Netflix's One Piece S01E05 Review: In Which Dracule Mihawk is Bored

One Piece, Season 1, Episode 5: Eat at Baratie

For the remaining four episodes of Netflix's One Piece, I'll do it a fair bit shorter and far more concise, because I really tried to do the episode 5-6 reviews in my usual rambling style and... it's just really not working out. So yeah, rather than leaving the Netflix One Piece reviews half-done forever, I'll just blast through the second half of the show. 

(Also, note: real life got in the way once more, so the manga review is a bit delayed. I'm also not sure how timely I can do the remaining 2-3 episodes of Netflix One Piece, or the second half of Loki. Apologies.)

The first chunk of this episode has the Straw Hats react to Luffy casually revealing that Garp is his grandfather, and is bombarding the Going Merry. We also have a flashback to little Luffy getting his make-believe pirate ship smashed to pieces by Garp, though obviously minus the physical abuse that manga!Garp inflicted on Luffy. Our heroes get some wackiness going on (Usopp fumbling cannonballs, Zoro not sure what's port/starboard) and it's Nami being the only sane woman on board the ship until Garp lobs a cannonball. I do like that we start to get some of the more ridiculous feats of strength in this show with Garp casually launching cannonballs by lobbing them. Again, this is severely toned down from the manga's equivalent of this scene (which would be Alabasta) but it's still pretty fun to see in a live-action setting. Luffy does a Gum-Gum Balloon to deflect the cannonball, which just happens to destroy the mast on Garp's ship, before Nami sails the Merry into a giant fog-bank.

I'm of two minds about the live-action portrayal of Garp, but I guess it kind of makes sense to adapt his more 'I love my grandson, but I have to see him executed because it's the Marine way' mentality he adopts towards Ace? He does seem to treat Luffy as a bit of a worthy opponent. It's obviously a bit different with how he actually treats Luffy in Alabasta (where he basically ignores Luffy and is nice to him until orders come from HQ), but I do feel it's an all right adaptation. 

I actually adore the brief scene that comes up next of Nami telling Zoro to 'talk' to Luffy about the whole Vice Admiral Grandpa thing, but Zoro's as brusque as ever, and Luffy gets distracted by food. 

And we get to see Baratie! Which is upgraded from being just a floating restaurant into a whole floating restaurant with a bunch of docks for ships to land. I do think that, overall, the set direction for the Baratie is the most visually impressive of everything else we see in the first season, mostly because we actually do get to see most of it instead of just one part of it (unlike Arlong Park) and it looks fantastical and unique enough to One Piece (unlike Kaya's mansion).

I'm going to breeze through basically the next fifteen minutes or so, because it's actually just some downtime as our heroes walk up to the Baratie, eat, and the Luffy does the stupid thing of putting everything on his 'treasure tab'. Either way, he gets into debt to the Baratie. I love the silly open-shirt captain outfit that Usopp has throughout this whole scene, and the Netflix show also adds a brand-new Fishman maitre d' to faciliate an Arlong scene we'll get later as well as to give Nami a bribing scene. Also love the brief visual gag of Zoro not being able to seat easily with three swords on his belt.

Sanji's scene, as the last Straw Hat to be introduced, is... well, it's basically what you kind of expect. He's always going to be the Straw Hat with the least screentime due to joining a bit late, and it's kind of a shame that his arc is basically the most neutered. It's great for the grand scheme of things, but it does kind of make Sanji's introduction lacking some of the bombast and drama that Usopp and Nami's respective joining the party sequences have. His rival Patty is reduced to a glorified cameo, and while the show does keep a brief rivalry with Zeff, it feels a bit more... artificial? Particularly with the big Gin moment heavily neutered in this version of events, which really doesn't make Sanji feel all that impressive. Both the actors that play Sanji and Zeff are fantastic in their roles, but I just felt like the scripting was kind of emphasizing food jokes (oregano, well-done steak) and doesn't really sell the conflict or the relationship all that well. 

Sanji still beats up Fullbody in this version of events, and... Fullbody fighting a random pirate in what's supposed to be 'neutral grounds' instead of being a jackass about food and wine, I feel, is yet another small change that just builds up into making Sanji's debut to be a lot less impressive than it could've been. A change that I find to be obvious that the show was going to do was to make Sanji less of an over-the-top, dialed-up-to-twenty giant flirt... and, again, while understandable, it also is yet another point that makes Sanji just a well-dressed blonde cook. He at least still flirts with Nami a bit when he comes to serve the Straw Hats, so at least some of it is kept. 

And then comes the unquestionably most badass scene in the entirety of the Netflix show. Garp refuses to call for Marine backup, and instead calls in... the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Dracule Mihawk, the Greatest Swordsman in the World. 

