One Piece Multi-Piece #11: Fishman Island

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Master Of Tickets,

Meister Of Anime.

Welcome back to the world of the One Piece Multi-Piece, Ticketholders!

I had honestly thought about putting this off until 2026 because of One Piece's timeskip being two years and my impressions of the arc no longer being as fresh as it was in 2024. But here I am, putting fingers to keys once more, as I take some advantage of One Piece being in reruns as I write this and Dragon Ball DAIMA being over as of earlier in March.

So let's get back on course by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, commenting at the bottom of this post, helping out my ad revenue as you read to slowly raise my Bounty above Chopper levels, and joining my Crew on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest snail transmissions of news on my content.

I love how the Fishman Island arc begins by taking advantage of how stupid the Sabaody civilians and Navy are with the introduction of the fake Straw Hats. Each one of them is like a "we have a melted Taiwanese knockoff Figuarts collection at home" approximation of one of the Crew that your two-year-old sculpted for a last-minute school project and dressed in thrift store Halloween costumes of what their barely functional vision thinks the Straw Hats were wearing two years ago. And even though they're just normal people with antiquated guns and no powers, the public just assumes that Luffy became a forty-something fat guy from training for two years because they're stupid. It's like if I decided to throw on some rolled-up jorts, a red t-shirt that I altered with a pair of pruning shears, and a moth-eaten straw hat I found in my closet, bought a flintlock pistol, and started wandering around the neighborhood telling people not to fuck with me because I'm Monkey D. Luffy.

This joke ceases to be a joke in itself and becomes a punchline when the real Straw Hat Pirates show up in Sabaody one by one (to stretch out the narrative and build hype and tension in this literally epic, literal Japanese cartoon) and casually own their Temu doppelgangers with their newly acquired skills.

First, we see Nami (in a new bikini top/jeans outfit with a new hairstyle) and Usopp (with a more muscular physique than before and a floppy fisherman's hat that makes him look like a buff Gilligan in Urkel pants)

suaving off with each other as she uses her upgraded Clima-Takt and he weaponizes carnivorous plant seeds he found on the kaiju-eating flower island to subdue their counterparts.

Meanwhile, Zoro (now looking more like a samurai and sporting a scarred eye he received during his training with Mihawk and the humandrills) visits Rayleigh,

Franky (having upgraded and overdesigned himself with new parts, and I forgot to mention in Water Seven that he's voiced by Attack On Titan's Patrick Seitz) waits at the Thousand Sunny,

Robin (dressed and styled like she's ready to chill at the beach, but now she can make Luffy's Gear Three look like a joke by blooming composited giant limbs wherever she wants, and I forgot to mention in Alabasta that she's voiced by Stephanie Young, a.k.a. Nana Shimura in My Hero Academia - update pending - and Yugiri the geisha in Zombie Land Saga) searches Sabaody for Brook while dodging government agents,

and Chopper is an idiot and looks like he was drawn for a different anime altogether. Speaking of Brook, he looks even more like a Slash/Prince mashup than he did before,

and because of regional translations, he calls himself Soul King now, his concert on Sabaody looks like a heavy metal show, and his music sounds like neither. Also, his manager is one of the Long-Arm Tribe (who sells him out to the Navy as soon as he tries to leave and rejoin the Straw Hats).

Luffy looks cool now (not that he didn't before), wearing a more detailed and mature variation on his pre-skip wardrobe and shouldering a massive supply pack (because Hancock insisted on over-preparing him for the reunion and the Straw Hats' voyage into the New World). And because no red, yellow, and blue hero would be caught dead without an obvious disguise that only works because the world's civilians are exactly that stupid, Hancock gave Luffy a fake mustache.

This leaves Sanji (who looks basically the same, except that he has a definitive goatee now and his shirt/jacket combo is like something out of Scarface or Saturday Night Fever, as if he's desperate to show how manly he is after spending two years kicking an entire island country of LGBTQ+ people in the face so he could appropriate their cooking) and Jinbei (who hasn't been a character long enough to get much of a redesign, and won't get involved in the story again until near the middle of the arc because he's already at Fishman Island). For a part of the Fishman Island arc that doesn't even take place on Fishman Island, or feature all of the Crew, there's a lot to like in the Fake Straw Hats section when the usual, "everyone barely misses each other while wandering around the city" time-wasting gets out of the way. Luffy soloing the fakes, the big three Straw Hats getting an easy runback on Sentomaru and the Pacifistas after the Sabaody Archipelago arc, the new supporting characters from the "Friends' Whereabouts" episodes helping Luffy and Crew escape; it's just a nice, triumphant comparison piece to get the audience reacquainted with the world before the arc proper gets going.

