Spa Island Arc ~ Finished

Well, this arc actually wasn’t as bad as I initially thought it as going to be. I thought the main foe would be Foxy, who I honestly don’t really care that much for. However, I was really happy to see that he was defeated pretty quickly and without too much of a hassle. Same went for the main villain. Although he was pretty obvious and not overly exciting, his bit wasn’t dragged out and he was defeated in a timely fashion.

As for the filler characters, I thought that the two sisters were pretty likable. I thought that their back story did a good job of showing how they loved their dad, yet at the same time were sometimes frustrated with him because of his absentmindedness and constant absence due to his research. The end to their story was cute, too.

Overall, I enjoyed the Spa Island Arc because it was a good example of what filler arcs should be: short and sweet. I actually ended up enjoying it a great deal more than I thought I would and am glad that it didn’t turn out too bad.

In addition to the Spa Island Arc, there was also an episode on Brook and his insecurities about being a part of the Straw Hat crew after reading about their many adventures around the Grand Line.This one episode is, without a doubt, the best single episode filler episode that I have seen in all 384 episodes of One Piece I have sat through. It had a really great balance of drama with a lot of comedy that had me laughing throughout the episode. It actually provided an insight into Brooke as a character and only made me like him more. His feelings and insecurities were pretty understandable. I especially like how Robin made a connection between his current situation and her’s previous one, and basically said that Brooke didn’t have to try or work extra hard to please the Straw Hat crew and prove himself a “true nakama”; he only had to be himself. I really liked the moment where Brooke looked back on his time on the ship of his past and expressed his happiness at being a part of a crew again and being surrounded by them and their noises. I was, to be honest, really impressed with this episode and thought it was superb. This was a really happy episode and emphasized how great friends all of the Straw Hats are and how they are all happy there and sort of act like one big family.

One last thing I’d like to mention really quick is that it seemed like the animation in this arc was really fluid in some parts. That was something I really enjoyed because it gave the characters a greater sense of movement, I suppose one could say. Definitely liked the animation as a whole, though, in this arc.