Smoker’s crew gets closer to the heart of the matter.
What They Say:
Things get more difficult for the Straw Hats as confusion pits a group of Centaurs against Luffy’s group, Sanji and Franky need to pull out all the stops to avoid succumbing to poisonous gas, and Brook has to square off against a disembodied torso! Meanwhile a Navy ship makes its way towards the heart of the island – and discovers a shocking inhabitant!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the show continues to move through this arc, we’ve been treated to two very different pieces to this strange and unusual island. At least it would be in the real world since we’ve seen similar but not the same kind of strange dynamics at play in the series before. With the crew split across the two areas, and the inclusion of Smoker and his Navy folks getting ever closer to it after tracking the signal, we get a good look at how there’s a very hot and very cold piece to it. And as Nami and the gang that’s with her have discovered, a lot of oversized children as well who are being held against their will. The mysteries continue to pile up but we’ve gotten little in the way of answers.
What’s amusing is what’s binding the two groups together even though they’re apart is the samurai that they’ve each got parts of. While Luffy and his group have seen his lower half, stuck in a dragon of all things, Nami and the others have his head and are dealing with a far more talkative version that’s causing trouble. On the plus side, he gets less time at the moment because of all the kids that talk a whole lot and occupy screen time. This is pretty minimal overall though as much of the episode is just frantic action as the various groups are running around and getting involved in things. Whether it’s Nami trying to save the kids, Luffy’s group getting treated as bad guys for being with the samurai or Sanji pushing back against the Punk Hazard group in their suits. It works well enough but gives it a very, very busy feeling all while Smoker gets closer to the interior of the island.
With the various sides at play here, there isn’t a lot of meaty content to it when you get down to it, though that’s not a bad thing. As it progresses, we do get to see that the whole gas problem that seems to exist isn’t what it was through to be as Smoker and his group are rather amusing in how they deal with it, and the reveal about the massive laboratory that’s there and what it may mean. Taken into context with everything else, it’s a teasing ending once again that makes you want more to see what the truth is. But most of the episode is given over to the running around and fighting, which does have its fun moments since we get to see Sanji going at it well and even Usopp and Brook doing some good stuff along the way.
In Summary:
One Piece has a decent enough episode here overall as it gets down to the action which does produce some forward motion with what’s going on. But the real fun is in watching Smoker here as he and his group of Navy men work their way closer into the island and to the one place where there’s likely to be a lot of answers. The reveal of at least one of those inside is certainly interesting and inspires plenty of fear, though you know there has to be an additional twist to come about what’s really going on. Luffy and the Straw Hats as a whole feel like secondary players in the episode as they move about and do their thing, but they have some fun and decent action along the way. There’s a lot going on here but it’s dealt out in a slower way that leads to more questions than answers.
Grade: B-
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.