Review for One Piece Collection 28

Introduction

You know you’ve achieved peak procrastination, when a title changes release format on you, and you’re still two years of releases behind. One Piece Collection 28 was released in summer of 2022. This year, we got Collection 34, and Crunchyroll have finally graced UK shores with One Piece on Blu-ray, 9 collections past the point that the US started getting them. You might be wondering if we’ll go back and get those past releases on Blu-ray too. That’s the wrong question for the UK. The real question is whether UK sales will be good enough for Crunchyroll to continue releasing the show on Blu-ray here, or whether they will go back to DVD only? Either way, I won’t know what Blu-ray One Piece is like for another 6 reviews at this point.


Monkey D. Luffy wants to be a pirate. No he wants to be the best pirate of them all, sail the Grand Line, find the legendary One Piece treasure left behind by Gold Roger, and become the Pirate King. He’s inspired in this by his mentor, Red-Haired Shanks, who saved his life when he was a child. He also ate the Gum-Gum fruit, a devil fruit which has given him stretchy rubber limbed abilities, although at the cost of his ability to swim. You’d think this would be a fatal handicap in a pirate, but Luffy has set sail nevertheless, looking to gather the best crew on the high seas, and venture forth onto the Grand Line. The first candidates for his crew include the mighty pirate-hunter swordsman, Roronoa Zoro, the skilled, pirate-hating thief Nami, the world’s greatest liar, Usopp, and the toughest chef around, Sanji. He’s later joined by the world’s first and only blue-nosed reindeer doctor, in the form of the fatally cute Tony Tony Chopper, the enigmatic and multi tasking Nico Robin, the cola-fuelled cyborg shipwright Franky, as well as the perverted skeletal troubadour Brook.


Previously on One Piece, having resolved the mystery of Punk Hazard, and having captured the mad scientist Caesar Clown, Luffy and the Straw Hats teamed up with Trafalgar Law to deal with the power behind the evil plan, Don Quixote Doflamingo, a.k.a. Joker. That meant going to Dressrosa, where it seemed the dice were falling their way. They had a plan to shut down the poison gas factory, and taking down Doflamingo was made easier as he had quit as leader of the island. But their plans never survive Luffy and his crew unaltered ... Things are moving into place now. With Trafalgar Law captured by Doflamingo, Luffy has left the tournament to storm Doflamingo’ palace along with Zoro, Kin’Emon, and Violet. A mystery man has taken Luffy’s place in the tournament, which is now moving towards its conclusion and this man is helping the gladiator Rebecca. Below the palace, Usopp and Robin are helping the ‘fairies’ infiltrate and revert the toys enslaved by Doflamingo in the subterranean port, while Franky distracts security up top. Nami, Chopper, Brook and Sanji have left the island on the Sunny to keep Caesar out of Doflamingo’s hands.


26 episodes of One Piece are presented across 4 DVDs in this collection from Funimation UK.

Disc 1
668. The Final Round Starts! Diamante the Hero Shows Up!
669. A Moving Castle! The Top Executive Pica Rises Up
670. Dragon Claw Strikes! Lucy’s Intimidating Attack!
671. Defeat Sugar! The Army of the Little People Charges!
672. The Last Light of Hope! The Secret of Our Commander!
673. The Rupture Man! Gladius Blows Up Big Time!
674. A Liar! Usoland on the Run!

Disc 2
675. A Fateful Encounter! Kyros and King Riku!
676. The Operation Failed! Usoland the Hero Dies?!
677. The Legend is Back! Kyros’ All-Out Blow!
678. The Fire Fist Strikes! The Flame-Flame Fruit Power Returns!
679. Dashing Onto the Scene! The Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army, Sabo!
680. The Devil’s Trap! A Dressrosa Extermination Plan!


Disc 3
681. The 500 Million Berry Man! Target: Usoland!
682. Breaking Through Enemy Lines! Luffy and Zoro Launch the Counter-Attack!
683. With a Rumbling of the Ground! The God of Destruction – Giant Pica Descends!
684. Gathering Into a Powerful Front! Luffy and a Group of Brutal Warriors!
685. Steady Progress! Luffy’s Army vs. Pica!
686. A Shocking Confession! Law’s Soulful Vow!

Disc 4
687. A Big Collision! Chief of Staff – Sabo vs. Admiral Fujitora!
688. A Desperate Situation! Luffy Gets Caught in a Trap!
689. A Great Escape! Luffy’s Tide-Turning Elephant Gun!
690. A United Front! Luffy’s Breakthrough to the Victory!
691. The Second Samurai! Evening Shower Kanjuro Appears!
692. A Hard-Fought Battle Against Pica! Zoro’s Deadly Attack!
693. The Little People’s Princess! Captive Mansherry!

Picture

One Piece is presented at a 1.78:1 anamorphic ratio, and we get anime of the quality that we’ve come to expect on DVD in this high definition age. It is native NTSC encoded progressively; the image is clear throughout, and now obviously comes from an HD source, so improved is the line detail, although there is the odd moment of shimmer on the really fine detail. Colours are strong, the animation is vibrant, and there’s no more judder if you’re watching the show with progressive playback. There are still moments where the animation really takes a walk on the wild side, bringing to mind the wackiness of Tex Avery cartoons and the like. This is a show where surprise can make people’s eyeballs bug out of their sockets, and their jaws drop to the floor.

