Spoilers

E3: Tell No Tales”

E4: “The Pirates are Coming”

I love this show.

After four episodes, it has completely engaged my curiosity, anticipation and thrilled me to no end. I love these characters and I love the villains that cause the conflict. One Piece has been a huge success in my eyes for Netflix.

It is just so much fun.

Episodes three and four are a two-parter, in sense, though it does not call it so. This is the first time where the story expanded past the first episode and encapsulated a second one.

This two episode arc serves to introduce Usopp, who would become one of the new crew (not a crew) members. We are shown a young Usopp running through the town calling out that “The pirates are coming.” He is great with a slingshot and works at the shipyard.

This is the reason why our Straw Hat Pirates crew come to this town. The boat they were are was leaking and getting ready to sink and they needed to find a new pirate ship.

When Luffy finds the ship that ‘speaks’ to him, they meet Usopp and he tells them about the owner of the shipyard, who is a friend of his. You doubt this considering we have seen that Usopp is the ‘boy who cried wolf.’

However, he does take them to meet his friend, Kaya, a wealthy but sickly young girl about to turn 18. Luffy plans on convincing her to make a deal with them for the ship. However, as they were there, it was revealed that her butler was a pirate captain who was slowly poisoning her.

The butler was revealed as Kuro, the captain of the Black Cat Pirates, who had long blades on his fingers and an ability to move quickly. This would lead to yet another epic fight scene with Luffy and the crew.

We learned more about the background of Zoro, specifically why he carries a third sword. This dated back to his early sword training with a young woman who he could not defeat in combat. This back story did give us more insight into Zoro and it helped him be motivated to escape the deep hole he had been tossed in by Kuro’s two henchpeople.

The Marines are on Luffy’s trail too as Garp becomes a mentor for Kobe. The very end of episode four dropped a bomb too as Luffy sees Garp through a spyglass as they were being pursued on the new ship and he says “Grandpa.” Garp is Luffy’s grandpa??? Did not expect that.

Our main characters continue to bond as they battle with each other to help save Kaya from the evil clutches of Kuro. Having this occur over the run of two episodes allowed the show to pace this very well and not make it feel rushed. All of these storylines received a nice amount of time and fit together extremely well.

Buggy the Clown literally pulled himself back together after being trapped by Luffy last episode only to be grabbed and taken by another pirate that felt like a big deal. Even though we know nothing about this Arlong (at least I don’t since I did not see the anime this is based on), this character absolutely felt sinister and a problem. I wonder if Kuro will wind up with Arlong and Buggy too?

This has been great so far. I did not intend on watching this many episodes already, but the cliffhanger at the end of episode three made me keep watching. According to Netflix, there are only eight episodes, but Wikipedia indicates that there are ten, so I wonder if the last two episodes are being saved like a part two, much like season 4 of Stranger Things did.

Either way, my goal is to spread out watching the remaining 4 available episodes so that I can watch the final one on September 19th as a way to celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day. Ahoy!

Their new ship was dubbed The Going Merry, after Kaya’s lawyer who had been killed by Kuro.