I love this kind of chapters as they show that the world keeps spinning even without the main characters being directly involved and creates a dynamic that in the long run will fuel the main plot.
We received a lot of information, but at the same time nothing is explained properly, so there's a lot of room for interpretation.
As I see it there were at least three important articles in the newspaper:
- Abolishing of the Shichibukai system
- Something happened to Vivi and/or Cobra
- Sabo's supposed death
Now the first one I had been expecting for a while now, though it's still a bit surprising it came so suddenly. I already assumed most of the Reverie would be done off-panel, but it remains a bit of pity such a hyped event wasn't given that much direct screen time. Nonetheless an interesting development; seeing Mihawk excited gave me goosebumps. He was a bit of weird character in the sense that nothing about him seems piraty and his personality never fitted someone who would work for the government, but I'm thrilled to see how he will act in his 'natural' environment.
Now the 2nd article is what I believe to be the one the WG wanted to cover up. There's no reason to do that for the announcement that the Shichibukai have been removed (on the contrary) and I also don't see why they would want to keep silent that Sabo 'died'. On the other hand that something happened to one of the royal families in Mariejoise is quite the scandal. In particular because we know she was on Im's hit list. They have all the reason to keep that quiet.
Which brings me to the third article; I think there is little doubt that the newspaper says Sabo died as the reactions of the characters would have never been like that if it was anything else. My first thought was that Im made a move on Vivi/Cobra, but that Sabo intervened, which was an unexpected development for both sides and made the situation escalate. It's still far too early to tell, but currently I find it doubtful Sabo truly died. Not only would that make everything his character went through rather pointless, having someone like him dying off-screen makes me feel emotionally disconnected.
On another note I love Morgans character. He looks like a caricature of himself and he pulls it off wonderfully.
Lastly X-Drake! Magnificent twist! When the Supernova's were introduced on Sabaody and Drake had a bout with Kizaru, a comment the latter made intrigued me. He said that the reason why Drake became a pirate, was because he wanted to know how it was on the other side. This is a type of reasoning that would work for a character that has a twisted personality, but Drake has always been portrayed as someone rational and disciplined. Then we learned about a bit of his past in Law's flashback and made his decision of becoming a pirate make even less sense. But now it appears that all of this was an elaborate scheme years in the making to have marines infiltrate the crew of a Yonkou. Nice *Rand Marsh voice*