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[00:00] Getting people into One Piece used to be exactly like Pulling Teeth. You'd spend months, years, telling your friends and loved ones, No, really, you'll be so glad you did, only to get rebuffed time and again out of sheer fear of the whole ordeal.

[00:16] Then, eventually, they'd go through with it and thank you profusely for changing their lives, or otherwise die when the infection reached their brain. Okay, maybe not exactly like Pulling Teeth.

[00:29] Regardless, nowadays it couldn't be more different. Every day it seems like a new Twitter thread springs up from someone setting off on their own cruise, while another 20 updates with more sobbing about the hat or the rail or the boat or the sea shanty.

[00:46] You see Straw Hat merch on celebrities of every strike. Luffy's got his own Macy's float. It was the first anime ever to get its own Lego line before Pokemon.

[01:00] And while there are many forces behind that shift, the rise of manga apps, the show itself coming to Netflix, that whole two-month period where we were all stuck inside and literally had nothing to do but watch One Piece,

[01:14] still, one of the biggest and certainly the most surprising was the smash hit success of the Netflix adaptation. Of all the shows to break the live-action anime curse,

[01:27] Popeye's Bizarre Adventure seems like the longest shot of all. And yet, here we are, the number one show in the world, certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so big it's getting special theatrical screenings from,

[01:42] I can't emphasize this enough, Netflix. And somehow, the second season is better by almost every metric. But how much better, and by what metrics exactly?

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[03:51] The first season of One Piece was a solid adaptation by any reasonable standard, standard, but clearly compromised in many respects by constraints of both runtime and budget. The fight against Buggy was

[04:03] shrunk down from a whole town to a single big top, the battle for Syrup Village was utterly gutted, turning Captain Currow from Machiavellian mastermind into butler Freddy Krueger,

[04:16] and Baratier had to replace Don Krieg with the Fishman Pirates just to give them enough build-up as villains before we reached our Long Park. Disappointing changes, to be sure, but with a hundred chapters to adapt in eight episodes,

[04:30] if they wanted to finish East Blue before Netflix had a chance to cancel them at least, and several full-scale, semi-seaworthy ships eating into their budget, clearly necessary ones to make it work at

[04:43] all. Even where they couldn't stay true to the original story, they made the new stories they could tell as fun as possible, and stayed mostly true to most of the characters, which is all a fan could reasonably ask for, from creators who were so clearly fans themselves.

[04:59] With season two, though, the shows slowed to a much more comfortable pace of its five to eight chapters an episode, and gotten a likely sizable budget bump for each of those episodes after officially becoming one of Netflix's flagship series.

[05:15] And speaking of flagships, they already had the Going Mary built this time around, leaving much more wiggle room in those expanded budgets for location scouting, 3D modeling, and bespoke set design to bring a much larger cross-section of One Piece's world to life.

[05:33] So Log Town can actually be, you know, a town with several streets, multiple shops, a whole festival square, all fully decked out with all the Easter eggs and details they need to feel properly lived in,

[05:47] and like part of this world, compared to, say, Shell's Town, where pretty much all of the action had to be constrained to the docks, the marine base, and that one bar. And when season two does focus an episode around a bar, not only can they build this one into a multi-story monstrosity of perilous catwalks and OSHA-violating railings that scream,

[06:10] you are about to see the coolest saloon brawl of your life, they still have cash left over for a full shootout-ready town square, back alleys, rooftops, a bakery, Chekhov's cupcake truck,

[06:24] and exactly 100 uniquely costumed stuntmen. That doesn't mean no compromises were made here. They're still filming one piece in real life with less than half the runtime of the anime,

[06:37] which they further cut into with extended side plots about Marines to squeeze just a little more juice out of sets from past episodes. But Tomorrow Studios clearly had a lot more leeway to make cuts

[06:50] and even some additions that serve the greater plot and characters rather than just, you know, whatever was physically possible to film while doing Arlong Park as much justice as they could. That Marine B plot, following Smoker and Tishigi rather than Garp,

[07:06] is also a lot leaner and less character assassinating this time around, which helps it go down quite a bit smoother than last season. Plus, there was even room in the budget to create a totally original location for the arc finale,

[07:21] where both Marines get to have a really cool fight scene against two Baroque works frontier agents who canonically did exist, but never actually got to fight on screen in the anime or manga.

