462: The Power to Destroy the World! The Power of the Quake Quake Fruit
Ace yells back to Whitebeard that his words are a lie, since he ignored his orders to stand down and got himself into this mess on his own. Whitebeard repeats his statement about ordering Ace to pursue Blackbeard, and Marco backs him up on it, and says that everyone in the world knows the consequences of harming one of their crew, and the other crew members roar in support. On the Navy’s side, Moria and Doflamingo are all fired up and ready for the action to start. Doflamingo asks Mihawk if he’s going to simply sit this out and kill time like he usually does, and of course is met with silence. Down below them, several marines notice that the bay’s water level appears to be receding.
Outside Marineford the battleship carrying Luffy and his allies is being blown backwards by an unseen force. While the passengers are being blown about, Luffy asks to know what’s going on, while Jimbei has figured out the reason himself. Once the ship comes to a stop and everyone recovers their bearings, Luffy urges Jimbei to hurry the ship back up so that they can get to Marineford in time, and Jimbei tells him not to worry, for they will definitely make it. Buggy clambers up onto the deck and sarcastically asks how Jimbei’s going to ensure that. Use Fishman Karate? Summon more whale-sharks? Getting tired of Jimbei’s vague responses and Luffy’s stubbornness, he announces that he’s going to take a nap. Before long though, the ship begins to move forward on its own again. Buggy quickly resumes his stance at the ship’s bow, declaring this to be a sign that the world is calling for him to conquer it. And then a giant shadow falls over them…
After falling silent, Marineford begins to tremble and shake once again. Garp says that the seaquake Whitebeard created earlier has now come back in the form to two giant tidal waves, each bearing down on Marineford from opposite ends. Whitebeard has eaten the Quake Quake Fruit, giving him the power to unleash seismic waves. Sengoku says that even though Whitebeard’s outnumbered, it doesn’t guarantee victory, since Whitebeard has the power to destroy the very world.
Eyecatches: Luffy (twice)
Admiral Aokiji leaps out of his seat in front of the scaffold and up into the air, where he uses Ice Age to freeze the two massive tidal waves solid, sparing the battlefield. He then shoots several ice lances at Whitebeard, who punches out a shockwave that destroys the lances and shatters Aokiji himself. He falls to the sea where he reforms and promptly freezes the entire bay, locking all of the ships in and preventing escape. The marines begin firing their cannons at the enemy fleet as Whitebeard’s division commanders and crew members drop down onto the ice and rush forward to engage the Navy soldiers in close-quarters combat. Ensign Tashigi identifies a mustachioed, top hat-wearing division commander and “Flower Blade” Vista, but while she’s focused on him her superior Smoker takes out a pirate who was about to attack her from behind, and admonishes her for leaving her guard open.
Just outside of the ice, the New World fleet and Navy battleships trade cannon fire, and find themselves facing a number of the Navy’s Vice-Admirals. Vice-Admirals Comille and Yamakaji try to talk Tsuru out of joining the fight, which she says is a ridiculous notion, and that it wouldn’t matter anyway, since now no place is safe.
Where the Seven Warlords of the Sea are stationed, Mihawk steps forward, a rare occurrence according to Kizaru and Akainu. Doflamingo now asks if he’s really going to fight, and Mihawk replies that he wants to see for himself just how great the gap in power between Whitebeard and them is. He swings his sword, Black-Bladed Night, sending a massive air-slash straight for Whitebeard.
So the great battle of Marineford finally kicks off! ...but first we have to sit through fifteen minutes of padding to get to the action! Yep, it took fifteen minutes to get through the last four or so pages of chapter 552, and we only got about maybe two-thirds of the way through 553. Considering that these pages were almost entirely action panels and page spreads, that's pretty bad, and the fact that the whole thing with the tidal waves was resolved in less than two minutes didn't help either. The filler with Buggy and the ship wasn't that great either. I would have liked it if it were smarter, like showing the group suiting up and arming themselves for battle. Maybe that's still to come.
We did get to see some new stuff though. First, Whitebeard's powers. He ate a Devil Fruit that allows him to generate earthquakes. In a world that's mostly covered in water, that's a pretty big deal, as he could easily destroy small islands by swamping them with massive waves. He may not be able to destroy the world outright, but the state of the world combined with Whitebeard's monstrous strength, and you've got one absurdly powerful Devil Fruit there.
Next, the other division commanders finally spring into action. Probably the most notable aspect of Oda's art style is his ability to differentiate his cast, probably moreso that any other manga artist currently out there. Well, granted, the women often come from a more limited palette when not outright inhuman, but he's been getting a bit better in that regard in recent arcs, as the leading ladies in them, Nami, Robin, Camie, Marguerite, Hancock, and Sadie all have distinctive features beyond just a different hairstyle. Anyway, getting back to my point, even bit characters often have detailed unique designs, and it really shows in this arc with all of the dozens and dozens of pirates running around, each with different outfits, weapons, and looks. By comparison, the marines look pretty bland with their matching uniforms and dinky rifles and swords. The division commanders are just as diverse, and since many of them are unnamed in-story and pop in and out of the spotlight, here's a brief rundown of who's who for the less prominent ones for future reference:
• Blamenco - the fat guy with the overalls and missing teeth
• Rakuyo - the Jack Sparrow Expy with the chain-chomp mace (how cool is that?)
• Namur - the Fishman
• Blenheim - the giant man with a long braid
• Curiel - the guy with headphones who's lugging around two [[BFG BF Gs]]
• Kingudu - the He-Man looking-fellow
• Haruta - the guy wearing the Shakesperian stage outfit
• Atomos - big guy with a horned helmet
• Speed Jiru - guy wearing a fez and is armed with a lance
• Fossa - guy with a cleft chin who's smoking a cigar
• Izo - the pistol-wielding man (yes, that is a guy) who's dressed like a geisha
Anyway, once the action finally started in the last seven minutes things got really exciting. The animation was simple, yep fluid and coherent. If that's how most of the incidental action is going to look, I'm perfectly satisfied with it. It's a big step up from the battle during Alabasta's climax, which was full of still panning shots (not that I don't expect some of those here too). The battlefield was admittedly a bit sparse compared to the manga, but it's forgiveable because it would be very expensive and unpractical to animate all of that, and like I alluded to in my last post, Toei's no BONES or Production IG or anything like that. I'll take what I can get. Speaking of Alabasta, Tashigi looks so different now than back then. She looks much grimmer in Oda's new style, which smaller eyes and mouth, and longer hair. At the end of that arc she promised to get much stronger, so it would be nice if she got some extra scenes here to prove it. Nice of her to identify Mihawk's sword, at any rate, since so far its only been named in a databook.
One last bit; there were two new voices in this episode. First is Akainu. During Robin's flashback he was voiced by Michio Nakao, but now he has a much more recognized seiyuu, Fumihiko Tachiki, who's played Don Krieg in One Piece before, but is more well known for the roles of Zaraki Kenpachi and Gendo Ikari, so I'm looking forward to when he gets more dialogue. Next, Hirohiko Kakegawa, someone I've never heard of before now mind, replaced Takeshi Aono as Mihawk, due to the latter's hospitalization for a stroke. I was expecting Bin Shimada to be the replacement, given that he replaced Aono for two other roles, one of which being Kami in Dragon Ball Kai, myself, so this was a bit of a surprise. He only had one line of dialogue, but he was noticeably younger-sounding.
And on that, I will end this post by saying that Doflamingo trying and failing to make small talk with the other Warlords is funny, and next episode looks to have some good payoff. Until then.
