Long Ring Long Land Arc

The fourteenth story arc, opening the Water 7 Saga, sees the crew land on Long Ring Long Land, a peculiar place where every living thing has grown unnaturally long or tall. There the Foxy Pirates ambush them and drag them into a Davy Back Fight, a competition in which the victors may claim members of the losing crew. What begins as a recreational detour turns grave when the Marine admiral Aokiji appears near its end.

Arriving on the elongated island, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper freed an old man named Tonjit who had waited a decade atop bamboo stilts for his loyal horse. Meanwhile the rest of the crew were surrounded by Foxy the Silver Fox and his pirates, who challenged Luffy to the Davy Back Fight. Tricked into accepting after Foxy shot Tonjit's horse, Luffy learned the rules: contestants are locked in beforehand, stolen crewmates must pledge loyalty to their new captain, and any crew member lost may only be won back before the games conclude. In the first event, a boat race, Foxy cheated using his Devil Fruit to slow the Straw Hats, snatching Chopper for his crew. Zoro's harsh scolding pushed the tearful reindeer to accept the situation and trust his crew to reclaim him.

The second event was the Groggy Ring, a brutal ball game in which Zoro and Sanji, despite constant bickering and a biased referee, overcame the Groggy Monsters and won Chopper back. The final round pitted Luffy against Foxy in a one-on-one duel aboard Foxy's trap-laden ship. Luffy prevailed by reflecting Foxy's own beams back at him and knocking him into the sea, taking the Foxy flag. Afterward the crew found a tall, thin man napping outside Tonjit's house, who proved to be the admiral Aokiji. He claimed no interest in a fight and helped Tonjit reach his people, but then warned the Straw Hats that Robin posed a danger, having outlived every group she ever joined. When Robin attacked and failed, Aokiji froze her and the others in a lopsided clash, sparing them only to declare the crew would be undone by Robin regardless. Three days later, having grown stronger from the ordeal, they continued on.

Sandwiched between the larger Skypiea and Water 7 storylines, this arc introduced Aokiji as one of the Marines' greatest powers and deepened the mystery of Robin's past, while revealing the World Government's growing concern over her presence in the crew. The Davy Back Fight itself would prove significant later in the story. Usopp's doubts about his own worth, seeded by the defeat, would boil over in Water 7, and Luffy's loss to Aokiji drove him to develop his Gear techniques. The anime greatly expanded the arc, adding three extra contests after the Groggy Ring, among them a skating race, a dodgeball variant, and a stop-and-go tag game.