© Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
One Piece episode 1097 is a solid read, even though it’s almost entirely exposition with varying levels of interactivity.
We have two big plot arcs this week and the first one involves Ohara. Now of course I’m biased towards Robin and anything related to her, so this is the more interesting part for me. Learning about Saul’s survival and imparting knowledge of Ohara to Vegapunk is an interesting detail. It also made Robin cry happy crocodile tears, which was so wholesome and warmed my heart. Dragon’s flashbacks are also helpful in understanding his motivations for forming the revolutionary army. In fact, it occurs to me now that after Wano focused so much on Gol D Roger’s early days (or at least the key moments in his journey), it seems like this installment focuses on the backstories of major players in the Revolutionary army (namely Kuma, Ivankov, and the Dragon). In my opinion, Dragon is the weak link here in terms of really intriguing possibilities to learn more about, but I’m open to changing my mind on that front.
The second half of the episode discusses Vegapunk’s additional self more. I think this has some interesting animated flourishes, but is mostly just an extended roll call that adds little to our understanding of Vegapunk’s abilities. I think it was made very clear in the York episode that all Vegapunks share the same mental and physical functions, and while I won’t bother explaining it here for clarity, if I’m honest That being said, I feel like it’s a bit over-explained. It seems to me that we are counting on that issue. That said, there are some fun moments–namely Bonney’s beam sword attracting insects and Vegapunk being upset when his custom Kaido fruit turns Momo pink. I’m just not sure there’s enough to move the needle on a slow outing.
Rating:
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One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com.