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I loved this episode- there were some great moments!
I know a lot of people probably hate it when we flit around to different groups and scenes, but it really worked for the episode imo
I just feel like we needed to see what everyone else is up to!
Love Robin's look- she has the most stylish disguise!
CP-0 showed up too, which is interesting...wonder if/how they'll play a role in Dressrosa in later episodes.
Idc what anyone says, but those scenes with Violet and Sanji will never get old...I mean, it's so obvious she's got some shady plans but he's so oblivious to it XD
However, if she wasn't leading him up the garden path, they would make an awesome "you hang up, no you hang up" kinda couple.
Bartolomeo has been around for like half an episode, but I already want him in the Straw Hats...I just like the guy and I don't know why. It prolly has something to do with Shoutaro Morikubo's voice and also his pants bc they're snazzy af
Anyways, looks like this arc has some of the most colourful side characters we've had in a long while- Violet, Cavendish, Rebecca and now Bartolomeo.
Bellamy made a reappearance, a new Admiral showed up and Doffy is the villain.
I don't care how long this arc is!
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The “scene” format of this episode gives it an incredibly easy format to speak about, but it feels as if it suggests something insidious. It makes the characters feel as though they are in a play, as if everything they are doing is planned or anticipated. It started to make me feel more suspicion of Violet and it started to make me feel worried that everything the Straw Hats do play into Doflamingo’s hands. To have the panic of the populous turn into tranquility despite their king being dethroned only adds to this unsettling feeling, like every individual in Dressrosa is playing their part as well.
Since this post ended up unexpectedly huge I've put it in spoiler tags for organization's sake with an actual spoiler-prediction based off of fanart I've seen last.
Before touching on the first scene, I made a weird connection in my head. Blackbeard has responded to the arguments thrown at Luffy both of the times they met. Bellamy told him that the era of dreams is over and Blackbeard told Luffy that “a mans dreams have no end”. Later in Impel Down, Hannyabal tried to tell Luffy what he was doing was evil by releasing prisoners and Blackbeard kicked Hannyabal down and exclaimed that good and evil will never be found no matter how hard you look. As Blackbeard and Luffy parallel each other, it’s a nice motif to have this kind of structure to their meetings which I only just recognized by recalling Bellamy in Jaya.
Scene 1 had Luffy speaking to Bellamy, he did remember him as he hurt his friends, but the next step is the obvious and amazing one, that he’d forget his name completely. “You’re Maro-”, “Bellamy”. It came with some nice re-done art of Jaya and I always appreciate newer renditions of old moments. After this introduction we got to know how Bellamy has changed over time other than his freakish height increase. He lost his pirate crew and he traveled to Skypiea, even going so far to mock Luffy with the idea that he may have hurt the people there. I wonder how seeing Skypiea changed him. Lastly, he told Luffy that he had no grudge, nor does he want the devil fruit, rather, as we know he is sponsored here, he suggests that if he wins he’ll be able to join Doflamingo family. He’ll be able to board his pirate hero’s ship and ride the “wild wave” coming sooner or later. The wave I think we’ve seen Doflamingo working on with his new era since Jaya and something that Kuzan suggested may be coming very soon.
Scene 2 had our first look at the Caesar team! It was a cute little moment of everyone discussing their next moves at a cafe. Their waiter teased them a little with fears over Green Bit and the fighting fish there inspiring Caesar and Usopp to team up and call Law an idiot, asking to change locations. Law was as cold as ever in his response and he pointed out the odd state of the country. Robin, knowing the CP9 well immediately recognized the CP0, on top of looking straight out of a horror movie they are strongest intelligence organization in the world; a force more formidable than CP9. We have an admiral planning moves with 3 navy ships, the CP0, Doflamingo and his men planning around Law and Luffy, the weird state of Dressrosa, and quite a few infamous and miscellaneous people around. This is getting pretty insane and I do have a suspicion almost everything is under Doflamingo’s control. Perhaps put into a corner Doflamingo will be forcing his new era to begin right now.
Zoro despite sometimes not being able to walk in a straight line kept on the fairies trail, leaping onto a rooftop and getting the sword back, but the fairy toppled over on top of him. It panicked that a human would see it, something that it doesn’t want to happen- perhaps it’ll have some bad consequences. Either way, it had Zoro turn into one of his rare moments of total shock and it had an adorable voice. These two should make for a cute team. I wonder if the fairies, if they are actually fairies, work for someone to steal from the people and return their findings to someone else, likely Doflamingo.
