What They Say:
Aokiji’s intercession saves Smoker and sends Joker off to rethink his strategy, leaving unanswered questions about Aokiji’s current status. Meanwhile, the Straw Hats catch their breath as the Sunny makes its way through the rough seas of the New World — where even a bit of hail portends doom!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While One Piece worked some decent character bits in the previous episode with the Straw Hats after the lengthy adventure on the Punk Hazard island, the greater draw was seeing what was going on with Smoker and Trafalgar Law, even as they’re in different places. Law hooking up with the Straw Hats for a bit is certainly interesting and putting Smoker on the island doing some cleanup and having to deal with Doflamingo definitely made for some fun if dangerous moments between the two. Having Smoker taken down so hard and fast isn’t a surprise considering what Doflamingo is capable of, and seeing the fear in the Navy men over it definitely worked nicely, as did the last minute arrival of Aokiji, who has a longstanding friendship with Smoker and doesn’t exactly want to see him killed at this point in time. Smoker simply looks so small in the midst of all of this.
While the episode is billed as a versus kind of moment between the two, it doesn’t actually happen that way. Doflamingo wants what he wants when it comes to Smoker, but he’s also not going to get it since he can push Aokiji so far. That makes for a tense opening half as the two basically quietly stare each other down with just a few bits of dialogue until we get Aokiji coming out on top while Doflamingo heads off with his couple of people that were there ahead of him to figure out what was going on. It’s an interesting way to see things play out, but there are some neat moments that come from it, particularly when Smoker asks Aokiji if he’s part of this underground community that exists. It’s not a flat out admission or anything but it shows there is definitely a lot going on with all the groups and a lot of things aren’t what they seem.
With all of that, we also get the clarified focus of what the Straw Hats are after with Law making it clear that their target is Kaido, which sends a good bit of fear through some of them. Going after one of the Four Emperors is never advised of course and there’s a lot of things to do in order to accomplish it, including weakening his forces in a general sense. The whole SMILE and SAD aspect is covered briefly so it’s clear what Kaido is doing to build his forces and how Vegapunk was involved, so the generalities are all out there. This sets all the foundations nicely for what’s next, but we get just a bit more downtime on the Sunny which is just a lot of fun as it has Momonosuke being taken care of by Nami and Robin which frustrates some of the guys. It’s all light material but it’s just so nicely done, so fun and smile inducing, that you have to love it for its simplicity.
In Summary:
One Piece manages to balance the episode pretty well here with what’s going on. Doflamingo and Aokiji have some good bits early on while Smoker watches on since he’s so out of it still. But he manages to get in a choice question regardless that makes things a bit clearer about what’s going on. At the same time, we get a little more from the Straw Hats when it comes to Law and Caesar about what their plans are before it decides to just give us some good natured fun with the crew as a whole, largely revolving around Momonosuke and how both Robin and Nami are taking good care of the little tyke that knows he’s in the midst of a good thing. It’s nothing big but it’s absolutely fun to watch unfold as a great bit of levity after all that’s happened.
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.
