The Straw Hats only get themselves in even more trouble.
What They Say:
The New Fish-Man Pirates launch their raid on the Ryugu Palace only to find the Straw Hats have beaten them to the punch. Meanwhile Franky reaches the Sunny with the help of Den and begins plans to set sail again!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece has slowly, very slowly, been drawing together its plot points since getting the gang back together and sending them underwater to the land of mermaids and Fish-men. And King Neptune. It’s felt a little chaotic, a little flighty and in a number of instances kind of pointless and overdone after spending the last couple of years focusing almost exclusively on Luffy and other characters rather than most of the Straw Hats. It hasn’t been bad, but it’s been harder to really get into the rhythm of it which has surprised me, especially since I’ve been watching the older episodes on DVD so it’s not like I’m not in tune with the gang being together and going through adventures. But with the last episode or two, it’s started to bring the stories together in a better way, even with Luffy off on his own with the mermaid princess stuck inside of a giant shark.
The previous episode focused a good bit on the Fish-men pirates as lead by Hordy and that helped to cement the kind of level they want to play at when it comes to taking over the Ryugu Palace. Of course, they’re a bit behind the curve as the Straw Hats have inadvertently occupied the place already and caused a lot of trouble there with the guards and others that operate out of there, making for an awkward scene when Hordy’s band of merry pirates arrive. Well, not so merry since Hordy sent the humans there first to be fodder for starting things and they have to go up against Zoro. And that’s just not nice. Even Brooke and Nami aren’t slouches in this area and that has the group working well as the tide changes a bit, though they’re not quite up on the nuance of it all.
Thankfully, the subplot material here does move things along in small ways that are welcome. We do finally see Robin again as she’s basically sightseeing alone in a bus, staying actively out of everyone’s way without realizing what’s going on. And Franky has made his way back to the Sunny only to find it in prime shape still and practically ready to get sailing again. His pride in his ship shows well and with a merman named Den accompanying him to check it out, the two get to share in that pride pretty well considering what Franky has put into the ship. The two have a good bit of dialogue overall and it helps to explain some of the variety of the mer-creatures we’ve seen since some are tied to various other creatures via the Fish-men line like sharks and octopuses. It’s easy enough to imagine how it happens, but a bit of explanation goes a long way here.
In Summary:
One Piece brings things together a little bit more here in setting up the situation that Hordy and the others are about to walk into with Ryugu Palace. It’s the kind of silly confusion with a dark edge to it that works well and it puts the Straw Hats right in the middle of it all in a way that they didn’t expect. But ever since they got to the palace, nothing has gone right for them with the accusations that were leveled against them and Zoro’s shenanigans that made it worse. Never mind what will happen when they discover that Luffy snuck out the princess. It’s still a simple story at the moment with no real, large theme tying it all together yet, but it’s proving to be fun and enjoyable at least as it tries to lay out more of where it’s going to go.
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.