Scene 4 had Kin’emon surrounded by the gang that has been pursuing him. They know where Kanjuro is and knew who he was, they’re almost definitely with Doflamingo and they used Kanjuro as a hostage to get him to do what they want. I enjoyed the little banter he had with this group, “it’s a topknot shaped hat, and I can’t take it off for good reason”. “Are you Kin’emon?”, “”I AM NOT.” I also enjoyed both the spike mask and Bartolomeo’s “samurai-san” and “navy-san”.
Speaking of Bartolomeo, he is interesting. His design pops out with his fangs and green mohawk, makeup on one eye, no eyebrows, piercings and his voice is great too. Plus they gave us a sneak peak of him beating a vice admiral like it was nothing. I had anticipated Bartolomeo would conflict with Maynard if Maynard stayed in the colosseum, I didn’t expect him to track Maynard down and take him down outside of the round though. This also put a wrench in my Cavendish vs Bartolomeo theory. It makes me wonder if Cavendish will face Rebecca instead since we know Bartolomeo has to win now and pretty much Rebecca has to win narratively speaking. Cavendish would make a good duel with her as Bellamy and Luffy already have history to make their rematch engaging.
Anyways, to speak more about Bartolomeo, his relationship with Gambia and presumably his subordinates is an intriguing one. He looked more mad that Gambia was beaten to an inch of his life, not distraught for his sake, and later he didn’t call him a nakama or friend but “my dear subordinate”. It gives an air of boss and, well, subordinates rather than crewmates. Further, he was described as someone who became infamous in one year coming into the New World, to have roasted pirates on skewers and shared the videos, bombed innocent civilians, and is ranked number 1 as the most annoying pirate who should go away. Now that is a setup, I wonder how much of it is true and the context of it all. The way they announced his crimes gave me Yakuza coliseum flashbacks, like when they’d announce how many people a serial killer murdered before the fight.
Sanji and Violet are hilarious together, they remind me of highschool couples that makeout at every chance they get. It’s this distinctly vapid but overwhelming sense of romance. “Violet-chan”, “yes?”, “I just wanted to say your name.” It also made me laugh hysterically when the sniper zoomed in and Sanji sensed him and blasted up through his scope to kick his ass. I think the man Violet wants killed will be someone the audience is acquainted with to make it more meaningful.
As for scene 6, it was the first look at the Sunny Security team since everyone broke off! Momonosuke is depressed and they can tell he has some trauma so Chopper and Nami, being the sweethearts of the crew, are playing a children’s game with him where he can be the Shogun he dreams to be. Brook didn’t get it until he was told and it made for another moment that proves Brook is the Straw Hat that makes me laugh the most. He thinks about how sad Momo is and how touching it is that he acts strong, he’s told to play along, and the second he’s asked to do something he picks his lack of nose like Luffy would and childishly tells him no. I can’t even articulate why Brook’s jokes work so well like I can with other characters in One Piece but they hit me super hard constantly. He played a nice new song, vitality corpse, only to be interrupted with someone else being on the ship. Further, the room they were in has become an abstract art painting!
Unfortunately I’ve seen fanart of Kanjuro with a paint brush so... I feel like he somehow made it to their ship and did this?? If that art is to be trusted.
For the first time EVER, One Piece is actually metaphysically acknowledging just how crazy things can get when the crew is a part by literally breaking it down into scenes. Instead of nonchalantly switching or transitioning from character moments, there's actual "Scenes" or "Acts" -- I think 6 to be exact -- broken into where the group all is. That was so strange and surreal. Was there a directional change or something? I think we're all forgetting about -- how in the past -- there was a narrator and/or a map that plotted character location. But this episode was extremely different, breaking from a more fluid plot and taking an episodic approach, literally separating the characters' situations as if they're completely unrelated. And honestly, it seems that way. So much strange unrelated sh*t has happened in all six acts that the other characters are oblivious to. The episode is like six different spin-off shows in a single 20 minutes timeframe. Again, One Piece has never done anything like this, so 635 episodes in, I was shook by the change. And I'm intrigued.
Moving on, I want to communicate an EPIPHANY I had. During the past few episodes:
* One Piece has gotten awfully silly. Mainly in terms of characters. The character designs have gotten extremely silly, as have the character demeanors. One-time, second-long characters have gotten significantly dumber not to mention, either by stating something completely obvious -- but more importantly, their f*cking MANNERISMS. Every single new character introduced (and there's a LOT in this arc) HAVE to have some kind of personality QUIRK. Something GOOFY. Whether it has to do with their speech or their interactions. Like that one guy who told Luffy not to thank him (for like 10 seconds)... I was like "Oh boy, another one of these guys."
