Cover
Two-sided Color Spread: the Straw Hats ride through the sea in a kind of roller coaster car: Franky in leather jacket, Luffy in captain’s jacket, Chopper with tricorn, Nami with sunglasses, Sanji with harpoon, Robin sitting sideways with a drink, Zoro also with uniform jacket and lastly Usopp with a fish on his hook, which a sea snake wants to grab. A shark also leaps hungrily towards the fish, while at the front of the vehicle a giant bird of prey looks on.
Storyline
Thriller Bark, in front of the wreckage of the mast house: Usopp, Nami and Chopper watch in despair as Zoro, Robin and Sanji dissolve from the head down in the sun’s rays. The grounded Dwarf Luffy, Lola, and the Risky Brothers are also struck by the sun and gradually crumble into dust. Hiding in the shadows of the rubble, the forest pirates whine that the shadows were freed too late, and lament that they should have won.
Pan to a pirate ship on the Grand Line: A captain is excitedly called on deck because the shadows of the crew have returned. Everyone erupts in cheers.
Panning shot in the Westblue: Marines and pirates alike celebrate the return of their shadows. In a mansion, a maid named Margarita drops expensive plates when she notices her shadow. Her master forgives her for losing the plates Margarita hates and asks her to celebrate the shadow’s return.
Back on the Thriller Bark: Brook, Nami, Franky, Usopp and Chopper look incredulously at their comrades who, contrary to expectations, have reverted to their old form and are discussing their near-death experience. The remaining victims of Moria are also reunited with their shadows, celebrating their regained immunity to sunlight. Robin and Sanji explain that just like Oars’s stretches, the shadows returning at the very last moment must have given the decaying bodies back their form. Zoro dryly remarks that such an accident is unlikely to happen to him a second time. Sanji sums up that the events on the Thriller Bark seem like a nightmare to him when viewed in daylight.
Somewhere in the wreckage of the mast house, Hogback drags the dazed Absalom out by the remains of the zombie warthog Lola and plans to escape with him from the Thriller Bark.
Around the unconscious but returned to normal size Luffy, the Straw Hats gather. Chopper worries about the effects on Luffy’s health as he uses the Gears against increasingly stronger opponents. When Usopp notices the Old Man who had taken Luffy and his group’s promise at the graveyard to free the Shadows, he too initially mistakes him for a zombie. The old man has come to thank him, and asks how the freed victims of Moria can repay him. All the forest pirates join him in thanking him. Lola offers marriage to Zoro, which he gratefully declines, as do the Old Man’s attempts at compensation. For this, he earns a headbutt from Nami, who doesn’t mind a gesture of gratitude. The Risky Brothers begin to organize something when Nami suddenly remembers the presence of Bartholomew Kuma.
On the overturned mast house, Bear confers with naval headquarters via Den-den Mushi, expressing concern over the defeat of one of the samurai again by the Straw Hat Pirates, while Nami enlightens her comrades about Bear’s presence and his actions against Perona at the ship.
Lola notices Bear’s oversized body and remembers Bear’s nickname from his pirate days: the Tyrant. Headquarters’ order to wipe out every living soul on the Thriller Bark is acknowledged by Bear as simple. The incredulous listeners on the battlefield can’t believe that their joy at the return of the Shadows should have been so brief.
Zoro asks the others to leave this fight to him, and is informed by Nami about Bear’s devilish powers. When Bear takes off his glove, she warns of this, as well as his teleportations.
Bear appears abruptly in the crowd of pirates, who are whistled back by Lola because they don’t stand a chance against Bear. Bear takes down quite a few pirates with a punch that penetrates through the victims and doesn’t rely on direct contact. He accepts Zoro’s challenge.
| Manga volumes | Thriller Bark Arc (Manga) |