But to get to Fishman Island, the Straw Hats have to...get to Fishman Island first, which requires a treacherous navigation of undersea currents, giant-er Sea Kings, a legendary Kraken named Surume (who's just a super-good boy if he feels the right Haki), subaquatic volcanoes, and Luffy's own hunger-driven stupidity. We get some cool bits like Luffy befriending the Kraken and a possible hint of Gear 4 with Luffy coating his Gear Three punches in Armament Haki, and an introduction to the various villains of the arc.

First is Caribou, a holdover from the Fake Straw Hats section who has swampy Devil Fruit powers and likes burying his victims alive. He fades into the background rather quickly, but is responsible for framing our heroes for a string of Mermaid disappearances when they arrive on Fishman Island.

Next is Vander Decken IX, captain of the Flying Dutchman and a Fishman with the power to hit any target he touches (making him a Fishman who can't swim because Devil Fruit). He looks like a four-legged catfish cosplaying as a combination of Dick Tracy and Michael Jackson circa "Smooth Criminal," and his current Mark-Mark...mark is Fishman Island Princess Shirahoshi, whom he fell in love with when she was a child and he was a grown Fishman in Freddy Krueger cosplay (because "subtle" references to Michael Jackson and Freddy Krueger being sex offenders...allegedly). This gross Japravity is justified in the story by Vander Decken having descended from a family who passed down a legend about a Fishman with the ability to command Sea Kings, and he has strong reason to believe that Shirahoshi is the current embodiment of that legend. So, to rationally express his statutory feelings for her, Vander Decken throws swords, axes, and polearms at her 24/7. No wonder he isn't her type....

And finally, we have the New Fishman Pirates, who include Captain Hordy Jones (a violent, racist, steroid-addicted, ex-military Arlong fanboy who looks like Brian Johnson if he was a Street Shark), Hammond (who looks like Lemmy Kilmister if he was a Street Shark), Zeo (who looks like Zoidberg overdosed on Grimace Shakes, and he can turn invisible), and Hyouzou (who looks like Keith Richards if he were an alcoholic, sword-wielding octopus). There are others in the main Crew, as well as thousands of other Fishmen and enslaved human Pirates because every final battle in One Piece needs fodder bodies now, I guess, but that's it for the villains, and at first, they really just came off as a diminishing returns sequel to Arlong and his Crew who were forced to be a source of conflict later on. There really isn't even a true, "I don't like what Hordy's doing with this place; I'm gonna kick his ass!" moment from Luffy.

Fishman Island as an arc does a competent job - without Hordy's involvement - of elaborating on the racial tensions and xenophobic prejudices that were the backbone of the Sabaody Archipelago arc, just from the Fishman perspective. Upon their entry to the Island, the Straw Hats have their usual splitting up, where Luffy, Usopp, Sanji, and Chopper reunite with Camie the Mermaid and her pet/friend/boss Jamaican New Yorker starfish Papagu, who is a famous fashion designer in fish-pun Beverly Hills now because One Piece. Perhaps the best and only good bit of this arc's "split up and explore the world" portion (aside from a few impressive uses of Haki on Luffy's part) is Sanji getting near-fatal nosebleeds from seeing Mermaids after spending two years on an island of LGBTQ+ people because even though this arc was only dubbed recently, the episodes are nearly fifteen years old, with the manga arc being a year older than that, so being inclusive or "woke" wasn't foremost in Oda's mind. But, yeah; it impressed me that this thousand-plus-episode Looney Tunes battle shōnen explored the real-world biological implications of the anime nosebleed trope, and used it to further explore such inane racist doctrine as refusing to contaminate one's blood with that of another race. Also, beating up gay people and stealing their cooking taught Sanji the Six Powers somehow, so now he can walk on air. I guess we can't make societal progress all at once, can we?

But despite public opinion regarding humans in general and Pirates in particular (magnified by Caribou's Mermaid abductions and the Crew engaging in small skirmishes of misunderstanding with King Neptune's knights around the Island), the Straw Hats are invited to a banquet at the palace for rescuing Princess Shirahoshi's pet megalodon from Surume earlier.

