“Explosive?! The Handcuffs that Shackle Yamato’s Freedom!”
What They Say:
At the back entrance of Onigashima, the Akazaya members try to get inside the gate, but they’re blocked by their former colleague Kanjuro. Meanwhile, as Kaido’s son Yamato shows Luffy the handcuffs that have restricted his freedom for years, they hear Kaido making a speech on his grand plan.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
It feels weird knowing that we’re just a few weeks away from hitting the 1000th episode of the series and that there are actual plans to celebrate it. One Piece has hit a lot of anniversaries along the way, and episode numbers that should have been worthy of celebration, but these things almost always went by very quietly, which is surprising from an American perspective where companies look for all kinds of reasons to celebrate in order to promote and make more money. Having been doing episodic reviews since the early 400s when simulcasts started to become available, it’s surreal that I’m still doing them at this point and that, quite honestly, I’m still enjoying the show. Which it might not seem like sometimes but the reality is that like many viewers, it’s part of our lifeblood now for so many years.
The start of this episode follows up some of what we had at the end before as we follow the Akazaya characters as they’re looking to get further inside but have found themselves with a real obstacle at the gate. They have a few smaller challenges to face at first but once they reach the gate and the door opens, it’s Kanjuro and all the memories that come up from their shared time together, the betrayal, and all the emotions that swirl from it. It’s a slow start to get to something meatier with this in the first half of the episode, but we do get some time to see how prior to that Kanjuro was an absolutely dark and brutal person in regards to Momonosuke and his relating the tale to his former comrades that he fooled for so long serves his purpose of antagonizing them into making mistakes.
With a bit of action in the mix, the back and forth that we get is well-done here, especially since Kanjuro sets everything against the backdrop of getting closer to Momonosuke’s public execution by Kaido. That rallies them to fight, as expected, but it also makes them prone to emotional mistakes, which is why Kanjuro eggs them on as he does. This fight doesn’t get far overall but all the setup put into it works well to set the tone. From there, it leaps to some silly fun with Nami and Carrot, for example, as they run with all the chaos around them, and some decent dialogue time for Luffy to get engaged in as well with Yamato as explanations fly there and Luffy is just so nonplussed by the whole thing, seeing it as just one more thing to fix in this larger mission of his.
In Summary:
One Piece inches closer to the big 1000 number but it continues to move its stories forward as it always does. While there may be some slowing down of things in order to set up episode 1000 as a big episode for story, it’s not noticeable for the most part and what we get here is a pretty solid piece. Most of the time is spent with Kanjuro and that group and it works well to show how he’s manipulating them and how ready they are to finally deal with him and get to Momonosuke. It’s a solid episode that delivers some good moments.
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.
