The fallout is dealt with in the present once again with what’s happened to Ace.
What They Say:
After the War of the Best, Garp finds that he has to answer to Dadan for not having been able to stop Ace’s death, while Luffy, who has lost his will to fight on, is reminded by a close ally that he still has something worth fighting for!!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the main storyline dealing with the past ending in the last episode with Luffy heading out to sea, everything is now back in the present where we’ve gone from such hopeful and bright optimism of Luffy to someone who is absolutely crushed by what has happened to Ace and is almost beside himself with grief. The fallout from the entire event, now being called the War of the Best, has to be dealt with in a couple of ways. While Luffy has to deal with his anguish and despair over what’s happened, Garp finds himself in a peculiar position as well. His return tot he Windmill village is not something that will go well.
The people that live there provide some good insights into how the common citizen is feeling after the war, wondering what will happen to the state of the world since they’re seeing many more pirates out around in the sea nearby now and it’s really worrying them. Garp is almost comical in how he reassures them, but it fits with the mindset of the series in a lot of ways. Where the show gets strong is when Garp has to confront Dadan, who is very much like we saw three years prior, but a bit more worse for the wear. Emotionally, she’s a wreck after watching Ace’s death and holds Garp personally responsible, which leads to a great moment between the two as they each work out their feelings with it in their own way. Garp’s taking the beating she gives him is the only way he can make some sort of offering to her, and it’s the only way she can work through her pain.
While there’s some minor touching on other epilogue moments over Ace’s death, they do spend some time on the other major element that needs to be dealt with at this point, and that’s Luffy himself. He’s so angry, scared and frustrated that he’s abusing his broken body to make him feel something, or to not feel something as they case may be, and he continues to just act out over it which makes his recovery even worse. But the emotional trauma there is powerful for him, especially when taken in context to what we had just seen in flashback, and it’s hard for him to cope with. What helps to balance it a bit is that Jimbei is there, and it’s worth remembering all the time he spent in a cell with Ace, which allows him to have his frustrations as well but also to know Ace and Luffy quite well. A firm hand to help get Luffy back on the right path is needed, and Jimbei provides a really good method for that here with him.
In Summary:
With this episode, we do get something of the epilogue we deserved at the end of the Marineford arc with Luffy coping with his loss as well as seeing how others were doing it. It did need to come after the flashback arc though that gave us a better look at the formative years between Ace and Luffy to strengthen it even more and to deepen the anguish that we know Luffy was feeling. It brings things full circle and then reminds Luffy that he does have so much to live for and plenty to do, and it does it in a right way that may be obvious but is definitely needed. Everything is brought to where it needs to be in order to move things forward again, and the fun will be in seeing how all that comes together. This brings us some finality to the entire storyline involving Luffy’s chase for Ace, and while we’ll see Ace again in some form I’m sure, this feels like a very good point for all of it to be considered largely done with.
Grade: B+
Simulcast By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.