The final volume of the first box set and the conclusion of the second major saga: Baroque Works. We’re speeding through this, but there’s so much more amazing content on the horizon that I don’t really mind. Besides, at this rate it’s still going to take until 2025 before we even get to the volumes that are coming out now. Reminder that I’ll talk more about this saga as a whole in a separate post, but for now let’s dive into volume 23 of One Piece.
Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Chopper & Vivi all work together to take out the remaining Baroque Works executives that are guarding the bomb in the town square. They even manage to stop the bomb from going off. Unfortunately for them, Crocodile has put the bomb on a timer in case his two cronies failed setting it off. Within a few seconds, the entire city center is going to be blown away. Who shows up but Pell, the royal guard with the falcon power. He takes a second to reminisce over his time serving the royal family and then makes his way high up into the sky with the bomb, going out in a blaze of glory while defending the kingdom he’s been protecting all his life.
Meanwhile, Luffy and Crocodile’s underground fight is still going strong but Luffy is mostly out of power after multiple defeats and he’s really struggling against Crocodile at this point. But it’s pure tenacity that is the final decider – as it often is in this manga – and Luffy manages to kick Crocodile straight out of the underground tomb and into the center of the square. He’s not getting up anytime soon. With the help of Luffy, Cobra makes it out alive as well and helps stop the fighting.
But crucial in this moment is Vivi who’s still screaming from the tower to the people to stop fighting. Rain powder is shot into the sky and for the first time in years the Kingdom of Arabasta sees proper rain. Crocodile is arrested and Tashigi makes the decision to let the Straw Hat pirates go. Arabasta is finally saved.
We get a whole bunch of the Straw Hats winding down and recovering after their fights. There’s not much to talk about here when it comes to just substance, but these are always some of my favorite moments in the manga. Cobra bowing his head to the crew in the palace baths, Igaram’s wife making food for the entire crew, the banquet. I mean, these moments are so fun because of how deserved they are. And then we also learn a little bit more about Smoker and Tashigi. Tashigi is angry at herself for how helpless she was and Smoker is arguably even more angry at how the headquarters is planning to treat this fight. They’re giving credit to him and promoting him for work he didn’t do. Smoker seems to be a great exception to Oda’s general ACAB approach to the marines. We also see Django and Fullbody again, remember them from their cover story? Django is now fully a marine soldier.
In the dead of the night, the Straw Hats escape the palace and travel up the river to find their ship, which has been taken by Mr. 2 Bon Kurei, who claims to be helping them now. He wants to be friends again now that Baroque Works no longer exists. Vivi’s been informed of this plan and she knows that she still has one chance left to go with the crew. Here we get the now famous moment where Bon-Chan and his crew pretend to be the Straw Hats to lure Hina and her crew away so that Luffy and the gang can escape. They had to, it’s for friendship after all.
Far more memorable than the Bon Kurei moment is what happens next. The crew sails past the shore waiting for Vivi and she shows up. But she’s only there to say goodbye. She cares too much for the kingdom and wants to stay there to help and rebuild it. So instead of going with them, this is where they part ways. To avoid showing to the navy that they’re allied to a princess, the crew stays quiet but instead of saying anything they just hold up their symbols on their arms. The cross that marks their friendship. And with that we leave the desert kingdom of Arabasta behind us as we journey onward. I’ll be honest, there were a few more small details that I thought would be in this volume, but they’ll be in the next one. Because of this, I’ll probably wait another week before doing my post on the arc as a whole since there’s some key moments that change my opinion on things quite a bit.
But it shouldn’t be a secret to anyone that I enjoyed Arabasta quite a bit. Vivi is a great character, so are Cobra, Nico Robin, Crocodile, Koza, Igaram, Bon Kurei and many more. I remember this arc as being slow, but reading it back after all these years it didn’t feel too slow at all. I wonder if I’ll feel the same about some of the newer arcs when I don’t have to read them spread out over 5 years. But that’s been me, I’m gonna go back to bed since I’m still quite ill as I’m writing this. I’m getting better though, so hopefully in a day or two I’ll be back up to normal levels of exhaustion. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 