One Piece 35

Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 56+ volumes

Yeah, this is still one of the hardest volumes in the series to read, even knowing what’s coming.  As I said before, I actually skipped Water 7 entirely and stopped reading right after the major sequence in this volume.  I gave up the new end of the series for a long time and waited for the dust to settle to see if it actually turned out the way it seemed.  On one hand, no manga would ever do what is implied in this volume.  On the other hand, it was pretty serious stuff, and One Piece doesn’t seem to be afraid to rise above expectations.  Even if its just little twists and variations.  I mean, they left Vivi in Alabasta.  Certainly that didn’t bode well for… this.

There are a lot of horrible things that happen here, actually.  The crew has to make a decision about what to do concerning the Merry, which isn’t in good shape right now.  Usopp is kidnapped and beaten up, and they have 200 million berries stolen from them, so the crew has to show up and basically slaughter the Franky Family, mostly in retribution for the cold-blooded way they treated Usopp (they beat him up once, but when Usopp showed up at their hideout to get the money back, they beat him within an inch of his life).  The fight against the Franky Family is just… hard to watch.  It’s bad.

Then something even worse happens afterwards.  For all the terrible things that have happened in the series, all the sad flashbacks and hard turns some of the stories take, none of them compare to this.  Again, even knowing this was coming, and knowing the eventual outcome, I had a hard time sitting through it a second time.  There are very few manga scenes EVER that I felt such aversion to reading, and… I mean, there are worse things than what happens here, but in the context of the story, it’s one of the most horrible things imaginable.  That doesn’t make it any less good, though.

Robin is AWOL, and while the crew is recovering from the huge serving of bad luck, something happens to the mayor and the city is led to believe Robin and the Straw Hats did it, so now they have the entirety of Water 7 and the Galley-La Company after them.

Oh, and Franky.  He’s out for vengeance, too, for what happened to his family.  Franky has every right to be ruthless when fighting Luffy, but his introduction, his unveiling, is one of the best in the series.  There is a musical number.  Poses.  Enthusiasm.  The entire city booing him off stage.  A distinct lack of pants.  Even in its darkest hour, there is still funny stuff to be had in One Piece.  Genuine laughs, too, not just sad attempts at jokes.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.