As much as one could argue this episode had too little going on, I loved it. The choice of making nearly the entire episode be one multifaceted scene felt great to me. That and the art and animation looking quite great consistently. It all left an impression.
We started with Rebecca’s confrontation with Diamante. He continued to be a horrendous person, taking joy in cutting Rebecca down and mocking her mother once more, even trying to kill her in the method he killed Scarlet. Truthfully, although I mentioned last time that this confrontation has given Diamante some more weight, he’s easily the least interesting top executive in my opinion. But, Rebecca made this scene pretty interesting. She flashed through her head, whether she wanted blind vengeance, sacrificing herself to face Diamante, or if she wanted to rather put her faith into Luffy and roll that dice. With Luffy being a far higher chance of victory than sacrificing herself, she did the bigger thing, she decided to put her emotions aside and face reality, she went for Law’s key above all else. It was respectable as heck!
When all looked bad, she called for her father as she has her entire life, and he showed her that he told the truth about being by her side. He dashed in, full of rage, to stop Diamante from taking another loved one from him, slicing Diamante’s body with a swift surprise attack. I totally teared up as he and Rebecca were finally able to see each other face to face. It was a sweet and concise reunion. One full of rage, determination, and even sorrow that Kyros couldn’t do more for Rebecca but he’s ready to make it up. To speak briefly on Rebecca, I love her voice actor, I think her design is a bit much and takes away from some intense moments, and I don’t find her all that interesting, but she plays the part of a strong willed and normal strengthened person fighting for their kingdom and or family, kind of serving as Dressrosa’s Vivi and I think she’s good at that.
It was after all this that Luffy called for Rebecca. As the two were swallowed whole, Law was finally free. It reminded me of when Ace was first freed, an intense seemingly life or death situation which even has the shot of the falling cuffs as the person who can save them are freed. Law cut up the nutcracker and they landed, ready to face Doflamingo. Kyros gave the two boys permission to take Doflamingo down as he committed to facing Diamante, which I do love as Kyros deserves some serious spotlight and he should definitely be the one, possibly with some help from Rebecca, to face a man so central to their troubled past.
Then Rebecca asked Luffy for clarification, she wanted her doubts relieved and what he said was beautiful.”My name is Luffy! The man who’ll become the King of the Pirates!” I adore this moment. To Luffy the Pirate King is an expression of freedom and here was just that. To the question of whether he will save their kingdom, that’s all he needed to say, for the Pirate King would destroy someone like Mingo without a doubt. It’s powerful and even Law smiled after hearing Luffy’s words. It reminded me of his smile when the navy and pirates formed a temporary friendship after Punk Hazard. I suppose even if Law has incredibly different methods, he knows he can trust Luffy to get his way.
After teleporting away from an angry Diamante as we can wager, just as Monet sacrificed herself for, that he believes Doflamingo will be the King, we had the first substantial scene change. The immediacy of what was happening changed, Law performed freaking surgery on himself and removed those bullets he received from back when Sanji was still in the anime. That was manly as heck. However, the real spotlight of the ending here was that Sugar is as psychotic as ever, she feels like 10 years of her hard work has gone down the drain, probably being painful for her personally and due to guilt of letting Doflamingo down, and thus the way she can start to repay her debts and get revenge is to take out the Straw Hats. She is on her way to face Law and Luffy, whereas at least Law should know her power, and Usopp is still giving Kanjuro orders so he can take flight and fight alongside our boys. That should be good. |