99 volumes of manga on the wall, 99 volumes of manga.
Take one down, pass it around, where am I again?
Good morning everyone and let’s take this moment to acknowledge how crazy it is that we’re 99 volumes in! Admittedly we didn’t manage to do one every single week, but we’re pretty close, right? With only 8 volumes to go I’m almost worried I’ll miss it. But I don’t have any manga that are even remotely as long to take over its spot. So let’s enjoy it while it lasts and dive into the 99th volume of One Piece.
We return to the edge of Wano where Marco the Phoenix is still squaring off against both Big Mom and Perospero. It’s a 2 versus 1 he is not equipped to handle. He could probably beat Perospero in a fair fight, but Big Mom is at a similar level to his former captain. Luckily for Marco, he soon gets some help in the form of Carrot and Wanda. Hellbent on avenging Pedro, they scratch at Perospero’s eyes to give Marco the moment he needs to get out of Big Mom’s grip. Fed up with being stuck here, Big Mom charges ahead and Marco follows her, leaving the second in command of the Big Mom pirates to the two Sulong minks.
Meanwhile things are getting out of hand on the performance floor. Queen’s ice oni bullets are still rampaging around, infecting more and more people with an icy disease, including Chopper who is desperately trying to calm everyone down. Apoo is still running in circles to keep the antidote from being taken. Zoro, Drake and many of the samurai present are trying to capture him but without much luck. During this brawl, Chopper finds out that it’s more of an external disease that eats at them from the outside. What this means for the allies is that staying near fire will halt the spread, and give them more time to find a solution. That’s just when Marco arrives and his fiery powers are a great boon to everyone there, warming them up without hurting them. Marco is on another level after all. Fed up with the lack of progress and being stuck here, Zoro slices up Apoo and Drake then bites into what is left of him. Zoro hands the antidote to Chopper and with Marco holding off King and Queen, the Straw Hats depart from the main hall to each fight their own battles.
Sanji runs off to get captured by Black Maria because he’s actually just a waste of space nowadays. She is revealed to – unsurprisingly – have an ancient spider devil fruit. Page one and Ulti – whose dinosaur forms we’ve already seen – square off against Usopp and Nami, with a little bit of help from Otama who has used her dango powers to bring many of the gifters over to their side. She has a very scary ability after all. Luckily she’s on our side. Franky takes over from Yamato’s fight against Sasaki the Triceratops and as a parting gift Yamato takes care of the giant Hacha who had been chasing Franky up to this point. Brook and Robin are off doing their own thing while Jinbe faces off against Who’s Who, another one of the Tobi Roppo who has a Saber Tooth Tiger devil fruit.
Moving away from the main fights, we check in with Yamato, Shinobu and Momonosuke. Yamato thinks back to when Ace came to Wano. It happened while Kaido and his officers weren’t around and Yamato was the one protecting the town. They fought for a while until they realized they got along and then Ace told Yamato all about his little brother who would be the one to change the world forever. Yamato has been waiting for Luffy all this time. It truly seems like it wasn’t time for the world to change yet during Kaido, Big Mom and Whitebeard’s generation. It’s the new generation that is crucial. We also see several CP0 agents who are waiting to see which way the fight goes, hoping to deal with the leftovers if need be. Things are ramping up and we move back from the side show to the main event.
Luffy arrives at the roof of Onigashima where Law, Kid, Killer and Zoro are already squaring off with Big Mom and Kaido. We get one of the coolest panels in the entire manga where the worst generation’s strongest fighters square off with the remnants of the previous age. But instead of charging straight at the two emperors, Luffy walks past them first, to check in on Kin’emon and the others. He tells Law to send them to a safe place before the fight starts. Kaido – not pleased by the disrespect – attacks Luffy, only for Luffy to punch him with everything he has, actually managing to damage the strongest man alive. We enter a deadly brawl where everyone gives everything they have but it seems like these two emperors aren’t going to go down easily. At the very least they are able to do some damage to Kaido, which is impressive on its own. But two emperors at the same time? That’s crazy. The battle rages on into the next volume but in the basement of Onigashima something else is happening. The teleported Ayakaza are there and it seems like there is another person present who is trying to help them. Unfortunately they are spotted by Kaido’s forces, so we’ll find out soon enough what is happening with them.
As usual, I had an absolute blast going through this volume again. As I’m getting older and my life gets busier I’m starting to enjoy volumes more and more, while getting less enjoyment from individual chapters. You just don’t have enough to get fully sucked into a story. Still, there are a couple of series I’m keeping up with weekly, One Piece included in those, and it’s nice to see a new chapter. But I feel like when I read these volumes I get to appreciate the story much more than I did the first time I read. Luckily there are no fines for reading a story multiple times. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 