One Piece Multi-Piece #14: Dressrosa Arc (Second Piece)
a.k.a. Master Of the Tickets,
Meister Of Anime.
Ahoy, Ticketholders!
Just a friendly, hypothetical warning for you before we set sail for the Second Piece of the Dressrosa Arc: sometimes, being a team player means having to play as the team while they hide, complain, blame you for their failures, and act stupid (or are stupid) because they claim to have it harder than you, whatever "it" may be and whether or not "it" actually exists. Do what you can and what you know is right because regardless of the burden expected of you, that is really all you can do. Patience and right will prevail in the end. I hope.
One of the biggest was whether or not Doflamingo Donquixote is a Celestial Dragon, and it turns out that, yeah, he is. At least, by blood. And by actions, too, really. He may not be going around kidnapping harem wives off the street at random, riding senior citizens and fish-people through the streets, or torturing and killing anyone who touches him unprovoked (well, he does do that a few times...). But the enslavement of minorities to produce and weaponize artificial superpowers, the exploitation of criminals for public amusement with zero regard for anyone's life, and that thing where he framed an entire monarchy for its citizens' murders and destroyed their currency so he could seize the throne as the new hero king "makes up" for all the sick Celestial Dragon bullshit he didn't do. Yet.
Also, because he's a Celestial Dragon, the Navy has to cooperate with him and his organized crime family of wacky-looking murder-perverts (because One Piece), creating sort of a decent juxtaposition to how the Navy interacted with the Straw Hats on Punk Hazard. Then there's the lore drop that the Nefertari Family (Princess Vivi's family from Alabasta) were once Celestial Dragons as well. So, since the king of Alabasta knew about the poneglyph beneath his city and the existence of the three ancient weapons, does that mean one of the Shandian or Skypeian families, or Neptune's bloodline, were also among the twenty that formed the World Government eight hundred years ago? Since Sugar (I haven't talked about her yet because she hadn't been introduced until this Piece, but she's a de-aged chunibyo girl with the power to turn people into toys and bind them to an obedience contract) erases collective memories of those she transforms, could the Blind Century have been caused by a Devil Fruit power, too?
Now for the speculation I got right, which comes in three points that are really two points, only one of which I have anything of substance to say about, starting with the one-to-two that are more recent and kind of bare on discussion. The one-legged toy soldier is Rebecca's father, who escaped before Sugar could slap him with a contract. I guess the part where the person is forgotten happens automatically with the transformation into a toy, though. The part I didn't get right but probably should have because the hint didn't connect with me and I was busy thinking about poneglyphs at the time, is that he's also Kyros, the legendary gladiator with a thousand Coliseum victories whom Rebecca idolizes (I think she wears his helmet, too). There's also a bust statue of him that looks like it was cast (or maybe just drawn) by the same person who made the Nolan statue on Green Bit. Along with that, the old, masked gladiator is the former king in disguise, making him Rebecca's grandfather. That's it; just saying I called it. Maybe there will be more to him later in the arc, but that's all I have to say on that for now. Oh, and I didn't put together that the flamenco dancer is deposed royalty, too.
But now we get to the big one: Sabo is alive! He's grown up, obviously, has a bigger, steampunkier hat and fighting pipe, his face is always cropped out of frame like he's a parent in a Cartoon Network show, he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch in the dub, he suddenly appears out of nowhere without explanation, and his presence completely derails the established flow of the plot, as he takes Luffy's place in the Coliseum tournament. I keep talking about how much more thematically appropriate the Red Hawk Blast would have been in arcs besides Fishman Island (the most "the Straw Hats don't have the agency to be here" arc so far), and Dressrosa is another example. Imagine if Luffy had stayed in the tournament to the end, and won Ace's Flame-Flame Devil Fruit by knocking his opponent out with the Red Hawk Blast, carried the Devil Fruit with him into future arcs burdened by the choice of who to give it to (even considering learning how Blackbeard took Whitebeard's power without dying so Luffy could have Gum-Gum and Flame-Flame powers), until he encounters Sabo naturally later and the impact of their reunion and brotherhood could sit longer and mean more than it does here.
