Summary
One Piece Season 2 finally feels a little bogged down in “Big Trouble in Little Garden”, a solid episode with some good ideas that nonetheless feels like it’s setting up the next installment instead of working on its own terms.
The weakest hour of One Piece Season 2 thus far, Episode 4 isn’t bad, by any means, but it’s the first chapter to feel like setup for the next one more than it feels like its own capsule adventure. There’s something quite specific about the rhythm that comes from collapsing a complete manga story arc into a single episode, and that’s the rhythm that suits the show best. “Big Trouble in Little Garden” has a great setup – giants and dinosaurs? Together? – but you spend most of the runtime waiting for it to really get going.
Now that Vivi is officially part of the crew, there’s a slightly different dynamic going on here, but for the most part, “Big Trouble in Little Garden” splits the characters up into smaller groups, so you don’t really feel that. It’s also – unavoidably – more CGI-driven, losing some of the satisfying tactility that characterised the action in the previous episode. Not to frontload this recap with negativity, though, since there’s still a good amount to like and admire, so let’s break it all down.
Miss All Sunday’s Proposition
The cliffhanger in the previous episode turns out not to amount to much. Miss All Sunday isn’t there to kill the Straw Hats – or seduce them, much to Sanji’s disappointment – but to make them an offer. She presents an Eternal Pose – a version of the Log Pose that doesn’t need retuning and always points to one particular island – and recommends that the crew follow it there, hiding out until all of this blows over. She even promises to protect them from Baroque Works and Mr. Zero, though her motivations for doing so aren’t exactly clear.
Luffy isn’t having it either way and destroys the Eternal Pose. He’s adamant about keeping his promise of escorting Vivi to Alabasta, and that means going through the next island, Little Garden. Miss All Sunday isn’t exactly positive about some of the danger that awaits them there, either, and she turns out to be pretty on the money in that regard.
Giants and Dinosaurs
Little Garden is a lush, prehistoric jungle island inhabited by exotic plants, dinosaurs, and Viking-themed giants, so it’s a pretty rich bounty of stuff to look at, even if a lot of it appears quite distractingly fake. Zoro and Sanji make a competition out of trying to kill their dinner, Nami rushes after Usopp when he returns to the ship, and Luffy explores the island with Vivi, learning a bit more about her life as a princess while they ride a dinosaur around. Only in One Piece!
Fairly quickly, both Nami and Usopp, and Luffy and Vivi, run into two different giants. This is a bit of a fake-out, since the expectation is that the giants are hostile, but they’re not at all. Instead, Brogy the Red Ogre – the one with Nami and Usopp – and Dorry the Blue Ogre – the one with Luffy and Vivi – are best pals who just so happen to be locked in a century-long struggle for supremacy over the island. Every day, they meet, drink, and fight to a stalemate.
It seems like the next fight between the pair will be a spectator sport.
Unwelcome Visitors
The Straw Hats aren’t the only non-natives on Little Garden. There’s a young woman sneaking around who we first see drawing a yellow circle on Zoro’s leg, which makes his eyes briefly flash yellow before returning to normal. His behaviour remains off-kilter, though, since Zoro isn’t typically given to outlandish fits of cackling laughter. She also later draws a green circle on Nami’s leg, to a similar effect. The culprit is a character named Miss Goldenweek.
Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine also arrive, quickly running into Mr. 3, a self-styled artiste played by David Dastmalchian – who else? – who has the power to generate and manipulate candle wax. Why not? Mr. 3 is nice enough to tell the other two that Mr. Zero has sent him to correct their mistake of losing Vivi. The giants are currently preventing him from doing that, though, so he offers to recommend that Mr. Zero doesn’t kill them if they help him get the big lads out of the way.
Giant Fight
The standout sequence of One Piece Season 2, Episode 4 is probably the scrap between Brogy and Dorry, though I’ll grant you it doesn’t always look too hot, especially when it’s framed to take in the regular-sized characters as well. But it’s a fun scrap, at least until the interference of the Baroque Works causes it to finally come to an end. Mr. 5 snuck one of his booger bombs in Brogy’s tankard of ale. The explosion in his stomach weakens him enough that Dorry is able to run him through.
Luffy, who spots the officer agents from across the way, knows something is amiss and gives chase. Nami is virtually comatose by this point, so Miss Valentine is easily able to swoop up and kidnap her, leaving Usopp to fall off the rock face. He’s able to tell Dorry what happened during the fight, and he isn’t best pleased about it, but he’s determined to sort that out his own way, retiring to his cave and leaving Usopp behind.
Miss Goldenweek manages to ensnare Luffy, this time with a blue circle, while Mr. 5 catches up with Vivi on the Going Merry. That leaves everyone except Sanji and Usopp captured and imprisoned inside Mr. 3’s wax house. He also visits Dorry in his cave and uses his wax powers to skewer one of his hands to the wall and make an art project of him, which I’m certain won’t turn out to be a positive development. All in all, that’s pretty in-keeping with most of the episode.
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