The bonds of brotherhood.

What They Say:
Luffy makes headway toward Doflamingo’s refuge, making his way through Doflamingo’s guards, while down below Admiral Fujitora faces off against Sabo, who has the power of the Fire Fist from eating the Flare-Flare Fruit! But with Fujitora’s ability to call down a meteor, will Sabo have to power to save himself?

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece has been moving towards its goals for a bit now and it’s managed to largely make it entertaining as it’s gone on even though it hasn’t felt like it’s accomplished too much. By spending its time with some of the smaller movements of the cast, regular and arc-specific members, it’s fleshed out the events well enough so that we’re invested in what’s going on. But it also takes the time to dip into them a bit more and explore the slow changes that some go through, such as Riku and his position with what’s going on as the former king. That can and does work well overall with really establishing things in an engaging way, but after a few episodes of it and other characters, you really just want to dig into the main action component and see what game changing elements are coming next.

As things do move along in its traditional way here, we get some fun footage with Luffy and his Moocy group making their way along and getting into the action with a silly feel to it. We also get that from others, whether on horseback or on foot, which ups the action component nicely after some episodes that give it lip service. There’s a lot of factions at work in this storyline, as is par for the course, so seeing the way it’s all working towards getting to where Doflamingo and his group are at works well. Especially since it does show off the overall level of destruction in the area and some of the other groups that are at play with their own agendas, such as Fujitora and his very ominous presence that he has in general. What’s really neat is that we get Fujitora meeting with Sabo at this point, who now has Ace’s flame ability, and that has a great kind of sense of coming full circle in a way as he’s protecting his brother and friends more than anything else. After that lengthy flashback arc that really dove deep into the trios younger years, it’s great to see this surface again in this form.

This fight does end up dominating a nice chunk of the episode, and while we get to see some great stuff from Sabo in general, Fujitora and his side definitely offer some compelling sequences here with fantastic sound effects to make it all the freakier sounding. This really does take up a good chunk of time here, but it’s just beautiful to look at as it unfolds in the present with the choreography of it all, but it also provides for some good flashback material as well, briefly, that shows us the brothers as kids and the kind of understanding that Fujitora has with it as well. That’s a key part to make it really well done as it brings the two of them onto the same page in a sense in understanding a sadness, but it also has a greater understanding among the rank and file of just how freakishly scare the three brothers really are. And it also does the great thing, once again, of reinforcing just how far Sabo will go for Luffy at this point as the two of them are now facing against the world with the loss of Ace. Seeing Sabo’s reaction to Ace’s death amid all of this also makes it clear why he’ll go the distance, and so intently.

In Summary:
One Piece has a very strong episode here overall, even if it doesn’t really progress the overall storyline in any significant way. What we get here with it seeing Sabo’s place in the world at this point, who he’s associated with and just how far he’ll go to protect his brother. With him and Fujitora as the main factors here, among a few others along the way, there’s a great sense of scale to it that works beautifully in really putting Sabo firmly into this arc. While I enjoyed his time in the arena before when he showed up, it did feel a bit more like playtime than something serious, though he was intent on capturing Ace’s devil fruit. Here, this is about doing what needs to be done by a bond that has been forged stronger than most other. It’s wonderfully done and definitely has the feeling of some real weight to it.

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.