We return to One Piece in the midst of its Alabasta arc, as we’re presumably nearing the climax of the overarching “Baroque Works” era. I haven’t actually read One Piece before, but given this final confrontation will involve squaring off against the actual leader of the Baroque Works pirates, and prompt either the fruition or destruction of the plan he’s been concocting for literally years, I have at least a certain degree of confidence that this arc will resolve the overall Baroque Works saga. So how does the view look from this point, as we near the conclusion of such a crucial conflict?

In a word, “sprawling.” One Piece’s first named arc was actually a collection of smaller arcs, as Luffy recruited his first several crew members over a series of adventures all taking place in the East Blue sea. Over that time, Eichiro Oda demonstrated first competency, and then mastery over perhaps the most traditional shonen arc structure: “the team enters a new village and beats up the villain harassing the common folk.” Though those villages generally took the form of boats or islands, the structure remained familiar and reliable; One Piece’s first few arcs are compelling in all sorts of ways, but they are not particularly structurally ambitious.

Here, nearing the end of an arc that has spanned several islands, and already resulted in a surprising number of changes in allegiance, things are far more complicated. The Kingdom of Alabasta itself is represented by a variety of key parties: King Cobra and his loyalists, the rebel leader Koza and his forces, Princess Vivi and the Straw Hats, and even Crocodile, representing his own little gambling oasis. Lurking beneath the surface, we have the additional influence of Crocodile’s Baroque Works forces, as well as Smoker and other representatives of the official navy, who seem to themselves have a variety of political subfactions. Crocodile himself fits easily into a villainous role, but all of Alabasta’s other players are sympathetic, even if their goals are wildly unaligned.

This is not to say Alabasta is an arc of profound moral complexity – it’s actually pretty simple, and any “good guys” doing “bad things” are likely doing them because they’re being tricked. But all the same, Alabasta clearly demonstrates Oda’s growing narrative ambition, while also taking tremendous advantage of One Piece’s fundamentally unusual nature as a shonen. While many shonen manga are essentially tethered to a fight-based formula by their own premise, One Piece’s appeal has always been more about the thrill of adventure than “how will our heroes win.” That unique focus gives Oda an incredible amount of room to experiment, both in terms of the creatures and places he depicts, and the narrative structures he leads his heroes through.

In that regard, Oda’s ambition is increasingly reminding me of Hunter x Hunter’s Yoshihiko Togashi. Like Oda, Togashi’s characters eventually found themselves becoming smaller components within much larger narratives, and contributing to stories that weren’t necessarily “about” them specifically. At the same time, just as Togashi’s apparent dissatisfaction with the structural limitations of shonen manga led him to embrace other genres entirely (like the crime drama Yorknew City arc, or genre-splicing Chimera Ant), One Piece’s natural aping of adventure serials and focus on “the journey” over victory means it is equally unconfined by genre.

One area the two sharply differ, at least at this point in One Piece, is their relative appreciation for tactically grounded conflict, and generally sturdy narrative structure. While Hunter x Hunter’s powers and battles are so carefully plotted you could almost mathematically deduct their limits and conclusions, Oda lets his imagination perpetually lead him wherever it will, reveling in the thrill of constant creative invention, and tying off his narratives in whatever way he wishes.

Early on, Usopp hands Nami something called the “Climate Baton,” which will presumably make use of her knack for predicting the weather. It struck me while reading that I have absolutely no context for the power of this weapon, or really any weapon, in the One Piece universe. We’re in the wild west of shonen powers here – unlike stories like Naruto or Bleach, “power” in One Piece has never been defined as your competency in terms of harnessing some unique energy or whatnot (outside of the infinite flexibility of the gum-gum fruit). Characters just debut wacky weapons and try them out on each other, which results in fights that don’t have a great deal of “stable” dramatic grounding, but are suffused with energy and invention.

Oda’s style neatly demonstrates how when it comes to storytelling, different writers will fall into different positions in terms of balancing sturdy plotting or consistent characterization against dramatic showmanship. Oda is a natural showman; his manga is absolutely brimming with cathartic, fist-pumping moments like Sanji’s rescue of the team, and the general clarity of his characterization and overarching plots means he’s able to keep the moment-to-moment storytelling loose without losing the audience’s investment.

