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As the crew arrives at Little Garden, they are surprised to see that the plants and animals there are anything but "little". Nami and Usopp are freaked out and wish to just stay aboard the ship until the Log Pose resets, but Luffy is eager for the chance to go exploring on the island. Vivi decides to join him along with Carue, since she feels it will be a good distraction from thinking about all the problems going on in her country. Shortly after they leave, Zoro also decides to disembark to take a walk; when Sanji asks him to kill something in the forest and bring it back as food, Zoro promises to catch something that Sanji could never kill himself. Pissed off, Sanji challenges Zoro to a hunting contest to see who can bring back the most meat, and Zoro agrees; they both depart, leaving Usopp and Nami alone on the Going Merry, much to their chagrin.
While exploring, Luffy, Vivi, and Carue encounter (to Vivi's horror) a dinosaur! She explains that, since many islands of the Grand Line are isolated and do not interact with each other, their wildlife is in all different phases of evolution; some islands have extremely advanced technology, while others (like Little Garden) are still stuck in prehistoric times. Luffy, naturally, finds the entire experience awesome and happily plays around with the dinosaurs; elsewhere, Zoro and Sanji each separately encounter dinosaurs themselves, humorously not realizing what they are (Sanji taking a T-Rex to be a "giant lizard", and Zoro mistaking a Triceratops for a "rhino") and simply killing them for food. Back on the ship, Nami, remembering that she'd read something strange about Little Garden in the past, finally finds a book about it, learning not only about the prehistoric life, but also that the island is inhabited by giants. Unfortunately, immediately after she discovers this, a giant named Brogy finds Usopp and Nami at the ship, to both their terror; Brogy invites them to "have a feast" with him, but, believing that Brogy plans to eat them, Nami and Usopp try playing dead to get him to leave. However, he simply takes the two of them with him back to his home.
Meanwhile, another giant, Dorry, saves Luffy from being eaten by a dinosaur, and brings him, Vivi, and Carue back to his own home. Both Dorry and Brogy begin cooking dinosaur meat for their respective guests; while Nami and Usopp are still terrified, believing Brogy wants to fatten them up before eating them, Luffy isn't worried, and makes friends with Dorry easily, which in turn puts Vivi at ease. Both giants tell their guests that the Log Pose will take one year to reset (to their horror/chagrin), and also each claim to be the strongest warriors from the land of Elbaf, island of the giants. They reveal that they were sent to the isolated island of Little Garden 100 years ago (giants usually live around 300 years) to settle a dispute between them by fighting to the death; however, they have reached a tie in every single battle they've fought (which now numbers over 73,000 fights), preventing either of them from returning home. What's more, they both admit that neither of them even remembers anymore what their conflict was about in the first place; at this point, they're continuing to fight purely for the sake of their pride as warriors, something that Nami and Vivi clearly both find ridiculous, but impresses both Luffy and Usopp. After witnessing one of these fights (which occur every time a nearby volcano spews ashes) and seeing it again end in a draw, Usopp forms a secondary dream of one day visiting Elbaf and meeting the giants there, since he sees them as prime examples of the "brave warrior of the sea" that he wishes to become. After the battle, Brogy shares some of the wine that the Straw Hats gave him with Dorry, and the two return home to their respective guests.
Elsewhere on the island, in a strange, white house-shaped structure, Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine from the previous arc meet with another pair of Baroque assassins: Mr. 3, a man whose Devil Fruit abilities give him the power to create and manipulate wax (which is what the structure is made out of), and his partner Miss Goldenweek, who looks like a young girl and has the ability to manipulate others' behavior using paint. Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine explain that they followed Vivi and the Straw Hats to complete their assassination mission. Mr. 3 replies he and Miss Goldenweek plan to help them do so, but they also have another reason for being on Little Garden: to kill/capture Dorry and Brogy, who are both former pirates with bounties on their heads of 100 million Berries each, and turn them in for the money. He also reveals that his plan for everyone on the island has already been set into motion.
Shortly afterwards, while enjoying the wine that Brogy gave him, one of the wine barrels explodes inside Dorry's stomach, causing him severe internal injuries, much to the horror of Luffy, Vivi, and Carue. When Vivi wonders if Brogy could have put the explosive in the wine to sabotage their next fight, Dorry strongly refutes this statement, stating that Brogy would never do such a thing. Believing that it had to have been the Straw Hats (seemingly the only other possible suspects), Dorry tries to attack them and Luffy is forced to knock him out. Luffy, by now enraged, agrees with Dorry's assessment about Brogy, stating that the fight between them is far too important to dishonor it via sabotage, and since he knows that no one in his crew would do something like that, either, there must be someone else present on the island.
At this point, all hell starts to break loose for the heroes. The volcano again spews ashes, signalling the time for another fight. When Luffy tries to protest that Dorry can't possibly battle in his condition—and that he shouldn't, either, since his fight was sabotaged and would thus be unfair—Dorry, for the sake of his pride and honor, refuses to back out of the fight. He apologizes to Luffy and Vivi for suspecting them of the sabotage, now believing that it was a sign of disfavor from the god of Elbaf, but before leaving for the fight, pins Luffy's lower half underneath his house to keep him from following or interfering in the battle, to Luffy's dismay. Vivi then notices that Carue has gone missing. Meanwhile, after Brogy also leaves for the fight, Nami and Usopp try to head over to Dorry's home to meet up with Luffy and Vivi, but are chased through the woods by a dinosaur and become separated. Nami sees and approaches what looks like Luffy in the forest, but is actually a painted wax statue created as a trap by the Mr. 3 pair, who capture her. Zoro, lost in the woods while trying to find his way back to the Merry, sees and approaches a similar statue of Nami, and is captured as well. Usopp, having realized that Nami has gone missing, panics, fearing that she has been eaten by a dinosaur, but does manage to find Luffy and Vivi. From a distance, the three of them witness Dorry—who has been struggling throughout the battle due to his injuries (while hiding them from Brogy) and is further sabotaged near the end of the fight by Mr. 3—finally being cut down by Brogy. Brogy's victory is short-lived, though, and Mr. 3 captures him as well.
