First things first, I have to mention how bad the art and animation looked this episode. It kept taking me out of it, especially that sequence where Ivan was running with Luffy and Luffy was off model with his mouth wide open for like 5 seconds straight.
Other than that, intense episode. Garp said "like I thought, he was born with it!", meaning conquerors haki is something in his blood from Dragon presumably. I don't know how I feel about this, the more we go on the more it feels like a plot armor device without clear rules which Luffy has because he won the genetic lottery. I assume he will master it and it will have defined rules but for the time being it's just a way to save Luffy or his friends when things get bad, it's happened like that thrice now. Also, the WB's said that it's the same power as Whitebeard and Shanks has. But we still didn't see Hancock or Whitebeard use it to knock people out so perhaps that's special to Luffy, Shanks, and Rayleigh...
Whitebeard was cool this episode but I do feel we practically saw this already. Whitebeard says 'keep that boy alive' and we see Hancock, the Whitebeard commanders, and Luffy's friends save him time and time again as he runs for Ace. I didn't mind it, as a lot of progress has been made since they initially landed here, I just thought it was notable. Either way, out of all the people who saved Luffy this time Crocodile and Mr.1 stood out to me, my jaw dropped when that happened! it was big for Mr.1 to risk his life fighting for Luffy but for Crocodile to personally save Luffy was so shocking to me!!!
I guess the two things I want to mention regarding that is that Mihawk cut Mr.1 like he was made of flesh. I guess perhaps he has haki so he can get through powers, but if not and maybe regardless he showed just how strong is, to even cut Mr.1, Zoro had to try really dang hard. The other thing is that I don't see what exactly Crocodile gets from this. He went from wanting to kill Whitebeard himself to realizing how weak Whitebeard was and I think he wanted to fight WB at his best so he decided to help Whitebeard fight Sengoku instead. I suppose the way Whitebeard wins this and gets out is if Ace is saved, and therefore if he helps Luffy he gets his own way. My theory is that Crocodile wants to become the king but only to surpass Whitebeard and to do that in an unearned way is not worth it at all. That's my guess anyways and I thought that scene was great. Mr.1 may be mostly a stoic and loyal follower of Crocodile but the fact that both are these pillars of unwavering confidence who keep to themselves while being way bad ass is so fun. I wonder what he and Mr.1 have been through to be that close, Mr.1 has some serious loyalty towards Crocodile in a way his other agents didn't hold. Maybe they're like childhood friends...
As Luffy got closer and closer I had two worries. 1. Luffy will probably have to fight Garp. Instead of stopping his grandson from being killed he may have to go further and fight another to the death so his other grandson will be killed. How tragic and awful... and 2. If push comes to shove can't Sengoku be the one who kills Ace? The goal in my understanding is to execute the son of Roger but they knew they wouldn't get away with that so they used him to get the upper hand against the Whitebeard's. If they are about to lose their trump card of Ace I don't see why Sengoku doesn't just take a fallen weapon and chop his head himself.
And the first fear came true, as it had to, but Luffy didn't seem ready for it. When he realized to save someone he loves he'd have to fight someone else that he loves it got to him. Normally he fights people he hates for the people he loves or at least people he's indifferent to. Here he's in the tragic situation of taking down someone he doesn't want to so he can save his brother. It's very Saint Seiya, even the themes of Garps duty bound action and the emotions that pull at that.
That moment Inazuma was revealed to have been in Ivan's hair, wine glass and all, was such a Jojo moment. Now, I may be wrong I'm not a huge Jojo guy but it was the immediate vibe I got. It was so shockingly absurd and funny yet treated as completely serious in the anime.
P.S. I wonder if Buggy will make another game changer! |