We regularly see Luffy wearing a shirt with the numbers 56 on them throughout the series. That is likely because those numbers can be read as Go Mu in Japanese, making them a reference to Luffy’s Gomu Gomu no mi. That makes it extra clever that Bartolomeo’s crew has exactly 56 members. He’s such a fan. Let’s talk about volume 80.
Dressrosa has entered an era of change. And on the doorstep of this change are Tsuru and Sengoku who have come to both retrieve Doflamingo and tell Fujitora to get his act together and stop letting pirates chill on Dressrosa. Retirement has done wonders for Sengoku who has become just as nonchalant as Garp has. He’s one of those navy soldiers that you can almost come to like, forgetting that they’re part of the overly corrupt organization that has been letting these tragedies happen under their very own eyes for years, relying on a band of pirates to clean up their mess. There’s so much blood on your hands Sengoku, don’t you forget it.
Either way, holiday Sengoku and Fujitora get along quite well but Tsuru is more business oriented and after rolling a 6 on Fujitora’s dice it’s time to go hunt some pirates.
Luckily for Luffy and the gang – who have been recuperating at Kyros’ house outside of town – the rest of the fighters and allies on Dressrosa were more than prepared for this eventuality. Mansherry is using the energy of the navy soldiers to heal the wounded, causing them to collapse as they give chase. Leo and his friends steal all their weapons and sow all their warships together. The rest of the allies – including Barto, Cabbage, Hajrudin, Jeet, Ideo and even Bellamy – have set up an entire network to inform each other and a mad dash for the Santa Maria starts, where Orlumbus receives the straw hats. Except before any of this can happen, Luffy has some more business to attend.
You see, Kyros spread a rumor through town that Rebecca’s father was really some far off prince and she is being prepped to be the next queen of Dressrosa. Of course this saddens Rebecca and infuriates Luffy who goes to pick her up at the palace. If I had a nickel for every time Luffy had a tearful goodbye with a princess… Either way, the duo make their way to where Kyros is, who is about to leave. The two are reunited and can finally return to the happy life they had before tragedy befell the country. Hopefully Scarlet can now rest in peace.
Luffy then needs to escape, but Fujitora is hot on his heels and has lifted all of the rubble in town over the Santa Maria fleet to crush all the pirates at once. It’s looking pretty rough for the gang, but then the townspeople all “attack” Lucy for kidnapping Rebecca. Fujitora understands what they’re doing, but he can’t kill so many civilians just to kill Luffy and he probably wouldn’t want to do so either way. Thus the crew joins up with seven pirates and their followers.
Cavendish, Bartolomeo, Sai, Ideo, Leo, Hajrudin, Orlumbus and their 5600 followers all drink to Luffy’s leadership and with Zoro taking the sake in Luffy’s cup I’m pretty confident that counts. Either way, the Straw Hat Grand Fleet is established while Law is off talking with Sengoku about Corazon. The two reminisce over the brother of Doflamingo who gave everything for the cause of good. You can actually see the regret on Sengoku’s face here, truly something he feels bad about happening. But after some sorrowful goodbyes it’s time to leave for Zou on Barto’s hideous ship. Whenever Barto’s crew is in trouble they just call some grandma back home who helps them out. I love these guys so much.
On Zou we say goodbye to Barto again and climb up the millennium old elephant’s leg with the help of Ryunosuke, a poorly drawn dragon that can’t fly. What a trooper, and Robin was so invested in his success. If only Kanjuurou was a better artist. Speaking of Kanjuurou, he does some weird peekaboo joke with Kin’emon and the duo ends up falling off the drawn dragon, getting separated from the rest of the crew for the time being. The crew then finds the city of the minks which has been ravaged by a man named Jack. This same man was seen earlier in the volume attacking the four warships that held Doflamingo. He was defeated but destroyed two of the four ships, so he must have been quite powerful. Either way, the minks welcome Luffy and co where they meet up with the rest of their crew. But is everyone really there or has something gone wrong while the gang was on Dressrosa? You’ll have to wait for next week to find out more. Thanks for reading again this week, 80 volumes is a lot to cover but the end is near. Once we’re fully caught up I think it’ll be time to start diving a bit deeper into characters, locations and arcs. Oda’s worldbuilding is incredible and these posts are a celebration of his talent after all. For now though, I’m going to take a nap!
Hi friends! With the heat at the start of the week, and my trip to Denmark at the end of this week, I’ve decided to take a week off from writing. That means no Hesitant Hero on Friday and no new post on Monday. We pick back up next week with One Piece volume 81. Part of the reason for this is because I could feel myself burn out on writing and although I’m still fully committed to finishing volume 1 as well as uploading all of volume 3 before November, I might slow down a bit. Thanks for sticking with this blog for so long, I have many plans and many stories left to tell. Enjoy the rest of summer and I’ll be back in only a week 🙂
Opal Kaharis 