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

In almost all respects, this volume of One Piece is leagues better than the last one. It’s the start of a new arc, which means that the chaos that Oda now writes as a matter of course is a bit more tightly controlled. There’s amazing fights, mostly in flashback. There’s great humor, mostly involving the two leaders of Zou and their animal characteristics. Our heroes get to actually be heroes, and we are reminded once again that Luffy’s piracy is not about raping and pillaging. There’s also surprising drama, as we find out about the extent of Big Mom’s power (complete with a shout-out to the movie Se7en) and her reach. And, perhaps most important of all, Sanji gets a last name.

This is more important than it sounds. Of the original ‘main’ cast of One Piece, it was noteworthy that three of them were never given family names, which might imply there’s some lingering backstory to be had in the future. After all, we never met Nami’s birth parents, and Usopp’s father is still presumably bumming around with Shanks. And then there’s Sanji – or rather, Sanji Vinsmoke, who happens to be one of a family of famous assassins. We don’t actually get too many details here, and I’ve no doubt we’ll be meeting them soon, but I like that Oda is able to riff on details that he wrote literally over 70 volumes ago in an “I meant to do that” way – namely that Sanji was born in North Blue, and getting from North to East (where he met Luffy and the others) is not an easy thing, As for Sanji’s decision to leave the Straw Hats in order to forcibly be married off… well, that’s what this arc is about, no doubt, and I don’t doubt he’d sacrifice himself to save the crew. (Note Capone threatens Nami first – he knows Sanji well.)

We also see the Sanji side of the Strsaw Hats arriving at Zou in the aftermath of the battle with Kaido’s underlings (we’ve still not really dealt with Kaido much, but as is pointed out, no doubt they will need to face him soon – along with Big Mom), and right away they’re making a humanitarian effort to save lives and help people. I always enjoy it when the Straw Hat Pirates show off their innate goodness, and this isn’t even in a “we’re saving the kingdom” way – if that had been the case they’d have arrived earlier. There’s also a tremendous reveal right at the end of the volume, which I won’t spoil, but Usopp and Nami’s tears, as well as Luffy’s huge grin, pretty much spell out how I felt about it. It was amazing.

So all in all we’re back to excellent volumes of One Piece, and I couldn’t be happier. Next time we get more anthropomorphs, and try to decide which direction the plot will go next – there are many ways it could go.

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

The Dressrosa arc drags to a conclusion here, featuring many of what we’ve come to accept as typical One Piece cliches. Townspeople pretend to start an angry riot in order to help Luffy and company get away. A noble Marine takes them on only to change his mind and let them go at the last minute because he knows they aren’t really evil. Luffy once again rejects the basic ideas that make up what most of the world thinks of piracy, preferring to create his own definition. And before starting a new arc, we once again get a roundup from around the world of how various people are doing, seeing Rob Lucci of CP9, Buggy and company, Dragon and his revolutionaries, and the marines and Blackbeard pirates. All are there to make us recall that the world is complex and not easy to fit into a bio, and Luffy’s job is to fit it into that box anyway.

Given this is the final time I’ll be talking about Dressrosa, let me once again take the opportunity to talk about what a wasted character Rebecca was. It was always going to be difficult to see her arc because, well, we already had her arc with Vivi, and we love Vivi. So many of the same beats of this arc had also been hit in Alabasta. But Vivi, while she was a stated pacifist, and occasionally would cry, was not set up to be the ‘pretty princess’ quite like Rebecca was. I think the arc may have been helped by showing us Rebecca as a shy, sheltered girl before we saw her as a gladiator, which would at least show us that she was meant to be painfully out of place. The trouble is that Oda can’t help but make her fights look really cool, and thus we react viscerally when the narrative keeps hammering us with “you don’t have to fight anymore, step back and be pretty”. In any case, Rebecca can now be reunited with her father, and I can move on.

