We end the from the decks of the world cover story arc in this volume. Although it was a fun little substory which showed us where many of the people we met throughout the years were at, there wasn’t much happening in them. It did end on a bit of a sad note of course, showing Ace and Whitebeard’s graves. But what is that we’re seeing in front of Ace’s grave? Three cups? Who put those there? Luffy definitely didn’t have the time to do that during his chaotic return to Marineford. Foreshadowing is a narrative tool to….
We’re still on Punk Hazard and if you remember correctly, you’ll know that Trafalgar Law, captain of the Heart Pirates, just offered Luffy an alliance to take down one of the four emperors of the sea. As a quick reminder, the current emperors of the sea are Kaido, Big Mom, Shanks and Blackbeard, who usurped the position of Whitebeard. I doubt Luffy would go after Shanks at all and dealing with Blackbeard this early on feels narratively wrong, so there’s only two real options left, one of which was just pissed off by Luffy during Fishman Island. Regardless, Oda keeps us in the dark for a little bit longer as the alliance is formed and Law returns most of the Straw Hats to their original bodies. Only Nami and Sanji stay swapped for a little while longer since Sanji is currently out finding the Samurai while still in Nami’s body. Law is also quickly finding out that his idea of an alliance and Luffy’s idea of an alliance are vastly different. Luffy is a goofy guy who thinks alliance means they’re now friends and although Law isn’t the most heartless person on the ocean (pun intended), he is a pretty ruthless and goal oriented guy overall. Dealing with Luffy is going to exhaust him. You can see the regret on his face when Usopp ties an immoble Chopper onto Law’s hat so the duo can investigate together. This’ll be fun.
Elsewhere on the island, several of Caesar’s underlings have been ordered to open the door to another laboratory through which they let a giant and deadly slime roam free. This slime eventually makes its way across the island to the front entrance of Caesar’s laboratory. While Law and Chopper are sneaking in, Luffy and his crew – as well as Smoker, Tashigi and G5 – all arrive at the front door. Franky blasts open the door with his new technology that he found on Vegapunk’s old home turf. Smoker and Tashigi are still swapped around and no match for Luffy in their current weakened state. The arrival of the slime complicates things and although the G5 soldiers are pretty gung ho about attacking it, once they set it on fire it explodes, taking out a bunch of them all at once. During this, Caesar finally shows his face and gets grabbed by Luffy shortly after.
Although Luffy catches Caesar off guard, he isn’t a pushover by any means and through some weird trickery that no one seems to be able to figure out he manages to knock out the Straw Hats as well as the G5 soldiers. While this is going on, Chopper is left alone in the lab while Law and Monet run into a man named Vergo. It turns out that Vergo and Monet don’t actually work for Caesar but instead they work for whomever is further up the chain, a certain Joker we mentioned in the last volume. Either way, they seem to know Law from when he was much younger and they seem to have some sort of power over him. He quickly gets knocked out. They also call him a kid.
On the other side of the island, Zoro, Sanji and Brook manage to find the final missing part of the samurai who is finally complete and it turns out he’s quite the tall man. He’s Foxfire Kinemon from Kuri in the land of Wano. His name isn’t just for show as he cuts the slime around them and then when it explodes he also cuts the explosion itself, explaining that this is something he can do. Zoro is immediately curious about his powers and joins him on his search for someone named Momonosuke.
Things are quickly going from bad to worse with Law, Smoker, Tashigi, Luffy, Robin and Franky all captured by Caesar. He then unveils his weapon to many black market brokers. We also learn that Vergo is the leader of G5, Smoker’s unit, and his people are the ones who’ve been kidnapping children for Caesar. It’s kind of telling of what kind of unit the marines are in the One Piece universe that whenever something bad is happening, they’re probably involved in some way. But when things are at their worst, there’s often that shining moment of being saved. Law had replaced his handcuffs with regular ones so he freed himself with ease, subsequently freeing everyone else. After changing the personalities of the last few people present, he tells Smoker and Tashigi that they can keep their lives as long as they don’t interfere with him, which they unfortunately have to accept. After Zoro makes Luffy promise to start taking things more seriously, the gang sets out to raid the laboratory, leaving the deadly poisonous gas behind them. We’re getting closer to the climax of this arc and after Punk Hazard we get into some very interesting arcs, so I personally cannot wait to continue. I hope to see you here again next week and as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 