Short Summary
Romance Dawn for the New World!
"Rayleigh... I'll do it! I'm gonna become the King of the Pirates!"
— Monkey D. Luffy, Chapter 601
After two years of training, the Straw Hats are set to regroup at Sabody to continue their journey. But some people claiming to be the Straw Hats might end up attracting trouble and making their departure more difficult.
Straw Hats Reunion Arc has the following tropes:
- Accidental Truth: Thanks to Demaro Black and his gang making broad claims to be the returning Straw Hats, the Marines discovered that the real Straw Hats were back, which unfortunately made the crew's reunion and departure to Fishman Island trickier.
- Big Bad: Sentomaru returns as the main antagonist this time around being the highest ranking Marine officer on the island to personally lead the charge in order to capture the Straw Hats.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Demalo Black was set up as one of the main antagonists, only to be knocked out and have his identity exposed by Sentomaru, the true antagonist of the arc.
- Big Damn Heroes: The various allies the Straw Hats made over the last two years take on the Marine forces at Sabody in order to bide the crew enough time to make their escape.
- Big Damn Reunion: After two years of waiting and training, the Straw Hats one after another all return to the Sabody Archipelago and reunite with each other ready to set sail for the next stage of their journey at the long awaited Fishman Island.
- Breather Episode: The world has cooled down in the two years since Marineford. The focus of the arc are the Straw Hats reuniting and the antagonists are pathetically easy compared to the first time they met in Sabaody.
- Bullying a Dragon:
- The fake Straw Hats try this on Nami. They get both entangled by one of Usopp's Pop Greens and then electrocuted by her as a reward.
- When Demalo Black tries to shoot Luffy in the face he causally dodges the bullet and then knocks him and his crew out with a burst of Conquerors Haki.
- Buried Alive: The final fates of the fake Straw Hats by Caribou.
- Carved Mark: Luffy got a bad magma punch in the chest courtesy of Akainu in the Marineford arc and it shows an X-shaped scar after it healed.
- Contrived Coincidence: A band of crooks impersonating the Straw Hats appear on Saboady at around the same time the real crew was scheduled to reunite.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Monster Trio vs the the Pacifistas (one of which accompanied Sentomaru when they first confronted the Straw Hats). Luffy, Zoro and Sanji wade through them like nothing to show off their new strength.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- The pirates who claimed to be the Straw Hats thought it would be a clever way to gather powerful minions using the Straw Hats' reputation. However, they did not realize how much trouble they would be in after boasting how strong they were without the power to back it up.
- They also somehow thought it was a good idea to loudly and publicly broadcast their intention to recruit powerful pirates for the New World, not thinking that the Marines would naturally investigate such claims and try to arrest such an infamous crew.
- Demalo Black shamelessly impersonating Luffy causes him to be beaten down by Sentomaru, someone who's actually met Luffy.
- Dirty Coward: All the Fake Straw Hats were this, but the fake Sogeking showed some bravery when he tried to save the Fake Sanji from being suffocated by Caribou.note
- Fanservice Pack:
- Both Nami and Robin now sport bigger chests and skimpier outfits, Nami in particular sporting a bikini top.
- In general, women start getting a lot curvier (with more Male Gaze in the anime) from this arc onward.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: All the people the Straw Hats befriended during their away time come back to help them leave the island safely.
- Hold the Line: Its revealed that, even though he was fully converted into a cyborg by that point, Kuma made a deal with Vegapunk to fulfill his last sentient act as a human; guard the Thousand Sunny during the two year Time Skip until such time as a Straw Hat returned to reclaim the ship.
- Idiot Ball: What kind of idiot impersonates an infamous pirate and his crew, who can only be taken down by, at the very least, vice-admirals, without the actual manpower to back it?
- I Got Bigger: Usopp and Nami have an exchange like this when they re-unite. While Usopp shows off how toned he's gotten, Nami gives Usopp a very up close and personal indication of how she's grown, which he lampshades.
- Ironic Hell: After escaping from one, Sanji finds his torment is not over when he hears that Luffy spent the last two years on an island full of real women, and did nothing but train.
- Irony: Zoro was the first to reach the island, to Sanji's shock. He proceeds to rub it in by numbering each other based on the order they arrived (Zoro being #1, while Sanji is #7).
- Manly Tears: Rayleigh sheds a tear when Luffy declares he will become the Pirate King and when he reminisces about his first meeting with Roger.
- Marshmallow Hell: Nami does this to Usopp when they are reunited, essentially jamming his face into her chest. Usopp has actually grown taller than her so this act was probably intentional on her behalf. Even worse, Nami was only wearing a bikini at the time. Kind of hard to "only" think of a girl as family when she does something like that.
- Mugging the Monster: The Fake Straw Hats had no idea they were dealing with the real Nami, Usopp and Luffy until afterwards.
- Never My Fault: Played for Laughs by Zoro who causally cuts a pirate ship in half, thus denying that crew their dream of sailing to the New World, commenting that it was the winds of destiny and that they have no one to blame but themselves... when he was the one who boarded and fell asleep on their ship because he misunderstood a fisherman's directions. The captain is rightfully incredulous.
