Things are escalating fast and on all different parts of the island. But if we want to summarize things, we have five stories that are happening all at once and even mingling at times. Let’s talk about each of them.
The first story is the one of Sanji, Nami and the others who are still on the Sunny. Brook has seemingly gone over to the enemy side and is creating art with Giolla at the expense of his crewmates. Of course this was all a ruse to get her to release his weapon from its spell as it looks like an innocent violin and walking cane to the untrained eye. He does the “you are already dead” meme and one of the Doflamingo family executives is down. The Sunny goes back to normal and after some turmoil which involves Law, Caesar and Doflamingo, they’re now determined to head to Zou, where the crew is supposed to meet up. The last thing we hear from them is a request from Sanji, to allow them to fire on the Big Mom pirates. I remember the first time I read this scene and being incredibly hyped. The Straw Hats fighting with Big Mom AND Doflamingo was huge after just dealing with a clown and a racist idiot.
Meanwhile Law and Doflamingo clash with Fujitora also in the mix. Law manages to successfully deliver Caesar to the Sunny but after that gets taken out by Doflamingo and brought into Dressrosa proper. There he gets shot right in front of Luffy and the gang, who have been busy in the coliseum.
Speaking of the coliseum, we learn that Rebecca is the granddaughter of the former King and they have a big grudge against him for something he did right before the Don Quixote family took over. She gets everyone angry at her until Cabbage shows up on his white horse to save the day. He doesn’t approve of their behavior towards Rebecca, especially not from the people in the crowd who are too cowardly to fight. The fighters should fight with honor and earn fame and recognition. Of course that last part is what is most important to him personally but even a broken clock is right twice a day. While this is happening, we learn what happens to the losers of the previous blocks. They get sent down to the scrapyard and then Trebol and Sugar turn them into toys, causing everyone to forget about their existence. We also learn that Ricky was actually the previous King Riku. Some anger ensues until we learn through them and the tontattas what really happened that painful night.
The tontattas explain that they’re trying to win the kingdom back. They were once – as a people – enslaved by the previous rulers of the Don Quixote family who were in power until 800 years ago when they ascended to the status of Celestial Dragons. That was when Riku and his line took over and they apologized to the Tontattas, offering them freedom, a home and reparations. Reparations are a big deal in our world as well with people thinking very differently about them. I used to be staunchly opposed because “I didn’t cause hurt to these people and their ancestors” but as I grew older I realized that just by being born into a wealthy country I’m still benefiting from the awful things our ancestors have done. That doesn’t mean I owe anything to strangers of course, but reparations are less about punishing people for their ancestors actions but instead uplifting those who have been wronged in the past. If we can’t get wealthy and healthy together, then we’re not doing this whole society thing the right way. But I’m getting distracted. Doflamingo appeared one day to claim his kingdom back and he used his strings to manipulate Riku into killing a bunch of innocent civilians so that he himself could play the hero that saved the kingdom. It looks like a lot of these warlords like playing the hero. Crocodile used more or less the same playbook in Arabasta. Except there the royal family is much, much older, having been revealed to be the only one of the twenty kingdoms to reject the offer to become celestial dragons. Foreshadowing is a narrative device that…
With Usopp, Robin and Franky as well as the toy soldier – who is revealed to be Rebecca’s real father – the tontattas plan to take out Sugar and free all the toys. While all this is happening, we get to Luffy. Luffy has mostly been sitting in the coliseum having some nice food and meeting Barto who is fully smitten with the Straw Hats and has quickly become a huge help. After learning that Law is in danger he decides that Law’s life is more important than his brother’s fruit. Luckily for Luffy, Barto is perfectly willing to get the fruit for his hero and deliver it to him once he’s won it. Luffy thanks him for this but they’re then interrupted by another figure who tells them that Luffy won’t be the one to inherit Ace’s fruit. Barto gets pushed to the side and Luffy is shocked to his core and turns emotional. We don’t get to see this stranger’s face, but Luffy thought that this man was dead and he is the one who put the three cups of sake on Ace’s grave. There’s only one person who can fit this description, but if you somehow haven’t connected the dots yet, I’ll leave you to do so on your own. Thanks for reading. It’s nearing summer and I’ll be testing out my new AC later today to prepare for the warm weather. I hope it’s effective, I don’t deal with with heat.
Opal Kaharis 