As Luffy and Usopp both swear vengeance against the saboteurs, the Mr. 5 pair shows up with a badly beaten and unconscious Carue, whom they tortured in a failed attempt to get him to cry out for Vivi and lure her away from her protectors. While they are surprised to see Usopp, whom BW does not know about thanks to the events of the previous arc, they resolve to kill him as well, noting that since Luffy is incapacitated, he will not be able protect himself or the others. Usopp and Vivi both try to fight back, but are quickly defeated by Mr 5.'s explosive powers and Miss Valentine's weight-changing powers. After the pair severely injures and knocks out Usopp and captures Vivi, Mr. 5 further taunts the group by confirming that they were the ones who put the bomb in the wine (which was actually intended for the Straw Hats), and that they've captured Zoro and Nami; when Luffy taunts him in return, Mr. 5 delivers several explosive kicks to his face, and the pair drags a screaming Vivi away while leaving Luffy, Usopp, and Carue for dead.
They bring Vivi to Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek, who have also restrained Brogy. Mr. 3 explains that he plans to kill all four of them (Zoro, Nami, Vivi, and Brogy) by using a giant wax structure topped with candles to melt the wax into small flakes that will eventually coat them inside and out, turning them into wax statues and making them part of his "art". He traps Vivi, Zoro, and Nami on the structure by their feet and holds Brogy down with wax handcuffs next to it, while revealing to all of them the part he played in sabotaging the battle between Brogy and Dorry, much to Brogy's horror. Zoro, disgusted, manages to lift Brogy from his depression by asking the giant to try to break free of his bonds in order to fight together with him, with Zoro actually planning to cut his own feet off to get free from the structure. Before he can go through with it, though (after cutting only halfway through his ankles), Luffy, Usopp, and Carue show up to save the day; however, they struggle in their 3-on-4 battle against the four Baroque assassins. While Usopp and Carue run off with the Mr. 5 pair chasing them, Luffy follows his friends' instructions to knock the pillar over to stop the wax-coating procedure, but this actually just ends up speeding up the process. He finally manages to knock out Mr. 3, only for Miss Goldenweek to use her hypnosis-like painting powers (which are extremely effective against Luffy) to repeatedly prevent him from rescuing his friends.
Usopp and Carue come back only to find that the four prisoners are completely coated with wax now, and thus have minutes at most to live. He succeeds in freeing Luffy from Miss Goldenweek's trap, and, despite being restrained by Miss Valentine, has Carue wrap an oil-covered rope around the entire wax structure, realizing that, if they can find a way to melt the wax, their friends can still be saved. When Mr. 3 gets back up to fight, Luffy uses the flame in his hair to light the rope on fire, lighting up the entire giant wax structure. Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek run off, with Luffy and Carue chasing them. Miss Valentine tries to kill Usopp, but she is defeated by a revived Nami and Vivi, who strike her while emerging from the flames. Mr. 5 tries to shoot all three of them, but Usopp distracts him long enough for the also-revived Zoro to finish him off. Elsewhere, Luffy catches up with Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek, who try to deceive him via well-painted wax copies of Mr. 3 (hoping that Luffy will waste his time attacking the wrong one, giving them an opening to strike); however, Luffy successfully knocks out the real Mr. 3 immediately, saying he knew which one was real via "instinct." As Miss Goldenweek tries to sneak away, Carue corners her and defeats her offscreen.
Meanwhile, Sanji, back at the Going Merry, is worried since the others have been gone for so long, and leaves the ship to go look for them, stumbling upon Mr. 3's wax hideout in the process. After helping himself to some tea, he is about to leave when he hears a Transponder Snail (Den Den Mushi) ringing, and sarcastically answers it by quipping "Hello, you've reached the Crap Café," only to learn that the deep-voiced man on the other end is Mr. 0, the boss of Baroque Works, who is calling for Mr. 3. Remembering what his friends told him about Baroque, Sanji, improvising, pretends to be Mr. 3, reporting that "he" has successfully completed "his" assassination mission and that Vivi and the Straw Hats are dead. Mr. 0 congratulates him and replies that he has sent the Unluckies to deliver an Eternal Pose to Alabasta, and that he is to return immediately. The Unluckies arrive at Mr. 3's hideout and, recognizing Sanji as an imposter, try to kill him; however, Sanji successfully defeats them both, and just barely manages to preserve his cover with Mr. 0. After hanging up, Mr. 0 orders Miss All-Sunday to send Mr. 2 to assassinate Mr. 3 en route to Alabasta. Sanji takes the Eternal Pose from the now-unconscious Unluckies and heads out to find his friends.