That is, until Luffy and Usopp meet with a Mermaid fortune teller named Sharley, who has a vision of Luffy destroying Fishman Island,

and royal sentiment shifts from honoring the Crew as heroes to attempting to detain them as threats, which causes the Straw Hats to fight back (and win!) and Luffy to do what he does best in prejudicial foreign countries: randomly crash into a female royal's private space and shout his convictions at her until they become friends and cause an international incident together. In this case, said royal is the aforementioned Princess Shirahoshi, a literally giant, literal crybaby Mermaid who is basically Rapunzel because her father loves her and a super-powered pedophile is trying to kill her. She wants to visit her mother's grave in the Sea Forest (where a message, that Luffy missed receiving because poor communication and missed connections are the driving forces of the arc, said Jinbei would be waiting for him), so they comedically sneak her out of the palace by stuffing her inside her giant shark's mouth, and the "Straw Hats have been kidnapping Mermaids" rumor gains even more unintended traction as a result.

Meanwhile, Robin and Franky have also been exploring the Sea Forest for their own reasons (rumors of a Poneglyph, and locating the Thousand Sunny that got swept away upon their arrival, respectively), and Franky finally meets Den, the younger brother of his old shipwright master, Tom (from flashbacks in Water Seven).

Further proof of Hordy's status as an unimportant villain comes about in that, like Marineford before it, Fishman Island is an over-long arc (both with fifty-seven canon episodes) where most of the important context and emotional stakes come in a flashback about three found family brothers with a dream that both unites them and divides them. Jinbei tells of a time when he, Arlong, and Fisher Tiger (a Fishman revolutionary who was name-dropped several times in the Sabaody, Amazon Lily, and Impel Down arcs) were friends and formed a Pirate Crew (the Sun Pirates) after escaping from slavery. Arlong's more extreme, violent views on humanity would splinter the group after Fisher Tiger's compassionate nature got him killed, leading to the formation of the Fishman Pirates, and Jinbei becoming a Warlord Of the Sea to keep Arlong out of prison. Meanwhile, Queen Otohime (Shirahoshi's mother) would petition for a seat at the World Summit to discuss human/Fishman equality and political relations, only for her progress to be stunted and regressed by the arrival of a Celestial Dragon come to reclaim his escaped servants (which triggered Shirahoshi's Sea King cry when Otohime was wounded, garnering the attention of Vander Decken, then in his Freddy-inspired design), as well as bad actors from within the Kingdom itself, ultimately leading to her assassination (though, given her human size, it's an offscreen miracle she survived sex with Neptune, let alone Shirahoshi's birth).

Present events are also elaborated on and foreshadowed with Decken's introduction of what the dub calls the Tamate Box, a royal treasure that he plans to steal and use to make Shirahoshi older so he doesn't seem like a creep for forcing a child into marriage. Future Me can tell you all that it isn't going to work and never would have, but also with some research, I can tell you that this is inspired by the Japanese, "don't look in the box" folk tale, "Urashima Tarō." Many elements of the Fishman Island arc, such as the tamatebako, the Ruygu Palace, and Queen Otohime herself, are borrowed from this myth, and Japanese aquatic folklore in general, crossed with elements of Greco-Roman mythology (King Neptune, and the presentation of Fishman Island as a kind of anime Atlantis) and Judeo-Christian elements like the solar power-giving Eve Tree (sister tree to the Adam, from which the Thousand Sunny was made) and the wrecked Noah, which will become important later.

Hordy's rise from juvenile Arlong fanatic to palace guard is given some screentime, but the focus is mainly on Jinbei, Arlong, Fisher Tiger, and Queen Otohime. Maybe this was an intentional misdirect mixed with subtle foreshadowing, but I stand by Hordy not being a necessary or compelling villain. Luffy fell asleep during Jinbei's story, so he has no context and little basis of personal investment in anything that has happened or will happen in Fishman Island. I get that it kind of plays into the message of the arc and Luffy's character that one should do the right thing regardless of how grey and complicated the context is. But in the past, Luffy building up a personal investment and bias was what made the previous arcs (including Thriller Bark and its stupid, convenient Laboon conceit) worth watching. By necessity, Hordy (whose name I literally forgot at the beginning of this sentence) must be a stock, evil villain  with simple, boring, easily thwarted goals. Said goals are to avenge Arlong, kill or enslave all humans, and kill all who sympathize with humans. Oh, and taking as many steroids as possible. Like I said: morally simple, thematically boring, and guaranteed to fail considering the strength of every character of actual note in the series so far. Plus, comparatively, his powers would be interesting (he can shoot water constructs with his hands and fingers) if they were at all unique, but any practitioner of Fishman Karate (Jinbei included) can do them, and they only work underwater, so they are lame.

