The arrival of Shanks and his crew brings a halt to all of the commotion going on on the battlefield. Buggy is one of the first to acknowledge him, and upon seeing him, Shanks tells him to deliever the straw hat to Luffy, claiming that there's a treasure map in it for him. His buttons pressed, Buggy hurries off to do so, as Shanks's crewmate Lucky Roux asks his captain if he's sure that he doesn't want to see Luffy, as it's been ten years since they last saw each other. Shanks reasons that while he may want to, doing so like this would break their promise that Luffy would see him after becoming a great pirate.
Having received the straw hat from Buggy, Law's submarine submerges as Luffy and Jimbei are wheeled into an operating room. Law dons a pair of surgical gloves and declares that he's going to have fun operating without anesthesia. At that moment the sub begins to rock violently as Jambarl tries to outmanuever an ice attack from Aokiji. Just as soon as they've dived deep enough to dodge that, Kizaru unleashes a massive volley of laser beams at the ocean, forcing Jambarl to put everything he has into keeping the sub in one piece. When he finishes his assault the light Admiral says that if they're still alive after that, then they'll just have to give up on the sub and call them lucky.
While all of this is going on, Hancock commandeers a Navy battleship and has its crew pursue Law's submarine, claiming that she'll elimate Luffy herself as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
Eyecatches: Luffy (twice)
Buggy realizes that he's been had regarding the treasure map and tries to take his anger out on Shanks, who just smiles and cheerfully admits that it was a spur of the moment kind of thing, and does seem to be genuinely pleased to see his old shipmate again. Buggy does realize though, that he'll be able to leave Marineford safely if he sticks with Shanks for the time being. The prisoners take Buggy's attitude towards one of the Emperors as yet another sign of his greatness.
Leaving Buggy behind, Shanks steps forward to address the assembly and declares that if anyone still wishes to fight, they'll have to go through his own crew first. Blackbeard decides to back down, claiming that it's too early for them to be fighting, and departs with his own crew. Shanks says that he'll take custody of Ace and Whitebeard's bodies. Some of the marines protest, but Sengoku says that he'll allow it, and take responsibility for whatever comes of it.
As both sides begin to regroup and withdraw, Sengoku declares that the war is over.
Even though there's still one more episode left in the arc, the big battle of Marineford is finally over. Admittedly, I feel that it was a little bit anti-climatic, that Shanks managed to solve everything in a single chapter, especially since before Blackbeard was incredibly drunk on power and boldly declaring that he'll take on everyone, yet now all of a sudden declares that he thinks he shouldn't fight and nonchalantly leaves? Eh, a little weak, but maybe Oda had written himself into a corner with that one.
This was the first time we really got to see any of Shanks's crew outside of Beckman, Yasopp, and Lucky Roux (and Rockstar I guess, who's conspicuously absent). Most of were actually around for Romance Dawn way, way back in the beginning, though they've been heavily redesigned since. Heh, one of them looks a heck of a lot like Jay of Jay And Silent Bob fame. Now, I don't know if it means anything, but it is interesting that the face-off between the Blackbeards and the Red-Hairs managed to neatly pair off each crew member with an opposite number. Foreshadowing perhaps? We'll just have to wait and see on that one.
I think about the only gripe I had with this episode was the 4:3 flashbacks, and that's simply because this animation director's debut episode reanimated a few scenese from the Jaya arc, and they looked fantastic! Quite a missed opportunity there.
Let's see, in other One Piece anime news, there's a crossover special with Toriko coming up in around two weeks (or possibly three, with many weekend shows being pre-empted due to the massive earthquake Japan was just hit with). There's also going to be a new opening soon, called "Fighting Together" by the singer Namie Amuro. I've never heard of her, but her name should be familiar to Inuyasha fans, as she sang a few of its endings, apparently. I thought they were just going to run with "One Day" for the remainder of the Post-Marineford arc due to its thematic nature, but I'll hope it's a good one. It shouldn't be hard to come up with something nice given the current situation in the show.
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