In the aftermath of the battle, Dorry (who survived his injury in the fight and was merely unconscious) and Brogy appear to have buried the hatchet for good, and are having a victory celebration with dinosaur meat with the rest of the Straw Hat crew. Sanji arrives and tells the others about his conversation with Mr. 0, stating that, since Baroque Works now believes them to be dead, they won't have to worry anymore about being continuously pursued by assassins on the way to Alabasta. When the rest of the crew laments that, despite this good news, they'll have to wait around anyway for the Log Pose to reset, Sanji also brings out the Eternal Pose he stole, to the humorous shock of the others. With the Pose, and plenty of food thanks to Zoro's and Sanji's hunting contest (which each of them claims they won, but everyone else thinks is a tie), the crew prepares to set sail, bidding goodbye to their new giant friends with Usopp promising to visit Elbaf someday. As they're leaving the island, the Going Merry is almost swallowed by a Sea King that prevents sailors from leaving the island once they've entered it, but Brogy and Dorry work together and defeat it for the sake of helping their friends, allowing the crew to continue on their journey.
While exploring, Luffy, Vivi, and Carue encounter (to Vivi's horror) a dinosaur! She explains that, since many islands of the Grand Line are isolated and do not interact with each other, their wildlife is in all different phases of evolution; some islands have extremely advanced technology, while others (like Little Garden) are still stuck in prehistoric times. Luffy, naturally, finds the entire experience awesome and happily plays around with the dinosaurs; elsewhere, Zoro and Sanji each separately encounter dinosaurs themselves, humorously not realizing what they are (Sanji taking a T-Rex to be a "giant lizard", and Zoro mistaking a Triceratops for a "rhino") and simply killing them for food. Back on the ship, Nami, remembering that she'd read something strange about Little Garden in the past, finally finds a book about it, learning not only about the prehistoric life, but also that the island is inhabited by giants. Unfortunately, immediately after she discovers this, a giant named Brogy finds Usopp and Nami at the ship, to both their terror; Brogy invites them to "have a feast" with him, but, believing that Brogy plans to eat them, Nami and Usopp try playing dead to get him to leave. However, he simply takes the two of them with him back to his home.
Meanwhile, another giant, Dorry, saves Luffy from being eaten by a dinosaur, and brings him, Vivi, and Carue back to his own home. Both Dorry and Brogy begin cooking dinosaur meat for their respective guests; while Nami and Usopp are still terrified, believing Brogy wants to fatten them up before eating them, Luffy isn't worried, and makes friends with Dorry easily, which in turn puts Vivi at ease. Both giants tell their guests that the Log Pose will take one year to reset (to their horror/chagrin), and also each claim to be the strongest warriors from the land of Elbaf, island of the giants. They reveal that they were sent to the isolated island of Little Garden 100 years ago (giants usually live around 300 years) to settle a dispute between them by fighting to the death; however, they have reached a tie in every single battle they've fought (which now numbers over 73,000 fights), preventing either of them from returning home. What's more, they both admit that neither of them even remembers anymore what their conflict was about in the first place; at this point, they're continuing to fight purely for the sake of their pride as warriors, something that Nami and Vivi clearly both find ridiculous, but impresses both Luffy and Usopp. After witnessing one of these fights (which occur every time a nearby volcano spews ashes) and seeing it again end in a draw, Usopp forms a secondary dream of one day visiting Elbaf and meeting the giants there, since he sees them as prime examples of the "brave warrior of the sea" that he wishes to become. After the battle, Brogy shares some of the wine that the Straw Hats gave him with Dorry, and the two return home to their respective guests.
Elsewhere on the island, in a strange, white house-shaped structure, Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine from the previous arc meet with another pair of Baroque assassins: Mr. 3, a man whose Devil Fruit abilities give him the power to create and manipulate wax (which is what the structure is made out of), and his partner Miss Goldenweek, who looks like a young girl and has the ability to manipulate others' behavior using paint. Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine explain that they followed Vivi and the Straw Hats to complete their assassination mission. Mr. 3 replies he and Miss Goldenweek plan to help them do so, but they also have another reason for being on Little Garden: to kill/capture Dorry and Brogy, who are both former pirates with bounties on their heads of 100 million Berries each, and turn them in for the money. He also reveals that his plan for everyone on the island has already been set into motion.
Shortly afterwards, while enjoying the wine that Brogy gave him, one of the wine barrels explodes inside Dorry's stomach, causing him severe internal injuries, much to the horror of Luffy, Vivi, and Carue. When Vivi wonders if Brogy could have put the explosive in the wine to sabotage their next fight, Dorry strongly refutes this statement, stating that Brogy would never do such a thing. Believing that it had to have been the Straw Hats (seemingly the only other possible suspects), Dorry tries to attack them and Luffy is forced to knock him out. Luffy, by now enraged, agrees with Dorry's assessment about Brogy, stating that the fight between them is far too important to dishonor it via sabotage, and since he knows that no one in his crew would do something like that, either, there must be someone else present on the island.
At this point, all hell starts to break loose for the heroes. The volcano again spews ashes, signalling the time for another fight. When Luffy tries to protest that Dorry can't possibly battle in his condition—and that he shouldn't, either, since his fight was sabotaged and would thus be unfair—Dorry, for the sake of his pride and honor, refuses to back out of the fight. He apologizes to Luffy and Vivi for suspecting them of the sabotage, now believing that it was a sign of disfavor from the god of Elbaf, but before leaving for the fight, pins Luffy's lower half underneath his house to keep him from following or interfering in the battle, to Luffy's dismay. Vivi then notices that Carue has gone missing. Meanwhile, after Brogy also leaves for the fight, Nami and Usopp try to head over to Dorry's home to meet up with Luffy and Vivi, but are chased through the woods by a dinosaur and become separated. Nami sees and approaches what looks like Luffy in the forest, but is actually a painted wax statue created as a trap by the Mr. 3 pair, who capture her. Zoro, lost in the woods while trying to find his way back to the Merry, sees and approaches a similar statue of Nami, and is captured as well. Usopp, having realized that Nami has gone missing, panics, fearing that she has been eaten by a dinosaur, but does manage to find Luffy and Vivi. From a distance, the three of them witness Dorry—who has been struggling throughout the battle due to his injuries (while hiding them from Brogy) and is further sabotaged near the end of the fight by Mr. 3—finally being cut down by Brogy. Brogy's victory is short-lived, though, and Mr. 3 captures him as well.
As Luffy and Usopp both swear vengeance against the saboteurs, the Mr. 5 pair shows up with a badly beaten and unconscious Carue, whom they tortured in a failed attempt to get him to cry out for Vivi and lure her away from her protectors. While they are surprised to see Usopp, whom BW does not know about thanks to the events of the previous arc, they resolve to kill him as well, noting that since Luffy is incapacitated, he will not be able protect himself or the others. Usopp and Vivi both try to fight back, but are quickly defeated by Mr 5.'s explosive powers and Miss Valentine's weight-changing powers. After the pair severely injures and knocks out Usopp and captures Vivi, Mr. 5 further taunts the group by confirming that they were the ones who put the bomb in the wine (which was actually intended for the Straw Hats), and that they've captured Zoro and Nami; when Luffy taunts him in return, Mr. 5 delivers several explosive kicks to his face, and the pair drags a screaming Vivi away while leaving Luffy, Usopp, and Carue for dead.
They bring Vivi to Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek, who have also restrained Brogy. Mr. 3 explains that he plans to kill all four of them (Zoro, Nami, Vivi, and Brogy) by using a giant wax structure topped with candles to melt the wax into small flakes that will eventually coat them inside and out, turning them into wax statues and making them part of his "art". He traps Vivi, Zoro, and Nami on the structure by their feet and holds Brogy down with wax handcuffs next to it, while revealing to all of them the part he played in sabotaging the battle between Brogy and Dorry, much to Brogy's horror. Zoro, disgusted, manages to lift Brogy from his depression by asking the giant to try to break free of his bonds in order to fight together with him, with Zoro actually planning to cut his own feet off to get free from the structure. Before he can go through with it, though (after cutting only halfway through his ankles), Luffy, Usopp, and Carue show up to save the day; however, they struggle in their 3-on-4 battle against the four Baroque assassins. While Usopp and Carue run off with the Mr. 5 pair chasing them, Luffy follows his friends' instructions to knock the pillar over to stop the wax-coating procedure, but this actually just ends up speeding up the process. He finally manages to knock out Mr. 3, only for Miss Goldenweek to use her hypnosis-like painting powers (which are extremely effective against Luffy) to repeatedly prevent him from rescuing his friends.
Usopp and Carue come back only to find that the four prisoners are completely coated with wax now, and thus have minutes at most to live. He succeeds in freeing Luffy from Miss Goldenweek's trap, and, despite being restrained by Miss Valentine, has Carue wrap an oil-covered rope around the entire wax structure, realizing that, if they can find a way to melt the wax, their friends can still be saved. When Mr. 3 gets back up to fight, Luffy uses the flame in his hair to light the rope on fire, lighting up the entire giant wax structure. Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek run off, with Luffy and Carue chasing them. Miss Valentine tries to kill Usopp, but she is defeated by a revived Nami and Vivi, who strike her while emerging from the flames. Mr. 5 tries to shoot all three of them, but Usopp distracts him long enough for the also-revived Zoro to finish him off. Elsewhere, Luffy catches up with Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek, who try to deceive him via well-painted wax copies of Mr. 3 (hoping that Luffy will waste his time attacking the wrong one, giving them an opening to strike); however, Luffy successfully knocks out the real Mr. 3 immediately, saying he knew which one was real via "instinct." As Miss Goldenweek tries to sneak away, Carue corners her and defeats her offscreen.
Meanwhile, Sanji, back at the Going Merry, is worried since the others have been gone for so long, and leaves the ship to go look for them, stumbling upon Mr. 3's wax hideout in the process. After helping himself to some tea, he is about to leave when he hears a Transponder Snail (Den Den Mushi) ringing, and sarcastically answers it by quipping "Hello, you've reached the Crap Café," only to learn that the deep-voiced man on the other end is Mr. 0, the boss of Baroque Works, who is calling for Mr. 3. Remembering what his friends told him about Baroque, Sanji, improvising, pretends to be Mr. 3, reporting that "he" has successfully completed "his" assassination mission and that Vivi and the Straw Hats are dead. Mr. 0 congratulates him and replies that he has sent the Unluckies to deliver an Eternal Pose to Alabasta, and that he is to return immediately. The Unluckies arrive at Mr. 3's hideout and, recognizing Sanji as an imposter, try to kill him; however, Sanji successfully defeats them both, and just barely manages to preserve his cover with Mr. 0. After hanging up, Mr. 0 orders Miss All-Sunday to send Mr. 2 to assassinate Mr. 3 en route to Alabasta. Sanji takes the Eternal Pose from the now-unconscious Unluckies and heads out to find his friends.
