“Whitebeard’s Little Brother! Oden’s Great Adventure!”
What They Say:
Oden’s journey finally begins. He is in awe of all the things that he has never seen before. And for the first time in his life, he becomes a wanted person and makes the headlines which catches the eye of a high-profile figure. Meanwhile, he becomes romantically involved with Toki and they have a child together.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The flashback storyline continues and we’ve had some decent material to it so far, even if I really have barely more than zero interest in the character of Oden. Honestly, I’m still at a loss as to why we should be caring so much about this character so that we get at least a few weeks if not longer without the Straw Hats being involved. It’s not the first time we’ve had arcs like this within things and it’s hit or miss whether they worked or not. Oden hasn’t left me frustrated with the character but more so simply bored by it when you get down to it. There’s not much here that really gets you engaged with him and it’s only his latching onto Whitebeard that has made him even slightly interesting since Whitebeard is far more interesting.
As events move forward here, we do see Oden enjoying being able to be a part of things and to see the world in a way that he hasn’t before. He does hang with a few of those that are like him in a way and are a part of his overall story into the present, but he does get welcomed by others of the crew as well and that helps to create some fulfilling feelings for him as he’s now poised to see the world. There’s almost a little montage of different things that he gets to see and he’s like a kid in a candy store with it, which frustrates others because he just barrels right into these situations and places, often causing trouble but also triggering a lot of the traps just by himself.
Of course, a little romance starts filtering into things as well with Oden and Toki getting closer and having some nice sequences together. Toki’s just fun in general and a welcome contrast to all the men running around on this ship that are traditional pirate types. The timeline does move forward a bit so a year or more goes by and in the second year of the journey, we get the child born between him and Toki. That introduces a couple of problems for the child because of Oden’s own status as a wanted criminal. Combined with not knowing what’s going on back there, we do get to see a bit of events as the current shogun is close to dying and wanting Oden to take over. That introduces its own problems as he wants a proxy for the position but that only serves to introduce Orochi into this period.
In Summary:
The last few minutes jump through a couple of different hoops in order to connect with some other locations and events, but it is all of this period. And while I know it’s key to what goes on within Wano for a lot of it, it’s just not that interesting overall. After almost 1000 episodes, there are arcs like this one that just don’t do much for me and I can only tread water until we get to the point where Stuff Happens. Until then, it’s a lot of this, often just spread out more.
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.
