Sabo makes his move!
What They Say:
Kyros finally taking down Doflamingo leaves Doflamingo’s clan shocked! Meanwhile at the Colosseum, Rebecca gets her memories of her loving father Kyros back, and Sabo makes a move to end the championship battle by blowing up the whole ring! Will he be able to snag the Flare-Flare Fruit?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The storyline took a pretty dramatic turn the last time around with what happened as the residents of Dressrosa that were turned into toys began to turn back. There was a lot of fun in seeing how they handled it, and those that had abused them for so long, while also tying in some returned memories for those that had forgotten about people lost along the way. While it was light on the Straw Hats as a whole, it was worthwhile to have so much time focused on a really game changing event for the residents there and to get some scattered bits of revenge here and there and more. Considering the number of people converted over the years and the impact of those losses, reunions and revenge certainly seemed like a natural order of the day.
Naturally, we also had the big moment of Kyros slicing off Doflamingo’s head, but you know that it was just a gimmick so you’re waiting for the reveal. With people’s memories having come back, there’s some good stuff explored in the wake of this, especially for Rebecca who finally remembers that she had a father and breaks down in the arena, which is definitely emotional. The real fun for me here though is seeing Sabo taking advantage of the situation to finish up the fight there with his abilities. Having him utterly destroy the arena in one big move is great, especially since we haven’t seen him in a bit doing anything here. There’s a lot of fun as Sabo goes through this moment and puts the opponents out while also grabbing the Devil Fruit after ensuring that everyone else is knocked out. Grabbing it on his own accord is great, though I also like that he’s actually made the champion and has the win acknowledged. Which also has him eating the Devil Fruit, as disgusting as it is.
This really dominates the episode, but we do get a few minutes of material elsewhere, which includes seeing some of the fallout with Trebol after what happened to Sugar and the pushback from Robin as the fairies do what they can to get others to safety amid the attacks, including rescuing Usopp. This takes a really interesting turn as one of the returned giants takes hold of Usopp’s body, recognizing him for what he did for all of them, and uses him to make a point for others that have transformed back about how important Usopp and his friends are, which kind of elevates Usopp into a near religious level in a way. All with some amusing humor from Usopp amid it. But it’s also great as he gets called out as Captain Usopp, which is something he’s wanted to truly be since the very, very early days of the series. It’s one of those beautiful defining moments that works really, really well across the board. Things go really big here with this piece of it and it’s great to see the two different views of what’s going on with it.
In Summary:
One Piece has a very fun episode here overall with so many things going on but focusing on a couple of the bigger moments and their ramifications. While I’d like to see more of Kyros and the fallout from his beheading of Doflamingo, we finally return to the arena instead and have a great time watching what Sabo is up to there and how that particular game has now changed. Similarly, we get a smaller amount of time with Usopp down below, but it’s one of those great character moments that really works well in blending his view of events and how others are interpreting it. Is it about to become the Age of Usopp? Dare to dream!
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.