[07:33] There are certainly trade-offs for doing that, knowing that Smoker is already on Baroque Works' trail. It kind of undercuts the tension of him chasing Luffy through this saga, but even in the manga, let's be real, it was always pretty obvious that Mr.

[07:49] Looks like my parents ate you ice cream. was gonna have a face turn at some point and let the heroes be heroes. So happy that line made it in, by the way, essential characterization.

[08:01] And, to the writer's credit, they do recognize that they've taken some tension out of the arc and try to reintroduce it by having Robin dangle an offer to Tashigi to join Baroque Works, a setup that the show hasn't really paid off at all yet, so I can't say for sure if it'll work, but having thought about it, it does make more sense than I first thought.

[08:24] Tashigi isn't just a very skilled swordswoman after all, she's also an idealist who's willing to do violence and even kill to keep power in the form of rare swords out of the wrong hands.

[08:38] Which, if those ideals can be aligned with Mr. Zero's twisted utopian vision, could make her a decent fit for the organization's inner circle. Not a perfect fit, certainly. It'll take some serious riding gymnastics to position her character for even a fake-out heel turn

[08:55] without completely destroying it. But I'm willing to let the writer's room cook a little on this one, in part because even if they do f*** it up, at least it gives her, you know, something to do besides reminding Zorro of his dead friend.

[09:08] But mostly because they actually have really been cooking with most of their changes and additions this season. The choice to have Bartolomeo shadow Luffy through Logetown and try to rob him was absolutely inspired In an episode where our hero mostly gets his ass beat by fellow pirates and marines alike

[09:31] seeing that his most powerful weapon, that irrepressible smile, still has the power to change a life in an instant, really helps to balance the scales and remind anyone who needs it

[09:43] why Luffy is the hero before we get to the Grand Line. It feels like the kind of change Oda himself might have made if he wrote the arc after creating Bartolomeo's character.

[09:55] It also gives Bartow and Buggy a chance to interact, which is just delicious. You must be the ship, Skyler? I want to know funny, but honestly, I love what you're doing. Are you sure you want to be better out of that?

[10:08] Everything the first episode does with Jeff Ward is delicious, especially the whole courtroom scene after he and Velveeta, who lost an impressive amount of weight IRL to show the effects of the slip-slip fruit, by the way,

[10:21] capture Luffy. Buggy was the single most fun thing about the last season, too, so it's nice to see them send him off to Impel Down on such a high note in this one, although a few casting choices of similar caliber do give him a run for his money after he's gone,

[10:39] particularly David Dachmalchian's soft-spoken psycho-artiste take on Mr. Three. Do you know the problem with some of my associates in broke work? They're so focused on the work, they forget to be broke.

[10:56] If Kola Skola's Bentham is even half as good as the two of them, and the live action actually makes it to impel down, Them all together with Inaki is going to be some of the greatest ensemble comedy in TV history,

[11:12] even though there are no buggy balls in this version for Luffy to forget. That's not the only one of my wishes the production crew failed to grant in season two. It's also, unfortunately, quite light on Muppets,

[11:25] though the ones they do have are excellent. Baroque works transponder sales are all fantastic. The prehistoric plants on Little Garden were realized practically in a way that reminds me a lot of the Flintstones movie.