- Out-of-Character Moment: One of the main reasons why Demalo Black was unable to fool Sentoumaru is that Sentoumaru had met the real Straw Hats before. Discounting the ridiculous Paper-Thin Disguise, Black's behavior during the battle made it obvious that he wasn't the real Luffy. He attempted to use Luffy's reputation and heritage in order to make Sentoumaru back off. That's something the real Luffy would never do, uncaring of his previous exploits since he didn't do those things for fame anyway, and uncaring of his heritage to the point that he's almost unaware of it at times, mainly due to actually being unaware of his heritage up until two years ago, prior to the Time Skip.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- The gang posing as the Straw Hats, but apparently they managed to fool a lot of pirates with the ruse. It's justified in that the Straw Hats had been missing for two years, so their appearances must have changed somewhat. The marine scouts actually noted that the fakes looked different from the real deal but became convinced that it was the real deal when they saw the real Chopper with them! Of course, anyone who had actually met them, such as Sentomaru, could tell you they weren't the real thing just by how they acted.
- While all the fake Straw Hats just flat-out do not match the body types of the real ones, only dressing kind of like the Straw Hats used to years ago, the absolute prize for this category goes to fake Chopper, who is a fox. As in the wrong species.
- Luffy himself was able to avoid detection by simply wearing a fake nose and mustache.
- Recognition Failure: The sheer stupidity and arrogance of the Fake Straw Hats are highlighted when they fail to recognise the real Nami when they try antagonising her. It's justified in Usopp's and Luffy's case since the former's bounty poster does not show his real face while the latter is wearing a disguise, but Nami is not wearing a disguise and yet the fake Nami directly confronts her without ever realising she's threatening the person she's impersonating.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Due to being inactive for two years, the world was under the impression the Straw Hats were dead following Luffy's last appearance. This is what allowed the fakes to pull off their ruse so easily. After the fakes were exposed, Sentomaru revealed Luffy, giving proof that the real Straw Hats were alive and well.
- She Is All Grown Up: Perona has grown into quite a pretty girl, much to Sanji's delight.
- So Last Season: While the Pacifistas are easily beaten, Sentomaru comments that they were old models.
- Spanner in the Works: While they were of no actual threat to the Straw Hats, thanks to the imposters posing as them announcing their "return", the Marines ended up on high alert in response, which made the crew's reunion and departure trickier than it should've been.
- Stealth Mentor: While onboard the Sunny the Straw Hats openly discuss Kuma and Franky confirms their suspicions that he send them to the various islands after their initial defeat in order to make them strong enough for the New World. Franky outright considers him to be their most valuable ally especially since he guarded the Sunny while they were gone from pirates, bounty hunters and the Marines. However with his full conversion into a cyborg Franky warns them that they can't expect his help again.
- Super-Persistent Predator: A variant. When the fake Robin tries to get rid of the fake Chopper (a fox) by kicking him (so she could try and recruit the real Chopper), the fox promptly bites her and doesn't let go. Even after she's kidnapped by unknown people and stuffed into a sack.
- They're Back!: After two years of training, the Straw Hats reunite.
- Time Skip: The arc takes place two years after the Paramount War.
- We Will Meet Again: After he easily takes out a Pacifista with one punch, Luffy tells Sentomaru that he has a feeling they will meet again at some point as he was running off. He's right.
- The Worf Effect: To demonstrate that the Straw Hats are in another league to the pirates the Fake Straw Hats recruited, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji take out a couple of Pacifistas after one of them easily beatdown "Lip Service" Doughty, who had a bounty of 88 Million.
- Worthy Opponent: Sentomaru gets pissed when he realizes that a weakling like Demalo Black was impersonating Luffy and brings his ax down on him.Sentomaru: You're not Straw Hat, you piece of trash!!
- Wretched Hive: While Sabaody wasn't exactly a squeaky clean place beforehand, it turns out that ever since the Navy HQ was switched with G-1 by the new Fleet Admiral, so that the Marines have more of a presence in the New World, more pirates then ever before are now running amok on Sabaody causing the island's crime rate to skyrocket.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Many of those who helped train each of the Straw Hats for the last two years hold off the Marines to give the crew time to set sail. Rayleigh is the most direct example, with him drawing a Line in the Sand between the way Luffy was headed and the Marines chasing after him, and warning them they'd better not cross it.
Story impact
- The Straw Hat Pirates reunite and take the coated Thousand Sunny underwater to travel to Fishman Island.
- In order to increase the Marine's presence, and focus on the conflict brewing, in the New World the Navy's new Fleet Admiral has moved Navy HQ from Marineford in Paradise to G-1 located on the other side of the Red Line.
- Bartholomew Kuma is revealed to have completed his conversion into a fully-robotic Pacifista, and is therefore presumably dead. His last sentient act, however, was to protect Sunny until a member of the Straw Hats appeared (in this case, Franky).
- All nine Straw Hats have new default looks.
- Some of the new powers and skills of the Straw Hat Pirates begin to assert themselves, and will continue to be revealed over the next several arcs.
- Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji are again separated from the rest of the crew before they arrive at Fishman Island.
