We’re deep into the action of Dressrosa now. There’s much to talk about, so let’s not waste any time. We’ll start with Kin’emon and Kanjuro. Kin’emon’s primary reason for wanting to come to Dressrosa is to find Kanjuro, his samurai companion that he got separated from after something happened. This has been his sole reason to roam around and it seems that he’s finally managed to find him, locked up with a whole host of former King Riku soldiers. Kanjuro seems to be a weird fellow. He wears make-up of a performer and carries a massive brush with him that he seems to use for his devil fruit powers. He can draw things with them and they then come to life. He’s used this power to draw himself lettuce to eat and now to help everyone escape from their predicament. Unfortunately, his drawing skills are pretty abysmal so the ladders he creates are rickety. He doesn’t have the greatest of introductions as one of the first things he does is accidentally draw a net for the angry mob to catch up to Usopp and King Riku.
Lower down on the island, the fight between Fujitora and Sabo ends in a draw. Koala is understandably mad that Sabo spent his time fighting a navy admiral instead of working on his mission. Have we talked properly about Koala yet? The first time I read this was when I was still reading chapters weekly and I’d all but forgotten about the little girl who was saved by the sun pirates and did not realize that she was the same character. Knowing that after she was left in her hometown, she searched out the revolutionaries herself is a nice thought to have. She’s on a team with Sabo and Hack, the fishman who was in the coliseum and is now with Usopp’s group, protecting him.
Speaking of Usopp, as a staunch Usopp apologist I felt so incredibly vindicated during this arc. Not only does he unintentionally save everyone from being forgotten for the rest of their days by scaring the lights out of Sugar, he then repeats the same feat only a few hours later. Where the first attempt might have been a total fluke after he finally decided he wasn’t a big enough coward to run away from everyone, the second attempt was much, much more predicated. After Viola spots that Sugar is back on her feet and on her way to where Luffy and Law are, the panic starts to set in. If Luffy and Law were to vanish from everyone’s memory, this plot would absolutely fail. The Straw Hats are all very capable individuals, but without Luffy as their captain they wouldn’t be nearly as brave. Luckily for us, Usopp is very good at the one thing he does best, sniping. With a complicated contraption he manages to take aim at Sugar and suddenly see something strange. That’s right, our cowardly sniper finally awakens his observation haki. All the naysayers can suck it, Usopp is just as impressive as the other Straw Hats. With his newfound haki there’s no chance that he misses and he shoots Kanjuro’s painted recreation of Usopp’s shocked face right on its mark, once again terrifying and knocking out Sugar just in time before disaster would strike. Luffy and Law make it to where Doffy is.
There are a few more fights and moments happening throughout Dressrosa. The Tontattas are saving their enslaved friends by letting them know that they’re being tricked. Although they’re gullible as all hell, they do trust their friends and break free. They are still looking for their princess, Mansherry, who is locked up elsewhere. Viola knows where she is and Leo is on his way to save her. Franky and Senor Pink continue their manly fight in front of the factory and there are some pretty funny moments in this part of the volume. Zoro and Pica are fighting and it doesn’t look like Pica is much of a match for Zoro if I’m perfectly honest. His power is in being big, made of stone, and controlling the palace. When it comes to fighting, no one can defeat a cocky Zoro. Finally, after the escaped gladiators open up the path for Luffy, Law and some others, Rebecca and her father find themselves in front of Diamante, who is bullying Rebecca. Kyros the artist formerly known as a toy soldier quickly puts a stop to this behavior and is now ready to throw down with Diamante.
That brings us to the two big plot points of this volume: The clash with Doflamingo and the history behind both Doffy and Law. The clash starts off well with Luffy and Law having actually developed a proper plan. Law’s power to switch people’s locations is very powerful to disorient your opponents. We’ve seen how cool it can be in Jujutsu Kaisen and although One Piece did it first, I think Jujutsu Kaisen did it better. Nonetheless, Law has devised a good plan which includes the duo pretending to suddenly attack each other due to their poor teamwork. At the last second, Law swaps himself with Doflamingo, causing Luffy’s red hawk to hit him for some serious damage. Law then cuts up Trebol and for a moment things are looking up. Just a moment though, for Doffy quickly seizes control of the situation and takes out both fighters. He didn’t get here by pure luck, he’s a dangerous opponent. A former Celestial Dragon with nothing but rage at the world.
Which brings me to the past. Doflamingo’s father, Don Quixote Homing, asked for his family to be let out of the Celestial Dragon life to live with the common folk down below. Seems noble if you don’t think about it for more than half a second, but this would be like a right-wing politician taking up a new vacation home in the slums. Things wouldn’t end well. And just like that, they didn’t end well for Doffy and his family. His mother died of illness and the other three were persecuted for who they were. It’s a shame, they could have done some real good in the world if they wanted to, but in the end they were really just larping as normal folks, still bringing their fortune along to their new mansion. We do learn that Doflamingo wasn’t an only child and that his younger brother, Corazon, was crucial to Law’s past.
The young doctor came from a family of doctors who grew up in White Town, a city decimated by the after effects of lead poisoning. Oda likes to take problems from the modern world and examine them in the setting of One Piece. Lead poisoning and eating plastic are serious issues in our modern world. I heard somewhat recently that lunchables – which we don’t have here in Europe due to our governments caring at least a tiny little bit about us – contained lead, and this is what lots of children grew up on. Either way, the kingdoms around White Town believed the disease that it caused to be dangerous and eventually quarantined the place before killing everyone that lived there. Law’s entire family was murdered and the young boy only managed to escape due to hiding in a pile of corpses. That’s a pretty brutal start to a young boy’s life. What’s even more fucked up is that the nobles and the world government were well aware of the lead’s effect on people, even before they started harvesting it for profit. Sounds familiar, smoking industry? Lead industry? Vape industry (I’m sure they’ll be on this list in the future)? After surviving this trauma, a broken and twisted Law arrives at the doorstep of the Doflamingo with only one goal: destroying as much of the world as he can before his illness consumes him. The family takes him in although it seems that Corazon, Doffy’s mute brother, doesn’t like Law, seriously hurting him. The clumsy officer and Law don’t get along at all but after Law tries to kill him and Corazon does not rat him out to Doffy, he starts to wonder what is really up with it. When Law tells Buffalo and Baby 5 that he has a “D” in his name, Corazon reveals that he isn’t mute at all and that Law should not let Doffy find out about this. I wonder what Corazon’s deal is. We’ll probably find out next week, so be sure to be here then. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 