Summary:
The Straw Hat Pirates stumble upon a mysterious pirate ship after trying to escape a giant wave. Soon they arrive on an island inhabited by strange animals. The Going Merry is captured by the Foxy Pirates.
After escaping from the G-8 straw, the pirates quietly land in the sea and continue their voyage. In Mock Town, Donquijote Doflamingo sits down from a pillar and uses his powers on Bellamy and Sarquiss as punishment for being defeated by Luffy before his trip to Skypiea. Bellamy begs Doflamingo to give him another chance, but Doflamingo concludes that Bellamy and his crew are obsolete for him and uses his puppetry to force Sarquiss to cut Bellamy down, even if he survives. In the seas, the Straw Hats notice a ship without sails without a captain or navigator. The ship then sails into a giant wave that destroys the ship. The crew then come across the Long Ring Long Land, but it’s too simple for their (especially Sanji’s) liking. Luffy, Usopp and Chopper immediately disembark and start acting childish as usual and explore the island. The trio see long animals and come across two tall bamboos, the top of which could not be seen. Suddenly the bamboos start moving and one hits Luffy. Luffy gets excited and breaks the bamboo. Then an old man named Tonjit who has a horse named Shelly drops by. Tonjit says he made the tallest stilts in the world and after he climbed, he couldn’t come down for 10 years because of fear. Tonjit explains that because of the vast grasslands, everyone is relaxed here, so they are long. After wandering the Long Ring Long Land, the damaged Going Merry is captured by another ship when its captain confronts the crew and challenges them to a Davy Back Fight.
This is the first episode of the Water 7 Saga.
This is the first episode of the Long Ring Long Land Arc.
This is the first episode of the series to be formatted in 16:9 widescreen.
DVD and analog broadcast prints will remain cropped at the 4:3 aspect ratio.
As such, it is also the first to use the “To Be Continued” widescreen, still in use as of 2024.
This is the first episode to use Kokoro no Chizu as its opening.
This is the first episode to use Mirai Kōkai as an ending. This is not the case with the FUNimation dubbed version, which could not use these credits due to licensing issues. Eternal Pose is used instead.
This is the first episode to use a second set of Eyecatchers.
Luffy’s banners play the Sanji and Chopper themes.
This was the first episode to air on the Toonami Adult Swim block.
This is also the first episode to be uncut on American television.
This is the first time that subtitles are used instead of dubbing at the beginning and end of the FUNimation version.
From this episode on in the FUNimation dubbed version, the title card of each episode is in all caps.