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The Series:
The Alabasta Saga comes to a sad, joyous, and
surprise-filled conclusion with the release of FUNimations One Piece: Season
Two, the Sixth Voyage (though Wikipedia has this set finishing
up season
four...) It's a great conclusion to the
best One Piece story so far, and one of the more interesting and fun
chapters
in any shojen anime series. The tale
ranks right up there with the Cell Saga from Dragon Ball Z and any fan
of fun
and exciting kids show should put this on the top of their "must watch"
pile.
I'll assume you've been following along so far. If
not, start back at Season One, the First
Voyage and catch up. I'll wait.
Okay, up to date?
Good. At the end of the last
collection, things were looking rather bleak.
Vivi was just about to blow up the royal palace in order to stop
the
fighting between the rebels and the soldiers, when Crocodile appeared
along
with Vivi's father, the King, who had been tortured.
Nailing the king to a wall through his arms,
Crocodile reveals his plan, as all good villains do before they carry
them
out. He has a hidden cannon somewhere in
the city that is going to shoot a powerful bomb into the middle of the
fighting
masses, killing both the rebels and the royal troops.
With all the fighters gone, he'll be able to
pick up the pieces and rule Alabasta.
Not only that, but he'll be able to control the ancient and very
secret
weapon, Pluton that is hidden somewhere in the country.
With that fierce instrument at his disposal,
Crocodile will eventually be able to rule the world.
Luffy is missing, Crocodile claims that he's dead, the other
straw hats are in pitched battles with the senior members of Baroque
Works or
have just finished their battle and are severely wounded.
There's only half an hour before the bomb goes
off, and when the leader of the rebels orders his men to put down their
weapons, he's shot by a Baroque Works member dressed as one of the
royal
troops. The elite guard rushes up to
Crocodile in order to save their king, but even after taking a potion
that
doubles their strength, they're no match for him. Things
look totally hopeless... until Luffy
shows up.
Like the previous collection, this story also has a lot of
drama and heart, but even more so this time around.
That's not something Shonen Jump style shows
really worry about, after all they're aimed at young boys who are more
interested in action than drama, but this show manages to work it in
none the
less, and it's a stronger series because of it.
There are several very touching moments in this set, especially
when the
guard who protected Vivi as a child, Pell, arrives on the scene near
the end
and has to make a horrible decision, and when Vivi realizes that she
has to
choose her path too at the end. Both of
these scenes are heart wrenching and not the type of thing usually
found in
kid's anime.
There's a lot of action too.
As a mater of fact, this set is almost non-stop action. From the battle in the town square between
the two armies to Nami's battle with Miss Doublefinger and Luffy's
ultimate
showdown with Crocodile, the show has wall to wall fighting that is as
entertaining as it is exciting.
As I mention in every review of this series, this is the
uncut version of the show. Though it is aimed at kids, there is some
swearing.
People called "ass" and "son of a bitch", but nothing worse
than that. People do get killed too, and when blood is spilled it's
red. The
show isn't very bloody though, and I had no problems letting my 6th
grader
watch it.
The DVD:
This set contains the next 13 episodes (117-130) on two
DVDs, each in its own thinpak case. The
two cases are held in a nice slipcase.
Audio:
This set offers the original Japanese track in stereo as
well as an English dub in either stereo or 5.1. While the 5.1 dub was
nice
during the battle scenes, I preferred the original language track. The
voices
just seemed to fit characters better and made for a more enjoyable
viewing
experience. The English voice actors did do a good job however and
people who
like watching in English shouldn't be disappointed.
Video:
The full frame video looked pretty good overall. The colors
were bright and solid and the blacks were nice and inky. The image was
generally sharp too. The only real problem was a more than average
amount of
aliasing. Diagonal lines are often jagged and when the camera pans
across a
scene, fine lines tend to shimmer a bit. There's also a bit of cross
colorization, but it wasn't distracting.
Extras:
Like the other volumes in this series, I was a little
disappointed that the bonus items were so meager. There's a "Marathon
Play" option, which lets you watch the show without the opening and
closing credits, which is really cool. I wish more anime would offer
something
like this. Unfortunately the only other
bonus items are clean animations and a series of trailers.
Final Thoughts:
I loved the last collection, but this one is even
better. This show is a 'must-buy' for
all fans of action oriented anime. It's
easy to see why this show is so popular in Japan: non-stop action, great characters, and some
very creative and bizarre villains make this one hell of a show. This is an epic adventure series that's not
to be missed. Highly
Recommended. |
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Buy: