Is it just me, or do ONE PIECE episodes follow the same titling ethos as Coheed & Cambria songs? “Arriving! a Burning Island - - Punk Hazard!” has the sort of bizarre grammar you’d expect from a line of e.e. cummings poetry. Just another facet of this show’s overall strangeness, I suppose...
Actually, what makes that even more amusing is the fact that, by this point, the show’s really honed its thrill tactics down to a reflex with several levels of self-awareness piled on top of it. Like how Luffy’s personality's basically been fashioned to have him always going for the more interesting action in any given situation.
The Straw Hats are floating by a burning island surrounded by burning water, and it doesn’t serve any of their practical interests to investigate it?
Well, Luffy looks at it like a five-year-old looking at a mud puddle and he just has to jump into it.
The Straw Hats get an emergency call which, by all logic, they shouldn’t answer because it’s obviously a Navy trap?
Well, Luffy just has to pick up the phone and start making threatening boasts.
And so on. There’s even a sort-of self-awareness about all this when half of the crew winds up investigating the island - - all of their lines making it seem like they know this isn’t at all sensible, but it’ll be more interesting for people to watch, so they'll go along with it. I feel like that’s something that can’t be avoided when you’ve been plotting a serial, day in and day out, for the past straight decade. It’s like Oda’s long since questioned the formula of what he’s doing and come to an odd, unironic-yet-still-self-aware peace with it.
Yes, this what I think about while watching ONE PIECE. That, and also how the telephone snails are such a macabrely-creative concept. Again, there’s something so… Carrol-esque about how they recreate everything the caller’s doing on the other end.
Watch this episode, "Arriving! a Burning Island - - Punk Hazard!” here and decide for yourself, then read my comments about the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk
