Chapters · Dressrosa › Punk Hazard

Chapter 669: Commence Operation

Arc: Punk Hazard · Saga: Dressrosa · Released: 2012-04-09

Summary

On Punk Hazard’s frozen half, the snow-side party — Zoro, Brook, and Sanji (whose mind is in Nami’s body) — abandon their hunt for the “abominable snowman” footprints and are ambushed by Caesar’s gunmen, who pin them with ice spikes and knock the group out with drunk-inducing K.Y.P. gas rounds. Sanji, careful not to bruise “fragile little Nami’s body,” beats the gunmen single-handed, and the group thaws out the frozen samurai. Kin’emon explains his “sorcery” leaves him unable to swim and that his torso half has fallen into the now-revealed ocean-water lake; the pirates resolve to fish it out before the sharks do, and Zoro and the samurai agree to a future duel. As Brownbeard’s coat-stripped centaurs flee a vast shape rising from the lake, Caesar — back at the lab — gloats that the monster is the very island-killing poison gas of four years ago, which he compressed into a creature he now controls. Meanwhile the operation against Caesar begins: the body-swapped Smoker and Tashigi lead G-5 against the lab’s locked front entrance, while Law warps Luffy’s boarding party to the rear and launches Luffy to the front as a “shortcut” — whereupon Luffy promptly crashes in and blurts the secret plan: “We’ve come to kick your butt and then kidnap you!!”

New reveals

• Caesar’s lake-monster = the weaponized disaster gas. Caesar reveals he never purified the gas that “destroyed Punk Hazard four years ago”; he altered and compressed it “down into the form of a monster” — “a manifestation of the world of death that once reigned on this island” — which he controls “in the palm of my hand” (p. 13). The monster is shown as a mountain-sized silhouette emerging from the lake (pp. 12–13).
• The Punk Hazard “lake” is ocean water — Sanji-in-Nami and Brook deduce it, which is why fallen Devil-Fruit users (Kin’emon’s torso) sink and can’t surface (p. 10).
• Kin’emon’s Devil Fruit (“sorcery”) both gives him the standard hammer-in-water weakness AND can fabricate clothing (“Can’t you make yourself new clothes with your powers?”) — his power is referenced but not named (p. 9).
• Body-swap status confirmed on-page: Sanji’s mind occupies Nami’s body (p. 7); Smoker’s mind occupies Tashigi’s body and Tashigi’s mind occupies Smoker’s body (p. 14).
• The operation commences. Law’s plan to capture Caesar is in motion: rear-entrance warp + Luffy’s “shortcut” cannon-launch to the front; Law stays back to “study the drug” (pp. 15–17).

Foreshadowing seeds planted

Payoffs (seeds from earlier chapters that resolve here)

Mentions / appearances

• Characters (shown): Luffy, Zoro, Sanji (mind in Nami’s body), Brook, Nico Robin, Tony Tony Chopper, Trafalgar Law, Caesar Clown, Kin’emon, Smoker (mind in Tashigi’s body), Tashigi (mind in Smoker’s body), Caesar’s gas-masked soldiers/gunmen (unnamed squad — radio “Sector F-16 reporting,” pp. 5–6), Brownbeard’s centaur henchmen
• Characters (referenced): Nami (her body), Momonosuke (“his son”, not named on-page)
• Crews: Straw Hat Pirates, Heart Pirates, Marines (G-5)
• Locations: Punk Hazard (snow side, the ocean-water lake, Caesar’s Laboratory front & rear entrances)
• Powers: Ope Ope no Mi (Law’s warp/launch), Gasu Gasu no Mi (Caesar’s fruit; on p. 13 he is in humanoid form revealing the separate weaponized disaster-gas monster he controls — no gas-form transformation this chapter)

Notable panels

• p. 1 — Title page. B&W reader-request illustration: “Luffy and Karoo play in the rain as Vivi tends to a sick frog” (Yusaku Shibata, Saitama) — an Alabasta callback; decorative request art, not a serialized cover story.
• p. 5 — Caesar’s gunmen ambush the snow party with “inescapable ice spikes” and drunk-inducing K.Y.P. gas rounds, calling grid “Sector F-16.”
• p. 7 — Sanji-in-Nami’s-body has beaten the gunmen, fussing over not bruising “fragile little Nami’s body.”
• p. 9 — The thawed Kin’emon reveals his sorcery’s swimming weakness and senses his torso has fallen into water.
• p. 13 — Caesar’s gas-laughing villain panel and his reveal of the controllable poison-gas monster (restages his New-World villain-label grammar, cf. Caesar Gas-Form Reveal Restages The Villain Label-Splash Grammar).
• p. 14 — The body-swapped Smoker (in Tashigi’s body) and Tashigi (in Smoker’s body) lead G-5 against the lab’s front entrance; the door “won’t budge an inch.”
• p. 15 — Law warps Luffy’s party to the lab’s rear entrance (“Your powers are pretty neat! Did we just warp?!”).
• pp. 16–17 — Luffy is launched to the front entrance as a cannonball “shortcut,” crashes in, and blurts the secret operation; a crewmate (Robin): “That was a secret, Luffy.”
• p. 18 — Start of the Volume 68 SBS Question Corner (header art by Michi Nakahara, Tottori): Franky’s New-World hair can take “an unlimited amount” of styles; Oda describes the “Usopp Garden” on the Thousand Sunny where Usopp grows his Pop Green seeds.

Open questions raised

• What is the gas-monster Caesar controls, and how will he deploy it?
• Can the party recover Kin’emon’s torso from the ocean-water lake before the sharks?
• Will Law’s capture operation hold together after Luffy revealed the plan to the whole facility?
• How will the body-swapped Straw Hats and Marines reverse Law’s swap?