There are scattered moments within One Piece that seem to embody the romance of the high seas; the mysteries of the ocean, the scale of its vast movements, the ways we can come to understand it so well it feels like an old friend. Nami excels at facilitating these moments, as her navigator’s knowledge and generally contemplative personality tend to make her most attuned to the ocean’s sway. The scene early in chapter eighteen, where Nami muses on the nature of underwater vents, doesn’t impact our ongoing narrative in any way, and would be skipped in a point-to-point summary of this arc’s events. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful moment that naturally embodies the wonder of the ocean, and highlights how One Piece is far more than a straightforward action tableau. I appreciate that Oda consistently offers these little tonal oases, these beautiful moments that are only their own reward.

One Piece has gotten really good, y’all. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the tone of these articles has been steadily shifting from “watching a gifted but rough-edged artist hone his artistic and narrative craft” to “watching a young master flex his formidable powers.” One Piece didn’t become a transcontinental phenomenon by chance – it has already become a thrilling, diversely engaging, and genuinely transformative thing, offering new thrills and transitioning between dramatic modes with ease. Eiichiro Oda is a genuine comic genius, and the true commencement of the Alabasta arc offers a fine demonstration of his vision.

The first and most obvious demonstration of Oda’s growing skills are Alabasta’s gorgeous backgrounds. While the manga has carried us through a variety of engaging environments in the past (with the most recent Little Garden and Whiskey Peak demonstrating a clear upward trajectory in terms of background design), all of its settings so far have felt relatively small-scale and self-contained. Islands like Little Garden felt small enough that our heroes could traipse from one end to the other in a matter of hours; Whiskey Peak felt a bit larger, but it still felt more like an island-town than a truly substantial land mass. These locations have been videogame locations; the central town and its surrounding landscape were always the entirety of some given country.

Not so for Alabasta. It’s dramatically appropriate that Alabasta feels like a larger place than our prior destinations; after all, this arc’s drama hinges on the fate of this overall kingdom, and Vivi is personally invested in the fortunes of every village and town square. That sense of consequence is deeply felt in this volume’s many barren setpieces, which find emotional resonance in Vivi’s defeated mourning for her old home. Unlike the more personally framed Arlong Park and Whiskey Peak arcs, Vivi is lamenting not a single friend, but an entire way of life – and Oda’s detailed conveyance of Alabasta’s decay makes her feelings palpable throughout.

It’s not just Alabasta in decline that stuns here, though. The scale of this genuinely country-sized island feels equally clear in the bustle of Alabasta’s surviving port towns. Look at how lively this town feels in this establishing shot, bursting with carefully sketched characters and intricate market stalls. Look at how this panel emphasizes that in a port town, all your business is public business – with the rebels, police, Baroque Works officers, and random assorted pirates all here, privacy is a luxury. Heck, even beyond the environments, check out how this narrow, horizontally oriented spread conveys the menace of ships approaching the bay. Just like how Whiskey Peak used vertically oriented panels to convey the overwhelming scale of its conflict, this arc uses horizontally oriented panels to emphasize the vast and imposing line of the horizon.

Oda’s focus on the environment of Alabasta ultimately reflects One Piece’s unique status among shonen properties. As I’ve mentioned before, One Piece is unique in that its fundamental focus isn’t just “action” or “personal growth” – the joy of adventure and thrill of discovery, things that naturally lend themselves to a seafaring narrative, are baked into its fundamental structure. Sometimes the environments are simply gorgeous, but at others, the environment itself is the principle antagonist. See how Oda’s talent brings the environment’s menace to life in this gorgeous page; the heavy blacks of the first panel emphasizing the heat from above, immediately banished by that staggering spread, where the sheer scale of empty white heat echoes the desolation of this journey.

