One Piece Vol. 14: Instinct
- ISBN
- 9781421510910
- Publisher
- VIZ Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 118–126
- Anime
- Season 2: Entering into the Grand Line ep. 62–77
The middle of a fight rather than either end of one, in chapters 118 to 126. Two Baroque Works agents, Mr. 3 and Miss Golden Week, are already on the island when the crew gets there, and they want the bounties on the two dueling giants as much as they want the Straw Hats. Everything in the book belongs to that single engagement: no travel, no new island, no subplot opened and closed, and the crew split into groups throughout. Read weekly it was a long wait between moves; read collected it is one sustained set piece and much the better for it. Season 2 covers chapters 101 to 128, so a viewer who finished it is already past this book. Viz states Box Set 1 as volumes 1 to 23 at $244.99.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
The duel is not won, it is rigged. Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine interfere, Broggy strikes Dorry down, and Broggy is then taken in by Mr. 3's wax while weeping over the body. Vol. 15 corrects the worst of that, because the axe had gone blunt and Dorry is only unconscious, but this book ends without telling anyone. What it is built around is an execution device rather than a battle: Zoro, Nami and Vivi fixed to a candle with a rotating top, coated slowly in vaporized wax until they set. That is the running joke of this arc's villains, who kill on schedules and give their methods names. Chapter 123, 'Luffy vs. Mr. 3', is not the fight that decides anything. Luffy sends Mr. 3 into the jungle and is then beaten by Miss Golden Week and a box of paints, and it takes Luffy, Usopp and Karoo, an ostrich-sized duck, to bring the structure down. The volume takes its title from its last chapter, 'Instinct'.
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