One Piece Drum Island Arc (78-91) Review
As will be the usual with this series of reviews, I will be assuming you are going into this having either seen the show or seen my reviews of the previous arcs. As such certain things of the previous arcs may be spoiled, and I will be taking some liberties in not explaining things that many of you likely know already. If this is your first time seeing one of my One Piece Reviews, I am doing an Arc by Arc review of the show. That out of the way, let's begin.
Drum Island features both the best and worst aspects of One Piece for me. Starting with the good, the entire premise is that despite the growing tension in Alabasta over the revolt lead by Mr. 0 of Baroque Works, the crew has to stop at a new Island to find a doctor for Nami. The choice to do this is made by Vivi herself, the princess of Alabasta. While predictable this would be the case, it's still a good way to start the show.
Of course finding a Doctor isn't going to be easy, and the only one in town lives atop a mountain. This time sidelining Zoro for a chunk of the arc as he is the one who stays behind on the ship, the focus this time is largely on Luffy and the new member Chopper, with Sanji playing a major roll as well. I don't want to spoil too much, but Sanji and Luffy have to take a sick Nami up a mountain, and to keep Nami safe Luffy, who is carrying her, can't attack anyone himself. This leads to a great chase up a mountain as they are trying to deal with an army of giant killer rabbits.
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I kind of love that the actual villains of the arc aren't much of a threat. One Piece seems to excel at creating perilous situations for these characters that, despite going up against foes they outclass, are put in some pretty extreme danger. Luffy, at no point, is really under threat dealing with the former king of Drum Island, though you feel the tension as he's trying to scale an icy cliff carrying two limp bodies along with him. And when the fight with the final foes does kick off, even though the tension is pretty low at that point for Luffy's fight, the point of the fight is mostly to see what kind of person Chopper is and set him up for joining the crew, which the show does great with.
That said, this arc also feels needlessly padded. It keeps cutting back to Vivi and Ussop traveling between towns to find the doctor, who wasn't even at the Mountain Luffy was currently climbing. They want to find the doctor and let her know everyone is up the mountain as they aren't' strong enough themselves to follow after Luffy. That said she's back on the Mountain top in time to see Luffy arrive even though they never crossed paths with the doctor, making the whole ordeal pointless. There's a few bits like that which add nothing to the arc, but it is a fairly small portion so it's not that big of a deal.
That said, I don't like Chopper all that much. As a character he's fine, and acts as the crews doctor going forward, but compared to everyone else it just doesn't feel like he's all that interesting now that the core issue of his backstory has been resolved. Even Ussop, a character I go back and forth on liking, at least has a pretty strong ambition and goal in mind paired with a unique way he goes about fighting and supporting the rest of the crew. It's possible that down the line Chopper will come into his own, but as of now I'm not that interested in what they do with him.
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I'm also starting to get a good sense at everyone's 'Power level', which is nice. If I were to take my best guess and rank the characters of the show in terms of strength, going weakest to strongest, It would look like this: 5. Sanji, 4: Arlong, 3: Zoro, 2: Luffy, 1. Hawkeye. And the show seems consistant, at least this early on, which how strong it portrays it's characters. It's not like with Dragon Ball Z and Super where peoples power level seems all over the place and determined more by what the show feels would be more dramatic.
Overall it's another great arc for the show, and honestly it's starting to become one of my favorite Shonen anime, and more likely than not it's going to knock DBZ out of my top twenty anime of all time. It's hard to say this early (I can't believe after 90 episodes I'm saying 'early') but I'm looking forward to finally reaching Alabasta.
All that said, with the next arc being longer, and me having other games and anime to catch up on, it may be a while before I finally get to another One Piece Review. I don't want to burn myself out on the show, which is likely if I keep watching at this pace.