Contents
Cover
The Tales of the Self-Styled Straw Hat Grand Fleet, Orlumbus Edition, Part 41: “5pm – A Grateful Farewell. The First Pirate Mission: Failed.” Orlumbus and his fleet bid farewell to the island’s inhabitants.
Storyline
Somewhere in the wasteland of Wano Country, Luffy and Zoro are still face to face with Basil Hawkins, who reveals to them that their chances of survival for the next month are infinitesimal, as the powerful Kaidou is pulling the strings in this land. While Luffy expresses his conviction to go up against the Emperor anyway, Zoro notices the sword in his captain’s possession. Immediately realizing that it is a masterful sword, he wants to prevent Luffy from using it without swordsmanship skills, but the Straw Hat rushes into battle at that moment. With ease, he takes out several of Hawkins’ men, whereupon he also attacks the “mage” himself, but the latter deflects the attack effortlessly by means of a sword made of straw. He explains this to his opponents with the abilities of the straw fruit, which also allows him to transfer injuries to subordinates. Zoro puts this to the test by cutting the former supernova’s face, which is immediately transferred to one of Basil’s henchmen. While a straw doll emerges from the paramecian user as a victim, Hawkins remains unharmed. Now the mage himself wants to gain the upper hand in the fight, so he creates a kind of oversized monster straw doll from his body. But before Luffy and Zoro can continue the fight, the two Straw Hats are also grabbed by Komachiyo, who seems very upset. As they discover during their escape, this is due to O-Tama’s fever getting worse. Therefore they decide to continue the fight later, but Hawkins has already given chase. Therefore, Zoro takes the initiative and cuts the monster doll without further ado using his technique “Nigiri Torou Samon”.
After Basil has indeed let go of his opponents for the time being, a woman on Komachiyo’s back reveals herself. She is the same woman pursued by Hawkins’ men named O-Tsuru, who is also apparently an acquaintance of O-Tama. As thanks for her rescue she wants to cook medicine for the girl in her teahouse. There, in turn, her employee O-Kiku is already waiting, who has to defend herself against the marriage proposal of a well-known sumo wrestler…
Elsewhere in Wano Country, on an unknown mountain: the Heart pirate gang is watching the area and is pleased to have finally spotted members of the Straw Hat Pirates…
Miscellaneous
- The chapter title is a reference to Tsuru no Ongaeshi (note: needs link), a famous story in Japanese folklore.
Oda’s comment
Mokkori Hanbe is so good. It’s a samurai story, so it’s ideal for research, but I have to make Wano Country unique!
Mokkori Hanbe is a manga series by Masaya Tokuhiro (note: needs link)from the manga magazine Grand Jump Premium. At one time, Oda worked as an assistant under Tokuhiro Masaya, see also Manga no Chikara and Author’s Commentary on Chapter 6. In SBS Volume 96, a reader also asks if Shinobu was inspired by a character from Masaya’s manga, which Oda denies, but still thinks he may have been subconsciously influenced by it after all.
| Manga volumes | Wano Country Arc (Manga) |