In the aftermath of the battle, Dorry (who survived his injury in the fight and was merely unconscious) and Brogy appear to have buried the hatchet for good, and are having a victory celebration with dinosaur meat with the rest of the Straw Hat crew. Sanji arrives and tells the others about his conversation with Mr. 0, stating that, since Baroque Works now believes them to be dead, they won't have to worry anymore about being continuously pursued by assassins on the way to Alabasta. When the rest of the crew laments that, despite this good news, they'll have to wait around anyway for the Log Pose to reset, Sanji also brings out the Eternal Pose he stole, to the humorous shock of the others. With the Pose, and plenty of food thanks to Zoro's and Sanji's hunting contest (which each of them claims they won, but everyone else thinks is a tie), the crew prepares to set sail, bidding goodbye to their new giant friends with Usopp promising to visit Elbaf someday. As they're leaving the island, the Going Merry is almost swallowed by a Sea King that prevents sailors from leaving the island once they've entered it, but Brogy and Dorry work together and defeat it for the sake of helping their friends, allowing the crew to continue on their journey.
Little Garden Arc has the following tropes
- An Arm and a Leg: Narrowly averted. Zoro fully intends to cut his feet off to fight Mr. 3 and his gang, but Luffy's timely intervention makes it unnecessary. Zoro still has scars around his ankles from the attempt, though.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Nami and Vivi take this pose after being freed from Mr. 3's wax and saving Usopp from Miss Valentine.
- Bear Hug: Mr. 5 grabs Usopp in one in an attempt to blow him to kingdom come by denotating his entire body. Zoro quickly puts a kibosh to that.
- Big Damn Heroes: Downplayed. Luffy, Usopp, and Carue have one of these moments when they show up to save Zoro, Vivi, Nami, and Brogy from Mr. 3's wax powers, but even after they arrive, they're faced with an uphill struggle to actually defeat the BW agents and complete the rescue.
- Bowdlerise: In the manga, Mr.3 pins Brogy down by stabbing four giant wax swords in his hands and feet after the latter almost breaks free from the shackles, and later Luffy grabs on one of the sword's handle to charge his attack, causing great pain to Brogy. In the anime, the swords are removed and Mr. 3 just makes bigger shackles.
- Brick Joke/Call-Back: The Going Merry gets swallowed by a giant goldfish whose poop is massive. This is one of the tall tales Usopp told Kaya back in Syrup Village.
- Calling Your Attacks: While naturally everyone does this, Usopp intentionally calls the name of a different attack to trick Mr. 5 into swallowing a Fire-Breathing Diner instead of an explosive he could No-Sell.
- Character Development: For Usopp, who is now so inspired by the awesomeness of Dorry and Brogy that he decides he wants to visit their home island, and fearlessly charges towards Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek when he finds out that they've interfered with their eternal battle.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Dorry and Brogy will (indirectly) be important in the Enies Lobby and Egghead arcs, and Mr. 3 will be extremely important in the Impel Down and Marineford arcs.
- Clothing Damage:
- Usopp burns off Luffy's shirt to free him from the Color Trap that Miss Goldenweek put on it.
- Nami gets her shirt burned off in the fire that Luffy and Usopp create to get them out of the Candle Set Trap, leaving her in a bra. Strangely, Vivi and Zoro, who are in the exact same situation and the exact same fire, are fully clothed when they escape.
- Combination Attack/Razor Wind: "HAKOKU!" by Dorry and Brogy.
- Convection Shmonvection: Zoro, Nami, Vivi, and Brogy are straight-up set on fire by Luffy, Usopp, and Carue in order to melt the wax off of them. Not only should this have completely destroyed all of their clothes, but the hot wax melting onto their skin should have burned them all horribly. Instead, only Nami's shirt is burned off (the others don't suffer any Clothing Damage), and they emerge burn-free from the inferno, instead just covered in the smudges similar to Luffy's and Usopp's battle damage. Hell, Zoro is still on fire when he bursts out of the flames to cut down Mr. 5, and yet he's totally fine afterwards.
- Creepy Child: Miss Goldenweek, though she is actually Older Than She Looks.
- Cross Counter: During their first on-screen duel, Dorry and Brogy disarm each other at the same time and move to shield bash their opponent. As a result they both end up smashing the other in the face with their shield at the same time.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- While Usopp was never a minor character, this arc allows him to really shine as a hero and a warrior in his own right, and he's instrumental in saving the day, even moreso than Luffy.
- Carue also gets spotlight separately from Vivi, playing just as important a role in saving the day as Usopp.
- Death Trap: The Tokudai Candle Service Set produces a gradually thickening cloud of wax vapor surrounding Mr. 3's captives. They will gradually be encased in solidifed wax, eventually converting them into wax sculptures while still alive. The process takes several minutes, during which the victims will begin to suffocate as the wax builds up in their lungs as well.
- Designated Girl Fight: It only lasts a few seconds, but Nami and Vivi take out Miss Valentine at the very end. This is also the only victorious fight they get to do the entire arc, as Nami doesn't get to fight at all prior and Vivi is beaten when she and Usopp try and fight the Mr. 5 pair.
