This episode was one that branched a few very interesting things together. Firstly, we continue the mystery of Big Mom and the Sunny’s battle. The brief glimpse we got of the other half of the crew is all we’re getting at this point. The Sunny is empty and we’re going to ride a dragon’s back as it crawls up the elephant's leg to find out what happened all those episodes ago. I must add, this is definitely a charmingly bizarre situation, and I liked how Robin found Kanjuro’s dragon so cute, it’s an adorable quirk.
The other aspect which I think bridges together previous arcs and characters in an engaging way is what’s following Weevil and Buckin! They appear to share a similar dynamic to Mr.4 and Miss Merry Christmas, that is; a big strong and slow man who can be easily manipulated, and an evil hag ordering them around. Miss Merry Christmas #2 took a note from Nami and is out for money and that’s why she is ordering her apparent son to take out the previous Whitebeard captains. This is a great way to bring back the Whitebeard pirates into the story as they were characters that were not so easy to see how they’d become relevant again. We also see Weevil is a threat to Luffy because he wants to target Luffy for information on Marco. Regardless of this all, the two share an interesting bond. I think we’re supposed to assume this is a con woman who tricked a poor dummy into believing she was his mother and believing that Whitebeard was his father, to go along with this, she has no interest in revenge like the genuinely heartbroken Weevil does. All she wants out of this is money. Yet, Weevil clearly has her hair and Whitebeard's moustache so I do think it’s kind of fun to pretend those aren’t wigs or coincidence and assume there is a seed of truth in all of this. Also, Buckin reminds of Trebol when we get close ups.
Outside of that, the scenes in Baltigo were fascinating. Firstly, we had Koala speaking to Dragon about an incident close to Luffy so I was eager to see if Dragon would give us any sign that he was thinking about Luffy. For then Koala to blatantly bring him up, only for Dragon to ask about Robin rather than his own son, gave me some Gendo Ikari vibes. It was cold, but then we had the scene allude to Sabo already talking Dragon’s ear off about how proud he is of his brother. By doing that, it ended up lightening the heavy father-son relationship that was being explored by proxy. We also had Koala mention they have a rare ore which can trace back to where the weapons were manufactured, complimented only to lead into the fact that Burgess tagged along to the revolutionary headquarters in secret.
I was thinking that Burgess didn’t have the best showing at Dressrosa. He got whooped by Sabo twice if I recall, which isn’t that much of an insult because Sabo is one of the most important people in the world, but it didn’t sell his strength highly. It seems, Burgess isn’t done yet, by tagging along and being connected to a vivre card, he has set up the Blackbeard pirates to give Dragon a surprise attack at his home. What I liked about this was it continued to show Burgess’ tenacity, like when he tried to stab Sabo in their fight, despite being fatally wounded, he made sure not to come out of this empty handed. He got Blackbeard secret information that could possible send ripples through the world, the intent to do a weapon raid. It was also nice to see other Blackbeard captain’s, Lafitte and Shiryu. Just like Buggy later in the episode, it’s nice to have seen these punks rise up the ranks from their near beginnings. The Blackbeard captains are not just new faces, they are people we’ve known since Jaya, hundreds of episodes ago. With that being the case, for Burgess to refer to Blackbeard as Teach and be corrected on the term commodore rather than captain was some seriously needed Blackbeard pirates banter.
So yeah, the other boy on the come up, my husbando himself. Buggy the Clown, the genius behind the Pirate Mercenary Agency. He’s an entrepreneur now and he even had some of the greatest giants under his name as hired guns, only enhanced by the rapid need for fighting power to fill the hole Doffy left. At first I thought he no longer hid his hair due to it being so explosive but when we zoomed out, we saw it actually just got 10x bigger and further, his outfit is ridiculous. It’s like he’s wearing a blanket with his limbs disconnected and making himself look infinitely bigger than he actually is. Mohji is nearly a genuine bear now, making me want him to meet Bepo, and gaining some weight alongside Richie. The lovely Galdino is still there, sadly with no close up, as was Cabaji and Alvida. It seems like Buggy treats his friends right and I can’t blame Galdino for sticking around. I like seeing what came of everyone, and I got a great laugh out of Mohji eating and casually telling Buggy he doesn’t wanna hear why the giants quit. Buggy’s screaming was something I’ve missed. |