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One Piece
Episode 1146

by Grant Jones,

How would you rate episode 1146 of
One Piece (TV 1999) ?
Community score: 4.3

op1146.png
© Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation

One Piece episode 1146 is a rambunctious return from hiatus that has a lot of heavy hits, even if it is a bit light on forward momentum.

I imagine that most of you were, like me, waiting with baited breath for One Piece to return from break. After a long few weeks, I am happy to see the show back on the air, though I must admit I hoped for a bit more than what we got. Perhaps that is a case of miscalibrated expectations, but I can't fully separate myself from the now, can I?

Episode 1146 is pretty solid. I hoped I could say more, but that's not necessarily the end of the world. The Five Elders' monster forms remain in focus for the majority of the run time, and a lot of the events that take place revolve around what they're doing, who they're interacting with, and who they're pummeling. Everyone has to take notice, of course - Egghead Island has become the piratical version of Monster Island at this point - and consequently, the narrative sticks with them. And to be blunt, it is one of the highest concentrations of power in the entirety of the series. All Five Elders exhibiting their true forms in a single location is way beyond the pale, certainly outclassing singular villains the team has fought in the past. Heck, even other major battles like Marineford pale in comparison to the raw strength on display. These guys run the world, and they're all stomping around on the island run by Vegapunk (the guy who, uh, invented half the technology we see on screen.)

I only wish the elders stood out more to better match this importance. The sad thing is that by having all the elders' monster forms running around at the same time without enough buildup for each one individually, it just runs together. It feels like “Saturn and the gang” rather than five distinct villains tearing up Egghead Island. Still menacing and important, mind you, but I hoped for a little bit more uniqueness from each of the foes.

Still, Luffy showing off his powers is worth the price of admission. It's nice to see an older Gear form be used again, since it at least implies that Luffy is more than just Gear 5 and that each of his prior power-ups has potential use cases (I like a bit of horizontal progression along with my vertical progression). Of course… Gear 3 fails to do anything, so that dulls some of the impact.

Nevertheless, good to have One Piece back, so here's hoping the team's just gathering up momentum again.

Rating:

One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Anime News Network, its employees, owners, or sponsors.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Anime News Network, its employees, owners, or sponsors.
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