Manga: Chapter 724 (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS

Lets forget about Fishman Island and read some One Piece in Weekly Shonen Jump!

Summary
Sanji and Doflamingo take part in midair combat. Law breaks up the fight.

Team Nami and Sanji makes plans to head to Zou to reunite with Law's crew.

Law and Doflamingo face off to settle an old score.

Thoughts

This chapter went better then I thought. Everybody was predicting that Sanji was going to be beaten by Doflamingo. Instead, Sanji showed that he can stand his own against a Warlord. He wasn't putting Doflamingo on the ropes but Sanji was able to impress the fashionable Warlord with how strong he is. All that training in the Newkama Kingdom really payed off.

We really got a good look at Doflamingo's abilities. They were confirm to be string-based by what Law called it, String-String. It is safe to say that Doflamingo can produce and control all string based things. That could mean controlling people like puppets, slashing using thin strings from his fingers or using it to create a thick rope from thousands of string.

Doflamingo has master this ability and has found ways to use it to his advantage in battle. As you saw in the battle, Doflamingo had used the controlling part of his powers to pin Sanji down as he used his finisher move, Overheat. As with all Devil Fruit abilities, this is only the tip of the iceberg so it will be interesting to see what else Doflamingo can do.

Another thing to note, Doflamingo was able to stay airborne throughout this battle while using his hands. Proof of his mastery of his ability?

I really like how the crew was all willing to pull together to help each other. Sanji wasn't fighting to impress Nami as we saw in that last chapter. Not once did he went gaga for Nami or did any of his usual antics. Sanji was serious for the whole battle against Doflamingo. Then when Sanji was ensnared by Doflamingo, you saw a panel of where Brook and Nami were ready to go into battle. Nami was willing to jump into the fight with a Warlord when usually she would discourage such a fight.

Later on you have Nami refusing to leave Dressrosa without the rest of the crew. They are the Straw Hat Crew and they were not going to leave their fellow crew mates behind no matter how tough things get. The whole crew was willing to risk their lives for each other.

Leave the comic relief to Caesar.

And then Oda undoes all of that by having Nami's half of the Straw Hats turn tail and claiming to be the "Twirly Hat Crew". I understand that Oda likes to have some comedy in his works but must it be at the expense of ruining such a touching moment? 

It looks like the main battleground is heading towards Dressrosa. We have half of the Straw Hats there, the Marines, the Tontallas and the Doflamingo Family there. This looks like it is going to be big and that considering we had that mess on Fishman Island to deal with. Once this arc ends, I suspect we are going to see some major rumblings in the world involving Luffy on the scale of happen after Alabasta and Water 7.

First though, we need to get though the bad blood between Doflamingo and Law. Either way, I am going back to playing some Pokemon Y.

Until next time true believers!

Sanji doesn't get enough cool moments.