Bellamy’s twisted just a bit more.
What They Say:
Bellamy escapes Doflamingo’s control, but it might be too late. His long history with Doflamingo unfolds and leads to an inglorious end. Meanwhile, Hajrudin has been beaten down, but a fire still burns in him to pay back the favor he owes!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece certainly upped the ante a bit the last time around with the events that were playing out between Law and Doflamingo, particularly with the slicing that Law got. While that would have been impactful no matter what, I think it really came across as an even stronger act here because of what we had in the recent flashback arc that showed more of what it was he went through as a child and the lengths that Corazon went to help him. That put such a problem in an already dark and complicated heart that Doflamingo had that you can see how it color so many more of the interactions that exist between the two of them in the present. While the show touched on a few other things over the course the last episode, this part of the arc has been really strong. I really do want to see more of several other aspects but there’s simply something very compelling about this aspect of it with Law and Doflamingo.
Doflamingo’s methods are definitely amusing to watch from a distance, especially as we see how he uses Bellamy to go after Luffy, which in turn causes Luffy to have to take down Bellamy. We haven’t gotten a lot on Bellamy in a general sense so it makes sense that we get some flashback here from when he first went hunting after Doflamingo and had to deal with some of his underlings first. It’s your basic punk kid and his gang going after a bigger power and aligning himself with them in order to become something more. There’s the potential for some really good backstory to be told here and we get enough in short form here that makes it clear just how much damage that Doflamingo has done to Bellamy and his sense of self. It’s also fun because we get to revisit the first meeting between Bellamy and the Straw Hats way, way, back in the day at the bar. It’s all newly animated and serves as a welcome if brief moment of seeing Nami as well.
Because that complicated past that does exist for Bellamy, and the way that he’s aligned well with Luffy over the course of this one, there’s a great moment where he really gets himself worked up in order to do right by Luffy and to stand with him against Doflamingo, reaffirming exactly what he wants to do and inspiring Luffy in a lot of ways as well. While that dominates the first half, the second half digs in elsewhere on Dressrosa, including some time with the fight on and around Pica as well. With this using some of the fringe actors involved in the arc for the most part there isn’t a lot to really rally behind here. What it does is to allow aspects of the fight to move forward without really doing a lot of heavy lifting for it. It’s not bad or anything but it’s the kind of lighter part of what’s going on overall since most likely have any real thought towards most of the characters involved here.
In Summary:
One Piece doesn’t advance much at all here with the various subplots that are going on within this arc. That’s par for the course with the show in that there are incremental pieces that nudge areas that don’t mean much. It’s not exactly time wasting material or filler yet it’s not the most engaging of material either. Bellamy’s material in the first half is pretty solid and worthwhile and could easily be fleshed out to its own mini-arc within this overall storyline. The second half is more just fluff for me, though it gets Zoro back in the picture at the end for what’s going to come next in dealing with Pica. It does have some very fun action aspects to it to be sure and some visual zest that I like, but the simple aspect is that there’s not much memorable overall unless you’re totally invested in one of the characters.
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.