Manga: Chapter 745 (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS

Make a splash! Read some One Piece right now!

 Summary
 Robin is reunited with the Revolutionaries.

Diamante and Trebol stand guard of the Smile Factory.

Team Luffy are kicked out of the castle by Pica on orders of Doflamingo.

Doflamingo activates his Bird Cage technique to cause havoc and keep people on the island.

Thoughts

This was some crazy chapter. Oda has shown us why Doflamingo keeps his position as a Warlord and it has nothing to do with his status or ties as a Celestial Dragon. Doflamingo certainly has the power to keep his title and ensue fear in weaker pirates. Perfect for what the World Government needs in a Seven Warlord.

Doflamingo literally has control over Dressrosa and is willing to do anything to keep it as his main base of operations. Even if that means doing a Hunger Games style game to rid the country of any unwanted pests. This is an excellent example of how Doflamingo does things and expected behavior from him. Throughout this whole arc, Doflamingo has been treating things like some sort of game where he is the grand dungeon master. He may act like a puppeteer but how he acts is much different. He believes that he is always in control and setting the rules. Just look at the way he controlled the people of the island. They were once peaceful observers but now they are bloodthirsty viewers. The Colosseum has been destroyed but it has now been replaced with an even bigger one with much higher stakes. 

Now, lets take a look at Doflamingo's ability.

Doflamingo has the ability to manipulate string to either use it like a whip or control people as  puppets. Those look to be the basics of his ability. He also use it to make a strange puppet of himself to control and battle for him. Then there is the Bird Cage which allows him to spread his ability to a wide area and control people. It also allows Doflamingo to trap his victims which he can use his Parasite Sting on.

The latter two abilities, "String Marionette" and Bird Cage, could be two of his higher level abilities that took him years to master. Based on what Doflamingo said about not running away or hiding, maybe he can't enact "String Marionette" and Bird Cage as the same time seeing that he used his marionette to form the cage. So either somebody has to knock out Doflamingo or force him to use the String Marionette in battle. Then again, this theory can easily be bunked by Doflamingo using a String Marionette with Bird Cage in effect.

Oda did a great job in structuring this chapter. He put all the funny stuff early in the chapter. I found it humorous when Robin introduced Koala, Hack and Sabo as friends to the passed out Usopp. It really felt as if Robin was teasing Usopp when she introduced them to him. That is simply part of the humor that Robin brings to the story.

It is unfortunate that next week is Golden Week which means no new chapter. We will have to wait two weeks to find out what will happen. I am wondering if Zoro got kicked out of the castle along with Team Luffy. Pica knows that he is in the castle but did he forget about him? That will be interesting and very funny. Imagine seeing Zoro roaming around the castle wondering why it is empty.

The other question will be the loyalty of Usopp's new followers. Some of them may be greedy enough to cast away their new found loyalty to their savior and take Doflamingo's offer. The ability to offer dreams of fancy and riches has worked in Doflamingo's favor before.

Lastly, what role does the Flower Hill have to play in all of this? That was one of the few places that was raised up by Pica. Apparently this is an important location to Doflamingo as he made sure to keep it out of reach of the citizens.

Things are getting intense and now we just enter a new arena. I didn't think things could get even crazier but Oda found a way to do that. Until next time, true believers!