Jaya Arc

The Jaya arc is the twelfth story arc in the anime and manga series One Piece, and the first of two in the Skypiea Saga. Jaya is the fifth island the Straw Hat Pirates encounter on The Grand Line. The island is made up of rain forest, and also a port town called "Mock Town", which is known for being full of pirates. This is also the first arc dubbed by FUNimation.

An Archeologist and a Ship From the Sky
With Princess Vivi now safely back in Arabasta and a new crew mate, Nico Robin on board, the Straw Hats' next adventure begins when a giant ship suddenly falls from the sky. At this point, the Log Pose starts pointing straight up and Robin explains that the log was "captured" by an island with a stronger magnetic field--a sky island. While exploring the sinking ruins of the ship, they come across an old map of a land named Skypiea.

When they try to salvage the sinking ship for more information, they come across a group of pirates led by Masira, who claims that he has control over the territory and all ships that sink there belong to him. Him and his crew begin salvage operation and are in the process of raising the ship when they run into a snag, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji, who are underwater searching the wreck start beating up Masira's crew. Masira goes down to handle things and confronts them when a Giant Seaturtle comes along and swallows the ship, though Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Masira all escape. However, out of nowhere, the sky turns dark and three humongous shadows appear. Out of fear, the pirates run away as quickly as possible. Luckily, Robin managed to take an eternal pose to the nearby island of Jaya from Masira's Ship, and they go there for more information.

The Dreamless City
In the port town of Mock Town, the group of Luffy, Zoro, and Nami encounter several odd people, all of whom are members of the Blackbeard Pirates, until they end up at a hotel. There, they encounter Sarquiss of the Bellamy Pirates, who insults the group and even gives them some money to buy better clothes. They later end up in a bar, where they encounter Blackbeard himself, though they don't know who he is. After he leaves, Bellamy himself barges in looking for Luffy, claiming that he wants to test him to see if he's worthy of joining his "New Age" of pirates. However, when Nami asks the bartender for information about Sky Island, Bellamy rejects this notion immediately and the entire bar starts ridiculing the three.

In Bellamy's New Age, dreams will be worthless. He explains that so many people are focused on searching for dream treasures like The Gold City and One Piece that they ignore all of the real treasures around them. Bellamy attacks Luffy and Zoro while the other people in the bar throw objects at them, but despite Nami's urging, they refuse to fight back--this mirrors how Shanks and his crew didn't fight back against Higuma the Bear when he and his crew attacked them in Makino's bar.

The Tale of Norland the Liar
They are thrown out of the bar, where they once again encounter Blackbeard, who states that they did the right thing and encourages Luffy on his dreams. The three go back to the ship to discover that Robin managed to find some relevant information--on the other side of the island there was a man who might know how to reach Sky Island, Montblanc Cricket. On the way there, they encounter Shoujou, Masira's brother, but they manage to escape. They arrive at his house to find that it's empty, but they find a book--the story of Montblanc Norland, aka "Liar Norland". Sanji explains that it is a fairy tale from North Blue.

The story of Norland goes that while exploring the Grand Line hundreds of years ago, Norland came across a city of gold. He returned to his home and informed the king, who accompanied him on the next journey to the island. However, when they reached the island, the city of gold was gone. Angered, the king sentenced him to death for lying. To his last breath, Norland claimed that he was telling the truth, and that the gold city must have sunk underwater. However, no one would believe him and he was executed.

As it turns out, Cricket is a descendant of Norland and is trying to prove whether it exists or not by diving into the ocean every day to search for evidence, to the point of injuring himself. Chopper treats him and they meet up with Masira and Shojo again, who help Cricket out on his quest under the name "Saruyama Alliance". Cricket explains that if Sky Island exists, the only way to reach it would be through "Knock-Up Stream", a humongous geyser in the ocean. In order to reach it, Cricket has the Straw Hats go into the forest to search for a "South Bird", a bird whose head always points south. During this, the Saruyama Alliance upgrades the Going Merry in order to withstand Knock-Up Stream.

The Captain's True Power
Meanwhile, hearing that Cricket managed to uncover some gold, Bellamy and his crew decide to steal it from him, severely injuring him and the others in the process using his "Bane Bane no Mi", which can turn his limbs into springs. When the crew returns with the South Bird in tow, Luffy decides to get the gold back. In Mock Town, new bounties are mailed in, and to everyone's surprise, they find out that Luffy's bounty is now 100,000,000 while Zoro's is 60,000,000 --in comparison, Bellamy's was only 55,000,000 Bellamy scoffs at this, claiming that they were fakes made to scare him. This calms everyone down, until Luffy screams for Bellamy to come out.



Luffy demands that Bellamy give the gold back, but he refuses. Bellamy attacks him with his devil fruit powers, but Luffy still doesn't fight back. Angered, he decides to finish him off with his ultimate attack, Spring Hopper. At this point, Luffy finally attacks, and takes him down in one punch. He takes the gold and heads back to Cricket's house while the townspeople run away in fear. Upon hearing about his bounty, Blackbeard and his crew decide to strike.

A World on the Move, A Ship Going Up
Somewhere else, on an island in the Grand Line, the status of Buggy and his crew is shown, as Ace boards his ship and offers to help him search for Luffy. Meanwhile, Shanks tries to contact Whitebeard only to have his letter torn up, with Whitebeard telling the messenger to have Shanks meet him in person. On Mariejois, it is being discussed who should replace Crocodile in the Shichibukai when Laffite of the Blackbeard crew appears to recommend his captain. The people there state that nobody knows about him, but Laffite states that they'll be addressing that problem soon.

When Luffy returns, he and the crew set off for Knock-Up Stream, led by the Saruyama Alliance and the South Bird. When they reach it, they are confronted by the Blackbeard Pirates, who reveal the Straw Hat's bounties to them. However, before they can do anything, the Straw Hats are caught in Knock-Up Stream and are sent flying into the White Sea.

Manga-to-Anime Changes
Cf Manga and Anime Difference Guide

Story Impact
Jaya Arc introduces a lot of important characters. All these introductions are related with Blackbeard, the pirate Ace is looking for, whose attempt to capture Luffy is stopped by the Knock Up Stream. Blackbeard needs to capture a big name in order to be given the title of Shichibukai, as Lafitte explains the Marines during their meeting. It is during this meeting that Fleet Admiral Sengoku is introduced along with Shichibukai Bartholomew Kuma and Donquixote Doflamingo. This arc also presents Whitebeard and his future encounter with Shanks which will deal about Blackbeard and Ace.