One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

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Something I like about One Piece is that it has a certain “ah, just one more chapter” quality to it, at least in the format I’m reading it in. As I write this it’s a few minutes shy of 2AM local, and I should really probably be in bed, but I seriously want to know how this fight between Zolo and Cabaji went, so here I am, reading another chapter at two hours past midnight.

My utterly dreadful sleeping habits aren’t the focus of this column, though. Watching Zolo fuck Cabaji up is.¹ And to that end, we get a really great page right near the top of the chapter here, complete with Cabaji dropping an old-timey pirate insult.

To be fair it’s not literally all about these two. Somewhere in here, Nanami sneaks off, assuring Luffy that she’s happy to team up with him….if he can get ahold of Buggy’s treasure and the map of the Grand Line, that is.

^{Far be it from me to criticize perhaps the most successful mangaka of all time, but what’s going on with Nami’s hand there?}

But apart from that little aside, this is very much the Cabaji and Zolo show.

Buggy’s second mate leads with a bunch of crazy, vaguely “circus”-themed bullshit like this.

And Zolo counters by being a much better swordsman than Cabaji is. Eventually, Cabaji has to resort to cheating, and Buggy tries to ‘subtly’ help out his third-in-command. A classic heel move, but it doesn’t work. Luffy is still around, after all.

The trickery doesn’t help, and despite literally bleeding out the entire time, Zolo trounces Cabaji. Eventually finishing him off in what is probably the single best page of the whole chapter.

^{No, not that onigiri.}

Proving that he isn’t actually an immortal sword demon and instead just fights like one, Zolo collapses from blood loss shortly thereafter, leaving Luffy and Buggy to finish the fight on their own.

And then, just as Volume II draws to a close, Buggy drops this particular bombshell.

And much as I am genuinely dying to know what’s up with all of that, it’s probably time for this old sea hag to turn in for the evening. (Besides, I’m leaning a little too heavily on screencaps, which is always a sign that it’s probably time to stop here for the day.) Before I do though, now that we’re two volumes and a couple weeks deep, I just wanted to ask how you’re all feeling about the project so far. Please sound off in the comments (or on my Retrospring) about any thoughts you might have; positive, negative, whatever they may be.

I look forward to hearing from you. See you tomorrow for the start of Volume III, pirates! 🏴‍☠️

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1: A danger of late-night writing: I forgot the “is” in this sentence when I first wrote it and only noticed it later. This would be a very different kind of column if that were what happened in this chapter!

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