One Piece 51

Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 62+ volumes

It’s been awhile since I’ve read this! Truth be told, I was putting off reading this volume specifically. It’s depressing. Still good, mostly exposition, but depressing exposition all the same.

There are some pretty choice scenes that aren’t depressing though, and that’s what makes it great. The Straw Hats go up against the Flying Fish Riders and their leader, Duval. Duval has… a problem with one of the Straw Hat pirates. A problem that stays under wraps for several chapters. When his beef is revealed… it’s a terrible, terrible joke that made me laugh very hard. After his situation is resolved, his personality made me laugh even harder.

After that situation is taken care of, the Straw Hats go with Hachi, Camie, and Pappagu to explore Sabaody Archipelago. It’s a mangrove island chain with a unique bubble system for everything. The Straw Hats exploring fun new areas are some of my favorite parts of the series, and watching Luffy, Brooke, Chopper, and Camie have fun at the amusement park and riding around on bubble bikes was both funny and, once again, amazing on some level since Oda is just so skilled at inventing new areas and letting his characters have fun in them. The man is a genius.

The depressing bits also happen on Sabaody. Luffy and crew are looking for a man that can give their ship a coating that will allow them to dive the 30,000 feet underwater to Fish Man island. Along the way, they run across and avoid the Celestial Dragons, a race of humans descended from the men who formed the World Government. They keep all races of people as slaves, anyone who they pass on the street is required to bow down to them, and the scene that introduces them goes so far as to blow a slave up, have a pet dog pee on his remains, dump a critically injured man on a stretcher, then shoot the doctor that dared cross his path. These are bad people, and their every action is protected by the World Government.

And… well, Camie is captured as a slave. It’s not hard to see coming, since they talk about the danger constantly, and she thanks the Straw Hat pirates again and again for giving her the opportunity to have more fun than she could ever remember (she wouldn’t normally go to Sabaody because of the risk). But it happens. And the Straw Hats have to deal with it, since both slavery and the actions of the Celestial Dragons are protected in Sabaody.

It’s depressing. And it gets more depressing before it gets better. But it’s also not without its amazing sense of humor, which is the true beauty of One Piece.