Hogan Reviews

After spending an extra review’s worth of time with the Fishman Island arc it’s time to bring it to a close, thankfully. Okay, the finale has some classic One Piece “satisfying villain beatdown” about it, but really thanks to not really caring about either the villains or the new good guys it doesn’t have the same impact as it has done in previous, or indeed future arcs. Either way, let’s take a look and get this arc out of the way for good…

We left off with the Straw Hats having made a big entrance in front of the whole Fishman Island population and faced off with Hody’s rebels as they were set to execute the King. Well, Luffy wastes no time in delivering a massive punch to Hody to the roar of the crowd, though the Fishman soon gets up with little damage due to his over-steroided body. In a pretty great moment Hody then sends a good half of his 50,000 strong army at Luffy and he takes them out by the power of his “Colour of the Supreme King Haki”, essentially exerting so much strength outwardly that the weakest people around collapse unconscious. This leads to a couple of episodes of the Straw Hats showing their newfound powers (or in the case of Franky, his newly developed vehicles) as they mow down waves of Fishman pirates like a Dynasty Warriors game, and also Luffy re-tames the Kraken known as Surume before ordering it to protect Princess Shirahoshi, who is still hanging around, which it does eventually, though it takes a bit of convincing as apparently Hody has the giant squid’s brother captive… Only in One Piece…

The Noah heads towards the Kingdom! … Very slowly, but it heads there!

As this is all happening the massive ship known as Noah begins to loom over the underwater Kingdom thanks to Vander Decken’s insane jealousy, freaking out King Neptune who claims that no matter what the ship must not be damaged. As some of the generic henchmen with a bit of a gimmick begin pairing off with other Straw Hat members (seriously, they remind me of the Dragon Ball Z movie villains with just one character quirk to cover for having no time to develop them, despite the fact that this arc has nothing BUT time…) Shirahoshi overhears Vander Decken’s reasoning for sending the ship and realises its her fault that it’s heading for the island so she swims upwards away from the city, causing Luffy to follow her and Hody to follow him (plus he’s pretty pissed as Decken for trying to kill him) As Luffy struggles against Hody due to his superiority in water Decken begins attacking Shirahoshi directly but both of the villainous Fishmen are stopped by the three princes Fukaboshi, Manboshi and Ryubosi, though Hody soon lands on the deck of the Noah and stabs Decken with his trident, rending the whole thing moot.

Racist kills potential paedophile…. yay, I guess?

As the Noah now falls back towards Fishman Island due to Decken’s near-death Hody takes out the Princes and heads for Shirahoshi but is stopped by Luffy. As the two fight Fukaboshi reveals Hody’s “true identity”, which sounded interesting but turned out to be that he’s a monster born of his environment, raised to hate humans for no other reason than that’s all he’s known… so a racist due to growing up around other racists, which… I mean, yeah. Not really a “true identity” as much as a sad fact of life that sadly still occurs. Still makes a change for a villain not to have a tragic backstory, or I should say a specific and detailed tragic backstory, his hatred of another race by virtue of his environment is tragic in a different way… ANYWAY, as the generic henchmen all take energy steroids to gain a boost and add a little bit of tension to the other Straw Hat’s fights Hody overdoses even more and begins to get the upper hand on Luffy as the Noah falls ever closer towards Fishman Island…

As I said before it’s all pretty standard One Piece affair but just with villains and extra characters I don’t care about or worse that I just don’t like at all…

Overall Thoughts:

Zoro takes on drunk octopus man in a sword fight… yay I guess? … Well, more than the other “Yay I guess” gag anyway!

The Fishman Island arc comes to a close and while it does have a small handful of fun moments once again I just didn’t feel invested due to the whole Fishman exclusive cast of villains and allies being so dull, or annoying… or both somehow. It really is no surprise that so many more casual fans checked out of the series during this arc, it’s definitely a pace killer. At least now I know I won’t have to watch it again and we can move on to better, though admittedly much longer, arcs as we continue to play catch up with my Wano arc reviews… (though as I like to keep cycling series, it may be a little while…)

As each of the Straw Hats defeat their opponent with little effort Luffy ends up “Elephant Gatling” not just the yet-more-steroided Hody unconscious for the win but also trying to destroy the Noah, which at this point even King Neptune laments that it must happen despite it meaning he won’t be able to “keep the Island’s promise to Joy Boy” (once again, a hint to a future story that has yet to be told over a decade later…) but at the last moment a group of massive Sea Kings arrive thanks to Shirahoshi’s power and gently guide the Noah back to its original place on the sea bed. Hody and all of his group have been defeated and the Straw Hats are victorious! Shirahoshi and to their surprise Luffy are able to hear and even talk to the Sea Kings, with Gol D. Roger being the only other person who was able to hear them in the past, and Luffy gets a blood transfusion from Jimbei, finally scrapping that outdated law.

Luffy takes down Hody, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief as the arc heads to its close…

This leads to some fun lore drops as we find out one of the ancient weapons is located at Fishman Island, hear more vague Joy Boy references, hear that Akainu has become the new Fleet Admiral after defeating Aokiji, who then left the Marines entirely, and that Blackbeard has taken over most of Whitebeard’s old territories and his place in the Four Emperors of the Sea. We also see Caribou, who yes this whole time had been sneaking around trying to capture mermaids and steal treasure, get his arse kicked again and that Hody and his group have succumbed to the negative effects of the Steroids and become old and enfeebled. Just before the Straw Hats head out we also get a few episodes where two members of the Big Mom pirates arrive for the Island’s monthly payment of sweets only to find out that due to the damage done by Hody’s crew they can’t meet their quota.

Yep, those are quite some character designs alright. I’m sure their leader Big Mom will be just as subtle!

Luffy offers them treasure instead of sweets but Big Mom, who is on one of the One Piece equivalents of a phone, refuses leading to Luffy claiming he’ll beat her up, her being one of the Emperors of the Sea (and a plot thread that doesn’t reach its end until some 500 or so episodes later…) The two Big Mom pirates take the treasure anyway and eventually leave, which is a worry when King Neptune remembers he rigged a tamate box in the treasure haul to blow as a defence again treasure thieves and he hasn’t deactivated it. This leads to the Straw Hats finally leaving for the New World, complete with Nami getting a new Log Pose and the usual characters they’ve met looking sad and getting them to promise to visit them again scenes. Jimbei agrees to join Luffy’s crew but not until he’s sorted a few things out (again, that pays off in about 500 episodes or so…) and off they go, once again tackling a few large sea creatures on the way out.