What They Say:
The Straw Hats are reunited – but in the midst of a battle between Trafalgar Law and the G-5. Law’s powers give the Navy something else to worry about, but an odd discovery on the island gives some clues as to who the mastermind behind this plot really is!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece has played fairly well with the three storyline that are currently running through this particular arc, but I’ve found myself more interesting in the fight between Trafalgar Law and Smoker more than anything else. Especially when we saw in the previous episode just how slick Law was in dealing with him by cutting out his heart and removing it from him in a contained way. It’s something I don’t believe we’ve seen before in the series when it comes to Smoker and it definitely gave us a bit of an impressed view of Law himself with what he was capable of. And it’s also appropriately creepy as well, which is something that One Piece doesn’t always set an atmosphere for.
While that fight is over with, for the moment at least, things take an even more interesting turn afterward as Luffy and his group get closer to the fortress and end up seeing Law, whic has Luffy all excited since he was so instrumental in saving him before. There’s a kinship that Luffy feels for him, but Law is generally more of the cold and distant type, making it a kind of tense meeting from his point of view. Things can go only so far though since what Law has done with Smoker is going to cause problems as the Navy men want to rescue Smoker and deal with Law, though they know they really can’t. That complicates things rather easily, but it’s something that Law actually helps Luffy with by telling him where to go even as Luffy says he wants time to talk with him later. The way the pair deals with each other here is certainly intriguing and does show some modicum of growth when it comes to Luffy.
What this episode also does is start to catch up the two separate Straw Hat gangs together, which is amusing since Nami’s group has been dealing wit the body swap problem that exists and the complications that arise from it, especially when it comes to the near-abuse that Nami’s body is going through. Bringing everyone back together after so many episodes apart is welcome, but Luffy and the others have to deal with some unusual situations because ot it, including the giant kids that are there. A lot of the problems, amusing as they are, stem from Sanji being in Nami’s body and Nami constantly overreacting to it, though some of it is justified. The whole piece of this in the end allows the two sides to catch up with each other about things, as well as the whole samurai aspect as well. It also allows the samurai to explain a bit about what he wants when it comes to rescuing his son, though his nature makes it a bit hard to take him too seriously. There’s a good realignment of events that sets the show moving forward again though, which makes it worthwhile.
In Summary:
While episodes like this when it comes to One Piece tends to be done more with a lot of running around (or running away, as the case may be) as the two side of the Straw Hats come together, there’s a lot of good stuff here with how things are done a bit more conversational and slower. The Navy and smoker are dealt with minimally, but there’s some hilarious bits towards the end with how Smoker is sort of saved for the moment thanks to Tashigi. The Straw Hats dominate this episode as they all come back together and catch up on things, but it left me wanting more time spent between Law and Luffy since it’s been a few years since they last saw each other and both have changed in very different ways, especially when Luffy learns that Law has become a Warlord. Things are getting ready to move forward once again now that everyone is back in place and it has a sense of growing excitement about it.
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.
