“A Volatile Situation! The Dog and the Cat and the Samurai!”
What They Say:
The samurai have landed! And they make their way into the country of Zou unaware of the welcome they will receive by the Minks! The Straw Hats try their best to stop the fight – but as day meets night and Cat Viper and Dogstorm face each other, tensions run high in the elephant country!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a lot of the background now set and established and some of the arc characters introduced with more to come, One Piece is ready to move forward again. Of course, it has a few things to deal with and those are things that leave me really blah about the whole thing. The arc has been middling so far but now that it’s circling back to Kin’emon and Kanjuro, two characters that I flat out do not care for, well, it just leaves me with a bit of dread as to what will come. I expect that the material with the core Straw Hats and dealing with the other pirates and Sanji will work well, but these guys inclusion for any length of it will just reduce my interest a bit, especially if they’re the main focus.
With these two now seen and the whole samurai are coming aspect underway, the bell has been run and we get a good look at how well the Minks and others here are able to rally together for the common defense. Balancing their preparedness with some time with Kin’emon and Kanjuro as they just stroll through the jungle has its moments, but it does bring them back together with Momonosuke, which just adds to my feelings of dread with this arc. I knew it would happen but we can’t get rid of these characters soon enough. At the same time, the Straw Hats realize who this must be and are intent on getting to them before the Minks do because there’s a whole host of misunderstandings and scores to settle in play that will get everyone caught up in a bad way. I realize it’s supposed to be tense and dramatic, but when you’re left wanting Kin’emon and Kanjuro to be eliminated, well, you keep hope alive that it will happen.
With Cat Viper and Dogstorm coming across each other in the middle of all of this, tensions ramp up well but even with all the background we’ve had I’ll admit it doesn’t do a thing to engage me compared to some other arcs and their backstory. There’s a decent bit of intensity brought to it through some of the flashback that we get which reinforces why each side is like it is, The additional material further explains some of how these two are with what they’ve lost, but you could get most of that already. So, mostly it’s just a yawner even when we do get the samurai stepping out and making clear who they are and what they’re looking for. Of course, it tries to go for a twist but while we get the reaction shots of the Straw Hats for it, it’s just hollow for me after all the buildup.
In Summary:
One Piece doesn’t do anything badly here but it suffers from being uninteresting to me at this stage with the characters involved and the focus of it, both with the Minks and the samurai side as well. It’s a drawn out piece that does set things well enough with the atmosphere and intent, but if it doesn’t connect for the viewer, as it’s not doing for me at the moment even as we get some of the Straw Hats trying to stave off a bigger fight, it’s just not going to work all that well.
Grade: C
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.
