Summary
One Piece Season 2 gets back on track in “Wax On, Wax Off”, providing a couple of unsettling villains and some solid character moments.
Now, this is more like. After basically sacrificing the previous episode to set up this one, One Piece Season 2 delivers pretty well on the cathartic confrontations between the Straw Hats and Baroque Works’ resident artistes, Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek. Episode 5, “Wax On, Wax Off”, accomplishes one of the few things that the show hasn’t until this point – it can be pretty genuinely unnerving, at least when its villains are around. But that isn’t all it has to offer.
It’s the art thing, I think. There’s something predictable about assassins, even ones with special powers, but anyone who thinks they’re some kind of auteur genius comes across like a proper psycho. You can never quite predict what they’ll do next. And David Dastmalchian, always a perfect casting choice for lunatics, does such a great job with Mr. 3 that I was legitimately happy to see he survived the episode. Even Miss Goldenweek ended up being a lot weirder than I expected.
Anyway, let’s get on with it.
Mr. 3’s Masterwork
Since the previous episode ended with most of the Straw Hats as prisoners in Mr. 3’s wax house, it’s no surprise that the bulk of “Wax On, Wax Off” revolves around his demented plan for his prisoners. In essence, it’s a giant wax birthday cake. Vivi, Zoro, and Nami are placed on the bottom tier like the bride and groom figurines, the candles are set alight, and the raining wax will cover the prisoners and eventually turn them into wax figurines. Nice.
You’ll notice that Luffy is missing from this equation. That’s because he has become the plaything of Miss Goldenweek, who also fancies herself a bit of an artist, but a less ambitious version. Her art allows her to literally “colour” people’s emotions. The marks she painted on Nami, Luffy, and Zoro in the previous episode were all different colours, all pertaining to different emotions. Historically an ostracised loner, her art lets her turn people into her own personal playthings that she can discard whenever she feels like it.
Luffy is the latest of these, driven to a depression so deep that even when Usopp finds him on the beach, he can’t talk him round. Usopp, by the way, gets a good amount of focus in this episode, the same way Zoro did in Episode 3. It’s time for him to come into his own.
Unlucky for Some
One Piece Season 2, Episode 5 also finally introduces the Unluckies, who were namedropped earlier in the season. This becomes a problem for Sanji to deal with, since he, like Usopp, has managed to evade capture by Mr. 3 or Miss Goldenweek. After the others are moved to the wax cake, Sanji goes exploring in the wax house and discovers a ringing snail phone that connects directly to Mr. Zero. Thanks to the voice distortion, Zero thinks he’s speaking to Mr. 3, so when Sanji confirms that Vivi and the Straw Hats have been taken care of, Zero sends the Unluckies to clean up.
The Unluckies are Mr. 13, a pyjama-wearing otter, and a vulture named Miss Friday. Sanji gets into a physical fight with them in the wax house while also trying to keep up with the ruse on the phone with Zero, which has a funny, slapstick quality to it. By the time the fight is over, and both Unluckies have been kicked to death, Sanji has been rumbled, so tells Zero that his stooges are dead, identifying himself as Mr. Prince.
Usopp to the Rescue
While the other Straw Hats are hardening on the wax cake, Usopp discovers that Brogy isn’t dead after all. Even though he’s badly wounded, he’s able to encourage Usopp to live up to his stories of heroism and derring-do, inspiring him to rush to the beach and save Luffy. He manages to take out Miss Goldenweek by accident by flicking her paint palette into her face, causing her personality to fluctuate between wild extremes, and drags Luffy from the ocean that Miss Goldenweek had commanded him to walk into.
This frees Luffy up to go and rescue the rest of the Straw Hats. However, immediately upon arriving at the cake, he’s goaded by Mr. 3 and gives chase, leaving Usopp to deal with that problem, too. His bright idea is to challenge Miss Valentine to a duel in the manner of the giants, and then lead her on a run around the cake and bait her into using her powers to crack its foundations. It’s a neat trick, though I’m not sure Usopp, who doesn’t have any powers, would necessarily be able to shrug off 100 kilos right to the face. But let’s not split hairs.
With the others free, Zoro takes on Mr. 5, albeit with one foot still trapped, while Nami and Vivi help to take on Miss Valentine. Luffy also catches up with Mr. 3 and works his way through his creepy maze of waxwork replicas of himself, eventually taking him down and freeing Dorry from his cave.
A New Destination – And A New Problem
Upon returning to the Going Merry, the Straw Hats decide to set sail for a new destination – Alabasta. Even though Vivi is still open to finding her own way home, Luffy has made a promise to get her there, and that’s exactly what he intends to do. She’s officially part of the crew.
As they sail away from Little Garden, the crew are beset by a gigantic goldfish, but Brogy and Dorry kill it to help them escape, sacrificing their weapons in the process. Their next duel will be hand-to-hand – hopefully it takes less than a century to settle it.
However, all the subsequent rejoicing is short-lived, since Nami takes a funny turn. She thinks she’s just tired, but she ultimately staggers out to the deck and collapses. It seems like the journey to Alabasta may have to wait a while after all.
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