I think a lot of these later One Piece arcs really suffer quite a bit from having a weekly release with regular breaks. Obviously that is no sleight to Oda, he works harder in a month than I do in a year and I wish him as many breaks and happiness as he wants. But that doesn’t mean the pacing is better. This has resulted in a pleasant surprise for me as I’m reading these volumes weekly. Fishman Island isn’t nearly as bad an arc as I remember it to be. I remember watching this in the anime as it aired – yes I’m old – and just being bored for most of it. Instead it’s a well thought out arc with great plot points and villains that fit the kind of story Oda is trying to tell. Let’s dissect it.
Last week we found out that Otohime was shot and this week we learned that it was a human pirate who did it. Well, it was actually Hody Jones but he pinned it on a human pirate, causing all of Fishman Island to believe that humans were in fact responsible for this tragedy. He was already planning his takeover of the kingdom back then, fueled by rage and hatred that surpasses that of Arlong by a lot. Make no mistake, Arlong was a bad person but his rage came from a place of love and he believed in his own people. Obviously that’s wrong, but it is not that foreign of a concept even in our world. Hell, my own country just gave a majority vote to a politician who wants to improve our lives, just not if you’re muslim. He genuinely seems to want to make the country a better place for the population, he’s just limited in who he thinks falls under that group. Just like Arlong he’s a bad person but he stands by his convictions.
Hody on the other hand just wants to destroy anyone in his way and has no problem hurting and killing his own people on top of killing humans. He’s an evil far less subtle than Arlong ever was and that’s also kind of the point here.
While Zoro, Brook and Usopp are captured in the palace, with Brook turning into a ghost and scaring the crap out of Pappagu, the rest of the Straw Hats listen to Jinbe as he tells them the story of Fishman Island. Luffy is asleep though. Never change Luffy.
After this, Luffy and Jinbe have a disagreement and we get Luffy’s iconic explanation for why he doesn’t want to be a hero. A hero is someone who wants to share all his meat with the people but a pirate will take all the meat for himself. He refuses to become the hero of Fishman Island. Well, at least until Jinbe promises him as much meat as he wants. It’s really that simple sometimes. They come up with a plan but then it looks like Jinbe and Shirahoshi get captured before accomplishing anything and there’s no sign of the Straw Hats anywhere. Hody does his best evil king impersonation and is about to execute King Neptune when we get some iconic moments.
First, Luffy was hiding in Megalo’s stomach in secret, waiting for the right moment. After Arlong’s sister, Madam Sharley, has told the people about her prediction, they all ask for Luffy to come help them, they’d rather he destroy the island now, with Hody caught up in the chaos, than later while they have to go through this suffering. Although this wasn’t quite the plan, Luffy jumps out after Shirahoshi cries out for him. He beats the crap out of Hody in an instant and the plaza turns into chaos. This is where we get a nice display of the crew’s new powers. Luffy’s conqueror’s haki is strong enough to knock out half the people here. I know this is Oda just flexing Luffy’s power, but you have to keep in mind that all of these are either fishmen, who are genetically supposed to be more powerful than humans, or pirates that made their way to the grand line without dying. They’re not chumps like Captain Krieg or the butler from Usopp’s arc. I know his name, I just don’t know how to spell it. They’re the real deal. Luffy’s haki knocks out 50.000 of them. The only person that we’ve seen use such strong Haki before is Luffy’s one and only idol, Red-haired Shanks. After this, the officers in Hody’s crew and Luffy’s gang clash, with Robin showing off her massive feet, Sanji showing that he can now air walk like CP9 can and Zoro creating a whirlwind of pain. Franky even brings out something interesting. He has two new mechs that can combine into one and adjust shape. They’re made of something called Wapometal which is an interesting name to call out after we’ve just seen a cover story of Wapol being the leader of a massive conglomerate. What has the weird former king done while we weren’t looking? Either way, the clash starts and it’s not even difficult. We’ll see where things go next volume, but the Straw Hats have leveled up tremendously and are not to be trifled with.
Finally, we need to talk about Vanderdecken. Besides him being a total creep preying on a 6 year old girl, he’s also completely lost his mind. He uses his weird devil fruit to launch an old ship that’s half the size of Fishman Island at Shirahoshi. This ship will most likely destroy the entire island if it hits and it’s called Noah’s arc. It’s an ancient ship that needs to be saved and protected until “that man” returns. We don’t have to think hard about who this man could be since Robin already gave us the answer earlier in this volume. Robin is my favorite character by the way, my younger brother even got me a custom made bookmark with her on it, isn’t that nice? Anyway, Robin saw a poneglyph in the underwater forest where a message was written to someone named Joyboy. That Joyboy is most likely the person that Neptune is waiting for and why the ship shouldn’t be destroyed. Things are definitely heating up and this arc doesn’t have long before it reaches a conclusion. As much as Luffy has been pummeling Hody, he does keep getting up, pop more pills, and recovering. We’ll see next week what their final clash will look like, I think. For now, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday and prepare for going back to work tomorrow. (yes, I write these on Sundays, it’s not actually a One Piece Wednesday, I lie). I hope you enjoy your day too and as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 