After 60 volumes we finish up the first half of this journey as we set our first step into the second half of the story next week. Ending the paramount war by going through all of the aftermath is a good way to round off this part of the story, before we move on towards the future. Although the future is near at the end of this volume, we start the volume still in the middle of things. You see, Luffy is still mourning his brother while in the Amazon Lily forest, with Jinbe trying to help him get himself together.
We go back in time to Luffy’s past, which we were introduced to in the last volume. By this point Luffy, Ace and Sabo have become a tight-knit trio of thugs, terrorizing the people of the Goa Kingdom. They share cups of sake which makes them brothers. Sharing a cup is an important gesture in the world of pirates and they wanted to be part of that world from a very young age. Luffy is trying to learn how to use his powers and the trio all want to set out to become pirates. They eventually learn that Sabo is actually the son of an aristocrat who ran away from home because he hated the suffocating Goa Kingdom. He eventually gets forced to go back home after the Bluejam pirates attack the trio.
Speaking of the Goa Kingdom, let’s talk about the place where it all started. Dawn island is where Luffy is from and until recently we only knew that he spent time in Fuchsia village and eventually set out from there. What we learned in the last volume and gets expanded upon in this volume is the existence of an entire city kingdom that exists on the other side of the mountain range. In these mountains is where Dadan and the bandits that raise the trio of ne’er do wells and then between the forest, mountains and eventually the city is a place called Gray Terminal. Gray Terminal is basically a giant trash heap where the Goa Kingdom dumps all of its trash, both things and people. The folks that have made this place their home live off of all the food and other things that get dumped here. On the other side of the wall is the poor area of the kingdom which in some aspects has it even worse than the people in Gray Terminal. At least those people are free and not confined within a wall under the oppression of tyrannical aristocrats. A second wall separates this region from the city proper. Inside this second wall is where all of the first class citizens live. They have no regard for any of the people outside of the wall, not even considering them human. Sabo’s family is from this city and he was being raised to marry a princess so that his family could move up in the world. Obviously that’s not what Sabo wanted, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
As there is an inspection from the world nobles coming to the Goa Kingdom, they need to get rid of all of their trash so it doesn’t get seen during this visit. To do so, the Bluejam pirates are hired to burn down all of Gray Terminal, people included. Luffy and Ace unknowingly help them with this task as they find out the place is about to get burned down and they start getting very angry and fighting the Bluejam pirates. The latter have been promised to become aristocrats, but obviously that isn’t happening, they fell for the people’s lies. As much as I love One Piece’s worldbuilding and its morals, it’s pretty obvious sometimes that this story is meant for younger teenagers in how over the top evil its villains are. Sure, there are rich billionaires who are completely out of touch in our world too, but pretty much every noble in this world is like an extra dumb Marie Antionette. The nobles visit but as the ship comes into sight, they spot a small fishing vessel with a pirate flag. It seems like Sabo felt so disgusted by the kingdom that is sick and rotten to the core that he could no longer wait with leaving. He then gets blown up by the ship with the world nobles. During this, Dadan and Ace square off with Bluejam while a heavily wounded Luffy is brought back home. We learn later that Ace and Dadan won the fight, with Ace setting out to become a pirate a few years later in honor of Sabo. Luffy is the last one to set out.
One more important thing about this arc is that we learn a little bit more about Dragon. You see, there’s a good reason why Garp bought his kids here. He probably grew up inside the Goa Kingdom itself. Seeing as how Dragon was born here in Goa, it’s likely that this is also where Garp is from. I wonder if Dragon was aware that his son was here during his arc. Regardless, bumping into Sabo earlier on this arc has confirmed once more how sick this kingdom is. He’s worried that the entire world will soon look like this. Among his crew are Ivankov and Kuma, confirming once more that both have been longtime allies of the revolutionary leader. While leaving Goa – and making a quick pit stop at Shimotsuki Village – they did pick up someone that was badly hurt. I wonder who that is?
We come back to the present day where Luffy and Jinbe fight each other, the latter being able to overpower a wounded and desperate Luffy with ease. He finally manages to make Luffy snap out of it when he remembers his crew. We look at all of his crew members as they are all trying to make their way back to Luffy, only for something to give them pause for thought. It seems like Luffy has done something that we as readers are not yet aware of. In the meantime, Garp is seen visiting Fuchsia village, getting beaten up by a furious and crying Dadan. As much as the bandit leader would have denied it, she loved those boys like her own sons and Garp let one of them die right in front of him. Makino tells Dadan that Garp must be hurting much more to which Dadan replies that Luffy is the one who is hurting the most. She’s likely right, but Garp is a complicated person. He has a strong sense of justice but he’s in the wrong organization. We learn that he resigned alongside Sengoku. Kong, the previous fleet admiral, is not happy about it and convinces both to stay in a training role. Sengoku nominates Aokiji for the next fleet admiral. During all of this, Coby learns about his Haki and is likely going to train it under Garp. Things are moving fast, but one more important thing happens before we can leave this volume behind us.
After talking to Rayleigh, the former right hand of the pirate king, who swam all the way to Amazon Lily like it was nothing, Luffy decided to train. He sends his crew a message. He goes back to Marineford and steals a warship, does a lap around the area and then rings the bell 16 times. He then pays his respect to the memorial before leaving again. Jinbe and Rayleigh make sure that no one gets in his way during this process. He has a strange tattoo when he does this, and his crew immediately understands what he means. Well, most of them at least. Zoro is still a bit slow. Next volume the Straw Hats reunite on Sabaody and we enter the next era of One Piece. As I say almost every week, I can’t wait to continue this story. We’re closing in on the part of the story that I’ve read/watched less often, mainly due to my last proper reread and rewatch being almost a decade ago, when I had much more free time. There’s probably tons of small details I don’t remember from the upcoming arcs, so it should be a good time. As usual, thanks for reading these posts every week! Next week we will be on break as I take some extra time to focus on my studies and other writing projects. I figured now would be a pretty good time to take a week off, seeing as we’re entering a brand new part of the story with volume 61’s Time-skip.
Opal Kaharis 