One Piece: Episode of Sabo - 3 Kyoudai no Kizuna Kiseki no Saikai to Uketsugareru Ishi

One Piece episode of Sabo... Overall I enjoyed it, but definitely have some complaints.

For a special called episode of Sabo, there really wasn't enough Sabo. Like, the majority of the special is the Dressrosa arc in hyper-speed or something, and most of it just feels like padding. Counting all the new material this probably wouldn't have even been 15 minutes long...

As I just mentioned, the pacing is way too fast, and full of stuff that's really irrelevant to what most of us want. Like the Law, Fuji, and Doffy bits felt so slapped in there.
Again, another issue with the pacing is some stuff felt ... really... not so impactful. Luffy's reunion with Sabo, Sabo's fight in the Colosseum, Luffy and Chinjao etc. The anime did all of those scenes much better.

The animation and art is... not as good as I'd hoped. I wouldn't say it was bad, but some parts were clearly better done than others. Some Toei art quirks are in here too.


Too much of it was recycled content. I know there's obviously not much canonical material to pull from and all but still.

Overall, and this is probably gonna be an unpopular opinion, but this really felt like a cash in on Sabo's crazy popularity right now. I didn't hate the special or anything, I love Sabo too and seeing more of him was definitely a treat. It's just I really don't feel like what Toei did here was necessary at all. If you don't care for Sabo, don't bother. If you're a diehard Sabo fan, give it a watch because the sliver of new content was definitely enjoyable.

I was really disappointed by this special. They marketed it as a special about Sabo with "content never seen before in the anime/manga." This is about as far as you can get from that, being almost entirely recap of Dressrosa with a couple new scenes from Sabo's perspective. That's it.

What I really wanted was some sort of side story featuring Sabo and some of the other revolutionaries like Koala and Hack. They could've done a continuation of Robin's separation story in Tequila Wolf and had them do some sort of mission together. I don't care if it ends up being non-canon, it's not a whole ... lot different in concept than 3D2Y was, and that was also non-canon. It doesn't even have to be something like that, just anything other than this would be good. Why would you market it as something unique and new when it's literally the furthest possible thing from that?

What they did was cash in on the hype about Sabo. A lot of Sabo fans might disagree with that, but as a Sabo fan myself I'm just being honest. We were promised something and we got the exact opposite of what we were promised. That's not cool.

Great, enjoyable movie. An special all about one of my favourite characters Sabo. The updated animation on the dressrosa scenes are really well done. However it seems like there was much too content to fit into one film and as a result seemed like it would be a bit confusing to people not watching at some points and let some characters have very few scenes still it was very enjoyable overall

This my first ever review so please be patient with me :'). *Spoilers*

So this One Piece Special covers the back story of how Sabo made it to Dressrosa whilst observing the overarching events from the main plot by Luffy and the Straw Hat crew. It does kind of drop a few spoilers from the manga which has not been animated as of yet, particularly Sabo losing his memory. Although he does not say he suffered from amnesia after being blown up on his boat leaving the Goa Kingdom, it is hinted at in the special that Sabo regained his memories of Ace and Luffy when ... he saw the former's picture in the newspaper headlines.

Story (6/10):
I was a bit disappointed with the story to be honest. I feel like it was a bit of a cop out, particularly by Oda. He is not known for being a bad storyteller in One Piece with character's back stories. But I was not impressed with the Sabo suffering from amnesia storyline that was presented in the manga and portrayed slightly in the special.

The special recaps all of the events that have happened in Dressrosa so far from Sabo's point of view. So you do see a lot of repeated fights from the anime. I have enjoyed Dressrosa so far, but overall the backstory to Sabo lets me down a fair amount.

Art (6/10):
Toei's animation as of late has been very lackluster and highly disappointing. I will not say much more on this. If you do not believe me, I would watch the Sabo vs Fujitora fight again and how it could have been done a million times better than in its animated form. For other sources of Toei's bad animation, you can look at Dragon Ball Super and World Trigger. Both have very average animation. This does not take anything away from a viewer's and particularly my enjoyment of the special however.

