Volume 77 is one of those volumes where a lot happens, but let’s not ignore the little bits. As some of you might know, Oda starts off every volume with a short little bit of text, usually it’s a bunch of nonsense about whatever happens to be on his mind at the time. This volume around I worry for his sanity as he talks about someone having the power to create tornadoes and doing so in someone’s ass to help them with indigestion. Let’s dive into volume 77.
Last volume we learned that Corazon was Doffy’s brother and could speak even though he was thought to be a mute. This volume we learn what was hinted at in the previous one. Not only can he speak and does he have a devil fruit, but he also treats the children badly in hopes of scaring them away from the dangerous Doflamingo family. Unfortunately he failed with Buffalo and Baby 5, but he hasn’t given up on Law yet. He kidnaps the young boy to go cure his disease. While he is off, the navy is no longer on Doflamingo’s tail which all but confirms to him that Corazon was the one betraying them all this time. He was in fact working directly under Sengoku in an attempt to defeat the family and deal with his evil brother who killed their father out of revenge for taking them to the normal world. When Doflamingo learns about the location of the Op-op fruit that he has been planning to feed to Cora all this time, Corazon takes Law – whose illness has been getting worse – to go and steal it first. It’s currently in the possession of a pirate named Diez Barrels, a surname we’ve heard mentioned before as the surname of fellow rookie Diez Drake. It’s interesting to note then that the navy has taken custody of a young boy that ran away from the slaughter on Swallow Island. Despite the young boy – who is most assuredly drake – getting away from the chaos and Cora successfully feeding the Op-op fruit to Law, things take a turn for the worse here. Law is being kept quiet with the help of the silent powers that Cora has while he confronts his brother. Law gave Cora’s message to a navy soldier which happened to be Vergo. Vergo clued in Doffy and now the two brothers are aiming guns at each other, but only one of them has enough hatred in their heart to pull the trigger. Thus ends the tragic tale of Rosinante Doflamingo, the reason Law is alive to this day.
Back in present times, Law and Doffy clash with Law doing significant damage but still coming up short. Luffy is busy being distracted by Bellamy who is no longer controlled by Doffy but still has his own pride to worry about. The fights get close to the crescendo but we don’t quite see where this goes yet. Let’s quickly jump back to Zoro fighting Pica, is there any progress?
No, there is not. Pica is just annoying due to his size but Zoro doesn’t seem to be one bit bothered by the big man, tiny voice, third rate villain. He gets some help from the former toys during all of this which helps, but if your enemy can take over entire castles and parts of a city, how are you ever going to properly hit them?
Speaking of former toys and other fighters, a lot happens on Dressrosa. We’re saving one fight until the end, but let’s go through the others. Although Machvise – the most forgettable of the Doflamingo Family – managed to defeat the giant Hajrudin, when the villain tries to attack Zoro the giant gets up one last time to punch him into the birdcage, taking him out properly. Meanwhile Barto and Cavendish are having to deal with Dellinger and Gladius. Dellinger gets sliced to bits by Hakuba when Cavendish goes unconscious for a second and doesn’t stand a chance at all. Gladius is a bit more tactical about it all but he is no match for Barto’s utter loyalty to the straw hat crew. He gets Robin safely up to the next platform and when Gladius thinks he’s won the fight, Barto shows off his barrier barrier pistol, clearly inspired by Luffy. This man is such a little shit and such a big Straw Hat fanboy I find him a joy every time he’s around in this arc. With Robin safely arriving at the flower fields, Kyros no longer has to worry about Diamante attacking Rebecca to throw him off and can finally go all out against the awful coliseum host. This is already a long one, so let’s quickly talk about Mansherry. Her tears have healing powers and she’s the reason the Doflamingo family members keep going back up. Of course she’s not doing this because she’s with them, she’s just gullible and being held hostage. Luckily the Tontatta – with Leo as their leader – manage to save her from Giolla before she forces the princess to heal even more family members. The princess is madly in love with Leo of course but is what we call in the business a Tsundere. Leo is dense so he has no idea why she is like that.
Let’s talk for a moment about the best villain in this arc, Senor Pink. We’ve so far only known this hardboiled weirdo as a man whose actions make very little sense and whose fashion sense makes even less sense. During his epic standoff with Franky it’s finally revealed how he got to be this way. You see, he fell in love with a woman, Russian, who hates pirates. So of course he hid his job and his life with Doffy from her as they started a nice and quiet life. He would go away for work regularly, but told his wife he worked at the bank. One day, their young son got very sick but because Senor Pink wasn’t at the bank and Russian couldn’t get a hold of him, their son ended up dying while he was absent. Filled with resentment, Russian dashed into the night, only to get caught up in a landslide, ending up in a vegetative state. Senor was filled with sadness and tried everything he could to make his wife laugh again, finally succeeding when he put on one of his son’s old bonnets. This caused him to dress more and more like a baby, with zero regard for his appearance as long as it made his wife happy. What a hardboiled man. Unfortunately, Franky is one more step above him, and he ends up taking the victory for the Straw Hats.
Lastly, let’s talk about Baby 5. When I first read this arc many years ago, I don’t think I quite recognized what Oda was doing with her character. She was introduced as this funny woman who said yes to any request because she just wanted to be helpful. During the fight between the Happosai army, Lao G and Baby 5, she changes sides because she misunderstood some of Sai’s words and thought he wanted to marry her. We learn a short bit about her past, where her mother dumped her off in the woods because no one wanted her. This of course traumatized the young girl and now whenever someone needs her that becomes the most important thing to her. She just wants to be loved and is a completely broken human which – looking at it now – is heartbreaking. When Sai answers her “I’ve been trying to help you” with the beautiful line “I guess you’ve been living in a place where no one forced you to stop doing that,” I realized how well written of a character she really was. She’s so broken that she doesn’t even realize how much saving she needed. Luckily, Sai seems like a stand-up guy who is going to figure out how to fix her. Or at least I hope. I wanted to save this bit for the end since I’ve always found it very interesting when good authors tackle complex mental health issues. With Sai being the new don, I’m sure he can help Baby 5 break out of the cycle she’s stuck in. That’s all from me today, thanks for reading and I hope to see you all here again next week.
Opal Kaharis 