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One Piece
Episode 1138

by Grant Jones,

How would you rate episode 1138 of
One Piece (TV 1999) ?
Community score: 3.8

op1138.png
© Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation

Episode 1138 of One Piece is good - well, what's new anyway.

Sadly, a good half of the runtime this week is a clip show. It makes sense within the context of the scene, which is good at least. Bonney absorbing all of Kuma's memories and therefore getting a complete account of all the actions he took to protect her and Ginny over the years is nice. The cynical part of me feels it's a bit of a cheat to have a perfect recollection of a parent's actions bestowed on a child like this, and I don't think it's an unfair criticism. One of the great tragedies of being human is that we can never be fully understood by one another, nor can anyone else get a full sense of the things we have done.

In this instance, it adds more than it detracts. Kuma has led a complicated life, and many of the people who influenced him or that he influenced are dead and gone. This allows Bonney to explore his past in a meaningful way without having to wonder how she might know a certain detail or bit of backstory. Additionally, Bonney is only twelve years old - still a child with a limited life experience. This life experience is even less than many of her peers, given how long she lived in the church and avoided going outside. Given all this, she needs a bit of a boost to keep up with the rest of the cast in-setting. Not to mention that even with a perfect record of someone else's life, we would likely all take time to process that much information and wrestle with the implications of knowing that much. This will be even more complicated for a young girl like Bonney to go through, perhaps going through waves of emotions as she sorts through his memories.

The back end of the episode is more fighting. Franky getting walloped by Borsalino was a bummer for me (Franky's number one fan), but it was nice to see him get up largely unscathed. Jupiter has a bit more fight in him still, and the impending Buster Call certainly ups the stakes tenfold. The Marines and Navy are out to do another Ohara, a repeat of one of the world-defining tragedies of recent memory. I wish that didn't resonate with our current world, but, well, art imitates life and all that.

Rating:

One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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