Sound (8/10):
Not much to be said on the sound, it is exactly the same style as used in the anime. If you enjoy the One Piece soundtrack, then you will enjoy the soundtrack in the special.

Characters (6/10):
All characters in the special have already been introduced in the anime. For me, they are some of my favourite characters. All of the interesting aspects of Sabo have been covered in the anime already and I felt like this was just a recap for me. Other people may not feel the same way however.

Enjoyment (8/10):
I thoroughly enjoyed the special, mainly because it focussed on the brother's story throughout its entirety. However, for the second year in a row, I have been subjected to Ace's death which does bring a tear to my eye every time I watch that scene. So thank you Toei for almost making me cry, for 2 years in a row. If you felt the same as me, or even cried at that particular scene, be prepared to do so again. Have the tissues ready people.

Overall (7/10)
Like I say, I enjoyed it due to the nature and background of the special. But I do feel like it was just a complete recap of Dressrosa so far, only from another perspective (Sabo's). Toei also still have the same animation problems as they do with all their anime as of late. The characters are fine however and it is a good watch. If you don't want spoilers of Sabo's back story until the anime reaches that point in the manga, then I would advise you to watch carefully if you don't want spoilers.

Eu parei de assistir One Piece há pouco mais de anos, pois a qualidade de animação estava ruim demais. Não quero dizer ruim de um parecido com como era nos primeiros episódios afinal, naquela época a animação "ruim" era intencional, era um estilo cômico, mas quando eu parei de acompanhar o anime, era ruim de um jeito cansativo e sem graça de se assistir.

Então como eu não tinha mais opções, resolvi começar a acompanhar o mangá, e vi o comecinho desta saga sensacional de Dressrosa mas parei de acompanhar porque mangá não é muito a minha praia. Em outras palavras, já estou há dois anos ... completamente por fora do universo de One Piece.

Esses dias estava eu de boas na internet quando me deparei com um pessoal falando sobre um tal de "episódio do Sabo" que havia sido lançado e que mostrava parte da saga de Dressrosa, não perdi tempo e fui atrás dele para poder assisti-lo, e posso dizer, fico muito feliz que a TOEI lance especiais como esse com uma boa qualidade, para que pessoas, que assim como eu também desistiram, possam continuar acompanhando esta obra sensacional, mesmo que somente em pedaços.

Apesar do especial não mostrar muito coisa sobre a saga, ainda assim fico feliz em poder vê-la animada, nota 10/10

It's safe to say that with how huge One Piece is, periodic recap episodes are almost a must to aid the fans to keep up with the humongous well-written world of One Piece. The primary goal from these special episodes was always that, quick standalone recaps that one can watch and save the countless hours that they would put have they went with the Anie binging route, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. However, as bad as it seems, not every recap manages to leave a nice memory about it, does this also concern this special?

Following the same trend of “Episode of X” releases, ... this special focuses on Sabo and his perspective on the event that overlapped Dressrosa, for what've seen from the canon plot, Sabo was only introduced almost midway into the arc, it turned out that he was already there before any of the chaos unraveled.

We all hate useless flashbacks, flashbacks that are told so much that it throws you in some hurtful Naruto nightmares and its endless recursive line of the same flashback repeating over and over again. We've already seen the history of the three brothers on so many occasions before that we could tell it from start to finish as if it was a contest. I mean, yes, it's crucial to the special seeing how it focuses on a character that we've only got introduced to through a flashback arc, to begin with, but still, Dressrosa was a dragged out nightmare already, so there was no need to massacre this recap in the same brutal way.

On a whole, it was really enjoyable and fun to dig through some highlights from the Dressrosa arc whilst getting new content that the canon lacked, even though most of it was Sabo monologing about how Luffy has grown from a crybaby to a strong, capable man.
I still like how the Anime did a lot of things better than this special, they even included altered dialogue and even completely different scenarios for some reason. The only thing I thought the special did better than the Anime was Sabo's flashed out fight against Diamante and Luffy's fight against Don Chinjao, although, I like the how latter was set up in the Anime more.
On these two specific fights, the animation really stood out and asserted its dominance as a higher produced piece of animation.