“A New Member! ‘First Son of the Sea’ Jimbei!”

The reunion is nicely played out with everyone glomming onto him and even Sanji getting a little jealous with how some of them are doing that kind of intensely. It’s a good moment considering the long history that so many have with him and what they’ve been through and it’s particularly meaningful for Luffy and his long relationship with him. Touching on some key moments of Jimbei’s life helps as a quick refresher as well, even though in the back of your mind you’re remembering that the show opened with Momonosuke being swiped by Kanjuro and heading off into the sea with him. The promises are made to bring him back into the fold of course but it’s just the nature of the show that it acts like this. It’s all good stuff in the end in having this team together and seeing the Sunny surf the wave to high speed.

The back half of the episode largely stars setting the plan for how to get back onto the island and get things moving to bring this storyline to a close. It’s one that has the mostly serious members figuring it out with Law and most of those working for Kin’emon and you have to laugh in how they talk about Luffy’s front door approach being a really good distraction to help them accomplish their goals. It iis good to see a plan come together and to get a feel for the scale of the defenses as well, which has been touched upon before but now gets a more formal look. We do get the start of the action aspect of it here as well and that’s always fun since it brings back the classics, such as the gum-gum pistol for Luffy, but what makes it work is that it’s the Straw Hats in general, not just Luffy, that are moving forward now, and it’s been forever since we’ve had them all together like this.

In Summary:

Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hat crew are excited to see Jimbei again and welcome him as a new member. Meanwhile, Law and the Akazaya members strategize on how to enter Onigashima and attack Kaido. As the Straw Hats approach the giant torii gate in front of Onigashima, they are attacked out of the blue.

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

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