The final paragraph of this recap contains spoilers for some of the latest One Piece chapters, read at your own risk.
After a very intense few volumes we finally reach the end of the Paramount War arc. Let’s talk about everything important that happens in volume 59.
We left off with Akainu killing Ace at the end of the last volume. Ace is on death’s door, his innards burnt to a crisp and beyond repair. With Akainu still looming over them, he speaks his last words. He is happy to have been born and happy for all of his friends to fight for him. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to save him and Ace dies at Marineford at the age of 20 with a smile on his face. Luffy goes into shock.
It makes sense that at this point Luffy is at his lowest. He lost his crew and although they’re probably safe, he made a detour to save his brother and that failed too. Putting aside some of the impressive feats he’s shown, things aren’t going well for Luffy and that’s a first. He’s usually been able to make it through every situation, but this time around that wasn’t the case. The shock of loss is too big and he goes catatonic, not responding to anyone. This is the perfect moment for Akainu to finish the job and kill the other brother.
Jinbe, Marco and Vista all show up to block Akainu. Showing to once again be completely clutch, Galdino has managed to unlock Marco’s handcuffs and he’s back to full power again. Although they’re all powerful, Akainu is on a different level, as a former warlord Jinbe is aware of this. But this is the point where Akainu’s luck runs out as an absolutely furious Whitebeard shows up to pummel the crap out of him. These punches were so much more satisfying in the anime, but unfortunately Akainu’s return punch that burned off half of Whitebeard’s face was much less impactful in the anime. Either way, the legendary emperor of the sea is on death’s door, with marines attacking him from all angles. He’s still standing after all of this and the whole world can see that he’s still alive even after being stabbed and shot so many times. He’s not long for this world though, and that final nail gets hit into the coffin by none other than his former crewmate: Blackbeard.
You see, they managed to make it out of Impel Down alive with four new recruits. Catarina Devon, Shiryua of the rain, Vasco Shot and San Juan Wolf. These four were the strongest of the level six prisoners, the most dangerous criminals to have ever been caught and locked up. And now all these people have joined the blackbeard pirates crew. What a dangerous group. Blackbeard and Whitebeard have a talk with the latter disowning him as a son, but this doesn’t bother Blackbeard much. He and his crew finish off Whitebeard and then perform the biggest twist in the story. They throw a black sheet over both captains and when Blackbeard emerges from it again he has access to Whitebeard’s devil fruit on top of his own. This should be impossible, but some of the Whitebeard pirates acknowledge that Teach’ body is different. We got a small hint at this idea during Jaya, and I personally think he has some sort of split personality thing, or multiple people live in one body and that allows him to use these powers. We don’t know yet though, so it’s all just conjecture.
With Whitebeard and Ace dead, the pirates are fleeing the scene and the navy is hunting them down with people dying left, right and center. One brave young navy soldier speaks out against the senseless violence, saying that it’s time to stop and tend to the wounded. The ever compassionate Koby has awakened to his haki and hears the voices of people suffering around him. Unfortunately for him, Akainu is much less compassionate and goes in to kill young Koby. What a vile person he is. Fortunately, someone important heard Koby’s voice. Shanks, captain of the red-haired pirates, shows up to defend Koby for his bravery. He claims that the war has ended and he’s here to make sure everyone pisses off. Anyone still willing to fight can take on his crew. There’s a handful of pirates but everyone backs down immediately. I get that all sides have taken some losses here, but the fact that Shanks’ presence chases away Teach and makes Sengoku admit that the war should be ended is terrifying. How powerful is this man really?
While all of this is going on, Jinbe – with the help of Buggy – has managed to get Luffy safely onto Trafalgar Law’s ship. The young pirate just arrived here, with no real indication why, and he is going to save Luffy. When asked why he doesn’t have a great answer, he just sort of feels like it. They’re not friends now and will likely be enemies later on, but there are a lot of people present that want to put their hopes into Luffy purely because the navy so desperately wants to kill him. Even Crocodile steps in to help them, the same Crocodile that lost his title, kingdom and plans thanks to Luffy. As much as pirates can’t stand each other sometimes, the government is an evil that’s far more despicable and screwing them over takes priority over everything else. Law, Jinbe and the wounded Luffy make it out alive as the war comes to a close. The age of Whitebeard is over, and chaos fills the seas once more. Luffy, Law and Jinbe are camping out on Boa Hancock’s island and we finally get a long overdue look into Luffy’s backstory with Ace and Sabo? Who’s this cheeky kid?
Luffy – after eating the devil fruit that Shanks had on him – is deposited with Dadan, a mountain bandit that is being allowed to walk free due to Garp forcing her to take care of Ace. Luffy gets a glass of water and a bowl of rice a day and has to take care of everything else himself. He’s 7 years old at this point, with Ace being 10. The two don’t quite hit it off at first, with Ace going through his “I hate everyone” phase. You know, normal teenager stuff. Eventually, Luffy manages to follow Ace all the way to his hideout where he also meets Sabo. He then gets caught by a pirate that Ace and Sabo have crossed in the past and stole money from and the duo is terrified that Luffy will snitch on them and tell the pirates where their treasures are hidden. While they spent the afternoon hiding all of their treasure in another spot, Sabo finds out that the old spot still hasn’t been raided. It turns out that Luffy never snitched because he wanted to have friends. This hits Ace right in his kokoro as he’s not used to people wanting him to be alive. And thus a trio of friends is born, although not without cost as the leader of the pirates that they just beat up is still out there and very, very angry at the three kids.
This is also the part of the story where Oda starts ramping up his social commentary even more. Sabo lives in the Goa Kingdom’s equivalent of Skid Row, the famously poorly kept streets of Los Angeles where the less fortunate live. If you want to watch a great video on the housing crisis and the way we can sometimes view homeless people – as well as just a great video on philosophy in general – I highly suggest the latest Philosophy Tube video about this topic. But I’m getting off topic here. With Luffy at his lowest we learn about where he came from and why Ace was so important to him. We conclude that part of the story next week in what I believe is the final One Piece volume before the famed time-skip. This is where the non-spoiler part of this recap ends, after this comes some information about the current arc in the manga, so do not read that if you’re not up to date. Thanks for reading!
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During the short scene we get of several people looking at the monitors at Sabaody we see that Bonney is angrily going to try and find someone in the New World. We didn’t know who this was back then, and lots of people speculated that she could be either after Luffy, Blackbeard or someone else present at the war. Now, with everything we know, I think this was already referring to Vegapunk for what he did to her father, Bartholomew Kuma. Not everything that happens later on in One Piece feels like Oda planned for it ahead of time. Things like Haki and the road poneglyphs feel like a later addition to the story, but I think that Oda planned out Vegapunks, Bonney and Kuma from very early on in the story and that makes the Egghead arc that much more exciting. I can’t wait to read that story again but in a full volume. I love One Piece, but the weekly format – including breaks – is sometimes a bit tiring and confusing. Things happen with too much time between them and that is the main reason why I started reading volumes to begin with. But it’ll be a sad day when I stop reading the chapters weekly, this is just a good reason to read everything twice. Or thrice. Again, thank you so much for reading, see you next week!
Opal Kaharis 