As a One Piece fan of couple of decades this was an absolute blast filled with clever Easter Eggs and fun action. Without spoiling what they are I felt like all major changes and nods to future content were tastefully brought to the season to enhance the content. I was all smile in grin from the start to finish and I can’t wait for more.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Season 2 lacks depth, detail, and tension. No giant waves, no struggles within the Going Merry, no epic sea battles. The entire set looks like a newly-opened One Piece theme park, dust free and organized. And the Straw Hats, who seem to be spending more time on land than at sea, look like a bunch of city kids cosplaying as pirates with their clean clothes, nice hair, and sunburn-free skin. Scurvy can be ignored. But sailing across the perilous waters for many days, and no blisters? Come on! They should be called Straw Hat Island Hoppers, instead of pirates. As for the peformance, well, it's a mixed bag. I really like the renditions of Wapol, Nami, Zoro, Chopper, Nico, Mr. 3, and Kureha. The rest of the cast is not quite there yet, especially Luffy. The lines he delivers don't get through to me and end up being cringey. Take a cue from Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow. Just the right amount of quirkiness. Anyways, perhaps my expectations were high. I don't **** more thing though, the One Piece anime or manga should only serve as a guide to tell a much richer and more convincing story, and not as a universal template. The writers should have taken some liberties, just like what the writers of Rurouni Kenshin did. Perfect fusion of reality and fantasy. No wonder why no anime live adaptation ever comes close to RK. That said, I hope they get the Alabasta storyline right (think of Lawrence of Arabia or Dune meets the Pirates of the Caribbean). If not, then, Netflix should axe this show. Try to raise the **** bar a little bit higher!

After giving a very generous 7/10 to the first season, i was fully prepared to be disappointed by the awkwardness that seemed inevitable with such an unapologetic direction. What i did not expect was that the only awkwardness the show really had was already present in the trial-and-error phase of the first season; and once that introduction was out of the way, the series could finally move forward with a new full confidence, bursting straight into the Grand Line. My biggest concern was the over-the-top personalities of the crew, which are the most toned-down elements in the first season. I worried that the absence of Luffy’s brainless impulsivity, Nami’s aggressiveness, or Sanji’s perviness would cost the crew their familiar dynamic. However, the confidence i mentioned earlier is evident here; instead of trying to rationalize the comical elements, this show simply treats them as a specialty of the anime medium counterpart. So it does not argue which version is more correct; it just completes the narrative that if these cartoon characters existed in real life, they would behave like this and vice versa. With that single worry out of the way, i can now wholeheartedly say that almost everything else here has an improvement towards perfection. They've filled in previous narrative weaknesses through character inclusion, a broader scope of places, seamless practical/VFX, amazing choreography, and pacing that keeps its momentum remarkably well; it is hard to ask for more! Especially the Drum Kingdom storyline which, to me, is the first time Eiichiro Oda truly shows a clear grasp of how this fable would emotionally connect with his audience. I do have one minor complaint though, more of a nitpick as a manga reader, and it is the same issue i had with the previous season regarding, IMPACT. Not the impact right now, but the future ones. As you see, some key characters have appeared earlier than they should; even though their absence plays an important role in later twists. I'm just not entirely convinced that this short-term exchange is worth the potential loss in the long run.