“Let’s Go and Meet Master Cat Viper!”
What They Say:
There’s only one key to finding out what happened to Sanji – and Luffy and the others make their way towards finding out more about their friend’s disappearance, but on their way the indigenous fauna give them trouble!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Digging into what was going on with Sanji the last few episodes was a bit more drawn out than it needed to be but the end results themselves were pretty fun. Everything “fit” in the right way when it came to him and his personality and the way that he wanted to keep the rest of the Straw Hats from being drawn under another pirate’s banner since they have their own goals and have since practically the beginning. Sanji is, after all, one of the core trio that came on board very early on and has been a binding member of the group for a very long time thanks to his culinary skills and occasionally his foot strength skills. I liked everything we get from the tale that was told about the Straw Hats in particular but the rest of the material with the Minks just felt like a lot of material to slog through to get there.
AS the whole story has been related while on a minor journey across zou, that’s where things get underway here and it turns into a fair bit of action early on that’s a nice change of pace after the talkier episodes recently. It’s largely meaningless, of course, since it’s just a range of bugs coming to attack but it serves to show some of what the group is able to do in reconnecting in this form while also seeing Wanda getting firmly involved. You know it won’t be dire from the music alone and while there’s some minor threat it’s really just an opportunity to let everyone shine with their basic skills and attacks once again. Amusingly, the action is over faster than the musical interlude we get that comes after it that finishes out the journey. It’s nice to give Brook a chance to showcase this side of his talent, something that we really don’t get much of since he joined, what, nearly four hundred episodes ago?
The arrival at the village in the Whale Forest adds some creepy feeling about it all but also some nice wonder with its design and visuals that makes you want to know more of it. There’s not a lot in the way of full introductions here to new characters, though we do get a few minor ones popping up to make the place feel lived in, and most of what we get is just the standard kind of settling in pieces to get familiar with the area. The time with Cat Viper is cute with Chopper chewing him out for what he’s doing that’s slowing down his healing, and it’s a nice reconnect for that group of Straw Hats that dealt with him previously. But mostly, it’s a lot of light yet enjoyable simple fluff that puts the pieces into the right position at this moment so that we can move forward. Transitional episodes aren’t a strength or weakness for this series since they do slip in decent bits along the way so this is a mostly serviceable episode.
In Summary:
One Piece with episodes like this is just kind of “there” when you get down to it. It’s neither good nor bad and it works to achieve certain goals, from some light padding to a chance to allow viewers to reconnect with characters. Giving Brook some time to sing is nice, a little action familiarizes us with the casts abilities once again, and introducing us to a new portion of Zou adds to the wonder. A lot of it could have been done a bit tighter or with more meaning, but what we do get here is good as it leads us to the end of episode teaser to draw us into the more serious material that will get things moving more fully next time around.
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.