- Disney Death: Dorry, who gets cut down in battle by Brogy thanks to sabotage from the BW agents, but later turns out to be okay.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: 4Kids (again) cuts this entire arc out, even though it's important for multiple reasons: it is how the crew gets an Eternal Pose to Alabasta, how Nami gets her serious fever that directly leads to the next arc, gives Usopp some needed Character Development and a more specific dream to aspire to, and will be important in the Enies Lobby and Egghead arcs. Instead, Mr. 0/Crocodile later decides to try to kill Mr. 3 for no reason, not to mention the latter's importance in the Impel Down arc, while the Eternal Pose, rather hamfistedly, is something that Vivi had in her pocket the whole time. Also, Mr. 3 appears at Rainbase and claims he has been following the Straw Hats since Logue Town (which makes no sense considering that the Straw Hats didn't make enemies of Baroque Works until after that time).
- Failed a Spot Check: Mr. 0, while talking on the Transponder Snail with "Mr. 3" (actually Sanji), apparently doesn't notice that the person he's talking to has a much deeper voice than the real Mr. 3, as well as totally different speech patterns. (Let's face it, it's kind of hard to imagine Mr. 3 answering a call with the greeting "This is the Shitty Restaurant, what can I get you?") He seems slightly perturbed by "his" odd behavior, but not nearly as suspicious as he should be; it's only much later, in the Alabasta arc, that he realizes that the guy he spoke to here was an imposter.
- Fighting from the Inside: After being hit with the Tranquil Green, Luffy sits down to join Miss Goldenweek's picnic. Before Usopp frees him, Luffy is visibly straining to try and break free of the control.
- The Fog of Ages: Dorry and Brogy have spend the last century in a never ending battle with each over on Little Garden. However over the years they've forgotten exactly why they started fighting in the first place, or even their former bounties as pirates. Now they fight for honor, their pride, and because they like it.
- Foreshadowing:
- Sanji and Zoro get into a hunting contest to see who can catch the biggest animal, but neither can agree how to judge which of their catches is larger. This is the same argument which led Brogy and Dorry to their current duel.
- During the first clash between the two giants, Brogy's axe strike aimed for Dorry's head is deviated by the helmet, hinting that the blade isn't as sharp as it used to be. Later on, Dorry can survive a strike from Brogy's axe because by now is too worn down and blunt to fatally wound him.
- Friendly Enemy: While Dorry and Brogy may be engaged in a century long Duel to the Death that's only because of their culture's teachings about how to settle disputes, in actuality the two where formally co-captains of a pirate crew and are still best friends. When Mr. 3 sees Brogy crying he interprets it to being Tears of Joy over finally defeating his opponent when in actuality Brogy was mourning the (seeming) loss of his friend.
- Gentle Giants: Downplayed with Dorry and Brogy. Their entire culture is built around being a Proud Warrior Race Guy, and they used to be co-captains of a pirate crew and have very high bounties, but they are pleasant enough to outsiders, though Dorry openly mentions that in the past some pirates who landed there died because they tried to attack them.
- Girlish Pigtails: Miss Goldenweek.
- Glass Cannon: The Mr. 3 and Mr. 5 pairs are both very deadly, but they rely on covert trickery to get close enough to defeat the Straw Hats. Once they're actually confronted face to face without the gimmicks, they go down very quickly and in one hit each (with Luffy taking out Mr. 3, Carue defeating Miss Goldenweek, Zoro and Usopp defeating Mr. 5, and Vivi and Nami taking down Miss Valentine). This is actually lampshaded by Crocodile in the Alabasta Arc, as he explicitly made Mr. 3 higher in the pecking order than Mr. 4 because of his intelligence, not his combat capability.
- Here We Go Again!: After ensuring the Straw Hats can make it to the next island Brogy and Dorry resume their duel once the volcano goes off, albeit it without the use of their weapons. Future covers arcs will show that the two continue the fight until after the two-year timeskip, where they're seen back on Elbaf.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Mr. 3's Flaming Hair is just the fire source Luffy needs to burn the rope Usopp and Carue set up, setting Mr. 3's wax structure ablaze and sending his plans crashing down into a fiery mess.
- Honor Before Reason: As warriors of Elbaf Brogy and Dorry take their pride and honor very seriously, hence why they still continue their century long duel even though they no longer remember why they are fighting to begin with. Even though Dorry is in no condition to fight after drinking the explosive wine he still goes to fight Brogy as their honor demands. Likewise Brogy realised that something was wrong with Dorry during their fight but choose to keep fighting knowing that his friend wouldn't appreciate being pitied over a handicap.
- Hypno Fool: Luffy is very susceptible to Miss Goldenweek's hypnosis.
- Incendiary Exponent: When Mr. 5 is about to kill Usopp, Zoro stops him with one attack while his swords are still on fire after being freed from the wax prison.
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: Mr. 3's Candle Champion move.
- Ironic Echo: Mr. 3 mocks Luffy as a monkey who can only fight by relying on instinct. Luffy then beats him by seeing right through his and Miss Goldenweek's statue-clone deception and knocking out the real thing; when Mr. 3 asks how Luffy knew which one was the real him, Luffy just answers, "Instinct."
- Ironic Nickname: "Little Garden"...filled with large exotic vegetation and prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs. Then we learn that it was given that name because it is a "little garden"...to the giants there.
- Jaw Drop: Played for Laughs. Once Sanji joins up with the rest of the crew at the end of the arc, they're lamenting that they can't leave the island yet since it'll take the Log Pose a while to reset, only for him to casually take out the Eternal Pose he just stole and ask why they can't leave. Cue Carue, Luffy, Usopp, Vivi, Nami, and Zoro all staring at him in silence with giant jaw drops, to Sanji's confusion.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Mr. 5 plants a bomb in Dorry's drink and blows it up inside him. Usopp badly injures him by tricking him into swallowing an incredibly spicy projectile that leaves him spitting up fire.
