Most One Piece volumes are pretty similar in size and don’t take all that long to read. Probably less than half an hour on average. Volume 29 is a hefty one. Let’s not waste time and let’s jump right into it.
We can summarize the first couple chapters pretty easily. Robin defeats Yama, the leader of Eneru’s soldiers, with relative ease once he gets away from the priceless artifacts. It’s always easy to forget how terrifying Robin’s power can be when used properly. Chopper on the other hand gets defeated by Ohm, another one of Eneru’s vassals. While all this happens Nami gets her waver up and running, Zoro is lost with a Southbird companion and Luffy is dicking around in a strange cave. Finally, Eneru is going around taking out people left and right to get to his predicted 5 survivors.
Things escalate as Luffy is hurting the giant snake from the inside, agitating it. Did I mention the cave he was in is actually the giant snake that is known as the ruler of the sky? Through several different roads Ohm, Ganfor, Zoro, Wyper and the snake all arrive at the same spot. Each with a different goal and all ready to throw hands. While they all fight, Nami panics her way through the forest, ending up at the Giant beanstalk at the center. Zoro’s calm demeanor is about to become scary as he finds out what Ohm did to his friend Chopper. Lastly, at this point Robin has finally found her way to Shandora, the city that disappeared from Jaya all those years ago. It’s still here, hidden on Sky Island, in all its glory.
When Nami and Aisa arrive all hell breaks loose. Everyone involved wants to know what is going on, but luckily Ganfor and Pierre swoop in to help them. They’re safe now, right? You have to realize, there was this terrifying big snake and they’re happy that it’s gone. Wait, why is it suddenly dark? As Nami and them get swallowed by the giant snake, Ohm seizes the moment and strikes down both Wyper and Zoro.
Nami, Aisa, Ganfor and Pierre all reunite with Luffy and explain that they’re inside of a snake. Nami gets rightfully angry at Luffy for angering the snake so much that it ate the rest of them. Meanwhile Wyper is angering the snake even more in an attempt to save Aisa. Raki makes it to the top of the beanstalk to warn Wyper of Enel’s power, but gets attacked by the lightning god himself. Ohm continues to thin the herd with his scary powers. His cloud manipulation in combination with the traps he’s set ahead of time make him a formidable opponent. Zoro has some tricks up his sleeve too and after revealing his 36 pound cannon earlier on, he now reveals his 108 pound cannon, the same attack but with three swords, tripling the intensity. Ohm goes down and so does his dog after Zoro tells him to. Turns out Holly will listen to just any command out of habit.
Meanwhile Enel has met up with Robin and they talk about Shandora for a bit. Enel then deals with an escaped worker and Pagaya. Conis survives this encounter and has now learned of Enel’s plan to destroy everything and leave on his giant ship, the Ark Maxim. We are slowly learning more things about the poneglyphs and their meaning. These ones speak of “the enemy”. They were likely also created during the void century, when things went down. Without spoiling too much, finding out the truth behind the hidden history is a big part of One Piece’s story, so seeing some of the seeds being planted this early on is nice. Going back and reading these chapters definitely adds a lot of value. With very few survivors left, Enel brings them all down to Shandora itself.
Enel then claims that the four other survivors can join him on the ship. He takes out Ganfor and they’re down to five. Wyper, Zoro, Robin, Nami & Enel. They refuse to join and Enel takes out Robin for trying to trick him. This angers Zoro into attacking him as well, and he loses this fight. We’re now down to Nami, Enel and Wyper. The latter has an ace up his sleeve. He’s been told that the reject dial doesn’t work, but his dial has sea prism stone embedded into it. Remember that cage that Crocodile used to capture Luffy and Smoker in? It’s the same stuff that blocks the powers of the devil fruit. At the cost of his arm, Wyper kills Enel. Or so it seems for a moment, until the lightning man uses his own lightning to jumpstart his heart again. Things are looking dire and Luffy is still stuck in the bloody snake.
I watched a video recently of youtuber MoistCritical, who talked about finally warming up to One Piece. He mentioned the snake as being a slow and boring filler, and in the anime there’s definitely a truth to that. I feel that in the manga it’s not nearly as bad, but it can get kind of annoying when the strongest person gets sent away from the fight for a long time just to make sure the big clash doesn’t happen immediately. Almost every shonen suffers from this stuff so it is unsurprising. There we have it though folks. The fight on Upper Yard is coming to a conclusion. It seems like Enel is too strong and the Shandrians might not get their homeland back. I’ll talk more in depth about that part of the story after Sky Island is over, by the way, since there is a lot to talk about. But for now, that’s been me and my recap, thanks for reading and see you all here again next week!
Opal Kaharis 