One Piece Volume 6

“Two things awe me most: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” – Immanuel Kant.

This sixth collection of the anime adaptation of the most popular manga ever sold begins the third arc: Skypeia. Having said that, there is quite a bit of time before we come to it. 

Half of this collection can only be described as filler, full of stories not relating to the original manga. The first two discs cover a section of stories of no importance, based around flashbacks, meeting strangers, an encounter with an elderly moneylender, and overthrowing a vile mayor by trying to find some people missing in a rainbow mist.

It is not until the third disc of the collection that we get back to the original story. The Straw Hat Pirates, who now total seven following the addition of multi-limb sprouting Nico Robin to the crew, have a problem. Nami’s Log Pose is pointing directly upwards into the air. Things are made worse when they come across a ruined ship… after it falls from the sky and nearly lands on top of them. They examine the wreck and discover a map to a place called Skypeia, an island in the sky.

Monkey is very keen to visit it, but of course this means finding a way to make the Going Merry fly. The Straw Hat Pirates visit the island of Jaya and try to find more information, where, amongst others, they meet Bellamy the Hyena, who does not believe in dreams and has spring-like Devil Fruit powers, and the infamous Blackbeard. Monkey is generally regarded as a fool there, but eventually finds some people who help him with his desire to go into the sky.

It has to be said that the huge amount of filler is very annoying. Admittedly the Baroque Works arc had just ended, so some filler was to be expected, but thirteen episodes is a bit much. As a result, we are only really scratching the surface when it comes to Skypeia. We do cover the beginning and  Monkey does enter Skypeia, but it is only for about five episodes in this collection.

In terms of action, there is some, but in terms of long, epic battles there are none. There are some fights, as with the aforementioned Bellamy, but we really have to wait a bit before we get to anything proper. Thus this collection can be summed up as half being irrelevant, and half being an introduction to a much bigger story. On the plus side, the soundtrack is pretty decent, with the end closing theme tune “Free Will” by Ruppina (now known as Mai) sounding rather good.

Textless songs and episode commentaries are the only extras available in this collection.