Summary:
While shopping with Chimney, Sanji is persuaded to go to a good cook he calls Grandpa. The old man teaches Sanji the reason his food tastes so good, the salt that Aqua Laguna makes.
Sanji buys groceries at Chimney and Gonbe. He is taken to a small floating restaurant owned by a drunken old man for lunch. He’s asleep and it’s not easy to wake him, so Sanji decides to prepare something himself. While cooking, the old man wakes up and immediately recognizes Sanji’s handling of the carving knife, as he knew Sanji’s mentor, “Red-Leg” Zeff. He insists that Sanji taste some of his cooking. Sanji is impressed by the taste but can’t figure out how the old man made it. Intent on uncovering the secret, he searches the city for spices that could have been used. He gets to eat the old man’s onigiri and realizes that he uses special salt. The salt was created by Aqua Laguna. As the storm floods the lower parts of the city, seawater covers the buildings. On the following sunny days, the rooftops are left with a particularly tasty residual salt that Sanji uses.
You know what, you were right again. I enjoyed the fillers! ^_^ The anime team managed to cram in a lot of comedy, which I always hope for in filler, but there were always tiny, tiny moments of pathos that reminded the audience that these characters are people with lives and loves and problems outside of the twenty minutes allotted to tell their stories . That’s what I like about One Piece. Character development is excellent: even in fillers. (Except for Eric the Filler Villain. They really bled the guy out. He wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they brought him back as a zombie in a later filler arc).
Speaking of Eric the Filler Villain, the arc he followed to his bitter end, (the thousand year old dragon) is strikingly similar to the plot of episode 317. In the thousand year dragon arc, there is an old dragon who needs help finding a mythical final resting place, where old dragons die and little dragons are born (or are they reincarnated? I forget). At least this time they didn’t drag out the plot over the entire arc.
In episode 317, there is an old blind jaguar who is supposed to visit the “last nesting place” at the end of his days (I see what you were doing there, subtitlers). During the Aqua Laguna commotion, he heard the distant cries of a small newborn yagura and burst out of his home to save her.
This episode was actually kind of sad. It was sad to watch the little girl who was searching for Aobire, her old yagura, come to terms with his impending death. One in particular was a scene that was too real for filler when her parents were having a serious conversation over the kitchen table about explaining to her that Aobire was probably going to die soon, but she was hiding outside. stairs listened to every word they said with angry tear clouded eyes.
If you’ve ever lost a pet, you’ve probably been there, either in Abi’s shoes or her parents’ shoes. Sad times.
Honestly, people probably just got over Merry and then the anime team pulled this shit? I’m asking you…
The ending was bittersweet: Aobire’s ghost appeared, told Abi he had a wonderful life, and disappeared. All those yagura from Water 7 howled in tribute (which I just couldn’t deal with. Animals again). Then Abi heard the faint meowing cries of a small yagur trying to save Aobire. She ended up with a new yagura, but her beautiful old grandpa yagura never came back. Swings and roundabouts I guess, but it’s still sad.
There was even a little “hey wait, all is not right in paradise” bit in Zoro’s episode. The lady who took in Michael and Hoichael and all the other kids who had nowhere to go was harassed by debt collectors, probably because she spent all her money on childcare.
Zoro was basically kidnapped and beaten to do menial chores. He spent half the time trying to leave, caught between terror, embarrassment, plain confusion, and being pissed off by the kids.
But what he is really good at is catching falling children. It’s always nice to find out you have a hidden talent, huh?
I laughed at the scene when he tried to hawk it in the marketplace and ran into everyone he knew in Water 7. First Sanji, then Kokoro-san, Franky Family, Luffy, Chopper, Usopp and finally Robin who was the only one who noticed him. However, she is nice and has promised to keep his strange secret.
I’ll never get that image of Zoro in that tiny, ridiculous t-shirt out of my head. I think it’s firmly planted in the part of my brain that remembers funny things and causes me to snort out laughs at inopportune times, like when I’m on the train, walking down the street, or trying to teach someone.
Sanji’s episode was also okay, even if it was weak in terms of plot. I could probably sum it up in three lines:
Sanji meets an old drunk cook who makes the tastiest fried rice ever and goes on a hunt for a secret ingredient. It turned out to be roofing salt. Who knows?
It sounds like I didn’t enjoy it. I did! It was more the little things that made it possible for me. Photographers pestered Nami and Robin, asking if they would take a swimsuit calendar picture, and Nami tried to negotiate a deal (lol). The guy from Bang Bang Grandpa knew Zeff from before. Sanji made my jaw drop in horror when he dipped his fingers into the spice jars at the spice shop (hygiene, Sanji?) The Galley La guys fix up the town and go to lunch and Sanji catches Usopp running through the ideal scenario. to ensure his return to the Strawhat crew: (“Pretend nothing happened.”)
Really, it was just nice to see the people in Water 7 going about their daily lives, fixing up the place, running their businesses, and cooking the best damn fried rice in the OPverse. It was nice that the anime team used Aqua Laguna to come up with a clever plot related to cooking. Kudos to them for that.