Warship Island Arc

The Warship Island Arc, sometimes referred to as the Apis Arc, is a story arc in the One Piece anime. It is the first story arc of the series not to be based on any content from the manga by Eiichiro Oda, making it the first filler arc. It was left out of the 4Kids dub for an unspecified reason.

Summary
This arc takes place just after Luffy receives his bounty of 30,000,000 at the end of the East Blue Saga, and before the Straw Hat Pirates enter the Grand Line.

The Straw Hats find a young girl named Apis floating in the ocean. They find that she has escaped from Marine Branch 8 and is running from Commodore Nelson. The Straw Hats agree to return her back to Warship Island, and they are soon attacked by Branch 8. After escaping from the Marines, the Straw Hats realize that they are in the Calm Belt where they find large sea kings. Then, narrowly escaping the Sea Kings and the Calm Belts, they continue on their course to Warship Island. After reaching Warship Island, they find out that Apis has a Devil Fruit ability that allows her to talk to animals, and she has used it to befriend a dying Sennenryu, a type of dragon species thought to be extinct. She wants to return this Sennenryu to his homeland, but they run into two problems:
 * A Marine fleet is after the dragon also, because it can be used to make a powerful, and valuable, medicine. Their commander (Commodore Nelson Royale), has hired the mercenary Eric (A Devil Fruit user with claws so sharp, that he can cut the air) to help him get the Sennenryu, but Eric has his own agenda, and wishes to keep it for himself.
 * They do not know where the Sennenryu's homeland is.

This arc chronicles the Straw Hats' efforts to return the Sennenryu to his home, make Apis happy, and stay out of Eric's way.

Scenes Fitting With the Manga
Despite the Filler status of the arc, the anime manages to incorporate some parts from the manga into it.


 * The crew accidentally sailed into the Calm Belt. In the manga, after finding themselves on a Sea King's nose, it sneezes them back onto the main course. The crew nearly lose Usopp during the flight but Luffy catches him. In the anime, the scene is changed and Apis is the one who nearly falls off after the sea kings reveal themselves. After Luffy catches her, he swings Apis into the nose of the sea king the ship is on, allowing her to pluck a nose hair, and causing it to sneeze and the crew to fly back into safe seas.


 * After the arc, the crew reach and enter Reverse Mountain. Eric comes back at the last minute to try and take his revenge on the crew as they go up the slope. Nami, however, trips him off the railing of the ship and knocks him into the water. In the manga, they enter mountain with no incident.

Plot Holes

 * When the Straw Hats find themselves surrounded by a Marine Blockade connected by steel chains, Roronoa Zoro says that he can "cut anything" and proceeds to slice through the steel chains. However, later in the canon Alabasta Arc, Zoro reveals he cannot cut through steel. Unless the chains were not purely steel but a combination of metal alloys, the above has no way of fitting into the continuity.

Translation and Dub Issues
In the English dub of the anime, produced by 4Kids Entertainment, these episodes were cut completely from the series. No explanation was given, and nothing (other than their irrelevance to the main plot of the series) would seem to be just cause for dropping them from the show entirely. Since their content is much more "kid-friendly" than the rest of the series, many fans actually expected 4Kids to heavily promote the arc, but the exact opposite happened. The precise reason for their deletion from the run of the English-dubbed anime remains unknown. However, 4Kids had been known to omit particularly strong death scenes from anime that they dubbed which could upset younger viewers, and this arc contained the passing of Ryuji.

Trivia

 * Warship Island arc is the very first filler story arc in the series.
 * Like other fillers, the Warship Island arc received its own manga adaption in the form of a "novel".
 * Interestingly, the fact that Luffy can hear animals' voices is now true in canon, as Luffy was revealed in Chapter 648 to be able to hear Sea Kings speaking.
 * The Sennenryu was referenced in the Ocean's Dream Arc. The main antagonist of the arc aspired to be one.

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