Sound

You have the choice of DD 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, with translated subtitles and a signs only track locked during playback. As usual, I watched the series through in Japanese with subtitles, and found a fairly standard shonen anime dub, with enthusiastic and over the top performances that suit the tone of the show well. The stereo does a good job in conveying the show’s ambience and action sequences. Where One Piece really impresses is in its music score. Far from the comparatively weedy synth efforts afforded to the usual anime shows, One Piece apparently gets a full on orchestral score, at times giving the show an epic and grand soundscape that by far belies its comic book origins. The subtitles are free of error and are accurately timed. There are English language text overlays burnt into the print. Any place where a new character or new location is introduced, text appears to inform us of it.

Extras

You get four discs in an Amaray style case, one on either side of two centrally hinged panels. The inner sleeve offers an episode listing.

The discs present their content with static menus set to the background music from the show. The episodes can be played with Marathon Mode, stripping out the credit sequences. The episodes get a few screens of translated English credits at the end.

Discs 1 and 4 autoplay with a trailer for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Both Disc 2 and 3 autoplay with a trailer for Dr. Stone.

Conclusion

There was a point, a few One Piece releases ago that I was worried about falling out of love with the show, particularly because I still have seven unwatched collection releases on my to-watch pile. It was the Punk Hazard arc that preceded this Dressrosa arc that gave me that concern, as I just didn’t like it as much as the majority of One Piece to this point. Given that in terms of narrative, this arc follows on from Punk Hazard, the second half of a story so to speak, I wondered if that drop in appreciation would continue. It doesn’t help that the Dressrosa arc is the longest story arc yet in One Piece. Despite there being an episode with the phrase “Luffy’s Breakthrough to the Victory!” in the title, there are still almost 50 episodes, two collections worth to go before the battle against Don Quixote Doflamingo concludes.


This would be a bad time to go off One Piece given how much I’ve invested in it. But thankfully, we’re back to normal service when it comes to the storytelling, the action, the drama, and most importantly for my preference, the comedy. That’s despite a big section of the Straw Hats crew being absent for the duration, what with Nami, Sanji, Chopper, and Brook having left previously on the Sunny to protect their captive. That leaves just Luffy, Usopp, Zoro, Robin and Franky on the island with their new allies to deal with Doflamingo and his ‘family’.


That’s actually a good thing, given just how many characters have been introduced on Dressrosa Island, as well as those characters that were introduced previously, and came with the Straw Hats to the island, most notably the pirate Trafalgar Law, and the Samurai Kin’emon. There’s a whole backstory with the royal family of Dressrosa that Doflamingo supplanted, as well as a race of ‘fairies’, the Tontatta that have a big part to play in the story here. Throw Luffy and Ace’s brother Sabo and his revolutionary army, as well as the Navy into the mix, and you could worry about the story spiralling out of control. However, there’s a clear direction of travel here, and despite how much is going on at any one point in the story, the show remains ‘one episode more’ compulsive, which is something I couldn’t say about Punk Hazard.


As usually happens in One Piece, any well laid plan is quickly derailed by Luffy’s impetuousness, and here he was quickly distracted by a gladiatorial tournament where the Flame-Flame fruit that had given Ace his powers was up for grabs. Luffy entered where he encountered mysterious gladiator Rebecca among many others, but changed his mind when he learned that Trafalgar Law had been captured by Doflamingo. He promptly escaped from the Coliseum to rescue law and kick ‘Mingo’s’ ass. His place was taken in the tournament by Sabo.


At the same time, Usopp became an unlikely heroic freedom fighter with the Tontatta, and he, Robin and Franky joined their plan to break into the SMILE factory (the initial plan was to destroy it anyway) and to free the other Tontatta that Doflamingo was holding captive as slave workers. Part of that plan was to free the toys. When we first encountered Dressrosa, we found a society of people and living toys. It eventually became clear that the toys were actually creations of another Fruit user. The people who lost in the Coliseum, those who crossed Doflamingo were turned into toys, had their memories erased, and put to work. By undoing that spell, the freedom fighters would have an instant army to stand against Doflamingo.


But losing his slaves, having his secret revealed changes everything for Doflamingo, and he basically pronounces a death sentence for Dressrosa, although to mix things up, he puts a price on the heads of the 12 most prominent rebels, the Straw Hats among them, and tells the people of Dressrosa that they can survive by either killing him, or by killing the rebels. At the same time he and his minions literally reshape the island, creating a new challenge for Luffy and the others who want to get to him and defeat him. And on the way in these 26 episodes, we learn plenty more about the history of the island and the characters that we encounter, as well as meeting plenty more atypical One Piece oddballs. Pica in particular is a hoot.


After quite a few episodes where my attention had drifted, this Dressrosa Arc has One Piece back doing what it does best, telling an engaging story with oodles of wacky humour, while still managing to tug at those heartstrings. This DVD collection can be had from Anime on Line, from Anime Limited and from mainstream retailers.