[11:38] Plus, Wapples, like half Muppet at least, amazing costume design there. Alas, though, when it comes to the many critters of the Grand Line, it seems they decided to go the CGI route to realize them,

[11:51] and, well, the designs and animation on them are actually really good, way better than I expected. especially on Little Garden where the dinosaurs hit just the right balance of cartoony proportions

[12:04] and realistic textures to dodge the uncanny valley, and the unluckies look like they stepped right out of the manga. But this approach does unfortunately mean the series as a whole has a somewhat tight critter budget,

[12:20] especially when it comes to the more complex expressive rigs that we're meant to see a lot of throughout the story, which meant there was no room for Carew in the entire season,

[12:32] outside of one throwaway mention to confirm that Best Duck does in fact exist, and will probably show up on Alabasta. And when we get to Drum Island, there's not a single weapon or hiking bear in sight,

[12:46] because pretty much all the effects team's time and resources were needed to craft two out of three forms for the most important critter in the entire show, who we'll talk about in a sec.

[12:59] Before the show got there, there was one other vitally important test case for whether these artists and animators could make their CG critters feel like part of the world and, more importantly, make us feel things about them.

[13:14] And if you'll allow me to bring all of my technical know-how about 3D CG compositing and animation to bear for a moment, just f***ing look at Baby Laboon! Oh, my God!

[13:43] Also, clearly we can add Marshall T. Bachaman's Brooke to that ever-growing list of perfectly cast and costumed actors. the singing voice, the laugh, the look,

[13:55] and best of all, he's apparently a pretty talented voice actor, so if and when the show gets around to putting him on the crew, he's actually got the chops to make it work. Working him into Laboon's flashback is another great change

[14:10] the series makes to the original manga. It's a little more obvious than adding Bartow. Brooke was always there after all. Oda just hadn't actually come up with him or Binks' brew by the time he wrote Reverse Mountain,

[14:23] and if he rewrote it now, there's not a doubt in my mind he would have included them too. But because it includes them, the live action is able to make an even cleverer change to the arc, where instead of fighting Laboon to bring him back to his senses,

[14:39] Luffy sings to him, having heard Binx's brew himself as a child whenever Shanks and his crew came sailing around, which in turn transforms what was just a fun little bit of musical fan service in the very first episode of the show

[14:55] into this brilliant emotional through line that brought the first of many tears for the season to my eye. And the brilliance doesn't even stop there. As he's singing, Rufy does the Nika dance,

[15:08] adding a whole other layer of foreshadowing that makes this moment, I think, the perfect encapsulation of One Piece live action at its best. Taking not just the moment on the page, but the whole two decades of moments that Oda has written since then,

[15:26] and blending them together to create echoes of a much grander story, a much wider world, than Oda himself even dreamed of when he originally wrote these scenes.

[15:38] The show does that constantly with the Easter eggs and its set design, wanted posters for characters we may never actually meet in the show, newspaper articles, and in-universe plays about events that manga readers only recently learned about in flashbacks,

[15:55] butchered and taxidermied critter corpses strewn throughout shops and people's private residences. But when the show is able to bring those elements out of the background and to the forefront of the story it's currently telling, it really sings.

[16:11] On that note, I can't sing the praises of the show's music team highly enough, and not just for that moment, as their use of iconic tracks from the anime continues to impress across the board.

[16:25] As perfect as Season 1's deployment of We Are was, Season 2's Believe Needle Drop is somehow even better. And hey, if that's too funny, not emotional enough for you,

[16:49] try to hold it together while Tony Tony Chopper's dad whistles his old theme song.

[17:03] Please note, I said old theme song because Sonia Bellosova and Gioni Ostenelli have not been content to merely riff on the anime's musical identity.

[17:16] They've worked hard to give the live action a sound all its own, and that's only gotten stronger in the current season across the entire fantastic score.

[17:33] I'll come back when you're getting your songs. But it's especially true of the three original insert songs that they collaborated with other artists to create. Am I Enough featuring Aura makes my heart swell every time I hear it,

[17:49] speaking to Chopper's long and lonely search for a place in the world with a breathtakingly catchy fusion of pop and orchestra that finally gives English One Piece fans our own Boku wa Doster.

