“A History Erased! God Valley of Despair”
What They Say:
The human hunt begins and the Celestial Dragons start chasing locals of God Valley and slaves for prizes. Ivankov and Ginny share with Kuma and the others their surprising plan to survive the game. Meanwhile, ships full of infamous pirates start arriving on the island one after another.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a special 25th-anniversary episode out last fall, it was followed up by months and months of silence because the show has been on a technical hiatus until now. With an updated version of the Fishman Island arc playing out for the past twenty-one weeks or so, One Piece took the first serious break it’s taken in its twenty-five-year run, and it just felt weird. It’s no surprise that it returned with a semi-recapish kind of episode while providing a nod at the end for the Straw Hats and how things will start moving forward. I’ve truly grappled with whether I would come back or not after being away from it for so long, but the reality is that I’ve been watching the simulcast since the early 400s range of episodes, and stopping now just doesn’t feel right..
While the previous episode certainly wasn’t bad, I wasn’t exactly eager for more backstory being told here that goes back decades. I’m sure it’ll have some merit and meaning in the present, but these kinds of almost extended sidestory pieces that fill in things only in the moment rarely work for me and just feel forced. Even worse, it’s largely dealing with characters I have some of the least interest in even during the present. Those like Ivankov haven’t had the benefit of some like Buggy who actually managed to grow on me a couple hundred episodes after his introduction. There are interesting parts to understanding Kuma’s youth and the losses that he faced, which has colored his life ever since, but this kind of big production for it just isn’t clicking in the slightest for me.
In Summary:
Honestly, watching most of this episode just felt like nonsense to me. It has its moments, but these are largely characters that barely exist on the periphery of my enjoyment of the series as a whole. The deeper lore fans of the world of One Piece can probably identify the time period and other events going on at the time of most of this episode, but for me, it was just an episode that left me bored and disinterested for the majority of it. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way with One Piece, and it won’t be the last. I’m glad for fans who have been looking forward to this story to finally get it animated, but it’s just another part of what the return of the series this year hasn’t felt like it’s worked for me at all.
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.
