One Piece 40
Posted: March 28, 2010 Filed under: One Piece 3 Comments »Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 57+ volumes
If I have somehow failed to say it before, I love and adore everything about this series. The fight is brought to Enies Lobby in this volume, with Luffy singlehandedly taking out thousands of marines while Galley-La holds the gates and the Franky Family blazes the way to the bridge to allow Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats access to the building Franky and Robin are being held in. It’s a free-for-all, and there’s lots of different things going on at once. My favorite parts were all Luffy, since again, he seems to be genuinely enjoying his fight. We also get our first look at his “evolved” fighting technique here. Of course, he thought of it in response to getting beaten by CP9, but unlike most battles of this nature where it makes things a fair fight, Luffy destroys his opponent and moves on.
I think one of my favorite unexpected surprises were the giant guards at the gates of Enies Lobby. The Sniper King sorts their sadness out after their defeat and actually recruits them to fight on the pirate side (to be honest, I can’t call them “the good guys” since, in theory, the Marines are the good guys. Technically, I suppose, only CP9 are really bad in this situation). I loved the callback to the earlier story. It’s all connected, in the end.
It also tickled me greatly that Spandam has a pet elephant named “Funkfreed.” He’s appeared once or twice before, but he gets me every time. That name. It’s so perfect. I want the Straw Hats to take Funkfreed with them.
I’m still anxiously awaiting the Buster Call and Robin’s backstory, which I’m sure will come sometime soon. Enies Lobby is good stuff. I’m not sure if I like it more than the Skypiea arc yet or not, but it’s up there.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
-(to be honest, I can’t call them “the good guys” since, in theory, the Marines are the good guys. Technically, I suppose, only CP9 are really bad in this situation). -
Is it good to defend a court who never declares anyone innocent?
One thing I like about One Piece- the morality isn’t always cut and dried. Captain T-Bone is good, Smoker is good, but random Marines may be willingly serving a bad cause as easily as a good depending on the circumstances.
That’s true about Enies Lobby. I’m not too familiar with a lot of the heads of the Marines and the World Government and how pure their motives are (I’m guessing there’s a good mix of good and evil there), but you’re right about the morality of the various groups being unclear. Luffy’s take on piracy has been a twist from the beginning, but with a good pirate, he would have to go up against Marines, many of whom are trying to do the right thing and just assume pirates are bad. Luffy makes the distinction between Marines who are upholding justice and those that are not, but few Marines seem willing to believe that there are good pirates. Now there’s something that will have to be addressed before everything is said and done.
Well, upcoming volume will kind of address that. but so far there are three groups of Marines:
1) Moral-conscious marines: Garp, T-bone, Aoikiji, Smoker, Saul, etc.
2) Corrupted/bad marines: The guy who work with Arlong.
3) Absolute Justice: Akainu, CP9, etc.
CP9 really isn’t corrupt per say, they’re following the orders that was giving to them, and they will achieve that goal by any means necessary. They really are like James Bond in a sense that they are govenment secret agents with license to kill, and is above the law.
As for Enis Lobby being a court that always rules guilty. Since Nami pointed this out, and no one was surprised by it, it shows that this practice is not a secret, at least in Grand Line. So if the world permits, then it is just, despite the fact that from our perspective it is completely unjust.
With that being said, one of the mystery of the series is percisely the secrets behind this organization know as World Government. How it raise to power and how it gain accesptance of all of the countries and grow to the point that no individual country dared oppose them. Remeber, Vivi can’t even get a proper fairwell in fear of WG know the relationship between Vivi and Strawhats.