The First Obstacle? Giant Whale Laboon Appears

Coasting down Reverse Mountain into the Grand Line, the crew is swallowed by fog and then by something far larger: a whale the size of a mountain looming dead ahead. Their broken helm leaves them unable to turn, so Luffy fires a cannon that slows but does not stop the ship, which smashes into the beast and wrecks his favorite figurehead seat. Enraged, Luffy punches the whale in the eye, and the giant promptly inhales the surrounding water, dragging the ship down its throat. Luffy clings to a tooth, climbs atop the creature, and discovers a hatch on its back.

The swallowed crew finds itself drifting before a tiny iron island painted under a fake blue sky, where an old man named Crocus dispatches an attacking squid and calmly settles in to read his newspaper. He introduces himself as the keeper of the Twin Capes lighthouse, indulging a dramatic running gag that frustrates the pirates. When the whale, Laboon, begins ramming the Red Line, Crocus dives off to inject the beast with sedative through an enormous needle.

Two armed intruders, revealed as Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, sneak through the stomach intent on killing Laboon to feed their town. Luffy crashes into them, the crew fishes everyone out of the digestive fluid, and the pair fire bazookas to breach the whale's gut. Crocus throws himself in front of the shot, and Luffy knocks both attackers cold. Crocus then explains that Laboon is an enormous Island Whale with a human-like heart, one that has been waiting fifty years for a certain group of pirates.

This is the opening episode of the Reverse Mountain Arc and the debut of Laboon, Crocus, Mr. 9, and Miss Wednesday. 4Kids Entertainment merged Japanese episodes 61, 62, and 64 into its 44th installment. The moment Crocus acknowledges his own gag is cited as the series' first instance of breaking the fourth wall, a feat repeated later in Episode 439.