Anyway, back in the present, Hordy and his Crew have stirred dissent across Fishman Island and taken King Neptune, Zoro, Brook, and Usopp hostage to be publicly executed so the New Fishman Pirates can take over the Ryugu Kingdom and wage war on the surface. We and the characters of the arc learn this, and why Luffy should care, because Hordy interrupts the important storytelling to deliver an "as you know..." broadcast explaining his hostile takeover/human genocide plan to all of Fishman Island. Subtle.

Thanks to Brook having a new ability to astral project (that feels like a situational gag Oda came up with to write himself out of a corner), the three captive Straw Hats are eventually able to escape with Papagu's help and join the final battle with the New Fishman Pirates and their cannon-fodder slave army.

Other Straw Hat developments include Franky having a Megazord form, Luffy fighting Jinbei for the right to rescue his Crewmates (because this arc isn't done copying Marineford yet, but also if Luffy, a human, saved his Crew and all of Fishman Island by punching Hordy in the face hard enough to win Smash Ultimate, it would be too much of a white savior allegory crossed with every war America has ever inserted itself into, apparently), Nami forgiving Jinbei for freeing Arlong, and Robin finding a Poneglyph with an apology on it from someone named Joy Boy (and she can bloom giant hand-wings and fly now). Interesting how, later, Neptune refers to Jinbei as "Jabo"....

On the villains' side, Hordy takes enough steroids to give himself a transformation (he's albino Street Shark Triple H now) and reveals that he was the one who killed Otohime and framed a human Pirate for it because peace and racial equality make him sick, I guess.

And in the aftermath of being definitively shut down by Shirahoshi, who is at least half his age and twenty times his size, Vander Decken decides to use his Mark-Mark powers to throw the Noah at her, crushing Shirahoshi and the entirety of Fishman Island in one fell, earth-scorching swoop.

But before Hordy's revelation, Princess Shirahoshi, Jinbei, and Megalo the megalodon are captured on their way to rescue Neptune, and the three Princes, Fukaboshi (the muscular, blue-haired one with a forehead-nipple), Maboshi (the fat, ginger clown in a Jamaican yarmulke), and Ryuboshi (the rooster-looking one who speaks in musical scales) are publicly defeated by the steroid-enhanced New Fishman Pirates.

In another ripoff of Marineford, we also get a "character who is about to die tells a villain that they aren't important" moment, this time with Madame Sharley (who is intimidatingly hot, badass, and here revealed to be Arlong's sister) telling Hordy (I just forgot his name again) about her vision of Luffy, not Hordy himself, being the one to control the fate of Fishman Island. It's always nice when a character in the story you hate validates your opinion on what makes it suck.

Fortunately, the quality of the arc improves drastically following Hordy's revelation that he was Otohime's killer (presumably to break Shirahoshi's spirit before moving ahead with the public execution of the Royal Family). She reveals that, because Merfolk can communicate with non-Sea King sea life, she had learned the truth from Megalo shortly after the assassination, which almost takes the wind out of Hordy's sails (puns!). It's agreeably a stupid secret to keep that made things worse, but also demonstrates Shirahoshi's strength of character and conviction to uphold her mother's dying wish to not perpetuate a cycle of hatred even if certain people really deserve it.

Also, the Fishman Island civilians decide they would rather be destroyed by Luffy than live under Hordy's rule.

But remember that fight between Luffy and Jinbei? It was apparently settled offscreen (later explained in flashback) and the Straw Hats forged a plan to rescue the Royals and take down Hordy's Napoleonic army. As with the War Of the Best, I am impressed here with Oda's attention to scope and the sheer variety of fodder and civilian designs he was able to concoct, and as with arcs like Enies Lobby, the Straw Hats' walk-up sequence is a hype-building masterpiece of cool, here culminating in Luffy's challenge to the people of Fishman Island that they just watch the fight and decide for themselves if our Crew are friends or enemies.

