Thriller Bark Homage
Yamato cover story Vol.35: “Sumo tournament in Shimotsuki! Urashima’s elder brother Yokozuna Sukune thrown!” Kawamatsu reappears — Kawamatsu → kappa → sumo fan → sumo tournament → Yamato throwing a massive opponent. The cover composition is a homage to Nightmare Luffy throwing Oars in Thriller Bark.
The main story chapters also match: the MMA corps that should have been defeated keeps getting back up; MMA crawling back up from underground. They move like Thriller Bark zombies. Kiringam calls it “Elbaf’s nightmare,” and the chain follows: nightmare → Nightmare → Nightmare Luffy throwing Oars.
The Sumo God: Nomi no Sukune
Yokozuna Sukune, thrown by Yamato, is based on Nomi no Sukune — the deity of sumo wrestling in Japanese mythology. The distinctive eyebrows and beard are a dead match. Nomi no Sukune was a powerful warrior in the era of Emperor Suinin (11th Emperor). Yamato’s historical model, Yamato Takeru, was the son of the 12th Emperor Keiko — so these figures are from adjacent eras, a characteristically Oda historical touch.
The Undying Army That Keeps Rising
At Kiringam’s signal, the “immortal” MMA corps rise one after another — a direct homage to the zombie army resurrected at Absalom’s command in Thriller Bark. Kiringam’s true face, now revealed, is also a surprise: cruel eyes and fangs that don’t reflect at all in his kirin form. Kaku’s giraffe features were visibly present in his human design; the kirin’s legendary gentleness left no trace on Kiringam at all.
“Wake Up — That’s No Way to Carry Yourself”
Usopp yelling at Doryblo — “Wake up! What is that shameless state you’re in?!” — maps to the Thriller Bark scene where the shadow-stolen Usopp yelled the same kind of line at the Three Musketeers. The demonized Doryblo also grew upper and lower fangs — and the chopsticks gag from earlier may have been a visual plant for this.
Ragnarök
The MMA corps’s Jormungandr and Fenrir, the demonized Giant Warrior Pirates, Zunisha at the head of the devil army — the march of this army is a homage to Ragnarök, the final war of Norse mythology. A full-scale Ragnarök homage will come again near the end of One Piece, when Luffy leads Jormungandr (Loki with the Snake-Snake Fruit), Fenrir (Yamato), and a hellish fleet (the Straw Hat Grand Fleet) against the gods (Celestial Dragons).
Wano Homage
The scene depicting the giants flipped evil using an Othello/Reversi metaphor is a homage to the go/igo board game reference in Wano. Which also implies a foreshadowing: the reversal of black to white will happen through a double-Nika combination of Luffy and Bonney flanking from both sides.
The Fall — and Chopper Becoming Nika?
Chopper impulsively jumping off in pursuit of Gaban, who fell into the underworld — echoes Luffy being knocked off Onigashima by Kaido. And Chopper running through the air by spinning his legs like wheels = Luffy flying freely after becoming Nika. The charred black Nika flipping and becoming white Nika… is Oda consciously building composition this precise?
Then there’s this: Luffy somehow knew Chopper was falling, before any visual cue. And Chopper running through mid-air may not be a pure gag moment. The theory: Nika’s freedom is spreading — either as an influence Chopper absorbed from proximity to Luffy, or as a shared-sense ability similar to how Im-sama maintains telepathy and personality transfer with the Five Elders and God’s Knights through the “life-lending” power. If Nika can do the same for allies — share perception, even share ability — then Chopper might be the first test case. Nika’s imagination-into-reality power spreading to every crewmate, eventually making them all Nika, is a thematically wild but structurally coherent destination for the story’s final stretch.