What They Say:
With Law’s true ambitions revealed, Doflamingo goes into action in order to protect his criminal operation! Caesar slips away from Luffy leaving him to face off with the frigid Monet, and the rest of the crew face down a menacing dragon!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Though we started to get some of the fights on track in the previous episode, a good part of what was going on was really all about place setting for the characters. We’re still getting everyone where they need to be, but we’re also getting some real forward movement as well. Luffy’s fight with Caesar definitely started to work well and that’s one of the primary things going on here at the beginning as he goes up against him but has one of his underlings to deal with more so first, which of course stretches out the main fight. That heightens things just a bit as well as it teases out more of who all is involved and what’s going on with just a few words, but it also gives us some more Devil Fruit combatant time.
Sanji’s role in events continues to be one that works well for me as we see him keeping up with the good fight and it now has him doing his best to save as many Navy folks from the cloud as possible, which is something he can be easily motivated by since he’s helping Tashigi out with it. Similarly, we get other catch-up segments throughout the base that highlights where everyone is, including bits of humor when it comes to some of them such as the samurai who is just getting into too much trouble and has Brook putting him in his place. Reminding us that Brook is indeed a part of this arc for a bit. Even Chopper gets a nice bit of time along the way. The jumping between places is a part of what One Piece is all about and the way it moves everyone forward just a little works nicely, touching on some plot points, but also keeping the action going along nicely.
The show does spend a little time with Doflamingo and we get a good look at just what he’s capable of at the moment as Vergo informs him of what Trafalgar Law is up to. That lets Doflamingo map out what it is that he thinks that Law will do and makes it clear why it must be stopped, giving Vergo the permission to pretty much do it. Doflamingo’s skirted around things for a bit now with the little bit of material we’ve gotten but he gets a very good scene here as he’s attacked on a resort island by a disgruntled woman who has Devil Fruit powers of her own, but it barely even registers with him. It’s more interesting to see his reactions to how he views both Law and Luffy at this stage and notes that Luffy may be even more powerful than Law.
In Summary:
One Piece moves along well here and it does a lot of good things with the crew overall as it moves the story along and nudges various aspects, from the kids getting some of their meds to Sanji saving more of the Navy men and Tashigi making it clear that the Vergo they think they know may not be the man they thought he was. But it also does what I think is a lot of important stuff with Doflamingo as we get a few minutes with him at Dressrosa where he’s enjoying the good life as his plans move on. It reminds us just what kind of person he is, that he’s the one really controlling all of this and that he has a lot of plans of his own underway that are moving along and require others to ensure they proceed smoothly. He’s got a solid history in the show so it’ll be interesting to see how more of that plays out and with this arc dragging a bit at this point, a new twist like this definitely re-energizes things a bit.
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.