What ensues is one Straw Hat power flex after another, starting with Luffy using Conqueror's Haki to knock out half of Hordy's hundred-thousand-member army, and including such bizarre reveals as Brook being able to generate hallucinations with his music, Chopper having new transformation Points, and the aforementioned Franky Megazord, Sanji's Skywalk, and Robin's Gigantic Fleur attacks. Surume even makes a surprise return, reconciling his friendship with Luffy and the death threats from his "master," Hordy, and once again showing what an absolute Best Boy he is.

Luffy uses various types of Haki (Mantra/Observation Haki, and Hardening/Armament Haki, most prominently) to subdue Hordy,

but then the Noah begins to approach, and Shirahoshi is forced to lead it away from Fishman Island at the cost of her own life.

However, her efforts prove to be in vain as Decken is on...deck, throwing knives at her to wound her and slow her down, and Hordy (who sees Decken's nihilistic obsession as a betrayal of their alliance) stabs Decken through his vital organs with Neptune's trident, hoping to nullify his Mark-Mark powers and send the Noah plummeting toward Fishman Island.

But because the world of One Piece is an unfair, unjust place run by cartoon logic, willpower, and money (and therefore nothing like the real world of our present), badass protectors like Ace and Whitebeard get to die for the sake of dramatic license, and a super-powered, incel pedophile gets to comedically knock himself unconscious and do a little light jail time for his acts of terrorism, treason, assault and battery, attempted murder, and whatever else I forgot because I haven't watched Legal Eagle in over a year.

Speaking of the societal ills of the world, while the industrial center of Fishman Island is planning some disaster movie-level precision tactics to surround the Noah in a massive bubble so Luffy has somewhere to fight Hordy, focus shifts back to the battlefield (a massive, conveniently circular quarry-like area where the other Straw Hats are gag-fighting the New Fishman Pirate army) with the scene being framed as a flashback to before the Noah's appearance even though the actual context of it means that making it a flashback doesn't make sense. At the end of the scene, we learn what an episode title calls "the true identity of Hordy." Is he some genetic experiment? A half-human, half-Fishman? Something even stranger that I can't put into words but I need the Rule Of Three to work? Nope. True to his characterization as a legacy villain with no agency or moral nuance, it's revealed that Hordy is (metaphorically, of course, because Luffy still needs someone physical to fight so he can kick their ass) a child of racial hatred itself; a mindless perpetuation of something he was taught but never experienced firsthand. So after over a day straight of episodes (minus ten or so minutes of intro, outro, bumpers, recap, and preview for each of the fifty-seven episodes because why not remind me of Thriller Bark at this point, too), Fishman Island, which serves as Jinbei's recruitment arc, basically (though he has other obligations to tend to first), will decide the societal and actual fate of a country by having two morally juxtaposed forces punch each other until they both pass out.

Which seems like a good place to talk about more of the Straw Hats' new attacks and abilities.

Zoro is basically the same, just with his Phoenix at a higher numbered Caliber. He's shown to be able to cut through various metals with ease, though we haven't heard any mention of his molecular vibration sensing ability since it was introduced in Alabasta, so maybe he just got mastery of it offscreen so he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

Aside from the Six Powers Skywalk I mentioned earlier, Sanji doesn't have anything new to offer, either. I don't think I brought up the Diable Jambe before, but he's had it since Enies Lobby, and it's an attack where he spins around fast enough to catch his leg on fire so he can inflict burn damage with his kicks.

Nami's weather attacks are basically the same, just more and in bubbles now, and she can hide or make afterimages of herself with mirages. She's mostly just there to provide fanservice and take bumps so Sanji's psychotic chivalry can kick in and make him fight harder.

Usopp has all but completed his glow-up in terms of courage and personality (not to mention that new lifeguard physique), and he shoots plant seeds now instead of the explosive, noxious, and irritant pellets he used before the skip.

Franky is a walking, Jim Carrey-branded Swiss Army knife (I can't believe that I didn't notice before how he was clearly modeled after Ace Ventura!) with a body made of cybernetic hammerspace that just pops out extra hands, hairstyles, flamethrowers, and whatever else might look cool when you aren't blinking, plus there's that comedy-relief Megazord I mentioned before.

