Today is the day we finish up Dressrosa. Not my favorite arc in the series by any means, but it still had some pretty solid highlights throughout. Although it was dragged out like crazy in the anime, the fact that the fighters and people had to defend Luffy for 10 minutes as he regained his haki was quite cool. Watching everyone come together against just one man was fun to see, although part of me wonders why Fujitora didn’t just cut down the severely weakened Doflamingo. He calls himself a gambler, but if Luffy lost they would have been in serious trouble and many would have died due to his negligence. Not much of an ally of justice.
Speaking of which, we learn here that Doflamingo went above the five elders in authority to get this news wave to happen. Sakazuki is clearly unhappy about it and he is angry at the five elders who do not care about his honor and pride at all. There is definitely some friction and it seems like the elders are especially angry that Luffy got all the credit for this going well. At least Fujitora did the honorable thing and made Smoker and Tashigi proud for what they couldn’t do in Alabasta. Sakazuki gets called out for allowing Kuzan to join Blackbeard but he says that he is not responsible for those who leave the navy. It seems like some tension is building between him and the five elders. Not so easy of a job now, is it lava boy?
While everyone and their family is doing what they can to hide Luffy and to push back the ever shrinking birdcage, Luffy thinks back on his training with Rayleigh as he prepares for a final clash with Doflamingo. Doflamingo is being stalled by Rebecca and Viola, who he pits against each other with the power of his string fruit. Fortunately, he doesn’t get to do any permanent damage before Luffy recovers and shows up. The two clash but the exhausted Doflamingo is no match for Luffy’s incredible King Kong punch. The tragedy of Dressrosa is over.
The revolutionaries have their own sidequest going on and find the list of names of countries they were looking for. Sabo fights off Jesus Burgess with relative ease and after the latter provokes him burns him quite badly with Ace’s devil fruit. We get another confirmation that the Blackbeard pirates are actively hunting certain devil fruits and it looks like both the Flame Flame Fruit and the Gum Gum fruit are part of this. Unfortunately for Burgess, he has to deal with Sabo here and doesn’t get to take anything interesting.
After the tragedy of Dressrosa ends and we are finally able to move forward with the story, we have a quick look at something else that has been happening, which we haven’t been able to see much of. You see, it might be easy to forget at this point that the Straw hat crew had a few more members. Brook, Sanji, Nami and Chopper are with Caesar at a strange looking island where they have left the ship. They are having to fight against someone called master Sheepshead who seems to have a zoan devil fruit. He gets dealt with pretty easily though and the people retreat allowing Chopper and Ceasar to continue to figure out where this poisonous gas is coming from.
Lastly, we get another scene. It turns out that Luffy isn’t the only pirate forming an alliance to take down a Yonkou. Kid, Apoo and Basil Hawkins have formed an alliance to take out Shanks. At the same time, Urouge is recovering at sky island and a suicidal man jumps off the island, landing right in the middle of the meeting that Kid and his cohorts are having. This man is of course the strongest fighter alive, Kaido. It’s not looking good for Kid’s little alliance. And on that spicy note we enter into the next arc of One Piece. Get ready for Zou, which is a delightfully short arc that doesn’t outstay its welcome and has some wonderful worldbuilding. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 