The fact that Oda intentionally chose such a loose, fantastical style of worldbuilding allows him far more flexibility in terms of both setting and drama. While a story like My Hero Academia is constrained to taking place in a bunch of boring cityscapes (reflective of its American cape story origins), One Piece can gleefully jump from Winter World to Desert World without a second thought, because that’s apparently just how islands work here. The guiding principle seems more “if it’s funny or cool, it works” – meaning not only can Oda create arcs whose very environments rally against our heroes, but he can also populate those environments with joyously nonsensical beasts, facilitating both high-stakes action and incredible gags. The fact that this is a story about exploring new and treacherous worlds means conflict is literally lurking around every corner; you don’t need a constant flow of coherent and motivated villains, the world itself is full of thrilling terrors. And in fact, the more you diversify your sources of conflict (like our heroes running out of supplies), the more forbidding and real this world feels.

Alright, that’s enough gushing about worldbuilding. Let’s talk about storytelling, as this volume also feels emblematic of One Piece’s unique narrative style. One Piece is famous for its long-term narrative threading, where ideas and characters from many arcs ago suddenly become relevant again, which is a virtue that I’ve frankly always considered a little suspect. From a reader perspective, things from long ago suddenly becoming relevant can feel like magic, or the hand of a master storyteller at work. From a writer perspective, I’m all too aware that more often than not, “foreshadowing” starts from a position of “okay, what details did I include ages ago which I can now return to” or “alright, which formerly important character’s arc feels incomplete?” It’s not careful planning, it’s just writing stuff and then looking back over your earlier material and seeing what supports a callback.

One Piece’s style goes beyond this type of foreshadowing, though. He seems to have a general policy of offering characters formal introductions long before they become dramatically relevant, something he’s done with a variety of Baroque Works leaders, as well as the military officers Smoker and Tashigi. Smoker and Tashigi’s initial introduction many volumes ago was mostly just an anecdote within an otherwise focused story, but the fact that he placed that introduction all the way back there results in a number of pleasing dramatic effects. First off, it creates an inherent sense of portent and payoff for their arrival here – seeing old forgotten friends is an inherent narrative thrill, and makes us inherently assume they have a strong reason to be here. Additionally, by running through their introductions so long ago, One Piece is essentially able to do its “exposition homework” early, without impacting the pacing of the later material.

The benefits this approach offers in terms of pacing can’t be understated. While it’s important that Smoker/Tashigi are here and understood as people, it’s also important that the story not waste a bunch of time defining them here, and lose the close focus on Vivi’s story. Instead, their introduction was seeded during an arc that itself served as a payoff for our prior understanding of Buggy and Alvida. Great plotting doesn’t just demand a complex and fully realized story – storytelling is as much about pacing as it is about plot, and great storytellers understand what points in their story can afford to slow down and offer context, versus which demand dramatic urgency.

This volume offers its own example of this introduction-seeding handoff through the debut of Ace, Luffy’s big brother. Ace clearly isn’t a key player in this particular narrative – in fact, he basically just shows up to say hello, offer a cryptic gift to Luffy, and be on his way. But by merely debuting Ace this early, we create an inherent sense of expectation for his return, meaning his next appearance won’t be accompanied by a “who’s this guy,” but an “at last, Ace is back!” By laying his character introductions backwards across the arcs prior to those characters’ relevance, Oda is able to create a sense of dramatic congruity for his wild world, acknowledging that it is people we care about who make a fictional world real.

There’s more to tell, but this piece is getting long enough as it is, so let’s conclude on that vivid Ace-Luffy meeting. In contrast with the busy bustle of this arc’s living cities, or the majestic desolation of its deserts, this meeting between siblings is intentionally drawn as minimalist as possible, foregoing backgrounds altogether to create a sense of momentary intimacy. Oda’s choice naturally conveys the sense of everything else fading away as they talk, leading into the striking contrast of Luffy and Ace communicating in profile. Perched on the ship’s railing, Ace seems primed to disappear at a moment’s notice; but for a time, he crouches and smiles, meeting his kid brother on his own level. Though Oda’s gorgeous design work and ambitious narrative threads elevate the scale of One Piece’s drama, the manga is just as capable of illustrating a quiet, poignant moment between two foolish brothers. This manga’s riches are as vast and wondrous as the ocean itself.

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