I received the following letter:
“Oda Sensei, you’re such a weird, irresponsible person. Just to be clear, I’m always writing silly things in my comments these days, but in my youth there was a boy who was always being praised by all the adults in the neighborhood. He was a genius when it came to schoolwork and was great at every sport.
… That would be my friend Tanaka. Please enjoy volume 30!
~ Eiichiro Oda, 2003
It’s easy to have faith in an author that’s consistently cheeky like this. You just know he loves what he does. Speaking of which, I just watched the new Live Action One Piece trailer yesterday. It’s crazy how it doesn’t look terrible. Live action anime has a – well-earned – terrible reputation. Could this be the one? I really shouldn’t get my hopes up. We’ll probably talk more about the live action series when it actually comes out though. Let’s reel things back a little bit and focus on today’s topic: One Piece volume 30.
Last volume we were left with only a handful of fighters facing off against Enel. This volume he makes quick work of everyone who remained. Zoro and Wyper go down with ease and Nami decides that her best chances are by accompanying Enel onto the Maxim. Meanwhile Conis is trying everything she can to inform everyone on Skypiea of the danger they’re in. She’s surprisingly successful in this endeavor. The panel where she’s not being respected initially and then aims the flame cannon right at the soldier attacking her without a shred of hesitation goes so incredibly hard. The captain of the guard reveals that he secretly knew that Enele was bad news, but he hoped that by keeping everyone peaceful that their land would be spared. Unfortunately for him that was never an outcome, and he seems to realize that now.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the island, Luffy, Aisa and Pierre make it out of the snake safely. He finds his crew completely defeated and Aisa informs him that she sentences two people down below, which are likely Nami and Enel who are on the Maxim that’s about to take off. We then get our first showdown between Luffy and Enel. This has one of the most iconic panels in all of One Piece. As shown below, Enel’s surprise when he finds out Luffy is his natural enemy is such a joy to see.
Luffy and Enel fight and Enel quickly adapts to fighting someone who can’t be hurt directly by lightning. This is probably what makes Enel such a terrifying villain. Even without being able to just murder people outright, he’s a good fighter. He might not be at the top of the food chain in the blue sea, but he’d probably outshine a lot of pirates who are a tier below Emperors. But Luffy is still growing at this point, and he gets sent overboard with a giant golden ball stuck on his arm.
We get one of my favorite bits of this arc when Usopp and Sanji show up as stowaways on the Maxim. This fight perfectly encapsulates both of their personalities. Usopp threads the needle between being a total coward and being a brave warrior. As much as he’s scared and his urge to run away, he’s not ready to abandon his friends. Usopp is much less of a coward than he actually appears to be most of the time. He’s realistically just some guy fighting with some of the most insane figures in his world. Usopp goes to distract Enel while Sanji does his thing by destroying the inside of the ship. Sanji is always the tricky one. He was Mr. Prince in Arabasta and now he’s messing with the insides of this ship. While Enel is off to check on the ship, Usopp once again sneaks back on board to pick up the heavily wounded Sanji. At the bottom of the beanstalk, the entire crew reunites, albeit most of them unconscious.
We end the volume with Luffy running back towards Enel to fight him once more. I believe that volume 31 is the final volume of this story arc and then we move on to one of my all time favorite arcs. I think most people call the upcoming arc one of the best. To keep you updated on the cover stories as well, since it’s important that we don’t forget those, they’re still focused on Ace. He is chasing down Blackbeard and so far struggling to find the man. Not much happens except that he almost drowns after kicking a doctor in the face because he thought it might be Blackbeard. Yeah, Ace is a goofy guy. There you have it, 30 volumes done and discussed. I worried I’d get tired of doing this every week when I started on this project, but the opposite is true. I’m often wanting to start working ahead of schedule on this series, but I’m sticking to one volume every Sunday. If you’re still enjoying reading along, please leave a like on this post, it tells me I’m not writing into the void. And as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 