One Piece Vol. 108

Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga has been publishing since 1997, and with the series projected to end sometime around 2030, the end is (relatively) in sight. As One Piece moves through its final saga, the stakes have never been higher, and now, the English publication of Vol. 108 is here. Spanning across chapters 1089-1100, One Piece Vol. 108 is full of action, plot twists, and more of that glorious worldbuilding that the series is known best for.

Today, we’re doing our first ever manga review here on Nerdy Nook, and what better series to start with than one of the biggest, most popular manga series of all time? This review will cover all of One Piece Vol. 108, and will include spoilers, so be forewarned! Be sure to read the volume for yourself before reading ahead – this is a story worth experiencing without any spoilers! With that being said, let’s get into our first ever manga review – One Piece Vol. 108!

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One Piece Vol. 108 Review

Image by Shueisha

Despite how much longer the series will be continuing, in the grand scheme of things, the end of One Piece is on the horizon, which means everything that happens from this point on affects the world of One Piece on a global scale. There’s perhaps no better example of this than how One Piece Vol. 108 opens, with a global earthquake from the destruction of Lulusia raising sea levels for practically every island we’ve visited across One Piece’s 1000+ chapters. A major theme of One Piece is the World Government’s censorship of the truth, so who knows if we’ll ever see the public realise what caused the earthquake – personally, some sort of mass public realisation of Lulusia’s genocide leading to a revolution of some kind would be a really interesting storyline to pursue in the series’ later chapters, but who knows where Oda will take this story next?

Another highlight of this volume was the further exploration of the idea of Luffy as a frightening character. We’re very used to seeing Luffy as a goofy, carefree character, a bringer of joy and hope to the people across the islands he adventures to. However, on his call with the Five Elders, we see how he comes across the people outside of the Straw Hat Pirates, particularly those in power. At this point in the story, Luffy is one of the Four Emperors, characters that we, the readers, were conditioned to be fearful of throughout the entire manga. Now, Luffy is in the same position, and were we not privy to his true character behind his public notoriety, we would likely view him the same way. The line that Luffy often walks between carefree and reckless becomes more and more interesting as the manga goes on, and I love how it was explored here.

One Piece Vol. 108 was also notable for its exploration of backstory, particularly later on in the volume. However, aside from the obvious backstory that we’ll get to later, I also really enjoyed the brief look into Sentomaru’s backstory that we got in this volume. Sentomaru has appeared in One Piece for years, but those appearances were always sporadic and rarely substantial in terms of the main story. When spliced in between the action shots of the fight between him and Kizaru, the backstory was very enjoyable, and wasn’t overly dwelled on. Whether the retelling goes as smoothly when these chapters are adapted into the anime, only time will tell. Unfortunately, knowing Toei and flashbacks, I’m not sure it’ll come across as well as it does here.

Image by Shueisha

From this point of the volume on, the story dives headfirst into action sequences – great news for readers, bad news for me trying to review this volume. If there was one thing I would say about the action, and this may upset some fans, but there are times when Oda’s art can be a little difficult to discern. One Piece’s action is chaotic, especially in a post-Gear 5 era, and so reading pages and pages of jumbled action sequences can be a little difficult to get through. Oda’s art is far from bad – in fact, it may be the detail that makes it a little difficult to tell exactly what’s happening. However, as Luffy bends reality using Gear 5, it’s impossible to tell what he’s going to do next, which means you can’t at all predict what’s happening on the page using your own powers of discernment. You rely entirely on Oda’s art to tell the next move Luffy will do, and unfortunately, sometimes that’s a little difficult to fully make out.

Where Oda’s art really did come through strongly, however, was with the arrival of Saint Jaygarcia Saturn to Egghead. What an impressive antagonist! His presence was immediately felt as one of the highlights of the volume, particularly as he began coldly giving out devastating orders to destroy Egghead and our protagonists. Particularly, his interaction with Jewelry Bonney was terrifying, especially after One Piece Vol. 108 began to make it clear that Bonney’s relationship with Kuma would be a central thematic point. While the siege of Egghead Island was the first major story development in this volume, Oda still found ways to draw attention to how important Bonney and Kuma would be to the remainder of the volume, through Bonney’s inability to destroy Kuma’s clones, and her reckless, rage-fuelled assault on Saturn.

And so, as might have been expected, the latter half of One Piece Vol. 108 was dedicated substantially to Kuma’s much anticipated backstory, and oh boy, there’s plenty to talk about here. Kuma has, much like Sentomaru, appeared throughout One Piece for many years, but unlike Sentomaru, it was always implied that there was something more to the Paw-Paw Fruit user than meets the eye. However, the truth we learn about Kuma is more heartbreaking than fans could have ever imagined. His childhood as a slave, and the revelation of him using his power to absorb the pain of people to heal them was gut-wrenching, and adds extra depth to his moment with Zoro back on Thriller Bark.

Image by Shueisha

As great as the volume has been up until this point, Kuma’s backstory is what takes One Piece Vol. 108 to a new level, particularly with the introduction of Ginny. Sometimes, the characters with the smallest time on the page can leave the biggest impact on the reader, and Ginny is a prime example of this. Her story, from growing up alongside Kuma, to eventually falling for him, but being kidnapped and forced to marry a World Noble, leading to the birth of Bonney, was incredibly tragic, especially when she meets her end after being tossed away by the World Nobles after contracting Sapphire Scales disease. Her impact goes on to be felt tremendously throughout the rest of the One Piece Vol. 108, despite her early death, especially since Bonney would go on to inherit Sapphire Scales herself.

The tragedy continued until the final chapter of One Piece Vol. 108, titled ‘Thank You Bonney’. Shueisha really chose a nice chapter to end the volume on – I don’t think I could have read much more through the tears. Kuma’s decision to surrender his free will to ensure that Bonney would be cured of her illness and get to live a full life was not only incredibly tragic, but also tied in extremely well to the overarching theme of One Piece – the idea of freedom. One Piece is at its best when it discusses the socio-political ideas of its world, and how those tie into the world we live in as its readers. Kuma’s tragedy is not just sad – it’s a direct motivation for the goals that Luffy seeks to achieve in his pursuit of a free world. I had a feeling Kuma would eventually be integral to the story, but I never imagined it would be to this degree. The chapter also ends by showing the status of the world when Kuma was eventually declared a Warlord, tying his backstory into the greater One Piece continuity – in typical Oda fashion, everything is extremely multi-layered, with incredible depth, and yet never gets confusing or muddled.

One Piece Vol. 108 was an incredibly strong outing for the series, and I think I speak for many fans when I say that Egghead Island has been one of the series’ most incredible arcs thus far. This volume’s backstories that solve long-standing mysteries, mixed with its thrilling action sequences throughout the siege of Egghead make this a standout One Piece volume. What did you think of One Piece Vol. 108? Did you enjoy it as much as we did, or do you have higher hopes for Vol. 109, when it releases in July 2025? Be sure to let us know!

See also: Top 10 One Piece Arcs, Ranked

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