The Battle Comes To An End! One Piece Vol. 89 – Review

Story & Art by Eiichiro Oda
Published by Viz Media

 
The fight between Captain Straw Hat Luffy and General Charlotte Katakuri comes to spectacular climax in One Piece Vol. 89! Just the cover of the volume alone illustrates the explosive conclusion and tells you what you’re about to get yourself into. As Luffy has the fight of his life, his crew continues their plan of reaching Cacao Island in hopes of a rendezvous with their rubbery Captain. The stakes are high and everybody is putting their lives on the line to escape the territory of The Emperor Big Mom. This Volume takes us through 10 thrilling chapters that will keep you flipping the page!

The first part of the One Piece Vol. 89 takes us through the ongoing chase scene between the The Thousand Sunny (The Strawhats’ ship) and Big Mom,followed by her fleet. many threats are barreling towards them at once The situation is dire. The biggest threat of course is that of The Empress, herself. We get to see a showdown between Charlotte Linlin (Big Mom) and the Strawhats aboard their own ship. I don’t know about everyone else, but nothing gets my heart rate up more than seeing their ship take damage! The Sunny is a part of the crew too, after all.

We then see Luffy, picking up on how to see further and further into the future with the use of his Observation Haki. We also get introduced to another member of the Charlotte family who has been watching the fight from afar. Charlotte Flampé is the self proclaimed No.1 Big Sistress of the Big Mom Pirates and her favorite sibling is Charlotte Katakuri, voted the No.1 Best Big Brother. She hopes to gain the favor of his beloved, perfect brother by interfering with their fight and getting Luffy severely injured to Katakuri’s surprise. Although Flampé is universally hated among the One Piece community, it cannot be denied that her interference provided us with some great character development for Katakuri.

One Piece Vol. 89
A battle of ideals!

After the conclusion of the fight, the next phase becomes about rescuing Luffy and escaping Totto Land thereafter. Above anything that this arc has done well, is reminding One Piece readers that this is a pirate themed manga! Canon fire, naval strategy, Outrageous helmsman skills, everything you would expect to see in a Pirates of the Carribean movie.

In a world filled with islands made of pastry and skies filled with their own islands, a battle on the open sea doesn’t seem as exciting. Rest assured, Oda has a way of upping the urgency of the situation and turn a sea battle into a heart dropping affair. One move can be your last if you are not careful in The New World.

I don’t wish to talk too much of every plot point One Piece Vol. 89 touches on as I encourage others to read it on their own. Just know the final chapter of this book is one Bad End Musical. You’re going to want to immediately pick Vol.90 after finishing this one. Will the Strawhats be able to escape from the Big Mom Pirates? Will Big Mom finally have her cake and eat it too? Will Brook be able to see Big Mom’s panties? I’m asking all the important questions here!

A big sell for these tankōbon style books is the “Behind the Scenes” sections in between the chapters where the mangaka answers questions, we see exclusive sketches and see featured fan art! My personal favorite part is seeing all the questions answered by Eiichiro Oda. We often learn new bits of information about characters and sometimes we hear the inspiration behind specific panels or names he uses in the story. These nuggets of info just help flesh out the already immense world that is One Piece!

One Piece Vol. 89
A section of the SBS corner between chapters

If there were a top 5 volumes, One Piece Vol. 89 is definitely in it and is a “Must Own”. I usually follow the serialization week by week, but when you get to read it in a volume, you start to understand how well packaged Oda is with his story delivery. One part of reading week per week is having to wait for the next chapter. From that perspective when a conclusion is so near in site but takes what seems like millenia, it would be easy to declare terrible pacing. And you know what, that frustration is well founded. I want to see Luffy win too! Looking back, however, you see the tapestry and not the yarn. Because of this feat of storytelling, I am giving Story a high score this review.  If its one thing I’ve always had faith in, its Eiichiro Oda’s writing ability. With One Piece Vol. 89, the patience was well worth it.Â