[18:03] Not that we can't already sing Bokuwa Doctor, it's just, you know, nice to have a catchy tune that's fully English, even if I can't get through it without crying. Meanwhile, Pray to the Sun blends the powerful vocals of Declan Debarra with the Mongolian folk metal stylings of The Who

[18:21] to craft an epic anthem for Elbaf, packed with even more Nika illusions that was an instant addition to my workout playlist if I've ever heard one. But the tune that really gets my heart pounding is Leo P.'s breathless sax breakdown on Whiskey Peak Saloon,

[18:40] which I'm trying to figure out something poetic to say about, but every time I put it on and try to gather my thoughts they all instantly empty out of my head and I can stop dancing until it over It simply Peak I fear Whiskey Peak

[18:56] Saloon. Whiskey Peak Saloon! Whiskey Peak! Whiskey Peak Saloon! The fact that it's played diegetically by Igoram to kick off the party in the saloon itself

[19:13] is just the cherry on top. and instantly endears you to this version of the character who radiates good-natured warmth for all of the too few seconds that he's on screen.

[19:25] I do appreciate how willing the Netflix version has been to actually kill off characters compared to Oda and, hell, other Netflix shows, but that doesn't stop me from missing them when they're gone,

[19:37] especially when it means I won't get to see more of the awesome machine gun wig that the wizards in the prop and costume department cooked up for him. Not that Terry and Bernard and her team are shy about cooking up

[19:51] the craziest, most manga-accurate costumes you can think of for a single background character in one scene. They probably do the most of any single unit on the crew

[20:03] to make this world feel like One Piece, but when they cook this hard, it's hard not to want to see just a little more of the design. I suppose Vivi's due for at least a few more sad flashbacks

[20:15] where they can get a little more work out of that wig, though. As to the show's credit, the scene where she, Dory, and Luffy give Igaram a Viking funeral is the second time it got some tears out of me.

[20:28] In particular, I loved the moment where she's talking about how he was a second father to her, and this look of understanding comes over Luffy as the camera pans up from Shanks' hat.

[20:40] Pure cinema. The carved doll that Dory made of Brogy because he misses his best friend so much is also cinema in its own way, while the allusion to the OG Loki silhouette in those carvings is a nice bit of fan service.

[20:54] And getting an on-screen depiction of Nika this early is crazy foreshadowing that fits seamlessly into the established world building. Great showing on all fronts from the production designers there.

[21:09] But back to Vivi, I think she makes for as strong an addition to the crew here as she did in the manga, which is really saying something. Her arc from unusually deadly escort quest damsel to full-blown straw hat in her own right is written extremely well, highlighting the diplomatic genius that she uniquely brings to the crew, while reinforcing Luffy's essential Luffy-ness that makes incredible people like her trust him so implicitly, just as he naturally trusts them.

[21:44] And Charithra Chandran plays it even better than it's written, putting seamlessly into the established cast chemistry, and in particular, giving Emily Rudd's Nami some much-needed feminine energy to play off of.

[21:58] I know how Lucy may seem, but we actually... I actually don't know how to put it into words, but... When you see it, you see it.

[22:10] Rudd continues to shine as the best actor in the cast, a true chameleon if I've ever seen one, and the showrunners smartly give her plenty of moments with all the other straw hats

[22:22] to help elevate their performances in turn. Her reactions do a ton to help sell McEnu's straight-faced comedy act as Zorro. And the rotor's fix will use this. It's a both that big,

[22:34] punching bag-looking thing. On the roof of his mouth. It used your life? It's a girl whale. The way she matches Inaki's sometimes over-the-top Luffy energy makes his Luffy-ness feel a lot more natural.

