One Piece Episode 1015 – “Straw Hat Luffy”

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, fans and haters today I’ll be discussing what’s probably the greatest anime episode of One Piece to date.

The episode begins with Yamato and Ace at Onigashima years before our current events in the present. Ace falls asleep in the middle of a conversation with Yamato, which is a funny trait Ace picked up from his grandfather Monkey.D Garp.

As a fan of One Piece seeing Ace once again just being himself is amazing to see. As Ace wakes up, Yamato asks him to continue telling her stories of the outside world which Ace gladly agrees to do.

Ace eventually tells Yamato of Luffy’s dream and tells her not to laugh at this dream and that he believes Luffy can achieve it, this leaves Yamato with tears running down her eyes as she mentions that there was once a great man in the past whom too had the similar dream. Yamato doesn’t mention the man’s name and Ace says he’d like to have a drink with this man one day and Luffy together which is very sad for One Piece fans across the world.

The man Yamato is talking about is the now late “Pirate King” Gol.D Roger, the only man to ever reach the last Island and Ace’s father. The scene where Roger tells Whitebeard and Oden his dream is so reminiscent of Luffy telling his dream to Sabo and Ace.

This is just one of many parallels that author “Eiichiro Oda” loves to make with prominent characters, symbolizing that Roger may have considered Whitebeard and Oden as his brothers through the tradition of sharing “Sake”.

As Yamato and Ace are drinking the night away, this episode hints at Yamato being the one to teach Ace about the “Vivre cards” through the giving of a fingernail. So somehow somewhere in Onigashima, the process of making “Vivre cards” is possible. I wonder if this will play a bigger part in the story as we move forward?

As we return to current events Yamato gives Momonosuke his father’s (Kozuki Oden) journal, in this Oden has written everything about his journey on both Whitebeard and Roger’s ship during their voyage. It is mentioned by Oden that 20 years into the future if he were to die before then, that young pirates making name for themselves would eventually come to Wano and be the ones to defeat Kaido.

As we are told this Kid, Killer, Zoro, and Law appear on the rooftop with Big Mom and Kaido mocking them. It is emphasized throughout the entire episode that these five pirates are the ones who will finally challenge the emperors with Luffy at the center of it all.

As Luffy looks at the emperors’ something in the distance catches his eye and he proceeds to walk it. Kaido and Big Mom are left irritated as this young man casually walks past them as if they don’t exist in front of him.

Luffy sees Kinemon and the rest of the “Red scabbards” blooded and gasping for breath. Luffy apologizes to Kinemon for being late but before he can say anything else, Kinemon tries to plead with Luffy to carry the fate of the Land of Wano on his back for them to which without hesitation Luffy strongly agrees.

Kaido having seen enough of Luffy’s rebellion goes for the attack. Luffy quickly reacts by asking Law to teleport the scabbards to safety first before we get to see something only One Piece fans can explain as the most satisfying punch we have ever seen land on Kaido.

Before the punch lands, we are shown that Luffy has learned how to use Ryou and with this, we are shown everything from the first moment we meet Kinemon and Momonosuke at Punk Hazard, Kanjuro in Dressrosa, The Dukes in Zou, Pedro’s sacrifice in Whole Cake Island, The Grave of Oden, the public execution of Yasu and being laughed at and Otama the young girl that even when starving on her birthday, gave her only food to Luffy who saved her from Kaido’s thugs.

All these moments accumulate into one burst of energy called “Red Roc”, this is the first time we see Kaido gets knocked off his feet and take actual damage, leaving Big Mom bewildered at what just happened and how could it happen. Kaido is seen on the ground, struggling to get up as Luffy declares once more that his name is “Moneky.D Luffy and he is the man who will best the both of them to become, King of the Pirates.”

This episode quickly becomes my favorite episode in all of anime. The animation quality felt as if I were at the cinema, a 25 minutes episode took me 2 hours to complete. The amazing shots with Yamato and Ace to the moments of Roger, Whitebeard, and Oden then to the transition of the worst generation lining up to face their biggest challenge on the “New World”. There’s a reason that Luffy is considered by far my best “Shounen” Protagonist and One Piece Episode 1015 says it all.

What a time to be alive. Thank you to the animation company Toei Animation, the Author “Eiichiro Oda“, the Director of the episode “Megumi Ishitani” and everyone that was involved in the making of the episode.

It is worth every second.

Thanks for reading…