By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.
When we last left our heroes, they were back on the Grand Line being challenged to a Davy Back Fight. The fight comes in 3 parts, and they choose teams ahead of time. So we have Robin, Nami, and Usopp; Zoro, Sanji, and Chopper; and Luffy by himself. What’s more, the team that wins gets to choose a crewmember of the team that loses for their own crew. This is why the fights are so bad – crews end up decimated if they lose.
This volume is really just an excuse to show that our crew are very strong and talented at what they do. Usopp comes up with science on the fly, Nami navigates through treacherous waters, and Robin uses her body part powers to keep things going. Unfortunately, the Foxy crew cheat openly (they even note cheating is perfectly fine in the rules), and due to his own Devil Fruit Powers, the Foxy team wins the first race.
Unfortunately for team 2, they decide to take Chopper for their crew, as he’s cute and a doctor and basically a talking reindeer. Chopper is horrified, and Zoro and Sanji now have to work on their own against Foxy’s team, three huge guys who outweigh them and outsize them by several orders of magnitude. However, the fun of these few chapters comes from watching the glorious bitching and sniping that Zoro and Sanji fling at each other. They may be fellow crew members, but they make a big deal of being unable to stand each other, and the result is comedy gold.
We also get my favorite moment of the whole volume in this battle, which is set up to be a soccer hybrid. Just like soccer, there are fouls and red cards, and the referee is blatantly favoring Fozy’s team. So much so that Sanji pummels him to the ground. Near unconsciousness, he reaches for his red card to remove Sanji from the game, when he finds his cards and whistle gone! Cut to Nami, tongue sticking out, flashing the cards and whistle. “It’s an old habit.” A nice reminder of Nami’s thieving ways.
Sanji and Zoro win, of course, and Chopper is rescued. This leads to the final game, which is Foxy vs. Luffy. But not just any Luffy… AFRO LUFFY! I have to admit, I was waiting for this volume just so I could see how Viz would handle the awkward dialogue. They did an excellent job of it, playing up the ‘champion’ part of the boxing being why Luffy needs the afro (the original had Luffy getting the mysterious strength of a black person, in case you’re curious). Needless to say, Afro Luffy is hysterically funny, especially when all the other characters start crediting the Afro with making him stronger (except Nami, our voice of reason as always).
However, Foxy turns out to be less of a pushover than we thought, and due to a combination of his devil fruit and dirty tricks, manages to beat Luffy to near-death? Is this the end for Straw-Hat Luffy? (Well, no, it’s not. Come on, Foxy is a jobber. But you’ll have to wait for Vol. 34 to see what happens.)
Despite the extra expense, I’m glad Viz is catching up with One Piece. Especially as starting with 34 we head into Water 7 and Enies Lobby, my favorite arc of the series to date.
