One Piece Episode 1089 is a joyful mix of nostalgic return to form and forward-looking novelty.
In almost every respect the series is returning to what it does best. I don't want to be critical of Wano per se, as Lord knows I've spilled a lot of ink discussing it over the past few years and I'm quite positive on a lot of it. Wano arc has many positive points and was the culmination of a lot of threads Oda has been working towards. That said, the length of Wano and its isolation made it literally and figuratively feel like a little bubble within the series. The sheer gravity of Wano's events seemed to pull everything in and this was heightened by the incredible length of both the in-text and real-world time spent in the arc. Wano offered a lot of enjoyable elements, but many were very distinctly different from the rest of the series. Again, prior islands and arcs have felt this way too, but the length of Wano exacerbated some of these feelings.
With 1089 we are back out on the open ocean again. The Straw Hats are all together on the Thousand Sunny, getting into shenanigans, having adventures, and sailing the high seas. Startling events are happening in the wider world with devious World Government plots and islands being erased by weapons of unimaginable power. The movers and shakers of the setting are, well, moving and shaking the existing power structures with new fissures forming in the status quo. Giant sea monsters, strange climatological phenomenon, Zoro and Sanji bickering… this is the One Piece that won me over and put a big dumb smile on my face. Heck, even characters who don't normally excite me much like Sabo get intriguing side stories that leave me wanting more. We are, as they say, so back.
And that's not to mention the visual and directorial delivery. This episode is just draw-dropping, which to be fair has been the norm for the series since the Wano arc, but here it is just simply incredible. Once again I find myself asking how the Toei Animation team manages to put out this kind of work for weekly television, even with the extra week break factored in this is movie-quality work. And the new opening and ending! Pure joyful celebrations of everything One Piece has been and can be… I love this silly pirate adventure story.
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