Hogan Reviews

Okay so the plan was to split this arc in half but upon writing the first review (523 – 553) it was far, far too long. Despite not really liking this arc at all there were enough subplots, flashbacks and new characters that there’s just too much for one review if I want to keep it to a reasonable word count, so I’ve split THAT review in half and I’ll now review it in three. With that, here’s the original opening paragraph:

So we have finally reached it, the point where a lot of more casual One Piece fans often tap out of the show. Hell, I was really enjoying watching it back then but these episodes once a week? Nope, I ended up dropping it and it took a few years for me to get back into the show, and even then I just skipped to the final few episodes of this arc and then continued from there, so this is actually my first time watching a lot of these episodes, and boy do I understand why. At least I could get a few out of the way in one week, but that didn’t help much. Is it completely irredeemable? Well, no, but what’s good about the arc is mostly contained in the next half (um, two thirds…) of the story, these episodes are pretty poor all round… Let’s take a look anyway!

The kicks off with a few leftover bits from the previous one, mainly the revelation that Kuma was responsible for keeping the Thousand Sunny undamaged for the two years they were away and he in fact sent each of them to locations he knew would help them as he is actually a member of the Revolutionary Army. A fun little reveal, though Kuma as a character doesn’t play a big role again until the arc that’s currently being released / airing as I type, so… I hope if it peaked your interest you stick with the next 500 or so episodes to see more! Anyway, next Caribou and his men try to attack Luffy as the Straw Hats make there way underwater but the man himself ends up captured in a barrel (thanks to his ability to turn into gooy liquid) and his men and ship are seemingly lost when they run afoul of a massive Kraken, which is soon defeated by Luffy, Zoro and Sanji showing off some new techniques. The crew are then attacked by a Fishman named Vander Decken on his Flying Dutchman ship, complete with a massive human-looking “Sea Bonze” called Wadatsumi and once again things look grim until Luffy, Zoro and Sanji reveal they’ve tamed the Kraken, apparently called Surume, and use it to beat Wadatsumi and head deeper in the sea. A few natural disasters and other Fishmen ship encounters later and the Straw Hats finally make it to Fishman Island.

These early scenes really make you wonder how so many ships have made it to the New World given they have to travel through Fishman Island and all this!

Of course as in tradition with the series the crew is split up as they crash into port, with Luffy, Usopp, Sanji and Chopper waking up next to Camie, the Mermaid they saved a few arcs ago, while Nami, Robin and Franky arrive together elsewhere, with Zoro and Brook by themselves. It’s Luffy’s side of the story that got on my nerves the most as along with Camie is the extremely obnoxious starfish thing Pappagu, who is now some sort of fashion guru, and there’s a bunch of gags where Sanji sees some mermaids and has a nosebleed so bad he legitimately needs a blood transfusion. Now, again, it’s a classic gag but boy its over-done here… at least the Fishmen refusing to give Sanji a blood transfusion actually ties into the story arc’s overall theme of racism (the Fishmen refuse to give their blood to the humans that enslaved them) but it’s still overdone. There are some good future storybeats though, like Luffy sees a fortuneteller who reveals that Luffy will be responsible for destroying Fishman Island (that hasn’t happened yet, but I bet it will in some form or fashion in the future!) and we also hear that Big Mom has set up a candy factory in the area as she is now protecting the area after Whitebeard’s death left a gap, and she’s a major antagonist in a few arcs time. We’re soon introduced to the Fishmen Royal family in King Neptune, his three sons Fukaboshi, Manboshi and Ryuboshi, and his daughter the massive mermaid Princess Shirahoshi and find out that super-creepy Vander Decken has been sending love letters to the princess since she was a child (ugh…) and has also been frequently sending swords and axes crashing towards the door of her room thanks to his devil fruit power to be able to send any object towards someone or something he’s touched. An odd set up, but that’s One Piece for you!

It’s the three Princes: Really annoying 1, Sounds-too-much-like-Renji and Really annoying 2.

Some of the Straw Hats reunite and are invited to the Royal Palace (along with Camie and Pappagu for extra annoyance!) thanks to saving one of the Princess’s favourite animals while at the same time we’re introduced to the lead villains of the arc (well, beyond Vander Decken) as Hody Jones and his Fishmen pirates are planning to overthrow King Neptune due to his wife’s old insistence they bury the past and ally with humans as Hody wants to instead go to war with them and enslave the humans the way they did his people. To do this they’re taking special energy steroids that double their strength and power, so an on-the-nose anti-drugs message gets thrown in with the well written anti-racism one for this arc, why not I guess? Hody soon joins forces with Decken, though he just wants the Princess. I’ll say at this point that Decken isn’t actually lusting over the Princess as much as he wants her latent powers for himself, so it’s not straight up paedophilia but boy oh boy is he ever clearly meant to be as creepy as possible without directly going there. Luffy soon befriends Shirahoshi and eventually convinces her to leave her tower and finally visit the places she wants to go just as the rest of the Straw Hats who also made it to the palace accidently end up taking over the place, complete with tying the King himself up. It’s a genuinely funny string of scenes with Zoro just going with the flow and everyone else following him before stopping to realise what happened. Little do they know that soon Hody will be making his way to the palace and will be more than happy to see so much less resistance…

So obviously its mostly set up it does eventually do that, but man it’s slow going. I think the main issue is pretty much the entire royal family and especially Camie and Pappagu are mostly the kind of kooky characters that grate on me rather than amuse me, making for some painful early episodes while the story was waiting to kick off proper…

Overall Thoughts:

A deadly alliance… between two villains we’ve only just been introduced to, but hey-ho.

The Fishman Island Arc gets off to such a painfully slow and frankly often unfunny start that it’s become a frequent “I checked out at this point” moment for many fans over the years. The arc does get better as it goes along, but I’ll admit for One Piece its pretty poor in comparison. A bad start to an average-at-best story arc? Yeah, not going to score this chunk of episodes very highly, I’m afraid…

As Robin searches for more ancient history and Franky meets up with his old mentor Tom’s brother Den, Sanji and Chopper come across a severely injured Hatchi (originally from the whole Arlong pirates story…) who was nearly killed trying to talk Hody out of his plot and confirms to the Straw Hats that he plans to continue Arlong’s will. Luffy soon meets up with Sanji and Chopper just as word gets out that Luffy has “kidnapped” the Princess leading to the local populace rising up against the Straw Hat Captain but when Luffy KO’s Decken (after Shirahoshi rejects his proposal and he immediately switches back to attempted murder) they’re more confused. Eventually Hody does make it to the palace and is surprised to see the Straw Hats had already done the hard work for him, but obviously his hatred of humans means a fight soon breaks out but to Hody’s surprise even underwater Zoro manages to wound him just as the palace floods with water and things look grim for Zoro, Usopp and Brook (Nami manages to get away with Camie)

Zoro cuts Hody in the only screenshot actually taken by me, as splitting these episodes in two meant the four pictures I took needed to be split up as well, and the majority were from the later ones! (Thanks again to the One Piece wiki for the others…)

It sadly isn’t as exciting as it sounds, though I do love that Hody, the big-bad of the arc, is defeated easily by not even our main character because I like to think of it as he was the next challenge two years ago so the Straw Hats are “over levelled for the area” to use an RPG term. Thanks to the steroids and an advantage underwater they do still pose a challenge later, but not much.