It’s time for the penultimate One Piece Wano Arc review, as I know the series likes to streeeetch things out but what’s left should fit into one single chunk of episodes, so I’m happy to proclaim this as the second to last. With one or two smaller exceptions this chunk ties up the big fights that aren’t Luffy vs. Kaidou, including some very flashy fight sequences, though as per usual watching it one episode a week made the fights feel like they went on forever… Let’s take a look!
Before we get to the major battles lets quickly take a look at some of the other goings on, like how at the end of the previous chunk of episodes Momonosuke asked to be aged up and has now become a large pink dragon, though still with the mind of a child (man One Piece can be weird to talk about sometimes…) but he eventually gains the courage to fly Luffy back up to the roof of Onigashima so he can tag back in from Yamato, who had been fighting her father this whole time in his place. The Yamato v Kaidou scenes and Luffy’s return got the super high budget animation treatment, so it was quite the sight! For the rest of this review just assume there are plenty of cut backs to Luffy facing Kaidou but nothing really happens, the fight is very much on a holding pattern until everything else is sorted. A good mini-fight happened between Killer and Basil Hawkins after the latter reveals he’s attached Killer’s Captain’s life to his own with his powers so any damage to him is transferred to his boss. The fight comes to an end when Killer remembers Captain Kidd’s right arm is missing already so cuts Hawkins’ right arm off, incapacitating him while doing no damage to his old ally.
Killer merely maims, therefore failing to live up to his name. Forshame…
On the negative side not only is bloody Orochi still alive (which to be fair his fruit was based on a Hydra and his head was cut off so I should’ve seen that coming) but ONCE AGAIN Kanjuro wakes up and enacts his “final performance” by creating a giant flame beast that will slowly descend down to the weapon stores and blow the whole island up, by the order of Orochi (who I guess will survive via his powers anyway). How many times is Kanjuro going to get a fitting death scene before one actually sticks? Drives me crazy. Yamato soon heads down to the weapon stores while Momonosuke tries to pull the floating island away from Wano’s populace. That’s about it for the minor stuff, I mean Perospero is finally defeated thanks to Cat Viper, Dog Storm similarly avenges his people by finally taking down Jack, and Raizo takes on his old ninja master Fukurokuju in a burning hallway. Kin’emon and Kiku are barely alive but are rescued by Usopp while Izou stays behind to fight off some generic pirates, showing his Whitebeard tattoo triumphantly while doing so, and finally the mysterious CP0, who spent the whole arc observing everything, are told to take action and kill Luffy because of a secret reason to do with his Devil Fruit power talked about by the old men nearly at the very top of the government food chain. More on that next time!
That whittles us down to the three major battles, the last of which I’ll save for the spoilers but the other two the winners were obvious enough (plus the majority of the review would be in the spoiler section otherwise…) While Sanji starts off fighting both King and Queen, Kaidou’s right and left hand men, Zoro soon awakens thanks to a special drug that healed him fully but will give him double the pain later (he’s had worse, let’s face it…) and they pair off, Sanji fighting Queen and Zoro fighting King. It’s fair to say these fights, um, go on a while but Sanji ends up taking fatal damage only for his body to “pop” back into place unhurt, making him realise his body is finally undergoing the effects of his father’s genetic enhancements, much to his horror, plus an incident where it seemed like Sanji hit an innocent woman started convincing him that he was going to lose all emotion as well. It turned out that an invisible Queen had hit the woman, and Sanji destroys his Germa suit in defiance of his family’s heritage and then eventually defeats Queen using a brand new attack taking advantage of his new body under his own terms. Once again the final battle was given the super-smooth animation style, so it was satisfying end.
Sanji gets ready to finally send Queen off our screens.
The same can be said for Zoro vs. King, as their finale was also given the special budget treatment and was quite the feast for the eyes. Their fight is more straight forward, though it turns out King was a member of a frequently-experimented-on rare race of people who could naturally create fire without any Devil Fruit, with King being freed from captivity by Kaidou, hence his undying loyalty (and why he wore a mask to hide his identity as there’s a standing bounty on all members of his race…) Otherwise, yeah, Zoro gets near death but manages to eek out a win with a big move, like usual! That just left the two Emperors of the Sea left to defeat…
Overall Thoughts:
This may look like a Dragon Ball Z style “power struggle” but King and Zoro are actually about to clash mid-air…
At least this chunk of Wano felt like something actually happened and things moved forward as most of the non-Kaidou villains were dealt with, one way or another, leaving us with only the big finale for next time. Plenty of great animation for the big moments, but also plenty of episodes where nearly literally nothing happened… Still, I have to admit, there was definitely more good than bad this time round!
So throughout this whole chunk of episodes two fellow “Worst Generation” captains in Trafalgar Law and Kidd were battling with Big Mom, and managing to land a few hits here and there but otherwise having a hard time. They eventually reveal that they’ve “Awoken” their Devil Fruits and attained new powerful abilities, managing to push Mom to her limit. Just as things look good though Big Mom uses her own power to consume one year of her natural life in order to gain greater power (and even more height!) once again turning the tables. In classic storytelling fashion though just as things looked bleakest for our “heroes” (though it’s hard to call Kidd that, to be fair…) managed to pull out a victory, with Law not only stabbing Big Mom but creating a hole through the island and deep into the Earth itself, then Kidd blasted her down through the island and into the deep hole, literally knocking her into the Earth’s core, pretty much. Well, the lava layer anyway…
About bloody time!
As you’d imagine the whole episode was given the big budget treatment again, and her “death” (this is One Piece, I have a heard time buying any lead antagonist’s death…) was suitably dramatic as her life flashed before her eyes. She’s been a key antagonist on the show for so many years in a row now it’s quite weird to think she’s finally been toppled! As a little extra cliffhanger the massive elephant Zunesha arrives at Wano and begins to talk to Momonosuke… That came out of nowhere, which is impressive given its size! (ba-dum-tish)
Hogan Reviews 