One Piece is a big action-adventure series. It has hundreds of characters with weird powers who fight each other and make silly faces. It has wacky clowns and talking gorillas and snail telephones.
It also has heart and pathos. It paints a rich portrait of emotional truth on a backdrop of cartoonish absurdity. It is a place where human truths can be expressed in exaggerated proportions (or, perhaps, merely as a reflection of our present reality).
Kuma's story is told in episode 1136 with a grandiose aplomb that it deserves, delivering an emotional punch to the heart only One Piece could; an agonizing yet joyful fist that slams into your heart after a twenty-plus-year windup.
The Toei team pulled out all the stops to tell this story, and it's riveting television. The slow motion tragedy of Kuma's life comes full circle, and he becomes the machine that we first met him as all those years ago. Yet this flashback - in the grand tradition of One Piece flashbacks since time immemorial - has placed him in a new light. There was always something a little off about Kuma, more than the mere robotic warrior that was presented to us. But watching his tale unfold has taken that small uneasy feeling and turned it into an emotional avalanche.
The grand finale of the episode is Kuma running through his memories. Watching him run past all the connections in his life as the lighting and filters shift the emotional mood and tenor of each memory before it fades to nothingness… It's powerful stuff. Maybe the most powerful event in One Piece alongside Robin shouting “I want to live!” Episode 1136 may very well have cemented Kuma as one of - if not the - most tragic figures in the entire series.
And that makes the hope he put in Luffy all the more special.
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