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One Piece
Episode 1101

by Grant Jones,

How would you rate episode 1101 of
One Piece (TV 1999) ?
Community score: 4.4

op1101.png
© Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation

Episode 1101 of One Piece is another cavalcade of combat and buoyant animation with a few major lore reveals sprinkled in.

Let's take it in reverse order and start with the major revelations. Franky notices that the Seraphim are using Devil Fruit powers and, more specifically, that one is using the Swim-Swim Fruit, the same power as Senor Pink. He wonders if Pink is dead, and it turns out that Dr. Vegapunk was involved in the synthetic recreation of the power in the Seraphim based on experimentation at Impel Down. This doesn't quite answer the question of Senor Pink's current health, but it does give us a window into Dr. Vegapunk's research. Prior attempts at synthetic Devil Fruit creation have defined entire arcs, namely the Smile Fruits concocted by Caesar Clown. These attempts were often defined by the horrible detriments they brought with them, but Vegapunk appears to have more or less cracked the code. This is a massive shakeup in our understanding of how powerful abilities are doled out in the setting. It is still a rarity, but it opens the door for a lot more World Government shenanigans down the road.

The rest of the episode could be summed up as “Luffy and Lucci fight.” That rather terse summation is not meant as a negative, mind you. The fight is thrilling, full of so many wonderful moments with the usual flair and comedy the Toei team has put out with astonishing regularity. It's just that it is hard to talk about it for any length because the fighting is visually dense rather than complex in choreography. I will say that having Lucci and Luffy battling inside a dense modern-adjacent city center underscores how superheroic their powers have become, as huge collateral damage is visited upon Egghead Island in their battle.

The visuals do not disappoint. I love seeing Gear 5 Luffy fully embody his cartoon charm, particularly when he turns into a giant with an inflatable head chomping around the city. Or the big curved ear bit when he goes to hear something behind him, a terrific visual bit. There's also a lot of terrific mecha gubbins gratuity related to the transport capsule in this episode. It's not quite bubble-era OVA levels of detail. Still, the huge amount of detail on the overly complex launch sequence successfully immersed me in the Egghead Island futurism vibe which until now has felt a bit too minimalist for my tastes.

If I have one gripe, and I know it's petty… I don't really care for Lucci's new form. He has the fur(?) ring around him that is meant to invoke the same sort of Asura-like imagery that Luffy's cloud ring does. I get the intent, but it doesn't work for me. I prefer when he's more animalistic, like the sequences where he runs on all fours like a great cat in pursuit of prey, rather than adding extra flair to his anthropomorphic form. This is just my feeling; of course, your mileage may vary.

Rating: "What other five-star anime are you watching? Vote on the latest episodes here: Your Score"



One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com.

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