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One Piece Episode 644
What They Say:
The Sunny is mysteriously deformed by the bizarre powers of Giolla! Can Nami, Chopper, and Brook act in time to save their beloved home? Meanwhile, the battle for Block C continues as Luffy suffers a staggering setback, and the Don Quixote Family’s plans for dealing with Luffy are revealed!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As events roll on with this arc, it’s definitely growing in interest, particularly because of events going on with Law, Caesar and that particular group. The Navy men and their abilities are always intriguing when they’re not the norm and we definitely saw that the last time around, enough so that even Law was surprised by it. Add in the little twist with Joker and it all does come together fairly well. But the show is one that knows it needs to change things up so we don’t get too much of any one story at a time and that means visiting characters we haven’t seen much of for a bit. Particularly those on board the Sunny, which finds itself going through strange seemingly drug-induced changes thanks to the arrival of a woman named Giolla.
This large and bouncy woman is all about making things artistic and she’s warping and twisting portions of the ship with her powers as a part of the Don Quixote family. They’ve given her a classic 60′s housewife look that’s certainly amusing as it works well as she twists and warps not just the ship, but the Straw Hats as well – which includes Nami’s chest shrinking down to flatness and Chopper looking like a Minecraft character. Their freakout is adorable, especially since Nami looks like a tall tween with her body type now. We get a good bit of time spent with this and seeing how the Sunny essentially turns all psychedelic is great since it has such great colors to it and the whole thing just gets so surreal when you get down to it. The panic on the Straw Hats faces match it as well, especially since the ship essentially gets hijacked by Giolla for the Family.
With that dominating most of the episode, to good effect, we also get some time spent at the arena itself where we see Bartolomeo watching the match play out as Luffy makes his way through it. This gives us a little time in the waiting room with what seems to be shaking out some of the characters that will play more of a role in the arc as it goes on and the kind of personalities tensions that can surface. This is balanced with some very fun moments with Luffy in the arena, riding one of the contestant/bull characters in there, with such a sense of glee and happiness about it that you can get easily caught up in it all. Of course, it has to turn serious as well since there are some surprisingly big actors on the stage here and that makes for a different kind of fun. Not so much for the bull he named Ucy though…
In Summary:
With this episode, most of its focus is on the Sunny and what Giolla is doing to both the ship and the crew. It is drawn out as it dominates about three fourths of the episode, but it’s done in fairly standard One Piece style so it’s not exactly a complaint. Watching as the Straw Hats there get warped and then the Sunny itself, well, I laughed and enjoyed the weirdness of it. It’ll be interesting when they catch up to the rest in this form and the reactions from that to say the least. We also get some decent if shorter time with Luffy in the arena, but it has a turn in what’s going on as it was mostly fun and fancy free time for him going at it before it turned deadly serious, which will make more of this arc even more fun to watch.
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.