The undersea adventures continue as things suddenly go quite big, at least when it comes to new people arriving on the scene.
What They Say:
King Neptune himself descends to the lower world with personal business to settle with the Straw Hats. Meanwhile, the true power and intentions of the New Fish-Man Pirates is made clear in all its shocking horror!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the Fish-Man Island storyline has had some interesting visuals, it’s been a slow brewing storyline overall as the cast has been split and pulled back together quickly and it hasn’t had too much focus overall. There’s been some good stuff to be had to be sure when it comes to the look of it and some of the character moments, but it’s also been balanced by less than fun stuff such as how Sanji has been dealt with. Add in the pirates that are out there, the Fish-Men gang and the mermaids in general and the show has been offering up a bunch of stuff but without any real vision at this point. It feels lik eit’s treading water more than anything else, but the hints of Arlong and the others makes for some fun bits to be had as the show calls back to that very early storyline again.
The introduction of Hordy-Jones, the new leader of the Fish-Men pirates does help to start solidifying things as there’s now a big bad to rally around that is reminiscent of Arlong in a fun way, especially as he uses drugs to boost himself up. Arlong was more goofy than anything when you get down to it, but Hordy here comes across as a badass to be sure. That does a nice bit of setup for down the line as the series wants to focus elsewhere first, which is by bringing in King Neptune astride on a whale coming down to Fish-Man Island after Nami emptied out Pappagu’s store, a brand known as Criminal of all things. The little subplots and tweaks like that which goes back a bit is just amusing and fun to see in the series since it knows how to have fun, playing similar to the way Brook’s famous after his Soul King storyline during the two year hiatus.
Neptune’s arrival has some bad portents at first, but it turns fairly amusing as he invites the Straw Hats to the Ryugu Palace, something that puts all those from the undersea into awe but doesn’t make much sense to the crew. With it being in essence the holy place of the sea from which where Neptune and his family live, being invited there is the hugest of honors and has everyone looking at the Straw Hats in a new light. Of course, Luffy’s pretty flippant about the whole thing as is to be expected and his particular style works well with the king of the seas since he obviously knows what he’s dealing with. Luffy’s reputation is pretty big at this point and having interacted with so many people over the years, it’s hard to imagine that the details of his personality haven’t made it even this far.
In Summary:
While we get some decent bits of background action to events here and a greater look at the Hordy-Jones group that looks like it’ll be the main cause of trouble for a bit, the episode is largely focused on other events here involving the Straw Hats and their time on Fish-Man Island itself. The group is slowly getting back together as Nami is caught up with here and that helps a fair bit since it also reaffirms the ties that the group has to Pappagu from quite awhile back. The introduction of Neptune is an amusing bit of theatrics that has me wondering where it will go next since it brings Luffy and the gang to a new place that can certainly elevate their status amongst people undersea, but could also shake other things up elsewhere with those that dislike all of it. What the episode did though is left me wanting to see more from Hordy and his group since he looks like he’ll be a fair bit of predictable fun that could go in some twisty directions before we realize it.
Grade: B-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
