What They Say:
Luffy, Robin, Usopp, and Zoro face down a powerful dragon as the battle heats up on Punk Hazard! And Luffy finds himself on the dragon’s back during the attack, a mysterious discovery adds to the mystery of the island! Meanwhile, danger closes in for the rest of the Straw Hats on the Sunny…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the Straw Hats having finally moved on to material from the manga as they deal with the new area that they’re in, the first place that they end up really encountering is certainly an interesting one. Presenting us with an island surrounded by a sea of fire and having the island itself full of flames and heat gives us someplace that’s certainly a contrast from previous places that they’ve visited, at least in recent memory. Getting the distress call from there and from a place called Punk Hazard certainly entices the Straw Hats, or at least Luffy and Zoro it seems, as there’s a chance for some action and adventure in a strange land. While they expected samurai based on the distress call, getting a giant red dragon was certainly not what they figured on encountering.
Of course, Luffy is super excited over the idea of simply seeing a dragon, never mind what’s actually going to happen since it’s pretty much screaming a fight. While Usopp has the right idea at first in turning tail, it’s the kind of fight that Luffy can’t turn away from, espcially with the way his abilities work up and the superheated nature that he’s able to take on now, which lets him land some really good blows against the dragon. The fight is a lot of fun to watch as they go against the dragon and some small reveals are made along the way about him and what he’s capable of. But it’s also just fun to see how Luffy is going at it, taking it serious, but still having a sort of sense of fun and wonderment about it as he fights a giant dragon. It’s the kind of story nobody will believe but would be a hell of a lot of fun to tell.
The fight has some intriguing bits, especially when the group apparently hears the words about seven warlords coming from him, but it’s just a small piece of the puzzle overall as the fight goes on. Luffy actually gets creative in the fight in a way that’s comical and fun and brings back some of that silly energy that I do enjoy from the show. When Luffy and Zoro fight together, something that hasn’t happened all that often for quite some time, the two have a great working relationship considering they’ve been together the longest and really know each other. This dominates the episode and it works well, providing for some good fun and decent pacing, but we do get a little bit going on back at the ship that will factor into the next episode as nearly everyone on board is taken out with nary a fist or sword raised.
In Summary:
One Piece spends most of its time on the dragon fight and while that would normally bother me a little since I want a bit more out of an episode than just that, I have to admit that what they did here worked well for me and just proved to be fun without being overly comical. It has its serious parts to it throughout and it’s only towrds the end that it gets a bit more silly as Luffy figures out how to mess with the dragon. I liked seeing the team work together to try and figure things out and to fight together, making for some good fun overall. I also like that we got just a bit of what’s to come next when it comes to Punk Hazard as it definitely has an intriguing look about it.
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.
