What They Say:
“Capture Caesar! General Cannon Blasts!”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The relatively fast paced progress in the last couple of episodes has been good to see as a lot has gotten accomplished, even if the main cast is still mostly just going through their escape aspect itself. A good chunk of the previous episode kept its focus on Monet and Joker as he set her to ending the place so he could acquire Caesar, but we also had the trick revealed by Trafalgar with how he swapped out Smoker’s heart and saved him from death. And in the end, delayed the island being destroyed as well. It was a fun bit of material and it did a good job of bringing a few things together, especially the larger picture of what Joker is doing with the place. The only down side for me was the less than interesting fight on the outside with Franky and a few of Joker’s flunkies that had shown up, largely because I’m still not hugely keen on Franky at times and in this particular mode, nor the flunkies themselves.
So naturally, this episode has to open with more of that as the fight goes on while Joker, now having realized that the destruction he needed is not happening, has to hit the high seas to get there himself. Dubbing them Fan Man and Weapon Woman, we do get some creative attacks from their side that Franky is able to just brush off because of his abilities and general design of his suit of armor. Not surprisingly, Franky’s abilities just seem to go bigger and bigger with what he’s got tied up in this armor design and it’s fairly comical at times with how it plays out. It’s not exactly the most engaging of fights, especially as it’s pretty one-sided for a lot of it, but the end result is there in that it moves things along and finally gives Franky something to do after being out of the majority of the action for awhile. And through the fight, they end up causing enough destruction so as to reveal the place Caesar was, which helps his opponents more than anything else.
The final tunnel escape that we get here is admittedly a really fun moment, especially since it does a panning sequence over everyone that’s riding the rail cars and their expressions as they make it out into the open air. They’re all very in character and it’s pretty fun to see them panned over like this, even down to Franky’s pleased expression of their arrival. The made me laugh even more, with Trafalgar now having aligned himself with the Straw Hats, as they realize that Caesar is getting away and have to stop him. Putting it on Usopp and his special abilities with Nami helping, it has a great moment as his weapon eats up for it and then launches amid the weather changes Nami puts into place. They’ve been running for so long that having them on the attack now really is fun to watch, especially since both are so excited about doing it.
In Summary:
One Piece brings us to the end of this part of the Punk Hazard arc, not that there’s much left of the island, and it has some temporary changes that are fun to watch. Seeing how the group has worked together to survive the gas is fun, the potential shift that Trafalgar Law may play is in place and we’ve got some good moments that let Nami and Usopp take the lead after so much time spent just running around in the base for so long. The outside battle has a lot of time with Franky, which does work even if it’s not my cup of tea, and it sets the stage for a good bit more to come in the near future with Joker on his way and someone else sliding up during the last minute or so of the episode. While parts of this arc have frustrated me to be sure, what we get here is a good bit of fun and a solid entry into the overall arc that has me curious to see where it will go next.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
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.
