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The Series:
Monkey D. Luffy returns with his band of eccentric and off
beat pirates in FUNimation's One
Piece Season Three Voyage Two. In
the past Luffy has had to battle super
powered pirate, evolved sharks, and even a government's army, among
other things. This time he's setting out
to face his most
powerful foe yet, a living god. If
you've enjoyed the earlier releases, these 13 episodes will sure to
please. The show is still as funny and
offbeat as
ever.
I'll skip the basic recap, if you're not sure who Luffy and
his companions are, check out my reviews of the earlier sets.
While traveling to the floating island of Skypeia, the Straw
Hat crew inadvertently broke the law and was attacked by The White
Berets, the
local law enforcement. Easily besting
the arrogant and obnoxious soldiers, the leader sentences Luffy and his
crew to
'Hevaen's Judgement" on the Upper Yard, a part of Skypeia where god
lives. Soon afterwards a giant Lobster
takes the
Going Mary, along with Chopper, Robin, Nami and Zorro, off to a
sacrificial
alter in the Upper Yard. The rest of the
gang, Luffy, Sanji and Usoppe, borrow a boat and head off after their
friends.
The going is pretty easy for Luffy and company at first, but
once they get to the Upper Yard things get a bit hairy.
The river is filled with booby traps, and
getting past those only brings travelers to the by four priests. Each one of these powerful warriors controls
a different area of the island. Soon
after arriving, the river they're following splits off into four
tunnels and
Luffy has to decide which of one to follow.
He picks the one labeled "ordeal of spheres" for pretty much no
reason
at all.
After travelling through the tunnel things don't look so
bad. There are a lot of floating balls
of cloud-like material, but nothing that appears dangerous. At first.
They soon discover that each ball has a different trap, and that
they're
controlled by a rotund priest named Satori.
Pushing the trio off their boat the pirates will have to defeat
the
ball-like priest before their boat sails out of the region or else
they'll be
trapped there forever. That's a bit hard
to do when the Priest can predict their every move.
The Skypeia storyline has been a lot of fun so far, and
while it doesn't have the emotional impact that the Alabasta saga does,
it
makes up for that with a quicker pace and a lot of unique and fanciful
villains. This story is filled with
wacky, far-out ideas and the way Skypiea works is right up there with
the best
of them. Strange, unpredictable,
creative, and bizarre, this next port of call for the Straw Hats is
going to be
another unique experience for the group.
I won't give too much away about the place, but there are a
couple of
aspects that make it quite interesting.
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 (157-169) 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:
With the next saga well underway, fans of the Straw Hat
Pirates need to pick up this collection of fun and enjoyable episodes. The series hasn't slowed down even though
it's passed the halfway mark in the second hundred episodes, which is
pretty
impressive. Filled with all of the fun
and adventure that One Piece fans have come to expect, this newest set
is sure
to please. If you've followed the series
this far, you can't stop now. Highly
Recommended. |
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Buy: