Nothing says fun like popping bubbles, right?
What They Say:
Luffy and the Straw Hats prove a good match for Hordy and his crew – but as the battle continues to unfold, Noah – the Ship of Promise – is seen hurtling towards the Fishman Island. The island’s minutes seem numbered – but with some quick thinking, and a little bit of courage, there just might be a way to avoid destruction!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the previous episode giving the Straw Hats all a chance to shine individually as they took on Hordy’s crew, it worked on a basic level and was fun to watch in that regard, even if Franky still makes me cringe a bit. What it brought into the end though with the Ship of Promise, aka Noah, it left me wondering what this big event would be all about. While we got a glimpse at it about half a year ago or so in the series, it’s essentially been off my radar ever since. But as One Piece is always likely to do, it draws on things it’s shown and hinted at before and brings them back in a big way. With this ship being the biggest ship in the series so far (yes, I looked it up!), it brings a certain scale to events that cause everyone – Neptune included – to just stop and panic.
With that in the background and all the panic by certain people, the fight on the ground continues to be fairly intense. But even Luffy is able to smack Hordy pretty well and without as much effort and anguish as we’ve seen before with some of his past fast. All of it is just prelude to the new danger though as the ship hovers over them, blocking out the light and adding quite a bit of drama all on its own. And with its potential for destroying the protective bubble around the island, which would sweep away everything, that’s just hugely bad news. What makes it worse? Discovering that Van Decken is apparently in control of the ship up there as one of his group hsa accidentally fallen off of it.
With that threat in the air, it’s interesting to see how Shirahoshi becomes a key player at this point to try and salve things, which definitely brings her a lot of attention and helps to “age her up” a bit as she comes across as strong and confident, even as she panics. It’s interesting to see the kind of fallout that happens during all of this with how Van Decken is having his moment of glory, sacrificing some of his own along the way, but just intent on crushing the island. That puts everyone at risk and for the moment turns the fight between the Straw Hats and Hordy’s crew to the side. Which is something that you expect on some level, but it’s done well here as it shifts the fight upward now.
In Summary:
While there are more dramatic pauses for effect here than I care for, the episode does shift the story for a bit with the arrival of the ship. I suspect it’s something where we’ll now get the fight in the ship with Van Decken and then get back to the fight on the island, or they’ll run in conjunction with each other. The Ship of Promise offers up an interesting visual and I’m curious about what it’ll bring to the series overall as Neptune gives it a place of great prominence for the world and what it must be used for, and protected until that time. With Luffy getting involved with it now, it’s easy to imagine that it’ll have a decent impact now but also could shape events much further down the line, making this a key arc overall.
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.
