Volume 32 is the first volume that is marked on the spine as being part of the Water Seven Arc. Unfortunately for us, we don’t quite get to Water Seven in this volume, but we do finish up Skypiea. I would have still labeled the volume as being purely Skypiea, but the back does include the current arc, contrary to the spine. Let’s not waste much time.
While all of the denizens of Skypiea are unable to properly flee, all they can do is watch as their certain destruction is approaching rapidly. Luffy and the gang have different plans. Luffy has sent a message down to his friends to cut down the giant beanstalk in the direction of the departing Maxim. Zoro and the snake, Nola, both try their best, but the beanstalk is strong and holds its place. Wyper, finally learning that Luffy is working for the honor of Noland and Wyper’s own ancestor, helps by shooting a final reject dial at the stalk, sending it toppling. The reject dial is a bit of a Deus Ex Machina in that the side effects seem to be much less important than they seem. Wyper is mostly fine at the end of this arc. We could write that off as him being built differently, but we can’t keep making that excuse for a thousand episodes, can we?
Luffy dives headfirst into the large lightning cloud that Enel is planning to use to blow up the entirety of Skypiea. Luffy manages to dispel the cloud but gets badly hurt by Enel’s attack. Unrelenting, he shoots his rifle attack into the sky, sending the golden ball stuck so his arm soaring towards Enel, the Maxim and the golden bell on it. Enel gets turned into a Kami pancake and the bell gets rung for the first time in centuries.
We get a few cool moments after this part. The bell gets rung and Montblanc Cricket sees Luffy in the sky as a shadowy outline, ringing the bell. This tells the man that his ancestor was no liar and that Shandora really was sent up into the sky. Enel gets taken out but eventually flees on the Maxim and steers the ship towards the moon. Wyper and his soldiers all seem to have survived, the same can be said for Conis father and pretty much anyone involved in the Upper Yard fight. It wouldn’t be One Piece if someone died, would it? Yeah, that’s one of the biggest throughlines you’ll see in this manga. It is what it is and we’ve accepted it by now, but it would be nice if the stakes were higher in this manga.
Robin talks with some of the Shandians and discovers the poneglyph in Skypiea. It turns out that one of them was a message to the Shandrians and they’ve fulfilled their ancestors’ wishes. The second one was written by none other than Gol D. Roger, who visited the place before he became the pirate king. He brought the poneglyph with him and left a message in its place. This is the first hint we get to what the poneglyphs actually do, but we’ll talk about that much more when we get further into the story. This is also where the theory that the One Piece treasure is the history poneglyphs started, although Gol D. Roger laughed when he saw the treasure, so bringing the poneglyphs there can’t be the entire treasure. I am digressing a little bit. The crew celebrates and eventually flees Sky Island, taking gold with them.
Down on the blue sea, Doflamingo punishes Bellamy for losing, and cuts him out of his family (quite literally). The crew then makes their way to Long Ring Island. They encounter a strange old man on a long horse, and get challenged to a Davy Back Fight by Foxy the pirate. The reason I’m keeping this part short is because the Davy Back Fight is the worst part of this decade spanning manga. It’s incredibly boring and I’m annoyed to be at this point. I’ll talk about it a little bit once it’s actually taken place in the next volume, but it’s not great.
Finally, if you’re an anime watcher you might think we’ve skipped something and you’d be right and wrong. The anime has the crew land in a marine base after they come back from Sky Island. In the manga, this doesn’t happen. Instead, throughout this and the previous volume, we follow Ace as he searches for Blackbeard. He spends some time in a marine base and ends up improving their coffee. There’s not much substance in these cover pages, but it shows that Ace is a bit of a goofball like his little brother but has a good heart and helps out people when he can. And that’s really all there is to cover in this volume. Next volume we have to get through the Davy Back Fight to get back to the good part, but Water Seven is fantastic, so we’ll just bear with it and move on quickly. I’m writing this just after watching the latest One Piece episode as well, so lots of One Piece going on. Thanks for reading, I’m going to take a nap! If you enjoy these posts, please leave a like or a comment down below.
Opal Kaharis 