[22:50] In the last episode, Sanji gets this great monologue about learning to cook for his mom, drawing on deep lore from all the way in Whole Cake Island, which the show is almost certainly never gonna get to,

[23:03] and Taz Skyler definitely delivers the shit out of that monologue, don't get me wrong, it is an incredible testament to his acting ability, But take note who's on side, listening, reacting, helping him draw out the full extent of his skill.

[23:20] She's probably the single greatest asset the showrunners have in their arsenal, not to mention the biggest fan of One Piece on the cap, and they clearly know it. Rudd is still at her best, playing off Jacob Gibson's Usopp, though,

[23:35] and that makes perfect sense because he's the next best actor in the Strawass by far. Most talented when it comes to comedy, but no slouch when the role calls for drama either. And good thing, too, because it calls for quite a lot of it from him when they get to Little Garden.

[23:52] Of all the Straw Hats, season one arguably did their real Captain the Dirtiest, stripping down his one moment of bravery at Arlong Park and stripping out most of his backstory and character development from his own dang arc.

[24:08] It's only thanks to Gibson's talent that he still felt like Usopp at all, and I think it speaks volumes of how much the rest of the show gets right that even I, God Usopp's strongest soldier,

[24:21] was willing to overlook those transgressions as necessary compromises. Make no mistake, though, the showrunners owed my boy for all the sacrifices he made to give his crewmates the room they needed to shine,

[24:35] and on Little Garden, they pay that debt back with dividends. Usopp has always been my favorite Straw Hat, because even though he's nowhere near as strong or aura-fueled as some of his Nakama,

[24:48] he always steps up to fight when the chips are down and no one else can. Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji are all a little crazy, but Usopp is truly brave. The bravest of the Straw Hats by far, and one of the bravest warriors in all the Seven Seas.

[25:06] A lot of Shonen Bros don't get that, but Matt Owens clearly does, and he hits it home with a five-ton hammer here. It makes sense, you're scared. Any true warrior would be in the cave.

[25:20] You ask me, how can one face death without fear? True bravery is not the absence of fear, but going into battle is despondent.

[25:33] Usopp doesn't need some crazy power-up to stand as a kindred spirit of Dory and Brogy, who, by the way, are also colossal braggarts. I don't know if you caught that subtle subject in the story of them fighting for a hundred years

[25:49] over who killed the slightly bigger fish, But just because they say, I'm the strongest warrior on Elbath, doesn't mean they actually are. You know who else would say that if he was a giant?

[26:01] All Usopp needs to rack up comparable warrior feats are some people to save and something really scary standing between him and them, which Little Garden live action does beautifully.

[26:14] It does kind of have to assassinate Miss Goldenleaf's character to do it, turning her from arguably the chillest Baroque Works agent into a creepy psycho murder child. But hey, mind control powers are already pretty creepy psycho murder child coded,

[26:30] so it kind of works, and I don't know, I barely remembered her from the original arc anyway, so it doesn't bother me that much. Of course, if saving Luffy from her was all he did, That would mean that Usopp spent all that time working himself up just to fight a little girl.

[26:46] But thankfully, that's far from the end of his heroics, as he uses his head to freeze Zoro, Nami, and Vivi from Mr. 3's statue trap, while Luffy's busy fighting the Waxman himself.

[26:58] And the way he stays in that fight, even when he's beat to hell to assist Zoro, is just perfect. Unfortunately, while that fight does accurately capture his unmatched skull integrity,

[27:11] the integrity of his character is a little bit compromised by how they chose to write him and Sanji out of the fight on Whiskey Peak using the same honey trap. Now, writing Sanji as the kind of bro who wouldn't keep twins to himself,

[27:26] that's all good. Usopp would just never go for it with Kaeya waiting back home. I feel that very strongly. But I'm willing to overlook that relatively minor bit of slander

[27:38] when the episode also quietly undoes some of the worst slander that Oda himself ever wrote into the manga by removing that moment where Luffy attacks Zoro

