“Charging into the Enemy’s Territory! Bakura Town – Where Officials Thrive!”

With Otama being grabbed at the end of the last episode and whisked away, that gets the group on the move to try and catch up to her. There’s some good stuff with this but the key point that comes from it is with Okiku as she’s with them on this mission and reveals that she’s a samurai herself. It’s a nicely done moment that builds well and sets her as a strong ally to have while working through this land. Even with all the time he’s had here, Zoro can still be surprised so having a true native is definitely going to be a big help.

This storyline is moving along well with what it needs to do with the basics and foundations, giving us small slivers of it here and there while delivering what we’ve missed, time with Luffy and Zoro together hanging out and fighting against bad guys.

It’s a good tease for what’s to come before going back to the main place we saw Zoro originally and the “bad dude” who was trying to win over Okiku in the ways of old that didn’t work for him being more of a problem.

Bringing Otama to the weird dude in Bakura Town is certainly amusing with how he’s designed, what with the lion lower half piece that’s in conflict with the guy. Mostly you just connect with Otama’s fear as we see what kind of devil fruit person Holdem is as he has a lower half, or belt region really, that’s a separate creature with a lion’s head. The two are basically at odds with each other a lot and fight each other, including Kamijo the lion basically punching Holdem in the groin to get back at him. Which is self-defeating as they’re one being.

In summary, quirky stuff in One Piece is pretty much the norm and most of the time it works well enough in context to other things and other quirky things going on. The moments of fear from Otama are well-played and I really liked seeing Okiku’s slight change to more forward here as it puts her on an even space with the rest – and hopefully some fun with Zoro in the future.

At least it looks like Law is about to get going after a few background moments in the last few episodes, which has me excited as he’s been one of my favorites going back to when had had a much larger role. 

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

乂⍱‿●乂