of the world we've seen has personalized Den Den Mushi. Den Den Mushi that can over vast oceanic differences, log pose and the aforementioned lasers. We've not seen anything at all like that. They're good at crafting seastone. Cool, it's where it comes form and we know they made the Polyglyphs. It stands to reason they're skilled masons. It'd be really weird if they're the ones behind the indestructible Polyglyphs but couldn't...carve a stone.

We've also seen one instance of time travel, not "now we've got time travel to confuse things even more!". The time travel was expressly one way. Into the future with no hope of returning. That's not a particularly useful combat ability.

[ellenate]

Now world building is nice and all, but Oda went way overboard.

Yeah one piece would be a prime example of having little to no self-control as a creator. Which would kind of explain why he's had so many editors in such a short span of time.

[Rynjin]

We've also seen one instance of time travel, not "now we've got time travel to confuse things even more!". The time travel was expressly one way. Into the future with no hope of returning. That's not a particularly useful combat ability.

Yeah, that seemed an especially dumb complaint to me too. Devil Fruits have all sorts of weird powers, I'm not sure why time travel in general (much less this kind of it) seemed beyond the pale.

You mean the manga that's been running since 1989 and until recently was "it's the 100 year war. But with a pretty dude oh and some demons" that moves at such a glacial pace certain politicians around the world are using it to disprove climate change

Sounds a lot like Wheel of Time's pacing to me. Heyoooo!

and JoJo's "a magic space rock made it so a falcon can have cryokinetic powers" Adventure which was a fairly niche title outside of Japan until crazy recently....

Yeah.

But ****talking JoJo like this just doesn't fly. It is hard to overstate how crazy influential JoJo is, and how talented Araki is as a creator (the man is the only manga artist I know of who was called on to do an original work for a Louvre exhibit). I love One Piece but it probably wouldn't exist in its current form without JoJo (neither would series like HunterxHunter, Shaman King, or the entire Shin Megami Tensei/Persona extended franchise, to name a few).

JoJo has probably had more impact on the anime/manga industry than any series besides Dragon Ball, and ya need ta put some respect on its name.

Yeah one piece would be a prime example of having little to no self-control as a creator. Which would kind of explain why he's had so many editors in such a short span of time.

If your "lack of self control" leads to you having the most popular manga series in the world for 20 years and counting, can you really count that as a flaw?

[Razade]

But ****talking JoJo like this just doesn't fly. It is hard to overstate how crazy influential JoJo is, and how talented Araki is as a creator (the man is the only manga artist I know of who was called on to do an original work for a Louvre exhibit). I love One Piece but it probably wouldn't exist in its current form without JoJo (neither would series like HunterxHunter, Shaman King, or the entire Shin Megami Tensei/Persona extended franchise, to name a few).

I never implied any of that. It was a counter-argument to someone making complaints about One Piece that absolutely apply to JoJo's. I don't really care how influential it is, and it is, it's right to be honest with its flaws and frankly JoJo's world building is utter nonsense.

The reality stands. JoJo was influential in Japan, that's without question. But it had relatively minor success outside that region save for a few pretty distinct points. We're apparently in one of them now, people like to trot it out as one of their new "You don't like anime unless you like JoJo's".

JoJo has probably had more impact on the anime/manga industry than any series besides Dragon Ball, and ya need ta put some respect on its name.

I don't need to do anything.

[Rynjin]

I never implied any of that. It was a counter-argument to someone making complaints about One Piece that absolutely apply to JoJo's. I don't really care how influential it is, and it is, it's right to be honest with its flaws and frankly JoJo's world building is utter nonsense.

So is Wheel of Time's if you break it down to the most absurd surface elements, so by that logic the designation should be even more accurate!

Seriously though "a magic space rock made it so a falcon can have cryokinetic powers" is as weird a statement to make as a complaint about world building as the guy you were just arguing about saying "One Piece's world building sucks because a woman ate a banana and it let her time travel people, One Piece is dumb".

JoJo's world building is great.

It's every aspect of the PLOTTING that's flawed, get it right.

The reality stands. JoJo was influential in Japan, that's without question. But it had relatively minor success outside that region save for a few pretty distinct points. We're apparently in one of them now, people like to trot it out as one of their new "You don't like anime unless you like JoJo's".

Maybe, but it's kind of weird to dismiss it in regards to its standing in relation to other Japanese media, which last I checked One Piece was. The statement was "One Piece is the Wheel of Time of Manga/Anime", after all. In terms of influence in their home country/language to sales (80 mil worldwide for WoT, 100 mil for JoJo) they're almost identical.

One Piece is closer in sales to Don Quixote than either, after all.

I don't need to do anything.

You need to chill and remember this is a friendly lighthearted discussion about entertainment media, so not every statement is said in the utmost seriousness.

[LaZodiac]

The amount of hyperbole and just flat wrongness here...just startling really. The list would be way too long. We're never told that the World Government can mass produce Pacifista. We're never told they can mass produce any of their super tech and even if they could why would they need to send it out past the Grand Line? The Blue's are, as mentioned, technologically held down. They can't trade between each other without the World Government because only the World Government can get past the Calm Belt.

Complaining about the word Pirate...is just silly. The word used in the manga is Kaizoku or 海賊 and translates less as Pirate but "sea robber" or "sea thief". Which...even the Yonko are. They pirate goods from the World Government and other islands in their area. They just have control over them through military might. Doesn't change the fact that they aren't pirating the stuff and there were totally pirate crews in our own world that did similar things. Especially out in China, Korea and Japan.

Big Mom may have lost standing. We don't really know, as the story isn't about Big Mom's influence around the world. It's about Luffy. It also helped that the Vinsmokes were desperate for the marriage and it wasn't one out of mutual trust. We're told straight up that the Vinsmokes don't trust Big Mom as far as they could throw her. It's also implied that she's done this tons of times before. That she is more than happy to kill her husbands. Some people are either too greedy, too stupid or both.

Not that I don't agree with you entirely, you're right, but... I mean real life pirates had society as well. To say that all pirates are lawless chaos monsters is nonsense, they had their own code and their own laws and their own ****ing island nation actually. The Seven Warlords are literally just privateers made famous, and the Yonko are the dread pirates of legend. It makes sense.

anyway, this new chapter is a little bloated and the art makes it unclear if Kiko-o's face is the human girl or the oni, but either way it's an... interesting twist?

[Razade]

Not that I don't agree with you entirely, you're right, but... I mean real life pirates had society as well. To say that all pirates are lawless chaos monsters is nonsense, they had their own code and their own laws and their own ****ing island nation actually.

Right, we don't disagree and I never claimed anything like that. Unless you're just compounding on what I said, then ya know. Carry on.

anyway, this new chapter is a little bloated and the art makes it unclear if Kiko-o's face is the human girl or the oni, but either way it's an... interesting twist?

She puts the mask on on Page 14. You can see the difference in color between her skin and the mask. We've actually seen her before, in the chapter with Yasuie's backstory and she had a normal face then. Page 3 of Chapter 943. We obviously didn't know who she was but it's pretty clear now. Only one of the Nine Scabbards are fully in the dark on that page. We even saw the Kappa sorta before his face reveal.