@1000sunny:
Great episode as always!
And about Strong World….the thing people fail to realize is that it is a MOVIE, not an arc or an average episode/chapter..a MOVIE. And thus it can't be judged in the same standards. You are not going to get the same impact from a 120 minute movie as you would from a 25 chapter/30 episode arc...its just not going to happen. If that is what you expected when you saw it then you are bound to be disappointed, because your expectations would be impossibly high.
However it looked great, the music was fantastic, and for 120 minutes of content, the plot was pretty damn good. It had all the comedy, epicness, and emotional appeal that makes One Piece great. If I wanted to show someone unfamiliar with One Piece what the series all was about, without giving them an entire arc to read/watch, I would give them this movie.
I definitely understand the difference between an arc and a movie, and I still think they could've used that time in a better fashion story-wise and more importantly emotion-wise.
Even though movie 9 was just a retelling of an arc, it still did a fantastic job of getting the emotion across and making me care about what was going on. All in under 120 minutes.
It's possible. It's all a matter of refocusing the attention away from the action and into more character-plot development. I know Strong World was just supposed to be fun, but I still like a bit of legitimate emotion mixed in with my fun.