By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.
We’re still deep into fighting mode here in Skypeia, meaning we’re not gonna get a huge amount of plot and characterization. We do get some nice exceptions, though. And this being One Piece, the action scenes actually have action in them, as opposed to 18 pages of two character staring at each other glaring fiercely.
We pick up with the second half of Robin’s fight against Yama, a huge bulky jerk who’s Eneru’s Number Two. Unfortunately for him, he decides to start destroying some priceless ruins. He quickly learns that one should never piss off an archaeologist. Chopper isn’t as lucky, as he gets taken out fairly quickly by another of the Four Vassals. Well, they can’t all be as dumb as Gedatsu.
As I’ve noted earlier, this is sort of, broadly, a tournament arc. Characters fight other characters, one wins, and they move on to fight the next one up. But it’s not done as a tournament, but instead as a giant free-for-all race, which makes it work much better. And that still leaves time for things like the hysterical realization of what Luffy’s ‘cave’ really is.
I had forgotten how much Nami grows in this arc. It’s set up in this volume, which shows us just how utterly terrified she is by what’s going on around her. With Usopp unconscious, she’s the last ‘normal’ one, and she knows it. And she’s confronted with someone like Eneru, casually taking out her friends, who she knows are miles ahead of her in terms of ability. It’s always nice to see Oda remind us how not everyone in the crew is a badass superpowered monster (Usopp usually fills this role, and he’ll get the bulk of it in the next arc, Water Seven.)
It helps that Eneru really is pretty incredible, even for a One Piece villain. He casually fries Raki, noting that ‘all lambs are equal in his eyes’, and later does the exact same thing with Robin. (He gets the best line of the volume when Zoro points out, angrily, that Robin is a woman. “…I know. I saw.”) It makes a refreshing change from the ‘stay back while I fight him’ mode shonen often gets into with its female characters.
And then, at the end, Eneru is defeated… only he CANNOT DIE. You fools, who thought you could defeat him! And we finally find out what his plans are, and they’re pretty much ‘destroy Skypeia. Whatever can our heroes do? We’ll find out in the next Volume. Still one of the best manga out there.