Robin and Brook are just broken now, with their respective Devil Fruit powers having evolved Logia-type levels of invulnerability. As long as his soul can't be damaged, Brook can reconstruct his body, even after something as fatal as a beheading (plus those musical hallucinations and a new cane sword that may or may not be able to freeze an opponent with the winds of the underworld). And on top of her aforementioned giant limb attacks and flesh wings, it turns out Robin can duplicate and un-bloom her body now, too.

Jinbei is too new of a character, but he's shown to be able to nullify a Water Shot from a transformed Hordy, and match or surpass Luffy and Sanji in terms of hand-to-hand strength.

Chopper is maybe the best thematic match for this arc (having been shown to struggle with interspecies relationships because of his Devil Fruit powers making him too intelligent to live among reindeer but too monstrous to coexist with humans ever since his introduction in Drum Island, and relying on Rumble Ball pills for his transformations in the past). Unlike Hordy, Chopper has learned to achieve combat strength and versatility without pharmaceutical enhancement (except for one transformation, which is foreshadowed better than most other forms and techniques in the series so far, and plays perfectly into his character growth while also providing a surreal visual of how Chopper is still Chopper), and to accept himself by embracing the tolerance of others for what it is at face value. Monsters are defined by their actions, not by their appearance or labels assigned by others. I'm glad he was given the moment to express that, and disappointed that he didn't get more of a focus in this arc.

Which brings the review back around to Luffy, and the blow that put Hordy down for the count...according to objectively wrong AI-powered search engines. As far back in the arc as the Fake Straw Hats battle, we got to see that Luffy no longer needs to do his squat pose to go into Second Gear. The descent to Fishman Island was where we saw him use Armament Haki for the first time. And at the beginning of his fight with Hordy, Luffy unveiled a new attack called Snake Shot that first looks like it hits with Six Powers Finger Gun energy (the second time he uses it against Hordy, the energy effect isn't there). Now, we get an attack that mixes Luffy's classic Pistol punch with Second Gear, Armament, and possibly that energy (or he borrowed Sanji's Diable Jambe technique), to create an homage to his late brother Ace: the Red Hawk Blast. I think the apparent lack of agency in the Fishman Island arc (and the fact that Hordy tanks two of them before being taken out by a more generic finishing move) robs Luffy's "I won't let anyone else die like my brother!" declaration of some of its impact. But the accompanying imagery and the attack itself look incredible.

Of course, there is the literally looming matter of the giant, centuries-old "Ship Of Promise" to deal with now. Why do the denizens of Fishman Island (including King Neptune and Shirahoshi, who are huge) just look up like turkeys in the rain instead of swimming up to work together on pushing the Noah to the side? Why don't the other Straw Hats help even though they clearly have the strength to do so? Why does Luffy continue to punch down even though his repeated application of force in that direction is probably making the Noah fall faster?

Every good comedian, physicist, and Minecraft player knows that you should never punch down, Luffy!

It ultimately doesn't matter because of a previously established deus ex machina, as Shirahoshi's tears and Luffy's stubborn Elephant Gatling barrage "form a wish" that summons the Giant Sea Kings, who each grab one of the Noah's tow chains and stop it from falling. Also, because Haki, Luffy and Shirahoshi can both understand the Sea Kings as if they are speaking fluent [insert language of selected audio track here].

The Giant Sea Kings leave the Noah in the Sea Forest for Den to repair, the Straw Hats are publicly cleared on the Mermaid kidnapping charges, Jinbei breaks Island law by donating blood to Luffy while the narrator gives a "blood is blood; don't be racist" speech to the audience, the big weapons of the series and arc are explained (Joy Boy was the Noah's original architect, Shirahoshi is the new Queen Of the Sea Kings - a.k.a. the ancient weapon Posiedon from the Blind Century along with the Pluton and the Uranus - and the energy steroids were duplicated from an ancient Royal treasure inside the Tamatebako), the New Fishman Pirate officers are old men now from steroid abuse, Caribou shows up after a long time offscreen to get Shirahoshi demonetized because he overheard the Poseidon reveal,

and Jinbei tries to get Luffy invested in future arcs by telling him about Akainu's Navy promotion (the guy who killed Ace, almost killed Luffy and Jinbei, and forced Aokiji to retire after a ten-day fight on a New World island that will be important later) and Blackbeard's power play in the New World (trying to acquire more Devil Fruit powers after what he did to Whitebeard).

