A new devil fruit user’s powers are explored!

What They Say:
Zoro continues his deadly duel with the nearly indestructible Pica! While the Toy Soldier narrowly escapes Lao G only to come face to face with Gladius! Luffy continues his mad dash to the top of the palace to face Doflamingo!

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece hasn’t moved much of the story forward in a big way lately, though we’ve touched on most of the groups out there to some degree, little by little. What we’ve gotten is a bit more background material along the way and some incremental nudges forward. Which, of course, is frustrating and fun at the same time. Getting a better understanding helps to cement the overall vision of the arc and it works well enough, both for Toy Soldier and his reveal and the way our view of Rebecca has turned over the course of the arc. But there’s still this feeling that we need something concrete to start happening and getting real forward movement again. It’ll come, sooner or later.

With the reveal of who Toy Soldier is, a new wrinkle in things when he eventually gets turned back, there’s reason enough to see why so many are motivated to rally behind him. What we get at the start here is a little fun with Zoro, but the focus is on Toy Soldier and the Tontatta’s that are with him as they attempt to get him further into the building. Helping him get past another executive there is rather fun to watch because the Tontattas are definitely intent but incapable of real effect. That serves to put Toy Soldier into a rage, but one that keeps him from really doing what he wants to do as he has a larger goal. The fight takes a very weird turn though because of the devil fruit that this particular executive, Gladius, has as he can expand and detonate inorganic things. Toy Soldier almost gets taken down in a big way, but it’s the sudden arrival of Luffy and Violet that changes that sequence and brings this group together now, which is when you know there will be progress overall in an arc.

With several pieces in play, we finally reconnect with Trafalgar Law as Doflamingo is questioning him as to their real goals since he thought it was all about the SMILE factory. That the Straw Hats are working with the Tontatta has him thinking it’s something more, but even Law is surprised by it. The simple fact is that the Straw Hats simply get caught up in everything along the way, though Law tries to play all of this off as he no longer is involved with them and has no clue beyond his own original goal. Which is fairly close to the truth. The second half teases some interesting moments with this, but it also gives us a few other areas briefly, including some time with Sugar and the sticky mess that the Tontatta’s there are getting into, especially with a lot of controlled Toys now being forced to fight them. It’s comical and cute in how it looks, but it’s given such a dark nature.

In Summary:
One Piece has another episode where there are some decent, small, moments along the way but little more than that. Kin’emon dressed up as Doflamingo? Very cute. Finally getting to see Law again was welcome as well. And hooking Violet and Luffy up with Toy Soldier will definitely accelerate some events. But the small moments don’t add up to an engaging whole and instead you just enjoy some of the minor action pieces instead. The storyline is one that I like overall, but it’s hit that milking it out phase that just draws on too long by not really advancing the individual pieces in a good enough way when we spend time with them.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.