We’re now well into the middle of Dressrosa and that explains why this volume is so thick. It feels bigger than most of the other volumes in this box and a lot happens, so strap in. Just like with the last volume, let’s go through each important story separately instead of getting too focused on the order of the volume as we jump from one to another a lot.
The most straightforward one is Franky. Franky was too big to go through the tunnels of the Tontatta army so instead he headed to the factory to cause some mayhem. There he encounters two of the officers of the Donquixote family. Both Senor Pink and Machvise. I forgot Machvise existed if I’m honest, he’s not a particularly memorable character. He just floats and then crushes people. Senor Pink on the other hand seems much more interesting. He’s a chubby guy wearing baby clothes that seems to be too cool to even dodge. He squares off with Franky here as the rest of the gang sneaks into the factory.
Robin, Usopp and the Tontattas have started their plan of knocking out Sugar, the little girl that turned everyone into toys. Usopp is still looking for a way to escape this chaos as he’s scared of things going wrong. You know, the usual. But despite Usopp’s cowardice, the Tontattas believe in him, even when their mission utterly fails. Robin gets caught and turned into a toy while the Tontattas are also turned into toys or defeated. Usopp is the only chance at salvation that they have but he is quickly running away. Is the plan completely doomed?
While the Straw Hats are causing chaos everywhere in town, the colosseum is still hosting the tournament. With Cavendish revealed to have a split personality that awakens when he falls asleep called Hakuba, he defeats everyone except for Rebecca who manages to block the attack with her helmet just in time, making her the winner of block D. We now have our five participants for the final. There’s Jesus Burgess from Block A, who is one of the ten captains serving under Commodore Blackbeard. Bartolomeo – Luffy’s biggest fan – is the winner from block B. Lucy – who is no longer Luffy but someone else – from block C and finally Rebecca from block D. The four of them join Diamante – who is also the host of the coliseum – in the ring for a final match where the goal is to take the Mero Mero no Mi from the back of one of the fighting bull fish circling the arena while also avoiding the other candidates. Lucy directs Bartolomeo to defend Rebecca from Diamante who is tormenting her while he himself goes after the fruit, still having to deal with Burgess on the way here. We don’t get a conclusion to this fight yet, but we do learn a fair bit more about the history of Dressrosa
Last volume we learned that Doflamingo used his string powers to turn King Riku into a villain and this volume we learn about Kyros, the one-legged soldier, who was loyal to his king even long after he was dethroned. Kyros was a youthful man who killed two people as revenge for killing his friend. After being thrown in jail, Riku offers him a deal to win 100 fights in the coliseum. Then he can earn his freedom back. Eventually Kyros changes his ways and joins the army, working as the personal guard of Scarlet and Violet, the two pokemon games – I mean the two daughters of Riku Doldo. Eventually Scarlet and Kyros fall in love and have a daughter, Rebecca. When Doflamingo takes over, Kyros tries to fight them off and gets turned into a toy by Sugar after he cuts off his own leg in order to charge at Doflamingo. Kyros is pretty damn hardcore. He then has to flee and due to the chaos wasn’t constricted by Sugar’s orders to serve the family, making him the only toy with free will. He’s been leading the revolution all this time and even now he’s ready to strike at the Doflamingo family. All of the Tontattas believe that he’s powerful enough to defeat them, and his backstory shows that this isn’t some false praise. He needs to avenge his wife who was shot by Diamante. Oda did such an incredible job building up the Donquixote family as a band of merciless villains while still keeping some of them around to be a bit more likable.
Lastly, let’s go back to Usopp. He’s running away but those damn Tontatta keep believing in him no matter what. This is where Usopp starts his fantastic turn as a character. He’ll always be a bit of a coward, but he faces Trebol and Sugar here with the full knowledge that he might die. He doesn’t want to let down the Tontatta and wants to make sure he shows them he’s a brave warrior of the sea. It doesn’t seem like he’s a match for the duo, but when Sugar feeds him the hot sauce grape that was meant for her his face turns into such an incredibly shocked face that he knocks her unconscious by scaring the crap out of her. Let it be known that you can be a coward and a hero at the same time.
Next week we’ll see the results of Usopp’s bravery and we’ll continue this arc. I also ordered the missing volumes I still needed this past week, so now I have everything up until volume 105 with the exception of volume 103, which seems to be unavailable at the moment. I’ll look into other options by the time we get to it, but that’s still a few months from now. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 