I've said throughout this review that I feel like there is a lack of agency in the Fishman Island arc. Hordy is just a personification of radicalized racism, speaking of a revenge that is not entirely his own for acts he never witnessed or suffered, appointing himself and his Crew as divine instruments of their own cause, fueled and destroyed by a complete absence of moral nuance and power they did not earn or attempt to understand (you'd think Zeo would have discovered the aging side-effect when he was mass-producing the steroids and done something about it, but no). And even the narrator says that the Straw Hats were just a gift of circumstance, happening to come to the right place at the right time to be a morally neutral-chaotic force of social commentary spearheaded by a literal blunt instrument of friendship. As such, the only real agency to speak of is between Fishman Island, the world above, and history at large. Before Luffy and Crew saved Fishman Island, Whitebeard was the face of human acceptance. Before Luffy heard the voice of the Giant Sea Kings, Gol D. Roger did the same. Fishman Island would have found its "place in the sun" without Luffy and Hordy punching each other, but their fight served as an old-school morality play to fast-track that progress. So, yeah; there is agency in the Fishman Island arc, but not in the way One Piece has handled it in previous arcs (at least, not in the good ones).

I also said that Fishman Island didn't have a signature, "I'm gonna kick the villain's ass!" moment from Luffy, and while that's true for this arc, there is one near the end that works for a future arc. See, one thing Fishman Island does well is long-term payoffs, one of which is the country's candy factory, shown bearing the Jolly Roger of a massive, acid-drooling, gluttonous hag referred to as Big Mom (one of the Four Emperors, whom I frequently conflate with the Seven Warlords). The factory is a local front for Big Mom's protection racket, except that the production machinery was damaged by the New Fishman Pirates and Luffy ate all of the candy that was produced, so when Big Mom's henchmen come to collect and threaten to burn the Island down, Luffy says that because he likes it so much, he's going to find her, kick her ass, and claim Fishman Island as his own territory to protect.

To complicate (or simplify?) matters, Jinbei reveals that he and the Sun Pirates sail under Big Mom's banner, and he and King Neptune are considering terminating their alliance with her in favor of the Straw Hats.

We also get a side-focus on the Navy, with a rogue unit called the G-5 (led by Smoker and Tashigi) apprehending Hordy's freed Pirate slaves and confirming that the Straw Hats were responsible for squashing the rebellion.

The rest is farewells and filler transition, but there is one more thing of note (puns!): the bumper/eyecatcher animation and music are different for this post-bellum portion of the series. Gone are the individual Straw Hat themes (making Jinbei the only member - though he isn't official yet - to not get an arrangement of his own) in favor of a unifying Straw Hat Crew brass fanfare to symbolize their reunion and return to the story. The accompanying animation is likewise incredibly similar, having a member run past a table and pick up something significant to them before it cuts to a group shot with the Thousand Sunny. Of the ones I can recall seeing this arc, Luffy grabs his/Shanks' hat, Franky grabs two bottles of cola, Zoro picks up one of his swords, Nami scoops up her Log Pose, Brook gets his fiddle, and Robin picks up a history book (leaving one behind). I have a vague memory of Chopper maybe shouldering his medical knapsack, but I'm not entirely sure. Ditto for Sanji and his jacket. I don't recall Usopp getting a bumper this season, and again, Jinbei is too new and not an official Straw Hat yet, so he doesn't get a bumper feature this season, either. And finally, while I favored getting through the arc over watching every frame of every episode (because I'd have to watch the same five or ten minutes fifty-seven times), I like "We Go" as an OP because of its hype energy and how well it works as a spiritual follow-up to "We Are."

Punk Hazard will be a bit shorter on episodes and was set up well here (I think), so as I work on filling out the Anime Spotlight entries for the months ahead, tackling a few themed movie months, praying that our new South African oligarch accidentally drops a running chainsaw on his own face, and otherwise distracting myself from the hellish New World that is the year ahead in America, I'll also be watching One Piece and taking notes for the next Multi-Piece.

So please remember to Become A Member of the Ticketholder Pirates if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of my Blogger posts, help out my ad revenue as you read to slowly raise my Bounty above Chopper levels, and join my Crew on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest snail transmissions of news on my content.

To the New World (the good one)!

Master Of Tickets,

Piece,

Out!