When his characters have been given an impossible task like crossing a desert in six hours, the answer doesn’t come from a clever application of their powers, or a hint that we missed before; Oda just invents a giant goddamn sandcrab, and that crab itself is such a dramatic, charming reward that the deus ex machina-ness of the whole situation doesn’t feel like a problem. Some writers craft stories as if they’re constructing delicate puzzle boxes or gem arrays, where each facet of the construction reflects the whole – instead, Oda writes like an incredibly creative child on a perpetual sugar high, always eager to show us the next cool thing he came up with.

All of this is to say that Oda is gaining a stronger grasp not just on constructing ambitious narratives, but also on understanding just where his unique style of narrative invention can bend the rules, and “solve” impossible cliffhangers through pure showmanship. All stories are in some way acts of deception, but by abandoning even a veneer of worldbuilding self-seriousness, Oda is able to simultaneously free himself from a great number of narrative restrictions, while also embracing the very elements of storytelling he does best. One Piece embraces dream logic, and dream logic is the stuff adventures are made of – how the parts fit together is only important insofar as it facilitates fun treasure maps for us to follow.

Volume nineteen is absolutely brimming with this playful give-and-take of narrative ambition and moment-to-moment silliness, from the growing rapport of his wonderful cast, to his terrific use of deadpan comedy, anticlimax, and energetic pratfalls. The experimentation with full black shading he used for key dramatic moments before is now lending its impact even to single panel gags; meanwhile, the introduction of characters like the king’s lieutenants demonstrates he is capable of designs that impress through their subtlety as well as their outlandishness. You don’t have to be told these men are an honorable matching pair; it’s clear in the contrast of the black and white in their uniforms, and the regal set of their carefully constructed robes.

Oda’s increasing mastery of his art form is clear all throughout this volume, displayed through both his minimalism and his dramatic largess. I was impressed initially by the sheer beauty of the two panels above, and how well they convey the magnificent desolation of the desert, largely through the uneven hatchwork defining the loose dunes. Immediately after that, I was struck again by how lightly these panels conveyed that experience, how few lines were necessary to build such an image.

Manga is, in some ways, a uniquely minimalist art form: while it’s technically possible to fill every single panel with detailed lines, the art form’s relentless production schedule means visual compromises will always be necessary. In light of that, manga artists developing evocative visual shorthand is mandatory, and Oda’s ability to convey a full, tangible setting with only a few short ink strokes is a crucial skill. Oda’s comedy segments are similarly clever in how they use minimalism as a dramatic asset – and yet, when a scene calls for a jaw-dropping dramatic spread, few artists can match Oda in his scale of destruction, either. Oda is rightly praised for many talents, but the mere fact that he’s survived in this field this long demonstrates he understands his limits, as well.

Finally, while Alabasta’s individual plot turns may feel a little rambling, the emotional core of this story is always abundantly clear. Though Alabasta is being accosted by both a devious pirate lord and the drought he conjured, this arc’s true “villain” seems to be the decay of trust, as noble forces on all sides are marshaled against each other through manipulation of their suspicions. This is why Crocodile, while luxuriating in his own villainy, proudly proclaims that “trust is the most overrated thing in the world.” And it’s why Vivi, in her moment of truth, asks Luffy to do something very simple: believe in her, and trust that she’ll come back for them.

Oda understands that this is Vivi’s story, and thus at the critical moment, it must be her strength and courage which are tested. Of course, the ways we demonstrate strength are all unique to us – for Nami, for example, this moment came in the form of being genuinely willing to help. For Vivi, it involves trust – trusting her friends to believe in her, and trusting her people to survive on their own, as she races to save the people closest to her. And for both of them, this moment only came about because Luffy, through his oblivious courage and naive, straightforward nature, is a boy you can believe in, even when every logical bone in your body says not to. Luffy is the soul of One Piece, and his philosophy seems to be Oda’s as well – an irrepressible lust for adventure, a profound sense of justice, and an utter obliviousness to any lesser details. Given a captain like that, how could anyone turn this adventure down?

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