The Mountain God Incident

One Piece, Chapter 961 Review/Recap

Last chapter of One Piece gave us our first look at the life and times of Oden Kozuki, and his life was crazy. His father couldn’t take it anymore, so he had to disown him. At that moment, though, the capital came under attack. By a boar so big, that it’s called the “Mountain God.”

Recap

Thanks to Kin’emon stealing its child, the Mountain God Boar devastates the Flower Capital in search of its kid. Entire sections of the city and its people get eaten, including Tsuru. Furious, Kin’emon tries, and fails, to slay the Mountain God. However, Oden then lures it in using its child, and with his two swords, he slays the Boar and saves everyone inside.

Even though he saved the city, everyone still blames him for the Mountain God’s attack. His disownment holds up, and thus Oden leaves the Flower Capital. He’s not alone, though: Kin’emon and Denjiro are so impressed by what he did that they choose to become his followers. Thus, the trio heads to stay with Lord Yasuie, where they meet his new servant: Orochi.

….what?

Review

If it were in any other story, seeing Oden slice the Mountain God Boar in half would be all kinds of badass. Considering how we’ve seen Zoro do similar feats before, and most of the heroes and villains have done crazier stuff. In other words, its not as impressive. It makes for one heck of an origin story, though, and this is Oden started to rise to world renown.

Now, for the elephant in the room; or rather, the snake. I’ve had theories about Orochi’s backstory, and now it looks like we have our answer. He was a servant of Yasuie. What puzzles me more, though, is what led him to betray his country and even kill his former Lord? Then again, he looks like the kind of person who would brown-nose anyone to advance in life.

While seeing the backstory for the Wano characters is fine, I felt it was a little unecessary to see Oden kill the Mountain God. We’ve seen crazier feats before, so we didn’t need the affirmation of how strong Oden was. I hope that this flashback doesn’t run for too long, as I want to see the war for Wano play out. Regretfully, we’ll have to wait two weeks for that to happen.

I Give “The Mountain God Incident” a 3/5. Cool, but not Amazing.

Click here to see more animanga stuff.