Somehow both so much and so little happens in this volume. We move the story forward only a little bit in time, and we’re paying attention to the countdown towards disaster, but everything that happens, happens in maybe thirty minutes or less. This is the second to last volume in the Baroque Works Saga and with that we’re only one week removed from finishing the first out of four box sets. Let’s dive into it then. One funny thing is that this arc insists on making sure the reader knows that Eyelashes (the camel) is a part of the gang. We see him? Her? Again on the cover of Volume 22.
We start off with a bit of a weird chapter. I’m going to be honest with you all, I have no recollection of these characters at all. A special forces group that basically kills themselves without ever doing anything? Did people check up on Oda while he was writing this arc, that’s so needlessly dark. And who would design a potion that gives you superpowers but then kills you immediately after? That seems like a terrible business model. Weird moment in the arc, but luckily we move on from it quite quickly. After letting the four soldiers die, Crocodile wakes up and deals with Chaka.
Koza and Vivi finally come face to face and it is at this moment that Koza realizes the mistake he’s made. Crocodile being responsible instead of Cobra kind of rocks his world. Cobra and Vivi convince him to help out and end the fighting. So Koza gets a white flag and stands with the royal guard, surrendering to the rebel army. We finally get an end to the fighting. Well, only for a moment, as unfortunately there are still Baroque Works members infiltrating both sides. Koza gets shot and within moments the fight is back on, no one realizing they’re being played like a fiddle. One nitpick I do have about this arc is that everyone outside of the top ranked officers – and then I only mean Mr. 4 and up – simply follows orders. They don’t seem to be aware of the cause they’re fighting for, they don’t even know what they’re doing, they’re literally just there to kill people and mess things up. A small flaw in an otherwise gripping story. After dealing with Chaka, Koza and everyone else, Crocodile gets to fight Luffy.
Luffy shows up on the back of Pell, who saved him earlier on in the story with a little bit of help from Nico Robin. The latter shows a sense of humor by laughing at Luffy’s silly methods. He drinks up all of the water he brought with him so he becomes water Luffy, a rubber water balloon of a person. He found out in their previous fight that water is Crocodile’s weakness and when he’s wet, he can get hit. They duke it out for a bit and although this fight is much less one-sided than their first fight, Crocodile still manages to get the upper hand pretty comfortably and suck all the moisture out of Luffy. Luffy did prepare a plan B to revitalize, but this took a moment and when he comes to again, Crocodile has gone to follow Nico Robin.
Speaking of Nico Robin, she’s brought Cobra to the underground Mausoleum to find the Poneglyph. It turns out she’s someone who can read them, which is apparently a lost skill. This is why it’s important to conserve old languages, you’ll never know when you need them to read a big rock that tells you about a secret weapon. On their way there, they’re approached by soldiers from the Navy, but Robin tells them to kindly piss off. They do so reluctantly, and some of them with a broken neck. Tashigi gets beat up pretty bad by Robin, showing that she means business. She then meets up with Crocodile again in the mausoleum where she reads the Poneglyph. She tells Crocodile that it just mentions the history of Arabasta and not actually anything about a secret weapon. Crocodile doesn’t buy into this and stabs Nico Robin who was prepared to betray him in a heartbeat, but didn’t have the follow-up unfortunately.
We end the volume with Robin and Cobra badly wounded while Crocodile faces off with Luffy one last time. On the other side of things, the battle still rages on and the remaining straw hats, Vivi and Pell, are on their way to stop the bomb from exploding. They converge on the clock tower where the bomb supposedly is being held by some high ranking officers from Baroque Works. Pell gets killed for like the fourth time in this arc while he’s flying around. I’m sure we won’t get to see him again after this.
And that’s it. After next week’s volume review I want to dive into the entire arc as a whole and look at some of the details we might have skipped over while reading. Arabasta is fascinating in how much of current day lore it establishes. So many vital characters to the entire story of One Piece are introduced here, which is a stark contrast with the upcoming arc(s). We also get some more cover pages of Hachi walking along the sea floor but not much interesting happens here in my opinion.
And that’s been me, I’m still enjoying these volumes every week but it’s getting harder and harder to not read ahead. That’s why I try to have other things to read on hand, so I don’t get the urge as much. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 