- Lazy Artist: Miss Goldenweek plays this for laughs.
- Mad Artist: Mr. 3, whose idea of art is encasing people in wax, essentially turning them into wax statues for Miss Goldenweek to paint over.
- Mad Bomber: Mr. 5's Devil Fruit power allows him to turn his entire body into a bomb.
- A Mech by Any Other Name: Mr. 3's "Candle Champion!"
- My God, What Have I Done?: Brogy has such a moment when he realizes that an intruder (Mr. 3) interfered with his duel against Dorry. He's not upset over Dorry's death by itself (he realized that he was injured) but more on the fact that an outsider interfered for his reasons.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Straw Hats think that breaking the pillar holding Mr. 3's spinning wax structure is enough to destroy it and free them. It actually makes it spin faster.
- No-Sell: Mr. 5 eats Usopp's exploding star, then comments it tasted a little bland.
- Not Quite Dead: Dorry swallows wine containing an explosive which detonates inside his stomach, and later Brogy seemingly slice him open with his axe and mourns his death... after the villains are defeated, Dorry suddenly sits up, in bad shape but clearly alive, prompting a Wild Take from everyone.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Ms. Goldenweek gives off a good one when she realizes Usopp is about to burn off the hypnotic symbol that's keeping Luffy from ruining the entire Little Garden operation.
- Zoro, Nami and Vivi get a more comical one when Luffy breaks the pillar holding Mr. 3's giant wax structure. At first they're cheering, but then they realize the structure is falling dangerously close towards them.
- Miss Valentine has one as she is about to finish off Usopp, only to look over and see the revived Vivi and Nami leap out of the flames at her and deliver a simultaneous One-Hit KO to her, saving Usopp and knocking Miss Valentine out cold.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: These ones are pirates, too.
- Out of Focus: Sanji again, just like with the previous arc. Upon arriving at the island, he gets goaded into a hunting contest with Zoro, and ends up being entirely absent from all of the battles of the arc, even though his assistance might have made the final fight much easier for the heroes (who spend the majority of the battle at a disadvantage in a 3-on-4 fight, where one of those three is a duck, to boot). This is even lampshaded by Usopp. However, as a result, Baroque Works still doesn't know about Sanji's existence as a Straw Hat member, which proves to be absolutely vital to the Straw Hats' success in the Alabasta arc. This is also spectacularly subverted at the end of the arc; see Spanner in the Works below.
- Precision F-Strike: The English version of the anime has Sanji mutter "shit" - one of the only times it's uttered in the dub - when he realizes he's talking to Crocodile over the phone.
- Proud Warrior Race Guys: Dorry and Brogy are this. Their code of honor from Elbaf dictates that they must fight to death to settle an argument, and both of them take it very seriously, despite them being evenly matched for a century. Despite this, they remain life-long friends. Turns out the argument was because a little girl saw the Sea Kings they killed for lunch and asked which one was bigger.
- Required Secondary Powers: Mr. 5 explodes parts of himself as his superpower, so naturally he's immune to explosions, to the point swallowing an explosive has no effect on him.
- Reverse Psychology: When Luffy is standing inside the betrayal symbol, he does the opposite of whatever his friends tell him to do. Vivi counters this by telling him to never step off the symbol.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Mr. 5 goes after Usopp and Carue with a fancy new-model revolver. The best part? All he has to do is breathe in it to load it with exploding, invisible bullets.
- Shout-Out: A surprisingly subtle one to Dragon Ball in the jungle: in Dragon Ball, during Muten's first test on Goku and Krillin, the latter is exploring the jungle in search for the marked stone toss by Muten where he's attackes by a saber-tooth tiger, which he easily dispatched, and then runs into a massive triceratops. In One Piece, Sanji is attacked by a saber-tooth tiger (which he defeats offpanels and use as a mount) while Zoro at one point is seen confronting a Triceratops, mistaking it for a Rhino.
- Sinister Silhouttes: Mr. 0 is introduced this way, with his conversation with "Mr. 3" (in actuality, Sanji). It makes him really ominous especially as he starts to pick up on the lies "Mr. 3" tells him about completing his mission to eliminate Vivi and the Straw Hats, and although he doesn't catch out Sanji as an imposter, he orders Mr. 3's elimination for not doing the job thoroughly enough.
- Slippery Skid: Invoked by Mr. 3, who uses his wax powers to make Dorry slip so that Brogy can finally gain the advantage he needs to end the duel.
- Smug Snake: Mr. 3. Especially when he brags about taking down a criminal worth 42 million Berries. (Luffy is worth 30 million.)
- Spanner in the Works:
- At the end of the previous arc, the upper echelons of Baroque Works (except for Miss All-Sunday, who clearly didn't tell) did not know about Usopp and Sanji being members of the Straw Hats. While BW does find out about Usopp here, they still don't know about Sanji by the end of this arc (due to him not being present for any of the battles with BW agents), which ends up saving the Straw Hats' lives in Alabasta.
