User blog:Pandawarrior/Anime Arc Review: Marineford

Hey guys I thought it might be a cool idea to start reviews of anime arcs, so here goes! If you like this review tell me an arc I should review in the comments, I'll rewatch it and write one.

Chapter: 550-580, 31 chapters

Episode: 459-489, 31 episodes

Aired: 2010-2011

Summary: The unrest between the three great power caused by the Straw Hat Pirates finally reaches it bloody climax in the biggest war we've seen so far in One Piece. Ace, captured by Blackbeard, is set to be executed at the Marine Headquarters, after Luffy failed to rescue him in Impel Down. The Whitebeard Pirates as well as several of their allies from the New World intervene and the resulting battle leaves Whitebeard and Ace dead and shows Blackbeard as the new power to be reckoned with after he acquires Whitebeards Devil Fruit powers. Justice prevails!

Pros:

+ Lot's of awesome new characters: From the division commanders to the allies and the marines, we're introduced to lots of awesome new characters, which we'll surely see again in the New World.

+ A taste of things to come: With so many powerful characters introduced the New World surely won't be a walkthrough and we can expect lots of awesome fights!

+ So this is what strong looks like? We get to see what the Yonkou are capable of and it's almost frightening. Whitebeard, sick as he was, almost managed to sink the entire island and he took on hundreds of marines, plus all the admirals as well as Blackbeard, before finally succumbing to his illness. Akainu shows us what destruction looks like with his apocalyptic devil fruit when he rains magma down on the entire battlefield. Not to mention Shanks, who stops the entire war literally single-handedly.

Cons:

- The filler: There were so many unneccessary scenes added to this arc to stretch it out that it was really really annoying. From Buggy's escapades to flashbacks we've seen a million billion times it was simply a bit much.

- "Oars!; Luffy!; Oyaji!; Incoherent whimper!" Until he was freed Ace was really grinding on my nerves as he was shown after scene either calling somebodies name or just whimpering incoherently. Could have been done a lot better.

- The anime overall: From the art-direction to the soundtrack and the cinematography, the anime overall was not as great as he usually is, again mainly due to the fillerparts.

Conclusion: This arc suffered more from time-constraints than any other arc I can think of. Oda is more than capable of showing an epic war as we've seen in the Alabasta arc, but this time it just didn't quite cut it for me. If they had incorporated a couple of filler arcs somewhere and thus had the time to wrap up this arc more quickly it would have helped immensely but alas. Not one of the best arcs overall, although the new characters help somewhat.

6.5/10