Hogan Reviews

Here I was waiting around for a good break to do the first batch of Egghead Arc reviews and One Piece only goes and stops entirely! … sort of. Yes, after Episode 1122 fresh One Piece anime episodes are on a break until April, a new re-edited version of the Fishman Island arc airing instead (given I just covered the original earlier in the year, I won’t be covering that on this site…) So what better way to find a break in the story than use the break in the story! Let’s take a look at the first chunk of episodes from the first arc of the “Final Saga”, shall we?

The first few episodes establish a few things, like the Straw Hats’ new bounties, Buggy creating the “Cross Guild” with Mihawk and Crocodile (now the 7 Warlords system has been axed) although Buggy being called the head of the group didn’t go down well with his two “subordinates”, the Marines’ new Seraphim units and Blackbeard attack Amazon Lily (once again now the 7 Warlords are done) but Boa Hancock is saved thanks to Rayleigh, and we hear Princess Vivi from alllll the way back in the Alabasta Arc has gone missing and her father King Cobra was killed by none other than Sabo, which is shortly followed by the World Government using some new weapon to completely wipe out the Lulusia Kingdom in one go. More on that later! Oh and Luffy tells everyone his dream (other than being King of the Pirates, obviously) off screen and it makes everyone on the ship laugh, but we won’t know about that for a while, I assume. The Straw Hats pick up a random girl who turns out to be Jewelry Bonney, one of the “Worst Generation” we haven’t seen a lot of, and who has aging powers. The group then get split up (of course!) but both group of Straw Hats end up on Egghead Island, where they spend a few episodes playing with the futuristic technology, get a change of clothes, find a dormant robot from a lost civilization that’s clearly going to be important down the road, and meet a bunch of characters who all refer to themselves as Dr. Vegapunk.

Dr. Vegapunk? More like Dr. VegaDaftPunk, am I right? I mean, I’m pretty sure I am, it would be a bit of a coincidence if it wasn’t intentional…

Turns out that the actual Vegapunk split himself into a various bodies, or “Satellites”, each representing a different aspect of his brain to better run Egghead. They also have several Pacifista which leads to Luffy attacking one only to be stopped by Bonney, who reveals Kuma was her father and she can’t stand to see him get hurt (even though it’s a robotic duplicate…), meanwhile the other group meet the Seraphim based on Jinbei and are also told a bit of extra lore from Shaka, the more reserved Vegapunk, satellite, including that all the books from Ohara, where Robin famously escaped from as a child, were saved by Vegapunk and that friendly giant Saul survived the incident as well, much to her surprise and joy. We then cut away for an episode or two of Trafalgar Law and his crew fighting Blackbeard and his crew, a showdown that ends with Law being wiped out but seemingly alive. The next chunk of episodes on Egghead are all about the arrival of Cipher Pol, complete with a rematch between Luffy and Rob Lucci which while very fun (and extremely well animated!) it did make me wonder how someone Luffy beat back in the pre-timeskip days managed to hold his own against Luffy’s new Gear 5 form, but hey-ho. CP0 also brought with them all the Seraphims but the Vegapunks soon show that they can control their own creations themselves, and eventually that CP0 agent Stussy is actually on their side.

A rematch… God knows how many years in the making at this point…

The Straw Hats soon reunite, briefly, and are given the mission to escape Egghead Island with the original Vegapunk in tow given he’s now a wanted criminal, but he’s soon chased off by Bonney, who wants to know why Vegapunk turned her father into a mindless robot. The Seraphims go out of control again, their commands being superseded by even the Vegapunks, which gives our heroes something to fight for a few episodes, including a fun scene where Luffy and Zoro fight the Hawk and Kuma Seraphims while juggling the tied up Lucci and Kaku. Bonney finds a hidden room with her father’s memories contained in one of Kuma’s weird paw balloons and finds out he was abused as a child, while original Vegapunk is caught and imprisoned by the one who turned the Seraphims on everyone: York, the aspect of Vegapunk that embodied his greed, so… yeah, should’ve thought about that really. Beyond doing all the eating the pooping for the collective Vegapunks (yep…) she also betrayed them to the Five Elders of the World Government because she was told she could become a Noble by doing so. Speaking of the Five Elders one of the Five, Saturn, is on his way to Egghead with Admiral Kizaru, so that should be fun. This is actually where the Egghead Island part of the story ends, for now, but we’re far from done!

