Despite the Navy's hopes, Whitebeard's death does little to curb the pirate problem. In the New World, the island of Foodvalten, formerly part fo Whitebeard's territory, comes under attack by a gang of pirates led by a massive man calling himself Brownbeard. Brownbeard proclaims that Whitebeard's mark will no longer afford protection.
We now go back to the past by a few days. Law's submarine managed to rendezvous with the ship of the Kuja Pirates of Amazon Lily. Ivankov declares that his mission to protect Luffy has come to an end and that he and his followers will depart in their stolen warship for Kamabakka. Jimbei says that he'll stay with Law for a little while longer in order to look after Luffy while they both heal up. The two muse over the twists of fate that led to their meeting, and then they depart.
And so both ship and submarine arrive at Amazon Lily, where the entire populace of Amazons are there to to welcome the safe return of their ruler. The grunts of the Heart Pirates are rather overcome by being surrounded by all the estrogen, and Law tells them to go belowdecks as an arrow is shot right at him. Hancock tells the islanders to stand down and announces that Luffy is on that ship and that he was gravely injured at Marineford and tells her subjects to bring him to the palace. The elder Nyon puts the kibosh on her ideas by pointing out their tradition to excluding men from their island, and a compromise is eventually reached where the Heart Pirates are allowed to dock their submarine in a small inlet on the island's east side where they'll be allowed to keep Luffy.
So two weeks later we find the Heart Pirates camped out at that inlet, prevented from going into the jungle by a partion set up by the islanders. The grunts grumble about how much this sucks, and how their only respite is when they're brought food each day by a small group of Amazons. During one such occasion Marguerite, the blond girl that had befriended Luffy upon his initial arrival and subsequently defended by him from Hancock and her sisters, asks Law if Luffy has woken up yet. He shakes his head and says that it'll all depend on his willpower.
Not long after Marguerite and her companions leave, a scream is heard from inside the submarine and Law and Jimbei are shocked to see a very-much awake Luffy rocket himself out of the sub through its forecastle and crash to the ground. Panting heavily, Luffy manages to get up onto his knees and scream for Ace.
Eyecatches: Luffy (twice)
As a bunch of the crewmembers try and fail to restrain Luffy by dogpiling on top of him, Jimbei asks Law what would happen if they just left Luffy alone and the doctor replies that he'll probably die if left to his own devices. Eventually he rampages off into the jungle and Jimbei goes after him, leaving the Heart Pirates behind to repair the damage to their submarine.
Luffy finally calms down and regains his senses within the jungle and wonders where he is and if everything was a dream after all. But then images of Akainu and Ace's death come back to him and he starts to go berserk once more, yelling for the images to go away. Once he calms down again, Jimbei approaches and states that the war has ended. He begins to speak of Ace's fate but Luffy cuts him off and shouts that he's already tried to wake himself up, but this isn't a dream, and then says that Ace died, didn't he? Jimbei acknowledges this, and Luffy begins to cry once again.
Disappointed that this episode didn't begin with the new opening like it was originally supposed to. Hopefully it'll premier for 492. Hopefully.
So, the beginning was mostly some small stuff that should've appeared in the last episode but didn't for whatever reason. That includes Brownbeard, the upstart that attacks Foodvalten. Don't really have anything to say about him, as he screams "fodder". By the way, what's up with Japan and its love for Empathy Doll Shots?
Let's see, well over half of this episode is filler. Usually that's something to groan at, but here it served very well, bridging together some scenes that were left a bit disjointed in the manga, which was liberally hopping through time and panels at this point. The new material didn't really add a whole lot to the story, but it made things flow better together, and that's good. I do have to say, it's a little odd seeing a bunch of the Heart Pirates together, since before this point there had only been two guys with Law apart from Bepo and Jambarl in all their scenes. I appreciated the little cameo of Marguerite, since for someone who had befriended Luffy and been defended by him, she got the shaft pretty quickly, and rather badly too.
At the end of this chapter Luffy was supposed to go into a flashback, but I supposed that's going to be transplanted to 493.
Next episode, it'll be time for something different, a crossover with Toriko to promote Toriko's anime debut.
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