One Piece Skypiea Ark - Overview and Review (Warning Spoilers)

One piece is a long running Manga and anime series which has one of the largest fanbases for a manga and anime series to date, the series follows the straw hat pirate crew led by luffy as he follows his dream to become the king of the pirates and recruits new members along the way which include the likes of sanji the cook and robin the archiologist.

(Image of the straw hat pirates)

The Skypiea ark begins with luffy and the gang finding about a man named nolan the liar who claimed to have travled to a place called the city of gold they meet a decendant of nolan who is desperate to clear his family name and find the city of gold, one thing leads to another and the gang find clues that indicate that the place they are looking for is not in the ocean but in the sky, nolans decendant helps the straw hats sail up a water spout into the sky which leads them to the gates of skypiea being the straw hats they instantlly find them selves as wanted men by not paying the toll booth, once they arrive in skypiea they meet a man and his daughter who tell them all about how a man who claims to be god named eneru who lives on the forbiden island, during which nami the ships navigator rides a waver(jet ski) to the forbiden island and then the gang needs to get her back,eventually the gang end up on the forbiden island and they meet a number of characters such as the old god,the rebel army which are originally decended form the island and gods army lead by eneru and the 4 holy warriors.

(Image of Eneru/God)

Luffy for most of this ark after defating one of the holy warriors is inside a snake until the end fight between himsrlf and eneru, the rest of the crew make there way towards eneru in the centre of the island meanwhile a war between pretty much everyone on the island is taking place, however eneru doesnt keep to the side lines he goes right in the middle of the fight and uses his power of lightning to take out most of the rebels and the straw hat crew in which he reveals his plan to return the island to the sea and destroy the sky islands, the rebel leader and remaining straw hat crew try and stop him but to no avail he is far to strong for any of them even though the entire straw hat crew was there except for luffy, he quicklly wiped out all oposition and proceeded to his flying ship with nami (after he offered to take her.

Shortly after luffy escapes the snake and finds his crew and rebel army in critical condition, robin mangaes to explain the situation to luffy and he goes off to confront eneru, once there eneru trys to use his lighting attacks on luffy and is shocked to find out it wont work as luffy is made of rubber, after a huge fight eneru traps luffys arm inside a golden ball and throws him off the flying ship which had already taken off, luffy falls and despretlly trys to find away to get back to eneru during this time the gang are back up however not fully recovered with nami still on board the ship with eneru usopp and sanji try a daring rescue mission in which nami and usopp manage to escape thanks to sanji who is then badley hurt by eneru but not before the ship is damaged thanks to his tampering with the engine.

Luffy manages to make it to the bottom of the giant beanstalk atop of which the golden bell is located which is what eneru is after, luffy trys numerous times to run upside the beanstalk but to no avail he meets up with the rest of the straw hats and they hatch a plan to ride up the side of the beanstalk with the waver whilest its falling, zoro the swordsman cuts down the beanstalk and as its falling luffy riding on the back of the waver while nami drives, make it to the top and luffy jumps towards enerus ship and stops the lightning onslaught eneru created to destroy skypiea by using teh golden ball on his arm as a conductor to redirect the lighting away from danger.

After a heated battle luffy defeats eneru using the golden ball on his arm to unleash gum gum golden rifle (a special version of one of his attacks gum gum rifle) doing this attack luffy also rings the bell and luffys goal for letting nolans ancestor know skypiea is in the sky and not the ocean is copleted, eneru and his ship both fall through the clouds and to the lower ocean and are not seen again.

In the last episodes of this ark we see the angels and rebels join into one comunnity and now live in the golden city due to the rest of the sky islands destruction thanks to eneru, all is resolved with the old god known as gonfall being reinstated as god once again. to end the ark the straw hats return to the grand line sea by floating down on a giant octopus.

The skypiea ark is one of my favorite parts of one piece so far although it begins with a slow start the ark redimes its self with a familiar one piece humour and some of the best fight scenes that the series has had to date, characters that are introduced are interesting and the idea that god and heaven are now an aspect although not exactly the same as christian teachings are still a intersting concept and used well, eneru is a great enemy for the straw hats to fight as it shows how a man who claims to be god and acts high and mighty is then nocked of his high horse when he finds out he isnt the strongest being in the world as a whole id say the skypiea ark is a fun but slow part of one piece,consisting of about 50 episodes in total and if you can sit through the 40 or so episodes that explain whats going on you wont be dissapointed when the action starts, i know myself was waiting for when luffy and eneru finally meet.

Pros

- great concept of story and characters

- some of the best fight scenes to date

- more of that one piece wacky humour

Cons

- the ark takes a long time to get into any really good parts

- characters other than the main are boring and just get annoying after a few minutes of screen time