Challenges and plans are put into motion to get everyone in the right shape to meet up with Luffy again.
What They Say:
The destruction of Dr. Vegapunk’s laboratory proves a boon for Franky while Nami makes moves to learn more about the devastating power of the weather! Sanji is confronted with challenges of his own – that will shake the very foundation of his manhood!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With One Piece trying to bring everyone back together at long last, we’ve had a mix of stories that deal with the Straw Hats across all the various locales they’ve been thrown to. And we’ve had a bit of time with Luffy as well as he made his big play to get their attention that is being well misinterpreted as a call to arms by other pirates and the Navy as well. While it is an interesting angle to play, the feeling you can get from it is that it wants to give more face time to all the other characters that have been largely ignored for so long before drawing everyone back together. And I can totally get that and appreciate it as an idea, but the locales they’re in and the things they’re doing just don’t resonate all that well.
Nami for her part is still stuck over on Weatheria and is trying to make her way off as best as she can while dealing with this group of old men in pajamas. Her plan changed along the way a bit to get more information so she can be of better use to Luffy and we do see her reflecting on the past when it comes to Luffy that helps to reinforce this desire. With her realizing just how much power there is to the weather, she’s keen on gaining as much as possible here. She does have a bit of a large amount of self importance going on when it comes to her reasons why, but they’re justifiable considering her history, age and her belief in the skills she has as a navigator. She’s always been a strong and self confident personality so it’s good to see that hasn’t changed much.
This episode also wants to follow up with a couple of others in addition to her that are getting their plans underway. Franky’s time continues to be fairly uninteresting for me since I still don’t know the character outside of these appearances and it’s more comical than anything else. It does go back a bit to show some very minor time with Luffy that helps to make things a bit clearer and makes me want to see the episodes in which the two come together and get to be friends. We also get some time with Sanji which is definitely comical since he’s trapped with Ivankov and anytime he’s involved I can’t help but to roll my eyes and laugh. Sanji’s in a tough spot because of his interest in women and being surrounded by this type, but he’s focusing on something a little different as Ivankov has given him the idea about working on food that builds and changes a body, which gets him thinking about how to make Robin and Nami even hotter. It’s priceless – and accurate for Sanji.
In Summary:
There’s not a lot of meat here to the episode, but that’s part and parcel with this series at this point as it’s giving the Straw Hats a chance to shine on their own and to draw a few threads in to the main storyline. Each has their own offerings but none are really grabbing me in a significant way. What this one in particular wants to do is to showcase some of the bonds they have with Luffy, going back to some key moments in their pasts when they were first meeting each other. Having just watched some of these episodes again on DVD from the first part of the series, it’s nice to see them presented in this almost rose colored view where things feel just a little bit different through their memories than with what really happened. It’s simple, fun and decent but it’s spinning the wheels until we get everyone back together.
Grade: B-
Streamed 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.