- Sanji also gets a more direct moment of this, with some Guile Hero thrown in, at the end of the arc when he stumbles across Mr. 3's hideout in the woods and intercepts a call from Mr. 0; with some quick thinking, and by pretending to be Mr. 3, he is able to convince Mr. 0 that all the Straw Hats are dead (which allows them to avoid pursuit from BW for the rest of their journey to Alabasta) and intercept an Eternal Pose to Alabasta from the Unluckies, which saves the group from having to wait a year until the Log Pose resets.
- The ending flashback shows that 100 years ago, the Giant Warrior Pirates were unmatched and could do as they pleased. What caused their crew to break up? One day, an innocent, unassuming little girl asked Dorry and Broggy which of them caught the largest beast. This would spark the argument that became the duels fought on Little Garden until they were seemingly resolved prior to the Egghead arc.
- During the Egghead arc, Dorry and Brogy return home to Elbaf, and are revealed to have teamed up with ''Shanks'' to intercept the Kid Pirates.
- The Stoic: Miss Goldenweek.
- Tempting Fate: Mr. 3 hides in a forest surrounded by wax copies of himself, mocking Luffy that he'll never find and defeat him because he's a dumb brute who relies purely on instinct to fight. Luffy then stretches out a kick and hits the real Mr. 3. A battered Mr. 3 asks how he could've possibly find him before he collapses. Luffy replies, "Instinct".
- Undying Loyalty: When Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine attempt to lure Vivi into a trap by getting Carue to yell, Carue doesn't make a peep despite getting the crap beaten out of him.
- Villain Ball:
- The Baroque agents have (seemingly) killed Dorry and captured Brogy, along with several of the Straw Hat Pirates. A more direct villain might have simply finished the captives off quickly before mopping up the survivors, but Mr. 3's decides to indulge himself by using and then admiring a time-consuming Death Trap rather than fighting seriously. This gives Luffy and Usopp enough time to arrive and save the captives.
- Even though Miss Goldenweek basically has Luffy dead to rights with her Colors Trap hypnosisnote , Mr. 3 insists on finishing Luffy off physically, by building a huge wax battlesuit and making her use the rest of her paint to color it. When Luffy (with Usopp's help) ends up outmuscling said battlesuit, both of them are pretty much screwed.
- The Voiceless: Miss Goldenweek... or so it seems at first. It turns out she just isn't very talkative.
- Wax Museum Morgue: Mr. 3 plans to turn Zoro, Nami and Vivi into this. Zoro decides to pose just in case their friends don't manage to save them.
- Warm-Up Boss: Mr. 3 is this. Four people do come close to dying, but he goes down pretty easily once his plan comes crashing down.
- Worf Had the Flu: The only reason why Luffy manages to take down Dorry during their brief struggle (and not without getting stomped into the ground in the process) is that the latter had just drunk a bomb which went off in his stomach.
- Wrecked Weapon: After noting how dull their weapons have become Dorry and Brogy decide to use them one final time in a Combination Attack that kills a Sea King that ate the Going Merry, ensuring their new friends can continue their journey. Sure enough the stress of using said attack completely shatters their weapons for good.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: We later learn of Mr. 0's inclination towards this trope when Sanji poses as Mr. 3 to tell him not to expect trouble from the Straw Hats, while receiving a Eternal Pose to Alabasta via the Unluckies...only for Mr. 0 to order Mr. 2 to eliminate him once he arrives.
Story Impact
- Little Garden Arc introduces the second non-human race of One Piece: the giants, and one of their countries, Elbaf. Usopp is really impressed by these warriors and wishes he could become such a brave one himself, and sets a secondary goal to visit Elbaf someday.
- Nami gets bitten by a bug that will make her sick during the next arc. As a result, Luffy decides to recruit a doctor in said arc to prevent this from happening again.
- Usopp's friendship with the giants will play a vital role during the battle at Enies Lobby in the Enies Lobby arc, when he meets Kashi and Oimo and helps convince them to join his side due to the World Government lying to them about Dorry's and Brogy's fate.
- This arc introduces two more members of Baroque Works: Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek, the former of whom has Devil Fruit powers that allow him to make and manipulate wax. Mr. 3, in addition to showing up again in the Alabasta arc, also becomes important in the Impel Down and Marineford arcs.
- This is also an arc where Vivi learns more about the crew and shows more and more signs of friendship (i.e., when she wonders about Luffy's behavior after he had been trapped by Dorry in Chapter 119, when Zoro and Nami stop worrying once Luffy appears in Chapter 123, when she hugs Sanji after he recovers the Eternal Pose in Chapter 128).
- This story arc is the first to mention Nami and Usopp being the weakest members of the crew. They realize this after they're the only ones left behind on the Going Merry.
- Since they remain at Little Garden during the Alabasta arc, Miss Goldenweek, Mr. 5, and Miss Valentine will end up journeying to free a number of their fellow Officer Agents being held captive after their arrest in Alabasta during the manga mini-arc Miss Goldenweek's "Operation: Meet Baroque Works", except for the ones that would be seen again during the Impel Down Arc.
- Mr. 3 is targeted by Mr. 0 for failing his mission and lying to him in his report, because Sanji poses as the agent before any of the agents had formally met their boss or had contact with him, which makes Mr. 0 think Mr. 3 betrayed him.
- Zoro and Sanji have somewhat butted heads before, but here, they get into an argument about collecting dinosaur meat, which sparks their long-lasting rivalry and makes their relationship much more openly vitriolic than it was before.
- The Unluckies are both defeated and later caught by the Marines, after which both of them sell out their organization by drawing composite sketches of the agents for a bribe of food.
