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

My last review of One Piece was, for me, quite negative, as I was getting very weary of Dressrosa. That hasn’t changed one bit with this new volume, unfortunately, and we’re still here. I am going to make a concerted effort not to bring up Rebecca, despite my teeth grinding so much during the “you are a pretty princess who must not fight” scenes I may need to see the dentist. Instead, let’s be positive and focus on the fun things going on in this arc. And there are fun things, because even when Oda is getting more sexist by the volume and rehashing things we’ve seen before, he can still introduce crazy stuff that makes you grin, or even show us a kid wearing a Bartholomew Kuma T-shirt.

The cover, showing off the Straw Hats (+ Law), reminds us that the main cast may have gotten a bit too unwieldy, given that Oda now has to write out half the Straw Hats in order to not overburden an already overburdened arc. That said, it does allow those who are remaining to have moments to shine. Zoro has done “beyond the impossible” so many times that you’d think it would be old hat by now, but no, it’s always fun, mostly as every time you’re reminded what a complete lunatic he can be when he’s in battle mode. If the enemy needs to be stopped but is much too far away, just have yourself hurled at the enemy. If he shapeshifts too fast to kill his real body, just cut everything so fast he doesn’t have time to get away. And oh yes, use haki to make sure your swords won’t even get scratched. When Zoro isn’t sleeping or getting lost, he’s there to be super cool, and he achieves that here.

Then there’s Luffy, who gets to battle the real Doflamingo at long last, in what is hopefully the climax of this arc. The timeskip has helped to mature Luffy, even if (like the rest of the cast) he can backslide at any time for comedy reasons. True, his reasoning for going all out against Doflamingo is still somewhat simplistic – you made my friends cry, you made my friends mad. But honestly, that’s a good enough reason to begin with, and if anyone deserves to be punched into next week, it’s Doflamingo, who sets up one last deathtrap to kill everyone on the island for the lulz. Flashbacks show that if you tell a young boy filled with rage and fury that he is better than everyone else and give him whatever he wants, bad things will ensue. Luffy is the opposite of this, even though he is also filled with rage and fury here. Abuse of power is the main enemy in One Piece, be it pirates, marines, World Government, or what have you. If you do it, Luffy is here to kick your ass.

So there are many things to like here, but again, I will be very, very glad to see the back of this arc. I believe that in the next volume I finally achieve this.

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

I’m still a big fan of One Piece, but there’s no getting around it: this arc has dragged, and it shows. The chaos that is Dressrosa is starting to be harder and harder to follow, and while that’s clearly meant to mirror what’s going on with the actual participants, it doesn’t make things any easier. Half the Straw Hat crew have been absent for several volumes now. Oda’s constant scene shifting means we barely get to remind ourselves who’s fighting who before we move on to another location. Rebecca continues to be a thing to be protected, with even Nico Robin getting into the mix, much to my chagrin. Worst of all, a lot of things here, particularly the backstory, are things that have been done before and better in earlier volumes. One Piece is 77 volumes now, and I’m afraid it’s starting to repeat itself.

A good example of this is the entire flashback with Corazon and young Law. It’s supposed to be heartwrenching, and there are moments where you are truly horrified by how cynical and awful people in this world can be (I’m thinking of the hospitals Corazon visits to try to cure Law), but it’s hard not to be reminded of other backstories we’ve had before. Other backstories we see to explain silly characters are either too tragic for the silliness (why Senor Pink wears a baby bonnet) or reinforce negative behavior (literally everything about Baby 5, which may be the nadir of this arc). Again, this is the sort of thing that you’ll only see in a long-running series like this, especially one where the ‘tragic backstory’ part of the arc comes regularly like clockwork.

Some stuff worked better. Robin, Cavendish, and Bartolomeo were probably the funniest part of the volume. Robin is a Straw Hat, therefore Oda has exempted her from any romantic issues such as Baby 5 has. She’s therefore able to simply sit back and stare balefully at these two morons trying either to impress her. Cavendish’s multiple personalities come somewhat out of nowhere, but they lead to some amusing situations and don’t feel quite as repetitive as some of the other things we see here. Luffy’s concern about Bellamy, who is pretty much ready to throw away his own life at this point. Characters rarely die in One Piece, so I doubt Bellamy will, but the fact that Luffy is worried shows how desperate the situation is. Oh yes, and Doflamingo remains a thoroughly evil little snake.

There’s a few other things I could mention, such as Oda’s hilariously awful attempts at writing a tsundere character. But for the most part, I really want this arc to be over and the crew to move on. I want to see Nami and Sanji and Chopper and Brook again. I want Luffy to defeat Doflamingo so that I don’t have to keep staring at his face all the time. Most of all, I want something new. Dressrosa is filled with the angry ghosts of One Piece plots of old, and they’re merely pale shrouds of what we know Oda can really do.

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

Let’s get the bad out of the way right off the bat: Rebecca has not remotely lived up to the hopes I had for her as a character. The reunion with her father, with all the overtones of “you should never have been a fighter, I’m so sorry you had to be strong and not a princess that needs protecting” left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’ve given up on it being subverted at this point. Unfortunately, this is not a sentiment that’s unique to One Piece, as we’ve seen it in countless manga and anime before this. I had hoped Oda might avoid it, but no, there it is. Luckily, it’s a low point in an otherwise excellent volume, so let’s talk about the rest of it.

I have occasionally wondered if I praise Usopp too much, but then I wander on to forums and see more people talk about how useless he is, and so therefore I think no, there is not enough praise. Because he’s hella awesome here, taking out Sugar AGAIN with the help of a truly weird power from a minor character and what I believe is actual haki, which we haven’t heard much about since right after the timeskip. We’d seen Coby use it before, but it’s still awesome to see that a power that is basically “I am enforcing my will on reality” can be used not just by the brute force heroes but by support folks like Usopp.

Speaking of which, Robin and Usopp both have small speeches in this volume where they talk about their devotion to Luffy, and it’s worth noting how much of being a pirate captain in One Piece is creating a cult of personality around yourself. Luffy doesn’t do this deliberately, of course, but those who follow him know that he is the one, they one they can dedicate everything they have to protect and serve. It’s even given a parody over the last few volumes with Bartolomeo, whose idolization of the entire Straw Hat crew is a takeoff of the typical fanboy. It’s worth noting that Robin does not denigrate this love the way others have, though (and that she calls him rooster, I love that she still tends to give nicknames to everyone), as she’s a convert as well.

Meanwhile, Luffy and Law (finally out of the seastone cuffs) are ready to face off against Doflamingo, which means that we get two things that One Piece is most famous for – chaotic final battles with lots of punching, and flashbacks to explain a character’s tragic past, this time Law’s. Sure, we also get a bit of Doflamingo’s, which has a bit of a ‘fallen angel’ vibe to it, but Law, with his tragic white lead poisoning and massacre of his entire homeland (hmmm, seems familiar… Doflamingo even points this out, saying complete genocide is a standard World Government tactic) is the one we’re meant to feel bad for. This story leads us to the cliffhanger for this volume, and I suspect will take up the majority of the next. When it finishes, will we be finishing the Dressrosa arc? Don’t hold your breath. But keep reading One Piece anyway.