One Piece Vol. 51: The Eleven Supernovas
- ISBN
- 9781421534671
- Publisher
- VIZ Media
- English release
- Pages
- 232
- Chapters
- 492–502
- Anime
- Season 11: Sabaody Archipelago ep. 382–407
Chapters 492 to 502, including the five-hundredth chapter of the series, and the book that counts the Straw Hats into a field of eleven rookies. The crew reaches the Red Line, the halfway mark of the route, and learns that the only way past it runs under the sea, which needs a specialist and a coating. The archipelago where that specialist lives is full of crews who reached it at the same time the Straw Hats did, and chapter 498 supplies the cover title by counting them, Luffy and Zoro included: 'The Eleven Supernovas'. It also puts the Straw Hats in front of the Celestial Dragons, the descendants of the World Government's founders, under instructions from a friend not to react. Season 11 of the anime covers all of it. Viz has it at 232 pages for $11.99.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
The eleven are the debut, and the debut is the point. Chapter 498 counts eleven rookies who reached this archipelago at the same time, Luffy and Zoro among them, which is the series doing something it has avoided for five hundred chapters: standing Luffy in a field of peers instead of in front of a villain. Chapter 500, 'The Embers of History', lands well, because the arc is about the world's founders and what their descendants believe they are owed. The Celestial Dragons are that belief with a bloodline attached. Hatchan, who spends the volume being useful, is shot by a Celestial Dragon, and Luffy breaks the promise he gave him and puts a Celestial Dragon on the ground. The punch is not a fight and the book knows it. It is a declaration of the same kind the crew made at Enies Lobby, aimed at a target with a great deal more reach.
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