The other thing to talk about here is the Straw Hat Pirate Alliance, suggested by many of the pirates who have helped Luffy in Dressrosa, among them Bartolomeo and Cavendish. It’s the next logical step on Luffy’s quest to be the Pirate King, the most important pirate in the world – a fleet of allies. But Luffy is not interested in the logical way to anything, and doesn’t want the responsibility of commanding a fleet of pirates. Honestly, he’s barely interested in commanding his own nakama. It is somewhat awkwardly spelled out in the narration – to Luffy, this is about freedom, not power. That said, he gains his alliance anyway, and they swear to come to his aid if he ever needs it, which will no doubt crop up in the future. Again, we hit a core truth of One Piece – Luffy’s piracy is not everyone else’s, and that’s why his crew love him so much.

And now we prepare to start a new arc, which begins in a truly weird way as only Oda can do, with a floating island that’s actually an elephant, anthropomorphic minks who no doubt will bond quickly with our heroes (heck, Nami is already loaning out her clothes to them), and a cliffhanger as Nami has something horrible to tell us about Sanji. If this leads to a Sanji arc, I’ll be quite happy – I’ve disliked comedy Sanji at times, but serious Sanji can be excellent. One Piece’s flaws are now openly visible every book, but it’s still well worth reading.

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

Well, I did not quite get my wish, as we’re still in Dressrosa at this end of this volume, but the final battle has finished, and Doflamingo is seemingly defeated for good. This is done through a combination of Luffy, who uses his Gear Four rubber monster and a bunch of haki to finally punch Doflamingo into next week, and the rest of the cast, who help Luffy when he needs ten minutes to recover by fighting off minions, pushing back on unpushable deathtraps, knocking over entire buildings, or even (sigh) being a pretty princess and not fighting, because yes, Rebecca is still a massive failure of a character. One Piece shows what happens when everyone puts differences aside and fights for a common goal, and even when the goal is mere survival, it’s still cool.

The fight is good, but the aftermath is where things really pick up. One Piece has never been too much about current political events, insofar as Oda would much rather base Marines on caricatures of old Japanese actors then connect them with military atrocities. But there is a point in this volume where Fujitora, having seem enough (metaphorically speaking) of what’s going on in Dressrosa, gets onto his hands and knees and bows to the ground, apologizing to the King what what has happened, and saying that the World Government allowed it. This wouldn’t be so bad were it not being broadcast worldwide, and he ends up in a huge shouting match with Akainu later (Akainu, you may recall, murdered Luffy’s brother Ace, so is the opposite of a moral compass). There is a great discussion about ‘losing face’ vs. accepting blame and gaining trust. It’s really hard not to imagine this may be commending on some real-world events (Iraq, perhaps).

As with most epilogues in One Piece, we get several chapters showing off where everyone else has been and what they’ve been doing while Luffy and company fight. We see more of the Eleven Supernovas, including fan favorite Eustace Kidd. We see Fujitora resolving to continue to chase after and capture Luffy and company, thus literally taking the place of Smoker, still recovering from the Caesar Clown stuff, and Tashigi, who seems to have literally turned into a kindergarten teacher. We get the backstory for Sabo at last, showing how he was indeed rescued by Dragon but had lost his memory, which is why he never tried to find Luffy and Ace afterwards. It was only seeing news of Ace’s death that triggered his old memories to resurface again. (Also, again, I totally ship Sabo x Koala, as much as any couple in One Piece can ever be shipped.)

And, at last, we see the rest of the Straw Hat Pirates, who have apparently been having unpleasant adventures of their own, being chased after for harboring a mystery girl. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see Nami doing what she does best after all this time: scream in frustration about being surrounded by idiots. I am very hopeful that the next volume will unite all the Straw Hat Pirates, and most importantly get them the heck away from Dressrosa, though I fear we are going to be seeing a few Pretty Princess Dresses and No Swordfighting Ever Again before it’s over.