Hogan Reviews

It’s finally time to do another little run of older One Piece episodes, following on from my review of the all-time classic Marineford arc a while ago (okay, a good while ago… there was a lot of Wano in that time though!) I’ve actually had this and the next review on my PC for a good while now, it was just the soul-sapping Fishman Island arc that slowed the older reviews to a halt, but I’m happy to say I’m over that hurdle so let’s look at the next three One Piece arcs (because the first two are really short). The Post War Arc is less about the direct fallout from Marineford and more about Luffy coming to terms with Ace’s death by remembering his childhood with Ace and a young boy named Sabo, followed by preparing for the next era of the series. Let’s take a look.

Quick note: if you’re wondering where Episode 492 went, it was a crossover episode with the now long-forgotten Toriko anime. It’s why I stopped my Marineford review at 491 rather than 489 like the official listing, made things neater.

Anyway, as Luffy grieves on Amazon Lilly we head straight to his past where his granddad Garp sent him to live on an island with the Dadan family, the same place he left Blackbeard’s son Ace, and while its rocky to start with the two boys become friends. Also on the island is a large junkyard called Grey Terminal where the two meet another boy called Sabo, and soon enough the three of them become friends, especially when they run into a small-time pirate group called the Bluejam Pirates and manage escape their clutches. It’s shortly after this that Sabo reveals that he’s actually a Noble who ran from the lifestyle, and that he, Luffy and Ace declare themselves brothers with a drink. I’ll get this out of the way: while I do like Sabo as a character later in the series I really disliked this at the time. It felt like author Eiichiro Oda either immediately regretted killing off Ace or faced serious backlash for doing it so created this story so Luffy can still have a cool brother to meet later in the story. It didn’t ruin the drama of Marineford but it certainly takes a bit away from it, especially revealing Sabo right afterwards.

Awwww, ain’t they cute? …. Sort of?

Episodes 497 – 499 are actually that rare One Piece thing of pure filler episodes (normally the manga story is just extreeeemely stretched!) spending more time with the three brothers before 500 gets us back on track. Luffy, Ace and Sabo are caught by the Bluejam Pirates in Grey Terminal again but Sabo manages to escape and soon ends up back in his home of High Town, where he finds out that his father and their new adopted son (who are the biggest on-the-nose caricatures of rich snobs you’ll ever see) are happy that the whole of Grey Terminal is going to be raised to the ground with a fire attack so it won’t embarrass them when the Celestial Dragons arrive. Sabo rushes back but is too late as soon the whole area is aflame. While Ace and Curly Dadan (the main Dadan that was looking after the boys) fight off the Bluejam Pirates Luffy and the rest of the family go into hiding, but Luffy naturally wants to help. Eventually Ace and Dadan are victorious but while that happened the despondent Sabo hopped onto a boat in hopes of starting a new life only to get his boat destroyed by the Celestial Dragon’s craft for the crime of being in their general vicinity. While believed dead he is actually saved by Luffy’s father Monkey D. Dragon, who takes him back to the Revolutionary Army’s HQ to recover after being impressed with the boy’s hatred of his own “Noble” heritage from an earlier meeting.

Ace and Luffy are informed of Sabo’s “death” and become closer for it, leading to a few flash-forwards where we see Ace leave Goa and then eventually Luffy do the same (and taking out the giant “Lord of the Coast” SeaKing that ate Shanks’ arm for good measure. Loved that bit!) We then rejoin Luffy in the present where although he is still distraught he has at least focused enough that he wants to see his crew again, but a newly-arriving Rayleigh tells him that given what happened last time that’s probably not a good idea.

Rare Dragon sighting! … as in the person, though actual Dragons would be worth noting as well, to be fair…

As for his crew? Well to recap: Zoro ended up on the island where Dracule Mihawk lives; Usopp ended up on an island called “Boin” with lots of crazy plant life (and far too much stuff to eat…); Nami ended up on the island of Weatheria where they have weather-controlling tech much like her weapon of choice; Sanji ended up in the Kamabakka Kingdom, the same place Ivankov comes from that’s full of over-the-top gay and drag queen stereotypes which is of course the ultimate ladies man’s worst nightmare; Chopper ended up on an island of animals and rare plants/herbs; Nico Robin is on Tequila Wolf Island and forced into slave labour; Franky ended up on Mechanical Island where he finds an abandoned lab that once belonged to famed scientist Dr. Vegapunk; and Brook ended up being mistaken for Satan by a bunch of cultists. For the rest of these episodes these “adventures” are further touched upon, alongside what Luffy is doing with Rayleigh…

As with all One Piece it takes a long time to say what it needs to, but at least in this case it does a good job of both establishing Luffy’s backstory and setting everything up for a good old fashioned time skip!

Overall Thoughts:

Yay, more of this. Just what I wanted to have to sit through…

The “Post War Arc” is half flashback, half training arc as we get a good look at Luffy’s past before our protagonist and his crew all get several concurrent stories about how they’re going to get stronger over the next two years. It’s effective, with the exception of a few filler episodes during the flashback stretching things out past breaking point it doesn’t overstay its welcome, probably thanks to switching locations so frequently in the back half. That being said nothing here is super-exciting or anything, a flashback and some training arcs isn’t going to be pulling me back in for a rewatch, let’s put it that way. With that we end the original adventures and head into the New World!

As I said, the rest of the arc is just the Straw Hats getting set up for the next, post-time skip arc as Luffy gets a message out to them that they’ll reunite on the Sabaody Archipelago in two years’ time by returning to Marineford so he gets in all the papers to deliver it. Zoro begs to be trained by Mihawk, the very man he has vowed to defeat in the future, which amuses him enough to accept; Usopp finds a way to use the local plant life as offensive weapons (and aims to drop all the weight he put on); Nami sticks with the Weatheria people to learn all their secrets; Sanji learns the strange melee combat of the Kamabakka people, including from Ivankov, but mostly spends the time running away from overly lusty men (that’s one way to build up stamina I guess!); Chopper creates lots of new medicines and the like on his island; Nico Robin ends up joining the Revolutionary Army for the two years; Franky ends up nearly destroying himself but uses Vegapunk’s research to build a new cyborg body; and Brook ends up captured by the “Longarm people” (they have long arms, don’t you know!)

“Please train me so I can one day potentially kill you!” “… Yeah, alright.”

Meanwhile Rayleigh, after travelling to Marineford with Luffy and Jinbei (who soon leaves himself but says he will meet back up with Luffy when he reaches Fishman island) decides to train Luffy personally for the two years, picking a strange island whose season changes weekly that’s full of dangerous creatures as the perfect spot to teach him about Haki and other such things. Luffy hangs up his straw hat with the intention of putting it back on in two years’ time when he feels he’s strong enough to be the Straw Hat’s captain once again…