What They Say:
Nami, Robin, and the others got away from Oden’s Castle and now discuss what they have found out about the enemy so far. Meanwhile, Chopper’s group sets off to rescue Luffy from the Excavation Labor Camp where, at the same time, Luffy is in big trouble.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Anytime that an arc within the series doesn’t quite work for me, which thankfully doesn’t feel like it happens too often overall, it’s frustrating because I do enjoy the series big picture-wise and with the characters. But sometimes the padding out of events or the lack of clarity of the storyline just makes for a frustrating experience. Particularly when it involves characters that I just absolutely wish we were done with, like Big Mom. I’ve liked the introduction to the Wano arc overall and what it presented – especially visually – but it’s gone from intriguing and curious to more of a muddled work and that has only intensified as it’s gone on more.
With the group dealing with Otoko having gotten out of the castle and regrouping, there’s some time spent just catching up on what happened and thinking about what the shogun may do next, particularly whether he’d hurt the child. While the thinking is (foolishly) that they won’t go any further, I’m left wondering if these folks understand what a shogun is like. Regardless, it sets that story to the side as they shelter in the snow-covered area they’re in and it gives us a chance to touch base with the other groups. Sanji and his group are doing decently and waiting to reconnect with everyone but Law is getting nervous about the lack of news going on and isn’t liking some of the names he’s seeing in the paper for some difficult people that he’s encountered over the years. Anything that makes Wano more dangerous isn’t helpful to his bigger mission.
With the jumping around taking up about two-thirds of the episode, including time with Big Mom as Olin where we get a better look at Wano and its distinct regions through a map, the final segment focuses on Luffy and his time crackin’ rocks in prison. It’s not exactly interesting or engaging because it’s the usual kind of standard prison garbage we get, hard labor or not. The hierarchy is shown to some degree, there’s bad things happening to people that probably should never have been in there, and Luffy gets frustrated by it all. And it sets into motion things. It’s as predictable as can be to be sure and doesn’t engage much, though hopefully, it’s going to get things actually moving forward here soon since we’ve been stuck in this rut – even if it’s largely been off-screen – for a while now.
In Summary:
One Piece is gonna One Piece. There’s nothing of any real significance going on here even as it lightly nudges everything into place with where it needs to be next. It’s not bad but rather just dull and uninteresting as it has nothing to say and nothing of note going on as it awaits its bigger moments.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
