One Piece Episode 642
What They Say:
Sanji gets in touch with Law in order to share a shocking secret – that could unsettle the Straw Hats’ plans in Dressrosa for good! Meanwhile, Luffy’s Block C battle begins, but will his Gum-Gum powers give him away?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the arc overall begins to pick up and more things come out, One Piece naturally gets more interesting. It’s a familiar enough strategy and I’ll even admit that the whole Robin tied up by little people thing was amusingly fun in the previous episode since it had the right mix of humor and tension to it that it managed to work. As we started to get more of other events going on as well, with Law realizing he’s fallen into a trap, Luffy getting ready for his arena debut as Lucy and Sanji starting to understand what he’s really been thrown into, the various stories going on have all made their small bits of progress, but done it in some important ways to change the course of events, especially with Violet suddenly defending Sanji. That alone was an unusual change for Sanji who always comes across as the bridesmaid and never the bride.
The back and forth in the first half is pretty good as we get caught up on these scenes and understand what’s going on with Violet’s revelations to Sanji being brought about and shared. The sharing aspect is particularly amusing as I can’t recall seeing many Robin clones before and having half of her pop up on the beach to warn Law is amusing to be sure. But I do like how this plays out as we get Law and Robin making plans quickly that are smart – i.e. without Luffy’s bravado involved – as that shows the two are definitely competent. But there’s also a good sense of tension that comes into play as both Doflamingo and Fujitora end up arriving at that time, setting a three way fight that looks like it’s about to explode. Well, at least Caesar looks like he’s about to explode as this situation doesn’t feel like a positive one for him.
The second half of the episode goes a bit lighter after setting all of that up as we get Luffy in the arena. They’ve taken their time getting to here, but now that we’re here Luffy is pretty excited. And that’s mirrored by the upbeat and almost 80′s feeling anime music with the way he goes at it, taking down the low level guys with ease but flair and drawing a lot of applause from the audience. This is generally a fun piece of work and definitely good to have here as it provides the buffer to the larger news that comes out amid it in an extra edition of the world’s paper that reveals the truth about Doflamingo and how he has totally manipulated events for awhile now all in order to fool ten people. It may feel a bit above Joker’s pay grade in a way based on what we’ve seen of him, but it’s also the right feeling because he is the cruel type that will totally play his prey.
In Summary:
While not a fully transitional episode in some ways, One Piece hits more of that mixture of informational and action in order to ramp things up and build the excitement. There’s a lot to like with what we’re seeing starting to unfold with Law and Doflamingo because it shows the larger nature of what Doflamingo has been up to all this time and just how much plotting he can bring to the table. The flip side of it is that we get to have some fun action in a light way with Luffy starting his run in the arena where he’s barely working a sweat, if at all, and doing what he needs to in order to get closer to getting Ace’s devil fruit. Mix in some fun stuff with the others in smaller ways and you get a pretty solid episode that feels like we’re just about ready to hit the next phase of the arc running.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.