[27:50] for defending their crew without even trying to get his friend's side of the story. Luffy! It's good to see you, buddy! Luffy! And, of course, on top of fixing that problem from the source material,

[28:05] Whiskey Peaks adaptation also gives us quite possibly the single greatest bar fight in the entire history of Netflix if not cinema itself in which McTenney takes down exactly 100 stuntmen I counted He also counted in the show

[28:24] But as a card-carrying member of the One Piece fan club, he made sure the production crew knew we would want to count all of them ourselves, and thus made darn sure that it was exactly 100 guys,

[28:38] and they all go down on screen. But you know, it wasn't all him. Daniel Lasker did more than his fair share as Mr. Nine to give Zorro a super punchable goal to work toward in the scene, elevating one of the most underwhelming Baroque Works agents into an utterly unforgettable icon during his brief time on screen.

[28:59] And of course, all that set design and stunt work would have gone to waste without the expert guidance of Super Sentai and John Wick 4 action choreographer Koji Kawamoto,

[29:11] who previously collaborated with Makenyu on the Rurouni Kenshin movies. All of which adds up to easily the most tokusatsu scene in a show already brimming with tokusatsu energy.

[29:24] But while that is the standout of the season, the entire show, and pretty much everything on Netflix, there is still plenty more of that energy in the season's other fights. Igaram's standoff with Miss Valentine and Mr. Five absolutely rules.

[29:39] Luffy gets some very fun use out of his powers against Mr. Three. The giant's duel has an impressive sense of weight to it, added to by the costume department literally sewing weight into their clothes.

[29:52] Sanji vs. The Unluckys is absolute comedy gold. The big brawl in Logetown, honestly, felt a little weak, but I love the Looney Tunes shit they pulled to take out Alvita.

[30:04] And speaking of Looney Tunes shit, the way that Smoker swing shots Luffy to take him out is just a hell of a move. And all of the fights in the season finale are brilliant,

[30:16] with maybe a couple asterisks. Sanji's team up with Chopper is super fun, with some of the most one-piece-y cartoon logic we've seen in the live-action to date.

[30:28] What the hell is this? It's got to clean from my aforementioned. Get it off me! But in keeping with that cartoon logic, I do feel like the cartoon timing could have been a bit tighter there.

[30:40] There's this one bit where Chopper plays with his size-changing powers for a quick sucker punch, but it takes so long to actually do the changing that Chess could have easily gotten, not just out of the way,

[30:52] but out of the whole damn room before it landed. Other than that, though, fantastic stuff. And the way that Chopper and Sanji team up for the final blow is just... I have Chef's Kiss written in the script here,

[31:05] and just in case I'm not able to record in live action with my cool Laboon shirt, which I really want to do, but this is coming down to the wire, I just want you to know I wrote Chef's Kiss there. Sanji also comes in for a perfect assist to finish the Wapol fight,

[31:20] though unfortunately that does feature the only objectively bad effect in the entire show. The Wapol-shaped hole in the wall that he leaves on the way out is just straight up unfinished,

[31:32] and I don't know how that got past the final edit. I really hope they patch it at some point in the future, because it's seriously distracting and immersion-breaking. but in spite of that glaring flaw, if I'm being honest, I think I might like the fight overall more than how the manga did it.

[31:51] There's some seriously great banter leading into it that gives Vivi a chance to spout off about what makes a good leader, and Luffy a chance to just disrespect the ever-loving shit out of the deposed drum king,

[32:03] and when it actually pops off, the choreography makes great use of every character's ability, especially Waffle's freaky transformations, which were achieved with a mix of CGI and apparently quite heavy prosthetics

[32:17] and have this great creepy mechanical quality to how they're animated that I feel is just a perfect translation of the concept from the anime and manga. Every key beat of the battle was recreated as close to one-to-one with the manga as they could get,

[32:32] given the actual staging of the room, and between those beats, they tear that stage apart. It's always fun to see set design get as much love as this throne room does, but it's even more fun to watch actors and stuntmen destroy it.

