One Piece Vol. 17: Hiriluk's Cherry Blossoms
- ISBN
- 9781421515113
- Publisher
- VIZ Media
- English release
- Pages
- 216
- Chapters
- 146–155
- Anime
- Season 3: Introducing Chopper at the Winter Island ep. 78–92
The winter island ends in chapters 146 to 155, and with it One Piece settles into the register it has kept ever since. The fight is with Wapol, an omnivorous king who reassembles himself as a house with cannon arms, and with the two henchmen he fuses into one two-headed, four-armed opponent. It is played as farce, without apology. Running under it is the dead doctor the volume is named for, played entirely straight. That combination, a ridiculous antagonist carrying a sincere history in the same chapters at full commitment, is what the island stories before it were not doing, and this is the book where it locks. Luffy has been asking the reindeer to come along since the previous volume and gets an answer here. Season 3 covers chapters 129 to 155 and ends on this book's last chapter.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Chopper agrees, and the crew sails with a doctor aboard. The fight that earns him the place is his own, because Sanji is out of it with an injured back: Chopper takes the drug he calls a Rumble Ball and beats Chessmarimo, the fused pair of Wapol's men. Wapol then loses twice without being hit. Nami has taken the key to his own weapon storage, so he cannot open it, and the cannon he retreats to at the top of the castle does not fire. Only after both failures does Luffy put him off the island. Note the spelling on the cover: this site publishes Hiriluk, following the Library of Congress transcription of this volume's English title, 'Hiriluk's Cherry Blossoms', and not the Hiruluk that most English summaries use. The crew that leaves is six strong and pointed at Alabasta, which becomes the longest thing the series has attempted to that point.
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