But because Luffy kicking 'Mingo's ass is more important overall than whether or not Ace's Fruit winds up in the right hands (and because it's easier to animate talking and run cycles for over a hundred episodes on a weekly release schedule than it is to deliver bombastic fight choreography, and because it's a common misconception in writing that subversion equals humor and One Piece is a literal cartoon most of the time), Sabo just shows up alive out of nowhere, he and Luffy switch disguises offscreen between episodes (later shown in flashback, but it gave me whiplash), and the Straw Hats do many episodes of running and yapping while there are occasional cuts back to the tournament where Sabo and four other minor characters (Rebecca, Bartolomeo, the wrestler guy from Blackbeard's crew, and the Donquixote Family executive who killed Rebecca's mother) with more easily animated powers try to get a treasure chest away from a man-eating fish. I am so hyped to barely see that.
The comedy relief fight aboard the Sunny (I have to specify the location because there's another one that bears bitching about later) does have some cool animation, as the woman Nami and Brook are "fighting" (Caesar and Momonosuke are also there, and the jokes haven't improved or otherwise changed, but Brook is actually strategic and helpful for once) can locally warp reality into impressionistic art. But they ultimately need Sanji to rescue them so more important things can be given focus elsewhere. Also, Big Mom's ship shows up, so Nami has to babysit three perverts and a whiny war criminal as they attempt to escape into the next arc (Zou) ahead of everyone else.
The other comedy relief "fight" is a mess of a thing where Franky no-sells the Navy and three Donquixote Family executives (one of whom is a middle-aged man who dresses like a baby, brushes his teeth with shoe brushes—yes, plural—wipes his face with his fangirls' bikini tops, rejects said fangirls for being too young, considers himself manly, and has the self-ignorat nerve to call other people perverts) as a distraction so the real plan (the Tontatta Revolution/rescue operation) can happen relatively unnoticed. But I have enough to say about that to want to save it for the end of this review. Just know that Franky's "fight" is boring and Japraved and nigh-pointless, and leave it at that.
First, let's get back to earlier in the tournament. The original focus of the tournament was supposed to be on the interactions of the minor and major characters, Luffy's impact on the existing Coliseum dynamic, and getting to (and through) Luffy's fights in Block C, because we know he's going to win as the main character (except for Sabaody, almost dying in Impel Down, and losing his brother and almost dying at Marineford). So it's disappointing that Rebecca, who is such a pivotal local character in the story with such a uniquely passive approach to combat, is treated so poorly when her time comes to shine in Block D. Not only is her presence diminished by having to follow Luffy's performance in Block C, the presence of Cavendish (who is driven by his vendetta against Luffy) diminishes her further, to the point that he literally hands her a mostly unearned victory in his sleep (another case of something important rendering itself confusing for no reason by happening offscreen and getting a flashback explanation in the next episode).
Deep breath.... Okay, let's talk about the clusterfuck of long-form subversion-as-comedy that is the Tontatta Revolution operation, because it pissed me off so, so much.
We have Usopp (the lying tactical genius who wants to be a Brave Warrior Of the Sea), Robin (who can fly, teleport, and make Cronenberg constructs with her Devil Fruit powers), the Soldier (a former undefeated gladiator and royal guard captain), and the Tontatta (a Liliputian army of elf/dwarf/raccoon people who can move faster than sound and create earthquakes by having temper tantrums). Their goal: infiltrate the Smile Factory, rescue the captive Tontatta slaves, and defeat Sugar (thereby reversing her toy curse). Their plan: feed Sugar a ball of fatally spicy hot sauce disguised as a grape. Said fake grape looks roughly the size and shape of Usopp's Star ammo. So what could possibly go wrong, right? Why could this have possibly pissed me off to the fuck and beyond? Well, instead of Usopp just waiting for the right moment and shooting the hot sauce ball down her throat when her mouth was open, he reverts to cowardice, gets overwhelmed by the pressure of being a hero to people smaller, stronger, faster, and braver than him because his lies snowballed beyond his control, and he sends the Tontatta to do his job for him, resulting in their further enslavement and mass casualties at the hands of Sugar and her insufferably disgusting snot-man bodyguard (plus Robin gets turned into a ragdoll). And this is dragged out for roughly twelve episodes! Great job, Usopp, you fucking asshole. Die, eat shit and die, then eat more shit. You are already dead.
Do I really have to binge this for three more weeks?
I said I do, so I guess I do. Stay Tuned for Godstorm and more Goj-Year-ra this week, though. And please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder (you haven't yet), leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because it doesn't pay to be a team player, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
26
Master Of Tickets,
Piece,
Out!
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