I forgot to upload this yesterday, in my defense, I was tired.
With the recent release of the One Piece live action series as well as both the anime and manga being at amazing moments in the story, One Piece is riding a wave of popularity right now that is hard to understate. I watched the first episode of the live action and I was very quickly aware that this show wasn’t made for me. I enjoyed what I saw to a degree, but I found myself getting annoyed at little things. Things like Luffy’s hat already having a string attached to keep it safe as opposed to Nami crafting him one after the Buggy arc. Or Zoro being down on attack names while he is the king of cool attack names. That second one was probably an active choice, but I think it doesn’t work. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being difficult. I did really like the casting, that was superb. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about the live action, we’re here to talk about Volume 37. Let’s dive back into the most amazing arc this series has to offer and continue where we left off last week.
Rob Lucci, Kalifa, Kaku and Blueno reveal to the reader and to Paulie who they truly are. We got some information about their abilities. Iron body and finger pistol are two of them, shave is another. They allow the users to harden their body, use their fingers as a stabbing weapon and move really fast. They’re part of a government training regiment that only top fighters get to partake in. Paulie gets bodied by Lucci and is pretty useless, but he’s a rambunctious shipwright, not a government assassin. Nico Robin reveals her true colors and once again makes clear to the crew that she is leaving. We also get the news in the question corner after this chapter that Oda got married. He created a manga with Nami in it and then married a woman who did a Nami cosplay. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it is a funny bit of knowledge.
The clash continues and the CP9 agents keep showing off their cool powers. Lucci talks about their job as government agents and shows off his devil fruit. Even though we as viewers only see a shadowy figure at first. They’re just on a different level from normal civilians and both Luffy and Zoro get beaten pretty easily. Nico Robin leaves and the building is about to go up in flames. I’ll obviously talk a bit more about government corruption and three letter organizations a bit more when this arc has completed but it is pretty fun to reread these arcs and see how overt it is. Every member gets taken out and Chopper gets buried under the rubble. The remaining workers arrest an unconscious Nami while Luffy and Zoro are seemingly thrown into the ocean. The page of CP9 watching over the burning building from a distance goes pretty hard, not going to lie. Too bad all cops are bastards.
After setting the mansion on fire and watching the world burn, the CP9 members go to find Franky. Franky is currently in one of his warehouses with Usopp. Watching how Usopp has to fully accept the fact that the Going Merry is no longer seaworthy is hard to read. I know how much he cares and having seen the legendary Klabauterman in action makes it that much harder. This ship means a lot to everyone on the crew, but it means so much more to Usopp. It was a gift from Kaya, he was the one responsible for keeping it afloat and he also relates to the fear of being abandoned. You can’t really blame him for being stubborn but luckily Franky’s brash nature does make him admit out loud what he already knew inside. Just in time for trouble to come knocking on the door. As much as I hate to see CP9 here, it does mean we finally get some Iceberg and Franky backstory and it’s a great backstory. Oda is a master at these, but Franky’s is very good even compared to a lot of the other backstories. I’ve always really enjoyed it.
Franky and Iceberg both used to work under Tom, the famous shipwright who built Roger’s ship Oro Jackson. After the execution of Roger, the government decided that Tom had to die as well for the crime of providing Roger with his ship. Tom managed to convince the judge to let him build the Puffing Tom sea train instead. He gets a ten year window to do this. It’s another sign of the world government flexing their power without any consistency and just doing whatever they want. After successfully pulling it off, it looks like he’s all but safe until Spandam arrives and frames his company for a violent crime. Spandam is working directly for the five elders as a member of CP5 and has promised them to retrieve the Pluton blueprints for them to use the weapon for the government. He successfully throws Tom under the bus, but the latter refuses to give over the blueprints. Instead he takes the fall for the crime to save his two apprentices. But not before he gives Spandam a good old punch to the face. Franky is having none of this and takes a bat to Spandam’s face as well. He later – seemingly – dies by trying to stop the sea train that Tom is on. This explains why Yokozuna was trying to stop the sea train at the start of the arc. They’re mad that Tom’s invention is being used by the government while they killed Tom.
This volume is great. It slows down a bit in action compared to the two previous ones but this backstory makes us understand a lot more about what is going on in Water 7 and what is at stake. Next volume we’ll go back to the present and see where the straw hat crew ended up. As always I hope you enjoyed this little recap and thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 