The tide begins to change direction.
What They Say:
Doflamingo and Fujitora’s agreement to not engage each other lasts for the moment – meaning all eyes are turned towards taking down the Straw Hats and claiming the rewards! And as Luffy starts heading to the Royal Palace along with Zoro and Law, Fujitora stands in his way!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece spent a lot of its time the last time around letting Doflamingo’s ability show off just how much damage it can do. With people now no longer in control of their own bodies, he threw a lot of chaos into a situation that was turning quite happy with people excited to reunite with lost ones that were turned into toys and all the other revelations. Doflamingo then made things worse by setting everyone after the Straw Hats in order to use them to hunt down his opponents, knowing that neither would really do any damage to each other but it would be a useful delaying motion while also causing a fair bit of trauma. Doflamingo is certainly the sadistic type and shows it well throughout this arc.
With the fallout in the way the groups are organized now, there’s certainly plenty to work with there with each of the dynamics, but it’s also fun to have most of the groups in contact with each other and Luffy intent on doing what needs doing. But the problem also comes in that the destruction of the SMILE factory is a big part of things and Law makes the realization that if they do accomplish that, Kaido is going to go ballistic over them. For Luffy, that’s all meaningless though as he’s intent on helping Dressrosa from what Doflamingo is putting it through with the way the people are being manipulated an controlled, a population that’s now in sheer panic over what’s going on and the divisions within it becoming even starker. Even others like Fujitora are starting to rethink things here a bit as just what Doalfamingo is doing is pretty intense.
So while we do see how the Straw Hats are going to attempt to do things to fix everything here, we also have the piece from Fujitora where he has his own personal ambition of eliminating the Seven Warlord system that exists as well, which is intriguing though it depends on what the larger goals are within that context as well. The balance in the episode works well in focusing on the situation at hand with the various powerful people that are orchestrating things and their own goals slowly being teased out while also getting to see the chaos on the streets between your average citizens and Navy men and then the appearances of some of those with stars and bounties on them that Doflamingo has sent everyone after. It’s not deep on story, but it’s setting things up and moving it along decently enough.
In Summary:
In a sense, One Piece hits a refocus episode at this point as we largely get Luffy and the Straw Hats realizing that while their mission is still the SMILE factory overall, the short term goal has to be dealing with Doflamingo and how he’s totally destroying so many lives on Dressrosa. The fact that they can do something about it is the big thing here that will motivate them, but you can imagine them doing it anyway. There’s a lot of decent little moments, but it all comes together for what could be a really strong follow-up episode with Fujitora stepping into the fray himself in a big way, which is always exciting to see since he has a certain presence.
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.