Manga: Chapter 709 (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS!

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Summary
The old lady mistakes Caribou for her deceased grandson, Gabull.

Elizabello fires the King Punch to knock out everybody in the ring minus Bartolomeo.

Bartolomeo is declared the winner of Block B.

Thoughts

A bit late on this review but I have been a little busy and lazy recently. I guess I was too busy praying for Oda. Good thing One Piece is on break. The only reason why I decided to wait so long to review this is because I wanted to talk about it.

Also, I have just been busy with other things between being lazy. Then again, I already mention that.

Enough of excused and explanations. Lets talk about his chapter.

I am willing to eat my words and say that I was impressed with Elizabello's King Punch. I know I was writing off the attack as being an over hyped gimmick. Instead, the attack delivered and it delivered hard. The King Punch knocked out everybody and had quite destructive power. It was clearly a tool to eliminate a lot of powerhouse characters such as Bellamy, Blue Gilly and others from the round. It was used so nicely and how it was handled worked out overall.

Then all the build up for the King Punch was simply used to build up the Barrier Barrier Abilities of Bartolomeo. There were hints of his ability during the last few chapters but it was nice to get a name for what he can do and how he can do it. It isn't Haki which is proving that Devil Fruits still have a place in the story. Especially the Paramecia types which people tend to forget about being real threats by other characters. Oda does know how to make good use of the barriers that Bartolomeo makes which is good because sometimes people underestimate what you can do with such a power.

Now, is Bartolomeo really a good guy? That is something to think about. He did protect the part of the Colosseum that he was facing from the power of the King Punch. The people mostly ignore that though as they booed him. I guess seeing a guy take a wizz was too much for them. Good guy or not. We did get a piece of Bartolomeo concerning his motivations. He wishes to win the Flame-Flame Fruit for You-Know-Who which we all know who that is. I guess Voldemort has finally enter One Piece.

I wonder how Oda will resolve the other rounds. As mention before, Elizabello's King Punch was a device to clear out a lot of people to help conclude the match. What will the the "King Punch" for the other rounds? Are we to have an overpowerful character to knock out people? I guess we will just have to wait and see.
 

One thing that I am liking so far is how long it took us to revisit one of the other Straw Hats.The battle stuff was great to watch because it was uninterrupted and allow to arrive to it's own conclusion for now. Now we have finally came to a nice break where we can move on to the others without interrupting the current focus in mid-movement. I hope Oda is finally understanding that nobody likes it when he hops from one scene to another without resolving anything.

That is all I got. Until next time true believers!