One Piece Vol. 33: Davy Back Fight
- ISBN
- 9781421534497
- Publisher
- VIZ Media
- English release
- Pages
- 232
- Chapters
- 306–316
- Anime
- Season 7: Escape! The Naval Fortress & The Foxy Pirate Crew ep. 196–228
A self-contained sports detour sitting between two of the longest stretches in the series, and not the reason anyone buys this run. Chapters 306 to 316 are eleven chapters of a three-round competition against Foxy's crew: a race around an island, a game of dodge ball, and a boxing match, with crew members as the stake. Nothing in it is required for what follows. A reader who wants only the story can go from Vol. 32 straight to Vol. 34 and lose a prize fight and a joke about a flag. The case for keeping it is that it is the last light book before the Water Seven arc, which the anime's eighth season alone spends thirty-five episodes on, and that Viz gives it 232 pages, the largest count the series uses, for the usual $11.99.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Oda puts a game between two heavy arcs, and the interesting part is the stake rather than the sport. The rules put crew membership on the table, so the competition is a formal version of the question Skypiea had just answered by force: what holds this crew together. Foxy takes Chopper in the first round and the crew wins him back in the second, which is played for laughs, and two volumes later Usopp walks out for real, which makes the game look like a rehearsal. The third round, Luffy against Foxy, is a boxing match settled between a rubber body and a time-stopping Devil Fruit, and it is the only part with tension in it. The anime was generous with the material: season 7 runs thirty-three episodes over chapters 303 to 320, and sixteen of those episodes, 196 to 206 and 220 to 224, adapt nothing from the manga. Viz's 232 pages make this one of the longest books in the run, and it is still the one to skip if the budget is finite.
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