It’s time for another chunk of Wano Arc and once again these 32 episodes move the plot along about the same as four or five episodes of a regular show, but that’s One Piece for you! If you’re not used to it by now you never will be… Let’s take a look!
The main story of this chunk is, of course, the battle between Kaido and Luffy on the roof of the eventually flying Onigashima, though for most of the fight at this point it’s Kaido and Big Mom against Luffy, Law, Kid, Zoro and Killer. There are some good moments, plenty of “Luffy hits Kaido with a big move with flashy effects as dramatic music plays” scenes undercut by Kaido getting up with maybe a smear of blood coming out of his mouth at most later that episode / at the start of the next one. Eventually Law and Kid are sent back into the castle with Big Mom being hit off the roof itself (though surviving, just) leading to Big Mom facing off with the two of them in a separate location. Zoro and Killer and similarly knocked back down into the building to square off with their own opponents and leaving our lead protagonist and antagonist free to duke it out. Plenty of really high-budget animation in some of these fights but it really is going round in circles at this point.
The now-infamous “Luffy hits Kaido so hard the original opening plays” moment!
As for other plot threads? Well thankfully Chopper and the Samurai facing off with Queen and his “Ice Oni virus” finally came to a close after a thousand or so more of the same shots of people turning into the creatures. Chopper creates an antidote, cures everyone and then throws caution to the wind by underdoing a dangerous but powerful transformation and fights Kaido’s right hand head on… for a while. Momonosuke meanwhile spends a good majority of these episodes running alongside Shinobu and Yamato, with the latter eventually showing Momonosuke his father’s journal that she kept. That was a nice moment, and soon Yamato headed off to confront Kaido himself.
Kin’emon and his fellow Scabbards recover from their defeat at the hands of Kaido and immediately have to deal with a returning Kanjuro, which was annoying… his death was perfect earlier in the arc. He creates an exact duplicate of Oden that SOMEHOW fools everyone but Ashura Doji, who sacrifices himself to save everyone. Kanjuro is eventually actually killed this time (I hope!) by Kin’emon but he really should’ve stayed dead. Same goes for Orochi, who appeared in a few scenes here, for some reason… The never-ending chase between Nami, Usopp and Tama running from Ulti and Page One actually manages to end, though Ulti later re-emerged after a perfectly satisfying defeat much to Nami, and my, disappointment. That being said it leads to Nami gaining new power as Big Mom’s old sentient cloud Zeus ends up possessing her Weather Rod (Man that’s a weird sentience…) so its not all bad. Jimbei is also fighting the cat-like Who’s-Who, who (“Who’s-Who who… bloody hell) turned out to be an ex-member of CP0, so it’s nice to see that old government organisation mentioned again. Sadly I was looking forward to more from this fight (to the point where I took a screengrab of it) but so far nothing else has happened there…
Jimbei and Who’s-Who square off in the previously mentioned screengrab.
Lastly Sanji is tricked into being captured by the spider-like Black Maria, who then tortures him until he calls his ally Nico Robin to her, and much to her surprise he swallows his masculinity and does just that, begging Robin to help. She arrives (with Brook), knowing how much courage it took for Sanji to do that, so as the cook heads up for his big battle in the upper floors Nico Robin finally got a big one-on-one fight! It may have been a little heavy on the re-animated backstory and pulls the “visions of people you love distract you during the fight” cliché (after they had only JUST done the same thing with the Scabbards and Odin a few episodes ago…) but it’s still nice to see her get some spotlight at last.
I also have to mention that not only were there more recap episodes disguised as “specials” so they won’t need to be included in DVD/Blu-Ray releases but there was also Episodes 1029 and 1030 that covered the backstory to Uta, Shanks’ daughter that takes centre stage in the newly released film “Red”. Honestly it’s not even that interesting, certainly didn’t make me want to run out and watch the film anyway…
Overall Thoughts:
Law, Zoro, Killer and Kid watch on before being shifted off to their own battles.
This chunk of Wano was much like the previous one: it had some great moments, fun fights but was drowning in stalling tactics, even the actual core manga story is stalling at this point let alone the actual anime filler! I’m not anticipating the next chunk to be the final one, but maybe the one after that…
The big event here really is Luffy once again falls to Kaido and is thrown from the roof and into the ocean, sinking deep into its waters seemingly dead. He is of course saved, in this case by Law’s pirate submarine, but during his downtime Kaido pops off and seemingly kills Kin’emon before heading back up to roof in time to fight the arriving Yamato, who transforms to take on her father. Meanwhile Tama uses her powers to turn all the “Gifters” to her side and changes the tide of battle in their favour while Nico Robin finishes her fight with Black Maria by showing a whole new level of power by creating what was essentially a giant version of herself. She is saved post-fight by Brook, who at least got to do a little something, though it once again featured a bunch of flashbacks…
Nico Robin has come a long way from just being able to create arms, that’s for sure…
As this chunk of episodes come to a close Luffy is revived and refilling his energy ready for round 2 (or round 4 at this point overall?) while Momonosoke begs Shinobu to use her abilities to age him up to an adult so he can be of help…
Hogan Reviews 