Can you believe it’s already May of 2024? When I first started blogging we were still deep in lockdown and that feels like it was ages ago. I do have long term lung issues – pretty minor but still annoying – from when I got covid in December so I suppose that’s an uncomfortable reminder. Putting aside the fact that time is jelly and the world feels different than before, let’s have a look at this week’s volume. We’re still in the middle of a stretch of One Piece that’s not particularly amazing. But on the plus side, both the anime and manga are currently peaking in quality so at least we have that going for us. Despite not being the most incredible chapters, this volume does have some interesting lore, so let’s focus on that primarily.
The fight with Hody ended the last volume and all that was left was removing the threat of the quickly approaching Noah. Although Luffy is doing a good job at beating it into a pulp, this does go against the wishes of the royals, who’ve been tasked with protecting it until the return of someone named Joyboy. Unfortunately it seems like they have to accept the destruction of Noah since the lives of all the people in Fishman Island are more important than an 800 year old promise. During a moment of panic, Shirahoshi finally awakens as the ancient weapon Poseidon. She talks to the Neptunians who seem like a friendly bunch and they drag the ship away. It’s heavily damaged but still constitutes as a ship, so they’re going to find a certain someone to help them repair it. I think they just mean Tom’s brother, who we see shocked by the sudden appearance of the ship and the Neptunians, but they are pretty vague about it. It would be very cool if we find that the ship has been repaired by Tom’s brother in the future, but we’ll have to wait and see.
With Shirahoshi fully awakened as Poseidon, we get a chat between Neptune and Robin, who has read the poneglyph that contained the original promise with Joyboy. I don’t think it’s ever been confirmed, but it’s still my headcanon that the poneglyph in Skypiea has something to do with Joyboy too. We know Roger wrote on it as well, but I think that was the first time Oda thought to include hints about Joyboy. I won’t go into why I think so, since it would be spoilers, but keep in mind that this is a theory and nothing that has been confirmed. Neptune explains to Robin that the power to talk to Neptunians appears in mermaid princesses every so often and he desperately wants to keep this a secret. Caribou listens in on this conversation though and tries to kidnap the princess. He is foiled by Luffy and the gang and they also retrieve all of the treasure that he stole.
During the feast that’s held in the Straw Hats’ honor, some important guests appear. It seems like Fishman Island is under the banner of Big Mom in exchange for a huge amount of candy that she sends her men to collect every month. Pekoms and Tamago are sent to retrieve the candy but since it’s been used for the feast, Luffy tells them he ate it all, declaring Fishman Island his territory. He even picks up the phone when Big Mom calls, which is pretty funny considering how powerful she is and how unimpressed he is by her. Lastly he invites Jinbe to the crew, but the fishman fighter still has some loose ends to tie up before he can join the Straw Hats. He does promise to join up with them eventually though and with promises made, the Straw Hats finally make their way to the New World where Smoker and Tashigi are already dealing with the huge influx of pirates bubbling up after Fishman Island was liberated. What a bad time to be a navy officer.
In the New World, the crew lands next to Punk Hazard, an island that’s half fire and half ice. Wouldn’t it be a strange coincidence that we’ve just been told about an icy guy and a magma mongrel fighting each other in a heated battle? Mild spoilers aside, half of the crew stays on the ship and gets captured by people in strange suits that protect them from the gas and the other half make their way onto the island. On the island they fight a dragon that seems to talk, but after Zoro slices up the dragon they learn that the dragon didn’t talk, but the pair of legs sticking out of the dragon does talk. This pair of legs might be the samurai that the distress call mentioned. The pair of legs mentions a warlord of the sea and then runs off. Who could this warlord be, what are they doing on Punk Hazard and why is half a samurai running around trying to find his other half. There are so many questions, but we’ll have to wait and see next week if we get any answers. That or we look at the preview image for the next volume and make an educated guess on who the figure we see really is. Either way, thank you for reading, I hope the weather clears up a bit in May. My work year is coming to an end soon, with the final weeks being less teaching and more admin stuff, so I’m looking forward to the summer already!
Opal Kaharis 