One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga

Episode 8

The eighth episode continues the trend of ratcheting tension and silly hijinks for the Straw Hat crew.

I'm a big fan of this section of the story. This episode introduces one of the most whimsical characters and moments in One Piece: Shirahoshi! She is a fun combination of everything you would expect from the setting of this arc, while at the same time a wonderful and surprising reveal. Fish-Man Island is an undersea world of mermaids, talking sea creatures, and Fish-Men. Shirahoshi is a princess, as she is the daughter of King Neptune, who is himself a giant of grand size. The context clues pretty obviously point to her being a mermaid princess and quite possibly being of above-average size given Neptune's immensity. Furthermore, the entire setup harkens quite obviously to the classic Disney film The Little Mermaid, and so you expect a mermaid princess.

What's so delightful about Shirahoshi is that she's simply enormous. The reveal is utterly shocking just because, well, why is she so enormous!? It was foreshadowed with Neptune's size and in this wacky world of One Piece, there's really no upper or lower limit on the scale of the characters. But Shirahoshi is just so big and it is so completely out of left field it's hard not to find it hilarious. Furthermore, her being a giant crybaby adds that extra layer of comic ridiculousness with Luffy being so incredibly small yet berating her all the while.

Tension continues to mount in the background too as the antagonists gather. Hody Jones, Vander Decken, and Caribou have all made their presence known. The Straw Hats have also split up once again, which is usually when they all manage to find trouble at exactly the same instant. Things are about to get interesting once again.

In terms of the remake, I thought the best portion by far was Luffy eating all the food with Shirahoshi. This is just terrific cartooning and expression work, with lots of goofy expressions, and delightful sound work. Far and away the best portion of the episode.

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One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.