By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Having finished the setup, and gotten as much mileage out of wacky things happening and occasional dollops of exposition as is possible, we’re now into shonen fight mode. One Piece may be a cut above, but it’s still a Jump manga. Which means fights, fights, fights.

One Piece has never quite done what is termed a “tournament” arc, where various badasses fight each other and are picked off till only the hero and rival/villain are left. We’ll see an attempt at one after this arc, with Foxy the Silver Fox and his crew, but Skypeia also comes vaguely near this. Eneru basically states there’s 81 people battling in the forest, and by the end of 3 hours 5 will be left. So it’s a classic ‘see who dies’ plot. Or, this being One Piece, ‘see who gets knocked unconscious but is later fine’.

We do get some very interesting fights. Impact dials are explained here, and Nami gets a wonderful moment using them (whenever Nami sticks her tongue out at you, and you’re an enemy, watch out). Comedy comes to the fore with Chopper’s fight, with Gedatsu being one of Oda’s classic insanely stupid villains. The man is almost perfect: He has silly hair, he thinks his speeches rather than saying them out loud, he rolls his eyes so far up into his head that he can’t see… a minion made for One Piece, really. And it’s nice to see Chopper gain some confidence by beating a goon.

Of the other fights, Luffy’s gets cut off before it really gets going, as he falls into what appears to be a mysterious hole filled with treasure. Robin is rather annoyed to be facing a bunch of destructive jerks who have no issues with smashing the ancient ruins around them. Zoro, being Zoro, gets the “I respect you as an enemy but must fight you now” duel. And Sanji and Usopp get curb stomped by Eneru, in the standard ‘show how powerful our villain is’ moment. It serves to absolutely terrify Nami, something that will come up a little later on. Note also that Eneru can survive a spear right through his head. Yikes.

Oh yes, and the Wapol cover arc finishes. Who would have thought that he’d end up like that? Then again, this is a shonen manga, so anyone can be redeemed, theoretically.

So it’s 2 hours after Eneru made his prediction, and the 81 people is winnowed down to 25. What can possibly happen next? Well, we’ll have to wait till February, when the Skypeia arc will wrap up with the next 5 volumes.