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One Piece
Episode 1002

by Grant Jones,

How would you rate episode 1002 of
One Piece (TV 1999) ?
Community score: 4.0

Another episode of Wano and we have… more… Wano. I can't say this one did much to hold my attention, and I definitely experienced a fair amount of Wano fatigue while watching. Between the magnitude of the arc overall and the sheer length of the battle of Onigashima, there's a higher threshold needed to keep the story engaging. Episode 1002, sadly, did not do much in that regard.

I think the real problem with X Drake's betrayal is that it is both too much and too little at the same time. It's one more plot thread, one more Thing that is going on in a busy story with dozens of plot threads already. It draws focus away from the other cast members – both old favorites and Wano-specific characters – who I'd much rather be following. In that sense it is too much and feels overwhelming...but it is also kind of shallow? We spend an inordinate amount of time with X Drake this week, but very little comes of it. He throws a grenade and bickers a bit with Zoro and… that's kind of it. But the episode spends so much time on him that it feels like padding for time.

On the positive side, we get lots of Usopp and Nami this week. Their relationship is one of my favorites in the Straw Hat crew, a playful brother-sister bond and shared sense of “Oh God we are so out of our depth” in most of the circumstances they found themselves in. Usopp shooting his funny tricks shots and generally goofing around is a joy and to my mind it's more engaging than Ulti and Page 1's… dynamic? Vibe? Whatever they have going on which is mostly just Ulti screaming. That said, she and Page 1 do turn into giant dinosaurs so I'll cut them some slack (and X Drake too I guess). Geez, there sure are a lot of transforming dinosaur people in this arc about Mad Max rockers fighting time travelling samurai and frat house pirates.



Rating:


Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com. Save on Anime Streaming Subscriptions with Funimation.

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