* Now to acknowledge the past. Characters may have looked goofy but they retained better human proportions. Their character designs weren't overly simplified into shapes. Maybe the character wore a wacky outfit... but, hey, their personality was probabyl still relatively normal. Goofy but not cartoony like today's One Piece. During the first arcs, whether it be the one with Alvida and Morgan, to the Shanks scenes, even to Alabasta. And things feel different now.
*So what was my EPIPHANY? Well... it's that I'm being too high-strung. I'm an adult well into his 20's who is critiquing f*cking One Piece. ONE Piece. We all know what One Piece is, right? SHOUNEN. It's demographic is for BOYS. A younger male generation. The kinda kids who might watch Spongebob (in America). M'kay. I need to shut TF up and accept One Piece's digression over the years -- into more childish, less dramatic territory. I've finally realized I shouldn't be so uptight and critical of a show that was made for and continues to be aimed at younger audiences. So I'm done hoping things will stride more towards adult tastes. I'll accept Franky's constant, stupid hair changes ... and Chopper's digression into a non-reindeer looking blob ... and an island with sentient fuggin toys with awful character designs ... and how Zoro and Sanji are no longer cool, collected bada$$es but beings that have been consumed by the traits ... like how Sanji is no longer a smooth-talking rational human being and is just a fountain of hearts and passionate moans 70% of the time. Everyone's exaggerated now and I'll suck it up.
* I just WISH... I WISH that they would've just STARTED One Piece like this, though. Instead of starting One Piece as an amazingly universal show capable of appealing to adults and devolving into something silly, stupid, and lacking-depth -- why couldn't they just be simple-minded from the get-go. It's sad. It's like being nostalgic towards something that has no chance of reviving.
But yeah, these are my primary thoughts throughout this arc thus far.
Despite all my frustrations in terms of post-time skip One Piece, I will say that Punk Hazard was (lightyears) better than (the damn) Fishman Island arc... AND, that the Dressrosa arc is already looking as if it'll be better than Punk Hazard. I don't know about this (future) Whole Cake arc, but people are absolutely RAVING about Wano. I'm hoping One Piece is on a steady incline.
But I totally digressed. What I really wanna communicate is how addicting the nature of the show is right now. There's so many concepts flying around and new characters being introduced. If one aspect doesn't interest you, there's bound to be another side plot that intrigues you. There's other stuff I wanna watch but my body won't bring myself to click on the "Soul Eater" tab because the next episode of OP beckons me.
So, for whatever reason, I'm hooked.
My one critique of this area of the Dressrosa arc is that they're RAPIDLY introducing new character after new character. I bet I could count over 50 complex characters (with distinctive character designs, names, and even stories) being introduced. Sanji's girl, the pink-haired gladiator, Bartholomeo, the Marine that took out Gambia, Cavendish, the dozens upon dozens of distinctive gladiators in the dressing room (all the ones silhouetted with glowing eyes), even more gladiators that flashed across colosseum big screens, the toy soldier, the fairy Zoro is about to encounter, Bellamy (is back and illogically twice his original size), and the list goes on. And I bet in the next few episodes, like 50 more characters will be introduced. It's getting really confusing. And kinda pointless too. I don't know. That's a critique though, not a complaint. I must say, I'm intrigued by all these new characters being thrown into the mesh. But I've never seen any other animes do something like this. Not even Dragon Ball.
P.S.
Cavendish's (VA's) voice is quite distinctive and different from almost any other character scene on One Piece.
aaaaaand
Bartholomeo's (VA's) voice is quite distinctive and different from almost any other character scene on One Piece.
A lot of interesting stuff has happened in this episode since everyone's split up but this was more or less build-up for a lot of strange and exciting things to come later on~
I wonder what Bartolomeo's Devil Fruit power is like.
it's okay, but there is something to be said of the fact that the break comes in after 15 minutes of a 24 minute episode. i can comfortably skip 8 minutes and miss nothing. that's one quarter of an episode wasted on nonsense.
CP0 introduced!
Scene 5 : Sanji in Love - *flamenco guitar plays* *hilarity ensues* man this arc is a blast as an anime, it just didn't have this charm and spark on black and white pages
A small bit of happenings from every group. So not too bad, but all too short as well which makes the pacing issue stand out a bit.
After all the build up of Kin'emon being the first living Wano Kingdom samurai the crew has encountered and his ability to keep up with Zoro in the few times we saw him; I'm disappointed in how easily the Doflamingo thugs seemed to have him cornered without him even getting started :(