This episode immediately made something clear for me, something I hadn't really thought of before. It's obvious, but despite how many crazy islands the crew has already visited, the New World poses the possibility for even more insanity. We've seen the islands like the constant lightning Island, or here we have Punk Hazard, an island so hot that it creates a sea of fire around it. That said, Punk Hazard already has many interesting questions regarding it which may differentiate it from natural islands. We know that it was sealed off after an event occurred four years ago, Robin speculates that this island was a host to many government facilities, and also observes that it has not been forever burning. It is restricted to all, and it appears that an accident or a disaster occurred here. With the bones of dragons and actual dragons being mixed in with these apparent government activities I think the obvious deduction is that the government was creating dragons or other mythological creatures and during their experiments something went wrong. That could be incredibly wrong for all I know, but what we do know for sure is that it was likely that whatever the government was doing created the situation here and led to it being sealed off. Past those questions there's more curious ones. Who exactly was on the sealed off island and called the Straw Hats? There should be nothing capable of living here according to Smoker, and passed that the man calling for help had a team there and a boss. Why did they come to this island that on appearance nobody should visit, further why is there a samurai presumably from Wano kingdom here, and why are they hunting the crew down? All of that assumes to some degree that this wasn’t a trap but that can’t be completely off the table either. Lastly, as Robin said, what was the cold that the caller described? Overall the amount of information and intrigue building up regarding the island all while having such a fun episode was impressive!
I enjoyed the whole episode, but if I had to pick out two specific moments that brought me the most joy, it would be when they drew straws and the cloud ride to Punk Hazard(go nami!). Specifically, I love the insanity of the crew! How Luffy simply wants to go have fun at this crazy island, and Robin is most likely curious about how something like this can even exist. In how Zoro has the most meaningful reason for wanting to visit here, he wants to meet the samurai, he's already had contact with an incredible relic of the Wano Kingdom in Ryuma. He wields the Shusui which this samurai might recognize and give more context for, and most importantly his dream and drive to be the strongest swordsman means this could be an incredible experience. Last but not least, Usopp getting a poor draw and freaking out as Sanji called him lucky was a good touch. It reminds me of some of my own experiences drawing straws with friends. Past the group that are going to the island which is four of my favourite Straw Hats which makes me excited for this already, I laughed incredibly hard at Chopper freaking out and asking Zoro to take his place if he gets unlucky and with Zoro saying he would go even if he lost. It was a blast, and then the hilarity of having Robin steer the waver from the backseat as Luffy, Zoro, and Robin all eat casually while driving on top of a cloud with a sea of fire under it, and Usopp freaks out was something to remember for sure. I also love how Nami wished Usopp luck as Usopp begged her to take his place. So much fun… I thought the detail of having Nami put her hair up presumably due to the heat was a great touch!!!
So, we finally have Smoker and Tashigi on the trail of the entire Straw Hat crew again and Smoker has been out for Luffy since Loguetown… This seems so crazy, firstly, there are at least two swordsmen other than Zoro that are going to be on this island which tells me that this may be a Zoro centric arc! That would be awesome, and it's going to be great for Tashigi and Zoro to have a reunion. More than that, seeing that Luffy, the haki user, is on the island as the others are not, Smoker will probably find the Merry first! There's a lot of chaos that could unfold and that is not accounting for a reality where every single person on the Straw Hats and on Smoker’s crew enter the threatening Punk Hazard! Luffy can actually put up a fight against Smoker now and there’s a good chance Smoker, being a rogue marine guy, could team up with Luffy and find some horrors of the government that was kept secret. Colour me intrigued and excited.
Lastly, this episode brought in two great pieces of information. Firstly, we learned more about this illustrious Wano Kingdom, a place of swordsmen who called themselves samurai. Samurai strong enough that the Navy can't approach them. I am curious about Brook’s understanding of Wano Kingdom, he’s certainly not as strong as Wano Kingdom samurai are said to be but if I recall correctly he did once say he was a part of a “certain kingdoms” assault convoy. He could purely know them because Wano Kingdom was more prominent when he was alive but maybe there’s more of a connection than that. We also know Ace went to Wano Kingdom, thats where he learned to make Oars Jr.’s hat or something. Secondly, Robin introduced a new concept that I'm sure could play a role again in the future, the concept of emergency calls with baby snailsponders. More than 50% of them are traps, however they seem to be able to contact whatever snailsponder is nearby. |