Nine Red Scabbards Assemble

One Piece Chapter 962 Review/Recap

A few weeks ago, Act 3 of One Piece’s Wano Arc started, to fans joy. However, it then immediately shifted into another one of Oda’s world-building flashbacks. In this case, it’s the origins of Oden Kozuki and his retainers, the Nine Red Scabbards. The last chapter saw Oden take up residence with Yasuie after his dad disowned him. The legend of Oden continues to grow in this chapter! Also, Orochi proves that he was always a slimeball.

Recap

After two years of living with Yasuie, Oden gets bored and decides to head to Kuri. At the time, it’s a place so lawless that even the Shogunate gave up on it, making it perfect for Oden. Denjiro and Kin’emon insist on going with him, much to his dismay. Along the way, Oden documents his adventures as he comes across several of the future Nine Red Scabbards. Most of the time, he ends up beating them up and they end up deciding to follow him out of respect.

After traveling for some time, Oden finally enters Kuri on his own and fights against Ashura and his men. By the time Kin’emon and the others reach Oden, they find out he beat all of them. Thus, he straightened out everyone and made Kuri into a livable place. As a result, his father took back the disownment and made him the Lord of Kuri. Rather than deal with a bunch of stuck up people from the capital, he appoints his friends as his retainers. With that, the Nine Red Scabbards are formed, while peace reigns in Kuri. Six years pass, and two mysterious strangers wash up on the beach of Kuri to be found by Kawamatsu.

Review

In my opinion, I think that Oden Kozuki’s life leans heavily on tall tales and Japanese legends. While I understand the importance of world-building, though, I don’t think it necessary to go into detail on the backstories of the Nine Red Scabbards. Previous chapters established enough for us to get the picture.

Through his travels in Wano, though, it’s clear that Oden never gave up on his goal of leaving the country. He saw Kuri as a twisted mirror of the prison he thought Wano was, hence why reined it in. With the arrival of Inuarashi and Nekomamushi in Wano, though, he may finally get his chance to leave.

This chapter seemed to do little for me other than hyping up Oden more. After the last chapter’s revelation that Orochi started as Yasuie’s servant, I wanted to see what the jerk was like in the past. Sadly, this chapter almost wasted that chance. The only hint we got was that Orochi clearly stole money from Yasuie and tried to blame it on Oden. Even back then, he was a snake.

As interesting as these flashbacks are, I look forward to getting back to the present. I want to see the war and Orochi’s head on a pike by this time next year!

I Give “A Daiymo and His Retainers” a 3/5. Give us more important stuff!

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