Zoro battles a Seraphim with both Mihawk’s giant sword and skills plus the blade fruit abilities of that guy from the Alabasta arc. Oh and King from the Wano arc’s rare bloodline as well, so, three former enemies in one go, actually!

The next two episodes show Redhaired Shanks wiping out Eustass Kid and his crew and ship, so there that goes, for now at least, I doubt a popular character was offed that nonchalantly, but it was fun to see Shanks do something again! We then get a couple of episodes showing us Koby trying to escape Blackbeard’s island and also how Kuzan ended up joining the Blackbeards himself, followed by a funny episode where Buggy declares the Cross Guild are going to find the One Piece, much to Mihawk and Crocodile’s further anger. That leads to the final two mini-stories focusing on Sabo and what happened at Mary Geoise, and the conclusion to Koby’s escape effort, but I’ll save those for the spoiler section, because why not?

Overall Thoughts:

Shanks casually nipping over to Kid in order to defeat him in one hit before going back to his drink.

A fun set of episodes, looking back. Having one filler-filled episode a week with loads of recap specials in between does take some of the edge off as it airs, but hey, collectively it’s a fun set. Honestly I think I enjoyed a lot of the smaller cut-away stories featuring some of the non-Straw Hats far more, but then those were self-contained and straight-to-the-point, whereas the rest is the opening moments of a longer arc, so that’s a bit of an unfair comparison. Either way, fun moments and more occasionally jaw-dropping animated fights gives this a solid 4. Now rest, One Piece, and come back when you’re less filled with filler and recaps… I hope!

Sabo arrives at Revolutionary Army HQ and reveals to Dragon and Ivanov what happened when he and other Revolutionaries arrived to free a bunch of slaves from Mary Geoise, and boy, it’s quite the big deal! King Cobra of Alabasta is given a rare audience with the Five Elders, but when he mentions the “Will of D.” the ruler of the Elders, Imu, finally appears (though still in shadow beyond their red eyes) and actually speaks! He sits on a throne that was supposed to symbolize a lack of one singular ruler and reveals that he is clearly somehow responsible for the “Void Century” that has been a mystery since Robin first appeared on the scene and seemingly from that time period in general, and while this is going on Sabo watches from afar. Cobra is mortally wounded and Sabo appears and tries to flee the chamber with him but Imu and the Elders transform into massive beasts so Cobra tells Sabo to run and tell everyone what he saw, and despite getting wounded, he does so. The Elders use some security footage to imply Sabo killed Cobra, but given the latter was part of the council that okay’s Mary Geoise’s use of slaves it only helps the Revolutionary Army’s popularity. We see Imu also decide to use the “Mother Flame” to destroy Lulusia, and that Vivi escaped by boat with Wapol of all returning characters. Dragon speculates on Imu’s identity before we leave the Revolutionaries and head to Blackbeard’s base.

Garp about to land a punch so massive it makes Devil Fruit users look like idiots for risking the whole “no swimming” thing when you can apparently get this strong without one!

There Koby is trying to escape but Blackbeard pirate Pizarro reveals he can become one with literally the whole island and makes it pretty obvious the Hero of the Marines is finished, until Garp and several other allies arrive, complete with Luffy’s grandad doing a “Galaxy Punch” that acts not unlike a nuclear bomb. Kuzan soon turns up and we get some backstory on how he was a prized pupil of Garp as the two bonded over… punching beached battleships with their bare firsts, then they fight to a draw. Pizarro turns a shoreside hill into a massive fist to ram Garp’s boat full to rescued slaves but Garp himself is wounded protecting Koby, who he then motivates to stop doubting himself and do something amazing, which leads to Koby doing his own version of the Galaxy Punch he names “Honesty Impact” that wipes out the entire hill-sized fist. Garp laughs uncontrollably as his men escape while his body is frozen over by his former student, and that’s that! See you in… well, whenever enough episodes have aired when it resumes in April next year, so… probably close to this time next year, I guess!