[32:47] And on top of that, the fight is much shorter than it was in the manga, which is good, because that was one of the first places I really thought, damn, Oda's dragging this out. And best of all, we don't even have to lose the freaky body horror implications

[33:02] of the Munch Munch fruit with the second stage of the fight, because they added a whole other battle scene down in the village against this army of horrific weapon chimera soldiers, including two guys stuck together like Chess Marimo,

[33:16] so we even get that little bit of body horror, which gives Dalton, Kureha, Zoro, Usopp, and most importantly, the prop and costume team, a chance to really shine during the final fight of the season,

[33:29] making it feel like a proper finale, and not just, you know, the halfway point of an ongoing saga. Here's your firestorm!

[33:41] It also, in my opinion, more than makes up for the choice to cut the first encounter with Wapol's Pirates, which is a very understandable change. Not only would that particular ship be way too expensive to make for just one scene,

[33:58] even if they did it with CGI, But this way, they get to wring one more scene out of the set they've already built for Crocodile's Den and milk the surprisingly fantastic screen chemistry between Rob Coletti and Lara Aboba.

[34:13] What, Alex? It's cold. Well, it's so fun, isn't it? Think you're breaking, friend, huh? Plus, they get one more run out of two of their best costumes.

[34:25] I can certainly see how all of that makes sense from the showrunner's perspective, and to an extent, I even think it makes sense that Waffle might finance the downfall of Alabasta just because he's that petty of a little bitch.

[34:39] It makes a whole lot less sense, though, that he'd be conspiring against the world government, because, again, little bitch. And it makes the least sense of all that Mr. Zero would ever, in a million years,

[34:53] compromise, upset by bringing a guy with a mouth that big in on his conspiracy at any level. So, I guess on the flip side of that, one throwaway line about Garp getting his intel from investigating Wapol

[35:08] could instantly justify how much he already knows about Baroque Works in this version of the story. My main gripe about it, though, is that having Wapol be part of Baroque Works

[35:20] and even get his devil fruit from them instead of tracking it down of his own volition because, you know, he's always been kind of a fat guy and a devil fruit that lets him eat a lot sounds really appealing to him,

[35:32] is one of those changes that not only takes away from his character but makes the whole world of live-action One Piece feel a whole lot smaller than the mangas. As does having Nico Robin on the Straw Hats trail

[35:46] from literally scene one before they've even picked up Vivi. He could have just said something like, let's keep an eye out for Zorro, wherever he is, and it would have accomplished the same thing without undermining the crew's underdog status at this point in the story

[36:02] and the whole scope of the setting. With how many times the live action's done this by now, by the time they finally get to Jaya, it's gonna feel weird that Blackbeard doesn't know who the Straw Hats are,

[36:15] and the fact that Bellamy does will no longer signal that he's stuck in that small dick mentality of financially power-scaling himself against other small-time pirates. I guess that shit sort of already sailed in season one with how they handled Harlong, though,

[36:32] and at least having a subordinate like Miss all Sunday running around dealing with annoyances like the Straw Hats instead of doing it himself makes Mr. Zero feel like a much bigger deal, comparatively speaking.

[36:44] And it does give Robin more screen time as a baddie, before spoilers for Netflix only to somehow never seen a single piece of One Piece art made after Alabasta, she joins the crew.

[36:57] Which can only be a good thing, considering how far they knocked her casting and costuming out of the park. I kind of feel like a broken record with all the times I've said that about different characters,

[37:10] so allow me to repeat it just once more about Mark Haralick's Dr. Hero look. Try saying that five times fast. Who is the heart and soul of the season's best episode, and also its single most impressive costume design.

[37:25] I seriously can't believe they got that wig to work. Now, I don't think any One Piece fan would be surprised to find the Chopper flashback is the peak of the whole show so far, but the fact that it actually is, I think is the single most important thing.