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Chapter 631: Conchcorde Plaza

Arc: Fish-Man Island · Saga: Fish-Man Island · Released: 2011

Summary

Aboard the colossal ship Noah in the Fish-Man District, Vander Decken IX rages that Shirahoshi rejected him — he shaved his head over it. He wanted to fulfill his ancestor’s wish by marrying the Mermaid Princess, but everything he throws at her is knocked aside by “that blasted straw hat,” and he resolves to “just smash everything” with a “brilliant idea.” Meanwhile, at Conchcorde Plaza — the execution platform of the king and the very spot where Queen Otohime was assassinated — the New Fish-Man Pirates have used a pack of steroid-enhanced sea beasts to crush the Neptune Army and capture King King Neptune, who is to be executed within the hour. The fallen Minister of the Left and Minister of the Right mourn Otohime’s dream of emigrating to the surface at this year’s Reverie. Hody Jones — now revealed sitting on the platform, his hair turned white and his body transformed from an Energy-Steroid overdose — mocks the soldiers. When a dying Neptune soldier tries to detonate dynamite to take Hody out before the princes arrive, Hody answers with a “Water Shot” that hurls the soldier across the entire island to Mermaid Inlet; Hody, unimpressed, calls his new condition “Perfect.” The three princes — Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi and Manboshi — arrive to defend their father. Fukaboshi argues that the fish-men are ready to forget centuries of discrimination and build peace with humans, and that Hody, who has suffered none of it, is “weaker than anyone on this island.” Using Merman Combat Arts, the princes defeat the sea beasts, dazzling the citizens — but Hody, undaunted, declares the kingdom “will belong to the victor” and counterattacks. Elsewhere, Shirahoshi flees inside Megalo, crying out for her father, as a vow is given that “we will not fail.”

New reveals

• Hody’s Energy-Steroid transformation (pp. 12, 14): his hair has turned “all white” and his “body has completely changed,” and his crew recall he was “rolling on the ground in pain from taking too many Energy Steroids earlier.” Hody’s verdict: “Perfect.”
• Water Shot (pp. 9–12): Hody launches a doomed Neptune soldier from Conchcorde Plaza all the way to Mermaid Inlet on the Western Coast with a single water bullet, then complains it “was only as strong as a normal punch.”
• Conchcorde Plaza is named on-page as “the execution platform of the king (also the place where Queen Otohime was assassinated)” (p. 6).
• Vander Decken IX’s ancestral motive (pp. 2–3): he wanted “to fulfill my ancestor’s wishes by marrying her,” but the “blasted straw hat keeps knocking [his thrown weapons] down.” Rejected, he resolves to “just smash everything.”
• The coup’s scale (pp. 3–8): “all it took was a few sea beasts” to crush the Neptune Army; the King will be executed “in one hour.”
• The princes are the kingdom’s elite (pp. 13–18): Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi and Manboshi defeat the steroid-enhanced sea beasts; citizens call them “the strongest men in all the kingdom.”
• Fukaboshi’s thesis (pp. 14–18): the fish-men will “forget centuries of discrimination” and “forgive the humans for murdering our hero and queen” to “build a future of peace with the humans”; Hody, who endured none of that, is “weaker than anyone on this island.”

Foreshadowing seeds planted

Payoffs (seeds from earlier chapters that resolve here)

Mentions / appearances

• Characters: Hody Jones (revealed white-haired, post-overdose; “Water Shot”; “Perfect”), Vander Decken IX (aboard Noah, shaved head), King Neptune (captured, “My soldiers…”), Minister of the Right & Minister of the Left (defeated, mourning Otohime/Reverie), Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi (singing “re mi fa so”), Manboshi, Shirahoshi (fleeing inside Megalo), Megalo, Otohime (mentioned, assassinated)
• Crews: New Fish-Man Pirates, Neptune Army, Flying Pirates (Vander Decken’s, via Noah)
• Ships: Noah (in the Fish-Man District)
• Locations: Conchcorde Plaza, Fish-Man District, Fishverly Hills, Mermaid Inlet (Western Coast), Fish-Man Island, Ryugu Kingdom, Twin Cape (cover)
• Peoples: Fish-Men, Merfolk (the merman princes)
• World-building: Energy Steroids (“strength drugs”), Reverie

Notable panels

• Page 1 — Title page + cover story “Decks of the World, Vol. 16: Twin Cape”: the Twin Cape entrance to the Grand Line — the painted Reverse-Mountain whale-mark (the Straw Hats’ jolly roger) and the lighthouse — with two figures (a striped-poncho, wide-hatted man and a small goblin-like companion) at the cape.
• Page 7 — The New Fish-Man Pirates’ menagerie of steroid-enhanced sea beasts (kraken tentacles, leopard-, bison- and giraffe-headed monsters) looming over the fallen Neptune Army.
• Pages 9–11 — The “Water Shot”: a Neptune soldier launched the full width of the island (Conchcorde Plaza → Fishverly Hills → Mermaid Inlet), tracked panel-by-panel across the kingdom.
• Page 12 — Hody, hair gone white, post-overdose, flatly declaring “Perfect.”
• Page 17 — Double-page-style spread of the three princes battling the sea beasts (“DA-Do”).
• Page 20 — SBS Question Corner (Vol. 64): mermaid lifesaver-bubbles, Bubbly Coral, and a discussion of open-vs-closed mouths in manga.

Open questions raised

• What exactly is Hody’s “brilliant”-sounding new state worth — is the white-haired transformation pure power, or the visible onset of the Energy Steroids’ fatal price?
• What ancient wish of his ancestor binds the Vander Decken line to the Mermaid Princess, and what does “smash everything” mean for the marked weapon he intends to throw?
• Can the princes hold against a steroid-overdosed Hody, and will Neptune’s execution proceed within the hour?
• Where is Shirahoshi fleeing inside Megalo, and who is vowing they “will not fail”?