Dark tides underwater begin to rise, but there’s still some room for fun and silliness.
What They Say:
Most of King Neptune’s army is able to flee the palace safely, but Zoro, Neptune and the other Straw Hats are in deeper trouble than they realized; meanwhile, the other Straw Hats begin assembling at the Sea Forest and meet Jimbei – who has a startling secret to share!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece has been slowly but surely bringing the various elements together since coming to the Fishe-men island and the undersea realm, but it’s taken its time in really becoming engaging. The new attack by Hordy, after sending in the humans to soften things up against Ryugu Palace, has now brought us to a decent fight as we get to see Zoro going up against Hordy. We got a nice tease of it before but it just made you want even more. And now, with the fish-men getting all buffed out in order to deal with the royal army, the scale of the battle builds up well. But there’s such an intensity and madness about those involved that it feels like things are being manipulated in a bigger way.
The battle takes some surprising turns early on, but it wants to keep its focus squarely on the fight between Neptune and Hordy. While Hordy may be a pint sized guy in terms of actual size, there are some things that Hordy has up his sleeve that lets him put a slowdown on Neptune’s escape, which was also needed in order to save the couple of Straw Hats that are still with him. The scale of the fight has been clear for a bit now once we saw Decken getting in line with Hordy and the way they made their initial push against the palace, but now things are becoming even more deadly and problematic. You expected things to go poorly and not be resolved quickly, but Hordy is making a very strong and confident push in dealing with his foes.
While there is a lot of big action here within the palace, the show also goes for some quieter material as well as Luffy makes it to the ship with the group he’s with now and discovers that Jimbei is there as well. And you really have to feel bad for Jimbei when he realizes that Luffy’s come with the princess no less. His eyes bug out so big it’s positively hysterical. It’s a welcome bit of levity overall, including even Sanji being all enamored of the princess, which still feels more over the top than it has in seasons past. It’s not all levity though as it starts to hit some of what’s going on in general in the area, but for the most part it’s just fun to see how out of the loop Jimbei suddenly feels even as events start to get out of control.
In Summary:
This episode does a pretty good job of keeping a mix of things happening, from the bigger action at the palace to the drama involving Zoro and the other Straw Hats there with Neptune. But it also makes sure to give us some levity and fun times back at the Sunny with what Luffy comes across and how he once again completely throws Jimbei for a loop. There’s some serious material here as well as it makes things a bit clearer with what’s to come next, but it’s a very much needed bit of fun and lightness in the midst of so many darker things happening, especially as Zoro is having a lot of trouble coping with the situation he finds himself in now. While One Piece hasn’t won me over with this arc at all really, it’s enjoyable and fun and it has me curious to see where it will 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.