Just like last time the Robin / Usopp episode blew me away. Although the 'see Luffy thinking and cut to friends' has been done for every friends whereabouts when we could just not get a Luffy cut or it could be more interesting like showing Luffy doing something with people and cutting, I think they have some value. It's nice to see Luffy unable to move forward. He's never worrying, never doubting himself, he's always moving forward and picking himself back up to chase his dreams and protect his friends and have fun. In a case like this he literally cannot move forward. He's forced to sit on the captains seat and think about Ace. He has to, dare I say, sulk and worry about him!? It's nice to see that quiet alone time with Luffy because it's rare he's put into a situation like this.
As for Tequila Wolf, it's literally made Robin one of my favorite Straw Hats. I always liked her a lot but seeing her as the main character again has convinced me that if not for Luffy I would want Robin to be the main character of One Piece. In fact I would kill for a spin off of her journeys up until she teamed up with Crocodile. My love of her being a protagonist is partly novelty I admit, yet the fact that she creates a tone unlike anything else in One Piece is because of her character. Even the direction and tone fits with this more grounded and serious approach.
Robin is an intelligent, strong, and reserved character. She's quiet, she's always thinking, and she's a product of some of the worlds worst evils. She knows what suffering and torture is on a scale most people in One Piece can't even conceive of. Despite being put into a life where everyone she loved was killed in a genocide and even before that she was treated as a monster. Despite the fact that she had to move place by place as she learned she couldn't trust anyone. She always retained her kindness and she came out of it by learning to trust people again. That said, she understands the merciless and cruel nature of life. The fact that she was able to smile at her tortures who were dumping sea water on her face, beating her, and even implicitly sexually assaulting her or at the very least opening up her shirt as a power play to make her feel weak and humiliated shows how used to this kind of treatment she is. It's sad but powerful, these guys couldn't break her if they tried their hardest. And likewise, she knows how cruel and painful life can be but she sees beauty in characters like the Straw Hats or in Soran and her friends for taking Robin in, further she may even understand the woman who ratted her out as she did it out of fear, she was the one who was breaking under this suffering. In fact, I think Robin may have especially bonded with Soran because she can relate with her.
Due to all of this I think she has this decisive split that reminds me of Kurama from Yuyu Hakusho. She's able to understand when she has to snap some necks like she did at the end of episode, or recall the fight against Yama which was one of the most brutal fights in all of One Piece imo. She's able to be merciless because she understands how cruel life can be if she's not. But she's not a monster, this is a switch for her, she like Luffy has a line that if people cross they are enemies and if they don't she can find kindness in her heart for them and admire that in such a world they continue to be strong and fight for other people. This allows for her to show nuance in her merciless behavior and her self sacrificial behavior, she was moved by Soran's group and decided that before anything else she had to pay them back and not take their gratitude for granted. It's awesome..
Plus two more things I adore about Robin are that she doesn't use violence as a problem solver unless she must. This episode was horribly dark and sad but all of the torture that happened to Robin cut in some wonderful ways like to the captain cutting his steak, it was never glorified or explicit. All of this led to making the moment where Soran was rushing the cuffs off of Robin so powerful, the first time violence is explicitly shown in the entire episode is when Robin snaps the necks of a horde of guards because she knows she must, she has no hesitation, she just does it. It's scary and awesome and because of the reserved use of such violence it comes off as powerful and impactful. Just look at the display she left behind..
The other thing was that with how grounded, reserved, and nuanced Robin is it unsurprisingly focuses on the smaller and more human sides of the characters. Sure, the authority here was pretty black and white in how vilified they were, but I was impressed that we saw those little moments like how Soran and the workers wanted to help their fellow slave and couldn't. Or how the betrayer cried and gave Soran the chocolate, that she was acting selfishly out of fear and seeing Soran's kindness broke her, this is the only way she knows how to save herself from the torture they live under. I also found Robin's moment where she thought about getting back to the crew and how she was willing to lose her arms to do that quite powerful. She made a decision not to use these people as a stepping stone to get back to her crew but instead she chose to pay them back but its not an easy decision for her, we saw her futility eating at her in the prison cell.
Then to top it all off the revolutionary army strikes! Not only is this awesome for the direction, art, novelty, and tone it was also awesome for that coincidental connection. Robin was lucky and the revolutionary army was lucky too because without her the two who saved them would have died. They were even foreshadowed to have been the opposers of this bridge being made earlier in the episode. Now Robin is going to be involved with them and you know what, maybe that is a good way that she could hitch a ride back to Saboady...
Overall I adored this and last Tequila Wolf episode, they made me love Robin so much more. It's hard to think about her when everyone else is in the spotlight but when she's there she shows off why she's so interesting.
I already wrote a lot so I'll briefly touch on the Usopp section and say how Usopp and Heracles are a match made in heaven. Both are manchildren who want to be superheroes and Usopp knows how to get Heracles feeling himself, as the same kind of compliments work on Usopp too. They have already become friends and the blush of Heracles to have a superhero friend and the "you want to be a superhero too?" were adorable. I mean seriously, Heracles introduces himself as a hero as much as Usopp did as Sogeking! Lastly, the punch to Usopp's face made me laugh ridiculously hard.
P.S. calling Robin's torture fanservice makes me feel a little gross. ~_~ That was implicit sexual assault at worst and at best a ploy to make her feel weak and humiliated as to make her easily bend to their will. It helped set up how awful they were treating her. |