Drum Island Arc

This tenth chapter of the saga, the fourth entry of the Arabasta stretch, unfolds on a snowbound island once governed by the gluttonous King Wapol. The story turns on a medical crisis aboard the ship and introduces a future crewmate, while sketching out a heartfelt backstory about an outcast reindeer and the quack who believed in him.

Stricken with a dangerous fever after Little Garden, Nami forces the crew to divert to a kingless winter realm renowned for its physicians. En route they brush off an attack from the exiled Wapol, whose eating-everything Devil Fruit lets him absorb whatever he devours, and Luffy launches him into the waves. Ashore, the militia confronts them until the former guard captain Dalton intervenes and explains the island's plight: Wapol had banished nearly every doctor, and after fleeing a raid by Blackbeard, only the eccentric Doctor Kureha remained, perched in a castle atop the drum-shaped peaks.

Carrying Nami and an injured Sanji, Luffy scales the mountain through a pack of giant rabbits and collapses before Kureha and her blue-nosed reindeer apprentice, Tony Tony Chopper. While Nami recovers, the crew learns of Chopper's lonely origins, his bond with the failed but loving doctor Hiriluk, and the sacrifice that set him on the path of healing. Wapol then storms the castle to retake it, fusing his henchmen and devouring weaponry, but Chopper unleashes his Rumble Ball transformations and Luffy hurls the tyrant clear off the island.

Honoring Hiriluk's wish for him to see the world, Chopper joins the crew, slipping away after Kureha stages a tearful-goodbye-averting show of refusal. As a farewell, the townspeople fire cannons loaded with Hiriluk's long-sought cure, painting the snowy sky with the illusion of falling cherry blossoms. As the crew sails for Arabasta, Kureha recognizes the hidden initial in Luffy's full name, hinting at the weight of the will of D, and word of Ace's search for Blackbeard lingers unspoken.