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It was obvious Aokiji was going to show up even if you hadn't read the manga - still didn't make it any less awesome. Not surprised Smoker got so badly crushed. I wonder how he compares to Luffy now, unfortunately I've been hoping to see Luffy finally beat Smoker at some point and prove himself. But now Smoker's been beaten up so much that doesn't really matter anymore.
Can't wait for the next episode and to find out why Law wants to go to Doflamingo's home turf.
Gui4 said: Finally One Piece is picking up the pace. Aokiji's entrance was soo epic, I actually jumped at that part.
Cant say it better, same with me.
So badass, and of course had to happen at the end of the episode so we have to wait another week and who knows if we even get to see action from his side...
5/5 for the ep anyway, one of the few good eps recently
Behold of my awesomeness~
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But my feels.
Doflamingo vs Smoker was supposed to be awesome, but poor quality animation ruined it for me. I'm actually disappointed. At least the ending scene was very good.
First thing I want to mention is that the art this episode came off as noticeably poor. The content itself was enough to completely thrill me but it could have been far better. Secondly, talk about a questionable episode name. The “sudden attack” of Doflamingo wasn’t so sudden anymore. Regardless, this discussion can be easily split into two parts. The Punk Hazard section and the Sunny section.
I appreciate the focus on Smoker this arc, it’s been nice. We start with him allowing the Punk Hazard guys to go save their friends, but as he does, he does so quite sternly. The reason Kin’emon woke up after being paralyzed is that, it’s just a coating that one is embraced in when they touch the gas, if broken, like Brook did to Kin’emon, they wake up. All was sweet and good, but that’s when Doflamingo started to head on over. When he landed my breath got intense. I’m a little shocked that Law didn’t take Buffalo and Baby 5’s bodies with him because they could serve as hostages, but I suppose he thinks that Caesar is all he truly needs. To leave them at Punk Hazard felt dangerous for the G-5 and Punk Hazard men although as we saw later, he would come here for directions and to kill everyone anyways so all in all, it’s not a huge deal.
The first thing Doflamingo did was show he has great control of conquerors haki, which made me super happy. Ever since it was introduced, especially when it felt more like a contrivance of plot armor and it wasn’t explored, I had thought, “if this saves the day for the good guys all the time, it better save the day for the bad guys too”. Doflamingo has answered that call. But not only that, he then proceeded to do what I think he did in Jaya and Marineford, he made allies attack each other. Every time he does it I feel so grossed out, it is such a cruel form of attack. I specifically liked the calls Smoker did to his men, when he first saw who had landed and later when they wanted to fight with him, he’s concerned for them. But that was just the introduction, the confrontation of Doflamingo and Smoker made he howl in excitement.
The conversation they had was glorious. To start with, Doflamingo wants to know where Law went. And despite Smoker possibly knowing(although truthfully Law could have lied in case he did tell), and despite Smoker probably not wanting to help Luffy and Law too much, he certainly did not want to help Doflamingo. This is the guy Smoker has a good reason to hate, and he lied for their sake saying he didn’t know. Not just that, but then he referred to Doflamingo as “JOKER”. HE LITERALLY, TOLD HIM HE KNOWS HIS ALIAS AND HIS ROLE IN ALL OF THIS. The secret identity of Doflamingo revealed by Smoker himself, almost as an announcement of war. It fit the hardass that Smoker is perfectly. To top it off, Vergo was brought up and Doflamingo reminded us that if Vergo is dead like Monet definitely is, he has a very good and personal reason to want to kill Smoker above getting rid of those who “know too much”. It was just such a loaded and intense bit of dialogue which started what I think is Smokey’s third fight of the arc.
Smoker has awesome fights, the way he flies around and morphs himself with his smoke make for some cool displays of animation. Even with the art lacking this episode, it felt good to watch. Doflamingo played a similar role to what Law did when they fought earlier by retreating but attacking at the same time. Yet, Smoker was nowhere close to laying a hand on Doflamingo and when his men wanted in, Smoker sacrificed himself for their sake leading to a wonderfully huge spread of Doflamingo preparing to kill the spasming and bloody Smoker.
Now that was a nice panning shot. To top it off, during the whole fight I had been screaming for Kuzen to arrive and when he did everything changed in one moment. Doflamingo may be the most evil and dangerous warlord, able to take Smoker out like it’s nothing, but Kuzen is a gosh damn former admiral and he is one of the most incredible people we’ve seen. Even Doflamingo knew his time was up when his ever growing beastly growls were cut off with Kuzen’s cool and calm “arara”. “Excuse me, young man. Could you step aside? He is my friend”. How freaking cool for one of the most respectable marines to save another like this… Chills!!!
Now this part will be far less structured. The lads are all heading to Dressrosa, Kin’emon and Mononosuke’s planned to go there anyways for a mission of sorts. What’s exciting about that is the fact that Law and Kin’emon and Mononosuke may all continue to be huge players going into this, and we’re heading right into Doflamingo’s territory after he was attacked and betrayed. It’s like Punk Hazard was the prologue, the recurrent cast and the direct build up feels great here. Finally everyone learned that they have made an alliance with a warlord and plan to kill an emperor of the sea together which made for a hysterical moment.
Law also established exactly why their plan here was so good. The SAD manufacturing machine is gone and Caesar is kidnapped. That is why Law needed access to the room so bad as to make this all work and in retrospect it makes every move in Punk Hazard feel so much more purposeful and clear. He also touched on the way the New World is, it consists of essentially organized crime working under the surface and working within these huge territories each emperor controls. It is hard to even see the emperor's face as a single pirate alone, to win out here you need alliances because that’s the way the emperors are too! Which goes back to show the Kid, Apoo, and Hawkin’s alliance has some weight. It also confirms that I will love the tone of One Piece going forward.
Finally for the little stuff, everyone looks awesome in their new outfits, Robin is totally beautiful, but I gotta give Franky credit. He looks straight up adorable with his pigtails. I loved seeing the interactions like Sanji warning Law that Luffy won’t define alliance in the same way as him. The moment of Chopper working on Caesar was indicative of two things, one is that we’re going to have Caesar along with us for a bit which should be super interesting, and two is that Chopper working to heal an enemy reminded me of Sanji feeding his enemies and ultimately a line for the anime Scrapped Princess I always think back to. “When you’re a doctor, you can save the person in front of you, even if that person is evil”, in contrast to a knight, or a marine in this case, being ordered to kill who is evil. The moment of Zoro calling Law a smart ass finally had it hit me that the stubborn boys on the crew could absolutely butt heads with their new friend like that.
Damn it, I CANNOT for the life of me figure out where this screencap is from. I know I screenshotted this around episode 624 when Robin was wearing this outfit. If anyone can help a brother out, that'd be great.
Aokiji showing up turned out to be the one thing that saved Smoker's life and that was a gigantic relief! If he was still in the Marines, he would've had the duty to turn Doflamingo in and put him on the chopping block but unfortunately, he's not. It's a good thing that Tashigi and the children were able to escape before all of this since they definitely do not need to see all of this.
Doflamingo is quite powerful, I'm enjoying all his scenes. I wonder how he fares against former admiral Aokiji, it should be very interesting. It's nice to see the crew chilling on the ship again, it's been a while.
It's starting to set in just how strong Doflamingo really is. I love how it's been hinted at & foreshadowed that he wasn't just some early Grand Line villain and Conqueror's Haki has basically settled that completely. I'm still wondering exactly what his devil fruit power is. I'm betting it's something like wire-wire since it's fitting of a puppet master + wire fits more in line with the mafioso style.
Meanwhile, Aokiji just walking in nonchalantly telling him to freeze.
