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One Piece
Episode 815

by Sam Leach,

How would you rate episode 815 of
One Piece (TV 1999) ?
Community score: 4.1

Last week ended with Pudding visiting Luffy and Nami in prison, but the fact that it cut off halfway through the scene perplexed me, since this week kicks off immediately with the dramatic setup that this visit was intended to create: Pudding whispers some kind of secret into our heroes' ears to their absolute shock. Is it a good shock? Bad shock? We can't possibly know. Why they didn't pace last week's episode to make room for this moment is a total mystery to me, since it barely buys this episode a whopping two minutes, but whatever.

Regardless, the intrigue is running strong this week now that Pudding has some kind of plan to stop the wedding, and by the time the episode wraps up, Vinsmoke Reiju is limping through the halls with a bloody bullet wound from an unseen gunman. The pulpy whodunit conundrum is a strong element, even if it's only going to last us a couple of episodes. Meanwhile, all the other expected subplots roar ahead.

With each scene of this week's episode, the content of last week's feels more inconsequential. It's that problem of building up to the setup that makes the roller coaster of this arc more exhausting than fun, but at least relegating the boring parts to last week means that this episode gets to be chock full of entertainment. I was wrong about the Carrot and Chopper subplot being over, but this half of the climax is significantly more enjoyable, as is Brook vs. Big Mom's minions. There's more variety to the action, and it's much more lively and animated overall.

This episode also marks the first time that one of the Sanji-retrieval team meets Big Mom face to face, as she unexpectedly bursts into the treasure room just as Brook is about to secure the One Piece-locating Poneglyph. On one hand, an enraged Emperor who's extra-touchy about her treasure is way out of Brook's league as a fighter, but on the other hand he's also the exact kind of rare species that she has an affinity for collecting. There's also the competitive relationship between their Devil Fruits, where Brook has control over his own soul and Big Mom has control over others'. Elsewhere on the island, Pedro begins his poetic rematch with Baron Tamgo, as it's revealed that the two of them took each other's eyes at at some point in the past, and the conviction that the show sells this "manly" duel between a jaguar-man and an egg-man balances tone in the way that One Piece has always excelled.

This episode has a lot going for it as various forces cross paths, and a lot of great mystery is being established. I'm always somewhat wary when the art style starts to deviate from the norm, because "unique" in this show is sometimes a synonym for "ugly", but in this week's episode (and some of what we can see in the Next Episode Preview) there's a lot of energy being drawn from that messiness. The flavor is right where I want One Piece to be as the melodrama cranks up. As usual, I think this part of the arc, which is full of action and turns of fortune, is where the pacing ideally would start picking up. This episode thankfully feels packed, but knowing that the most interesting events don't get to happen back-to-back like they should is a little sad. As it stands on its own, this episode is pretty strong.

Rating: B+

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

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw

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