One Piece 31

Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 56+ volumes

Holy crap, this is epic stuff.  Well, this volume was almost entirely a flashback to the story of Mont Blanc Noland and Kalgara of Shandora.  It tells of how Noland came to the island all those years ago and won the trust of the Shandians, who were aided by his knowledge of botany and were so grateful that they showed him the golden city of El Dorado and their bell, the Light of Shandora.  Most of the story is the rather sweet tale of what went on during Noland’s first stay and how he and Kalgara became friends forever, but we also find out how Noland was brought low and made out to be a liar.  One thing I liked is that, despite the goofy storybook that Cricket is reading in the early volumes, Noland is a pretty heroic character, a big guy with a lot of confidence who always does the right thing, like all the best role models in One Piece.

Funny enough, I remember being so fed up with this flashback while the story was being serialized, because it cut into a really epic final battle with a LONG backstory between two characters I didn’t care about.  But it’s a really important side story for both Luffy and Wyper, and this time through, I enjoyed it immensely.  Not being caught up in anticipation while the story is serialized helps the pace out a lot.  Plus, reading through it now, I see that the un-looked for bit of history only helps to flesh out Skypiea and make it even better, something that’s hard to do considering how original and detailed it already is.

I love that the cover illustration is Luffy reading the same storybook.  It was a detail I didn’t notice before.  I also loved that the flashback included that silly snake, who was a descendant of the first kami of Shandora.  An interesting contrast, that.

Meanwhile, in the current fight, Eneru is blowing everything up.  Everything.  It’s… pretty horriffic.  Usually the story doesn’t go this far, and there’s really not much anyone can do about it.  Luffy is trying, and Nami is genuinely worried about his life, but he’s going to ring the Light of Shandora, Eneru or no Eneru.  Before I had talked about how Eneru made for a pretty lighthearted, charismatic bad guy in his way, but he’s crossed the line into pretty evil here.  He’s wiping everything out without a thought, for no real reason, all while laughing and using that same lighthearted manner.  It’s pretty creepy.

I secretly hoped that when everything fell to Zoro to cut something in a particular direction, he would mess up because he is so challenged in that regard.  That doesn’t happen, because what’s going on is way more serious and apocalyptic than anything before, but I hoped.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.