“Big News! An Incident That Will Affect the Seven Warlords!”
What They Say:
The resolution that passed the Reverie and the incidents surrounding the conference stun people all over the world and corner the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Meanwhile, a Navy captain Koby secretly contacts someone who is currently in the Land of Wano.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece returns after the New Year’s break and excitement abounds within the fan community about how strong the next six months or so of episodes should be based on the events of the manga. I’m certainly hoping so, having not read the manga, because so much of the Wano arc has been a struggle to muddle through outside of really enjoying the visual style and design of it. I’m still really enjoying that aspect of it and what it’s been able to do to breathe a bit of extra life into it. But beyond that, the stories have been fairly bland for me and without much to feel excited about.
This episode gives us some time after the Reverie where we see Neptune happy to be back home along with his daughter and Garp, taking a little time to relax. Which is more than Garp usually allows himself because he knows that any Reverie is going to unleash problems simply by putting some of these people in front of each other for even a little bit. What has Garp concerned is a report that he received about Alabasta, which both delights and frightens me, and how it has the potential to change things for those on the surface. And even as interesting as that is, we get another piece that goes back a bit further to show how the news under Morgans is ready for some big items only to have Cipher Pol threaten them over what they’re willing to publish when the bribe isn’t enough. His news organization could be quite the key player in a lot of this.
The episode spends a lot of time as the news travels the world and we hope from location to location that we’ve spent time in over the years, including a little time in Impel Down, and see how the various groups of people and factions are reacting to it. Of course, it’s all teased and hinted at more than anything else for a lot of it before we’re taken back to Wano itself to move events forward there. It takes forever to get there, but the episode finally reveals that the Reverie decision involved the abolition of the Seven Warlord system, which will upend things to be sure with hugely conflicting feelings across a range of characters we’ve seen. A lot gets conveyed through this as we spend time moving throughout so many locations around the world and it’s certainly fun to see so many characters we haven’t seen in a while, which I imagine was a lot of fun for the director to get everyone back together for so they could get one or two lines out.
In Summary:
One Piece has a lot going on here but it’s mostly just the build-up at first as it teases some of the news and then it’s a whole host of reaction shots from a wide range of characters. And it is fun! There’s no denying it. But it’s really just reactions upon reactions that showcases the huge history and cast of the series. Not everyone gets a moment but when you can squeeze in Kolby and Buggy in an episode to react to events, you’re getting a lot of people in there. It’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds from here but the lead-up to it with Wano so far has me wary and cautious, understandably so.
Grade: B
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.
