467: I'll Save You Even if I Die - The Battle of Luffy vs. the Navy Begins
As the various characters on the battlefield continue to stare dumbstruck, Luffy tells Whitebeard about what he heard on the telesnail about the Navy planning to execute Ace ahead of schedule and that they were going to start up a new strategy. Whitebeard thanks him for this and apologizes for being harsh with him earlier, and once again Buggy, Mr. 3, and Ivankov are beside themselves at how casual they're being.
Luffy again proclaims that he's going to save Ace and launches himself off of the Moby Dick's bow and onto the frozen bay, with Jimbei, Ivankov, and the New Kamas following suit. Sengoku comments that even this won't stop the plan, and barks out orders to his forces via telesnail to proceed with the new strategy. Marco flies over to Whitebeard and reports that he's learned of the new execution schedule. Whitebeard says that the leaked information was probably deliberate, so they shouldn't worry about it just yet.
Meanwhile, the first obstacle in Luffy's path is Kizaru, who says that the Celestial Dragons are still after him as he charges up his laser. Luckily for Luffy, Ivankov's there to blow him out of the laser's path with Death Wink as he yells that it's his job to protect Luffy from harm. Ivankov himself ends up being the target of several more laser attacks, but this time from Kuma. The drag-green executes a series of flips to dodge them, thinking how horrible Kuma is for attacking an old friend, even if he is a Warlord. He shouts to Luffy to keep on moving, while he resolves to fight Kuma himself.
Luffy next encounters Jango and Fullbody, whom he barely recognizes from his adventures in East Blue. Jango tries to hypnotize him (twice as effective with two chakrams), but only succeeds in putting himself and Fullbody to sleep. Their commanding officer Hina unceremoniously kicks them out of the way and uses her Devil Fruit, the Cage Cage Fruit, to try to ensnare Luffy, but he easily avoids it was a burst of Gear Second speed and continues to press onward.
Meanwhile outside the bay, the New World caption Squardo makes to climb the wall that Oars Jr. crushed, but is stopped by a certain someone's approach...
Eyecatches: Sanji and Luffy
As Luffy continues to fight his way through the marines, Moria gets the idea of stealing his shadow again, and summons a force of zombies up out of the earth for him to tangle with. Watching Luffy starting to get overwhelmed by both the marine soldiers and the zombies, Ace finally speaks up, yelling out for Luffy to keep away, stopping him dead in his tracks. Ace continues on, shouting that he has his own crew, life and adventure to lead, something that Luffy has no place in. To be saved by him is an embarrassment. Of course, he really doesn't want to bring Luffy and everyone else down with him.
Luffy retorts by shouting that he's his brother, leading to a brief flashback depicting the two as children drinking sake from the same bottle, something that Ace claimed would make them brothers. The bystanders take this declaration literally, only to realize that there's no way the two could be blood-related. Jimbei, meanwhile, douses Moria's zombies with seawater, purifying them, and like Ivankov before him, tells Luffy to keep moving forward.
Sengoku reprimands the marines for letting Luffy steal the focus for so long, and reveals that he is the son of the revolutionary leader Dragon. While everyone reels at this new information, Garp simply says that he doesn't care any more. Raising Luffy and Ace together was a foolish mistake.
One of the Giants tries to crush Luffy in the meantime, only to be on the receiving end of a Gigant Rifle. Luffy shouts that he doesn't care about anything Ace says, he's still going to save him, even if he dies!
This episode had a lot of recap in the beginning, but the trade-off for that was a really fun, intense episode. The fighting coreography was well-constructed and animated, and the extra bits, like Jango and Fullbody getting their five minutes of fame as opposed to the manga, are always welcome. Luffy's attack at the end was done in the classic sketchy method of Art Shift, which was pretty cool. No complaints here in the technical department.
Ace's attempt to Shoo the Dog towards the end goes back to the end of Thriller Bark where Luffy tells Nami that Ace would be really angry if they went and saved him from whatever trouble he was in given the conditions Ace himself outlined in his little speech. Of course, Luffy's tune on this has changed since then. While I'm sure the crew would understand his reasonings, I'm sure they can't be too pleased with how suicidally reckless Luffy's being right now.
If there's one thing that's always mystified me about this material, it's where exactly Moria's zombies came from. Moria's dialogue suggests that he's reanimating soldiers who have died during the battle, but the Navy certainly doesn't have any bears or centaurs in their ranks. Eh, Rule of Cool I guess. I wonder how exactly Jimbei knew of their weakness to salt too. That was something that took a while for the Straw Hats to find out, yet Jimbei just magically knows already. Moria's certainly not going to blab about it. I guess it's an oversight. On a different note, I started watching High School Of The Dead the other day, so it's pretty amusing to contrast the cartoonish Oda zombies with the more typical George Romero-style ones in that work. Mood Whiplash indeed.