And just like Zeff and Kuro, Dracule Mihawk is one of the characters that the show just gets absolutely perfect. Perfect costume, perfect facial hair, perfect contacts... okay, Yoru sometimes looks a bit silly, but it's still pretty fucking impressive. Mihawk is introduced just slashing apart pirates like it's nothing while he takes a call, with explosions all around... and Mihawk just casually slashes and sends a sword swing across the ocean and slices a ship in half. Yes. YES! This is the kind of ridiculous badassery I expect from my anime adaptations, and I would be supremely disappointed if Mihawk just swings his swords and kills random people and that's it. 

And here comes perhaps the biggest change in the show, because turns out that Mihawk is fighting... Don Krieg and his pirate armada. And actually succeeding in wiping them out, very effortlessly. Now in the manga, of course, Krieg is the main villain of the Baratie arc, and the Netflix adaptation changes this around by basically increasing Arlong and Mihawk's role in the season as a whole. It's honestly not the biggest loss, since Krieg always felt like a flat villain. I did rankle a bit when I first saw this change, but unlike Jango (who's just missing for no real reason) at least they bothered to adapt Krieg and have him get an honestly sensible exit -- he simply lost against Mihawk and got his purple-haired ass killed in a desperate last stand against the Strongest Swordsman in the World. 

And, again, we get another chunk of just... downtime. Which I really appreciate, but it's also not the most exciting thing for me to review. Zeff grabs Luffy and puts him to work in the kitchen, and Luffy befriends Sanji by eating the food that Zeff throws out. They befriend each other in a later scene where Sanji talks about the All-Blue. Ultimately not that much to say about this course of events, it's just nicely acted. We do cut back-and-forth a bit, but this is where the show decides to slot in the Gin scene. Gin's role and the dilemma of feeding any pirate is severely cut down, and Gin is just some guy that Sanji takes pity on, and serves more as a way to hype up Mihawk a bit more. 

What's genuinely well done, though, is Nami dealing with balancing her clear growing attachment to the Straw Hats, the slight sense of betrayal she has from Luffy hiding the whole 'grandpa' thing, and deciding to cut ties and figure out how to get back to Conomi Islands. Around the time that Sanji and Luffy are feeding Gin, Usopp gets wasted ("like a sea slug") while Zoro and Nami get into a truth-or-drink game. It shouldn't work as well as it did, and maybe it's because this is a new original scene, but I felt like this is a more impactful scene to me than Sanji's meeting with Luffy. Zoro and Nami basically find out a bit more about each other's more tragic backstories, and it does really help with the fact that the show also adapts the manga's initial frostiness between Zoro and Nami. 

At this point, Koby and Helmeppo get into a nice conversation that slowly starts to build their friendship, and also helps to bring in some more of Koby being a more independent thinker about his situation and his relationship with pirates and Marines. Doesn't hurt to toss in another exposition about Mihawk and the Shichibukai from the mouth of Helmeppo. Koby learning about the Shichibukai and realizing that there's something monumentally fucked-up about that is also a great moment for him, and it's a neat nod to how Helmeppo does bring some value to Koby's life by being more savvy about the world than him.  

This leads to Koby confronting Garp about how it's not fair for the Marines to treat different pirates differently in regards to the Shichibukai, and this ends up spiralling into a great point about Garp's character... that he remained a Vice Admiral to be free, and to do the most good, declining the promotion to Admiral -- or Fleet Admiral in this version of events -- many, many times. The world's not fair, and the good Marines just have to do what they can within the system, since the Marines are the best line of defense against anarchy at this point. It's not quite a straight argument and answer, I feel, but it's a nice way to segue into Garp as a character. 

And... drunk-ass Usopp is bullshitting about his fight to... Dracule Mihawk, who's already there. Again, another huge change from the manga and I actually would've much preferred Mihawk's more over-the-top, bombastic entrance in the manga's version of events. But there's also a fair bit to appreciate with the scene of Mihawk following a swaggering Usopp to a table with Zoro and Nami, and Zoro, of course, immediately challenging Mihawk to a duel the next day. 

Luffy is confronting Zeff, saying to the old man that his rules are shit, and that Sanji's desire to cook for the starving Gin despite the rules makes him a better man. Zeff, of course, is actually silently approving of this... but, of course, poor Sanji's story ends up being the B-plot in all of this because the whole 'Mihawk is here' is taking over the plot. And while I do appreciate this from the characterization standpoint of Zoro, Nami and Luffy, it really doesn't do poor Sanji any favours. There's a nice argument where Nami tries her damn best to get them to listen to reason. Zoro's dead-set on fighting, and Luffy's all like 'dude, guys, just follow your dreams, jeez!' And Luffy, a little bit earlier than his manga counterpart, is faced with the fact that... he bore the responsibility of a captain, and now the decisions he's making holds the crew's fate at balance. It reminds me of the Luffy/Usopp/Zoro argument in Water Seven, only with Zoro being the stubborn one, and Luffy just acquiescing to every opinion tossed to him by Zoro, Usopp and Nami... before ultimately deciding that he can't get in someone else's dream. 

If we ever get to Water Seven in the live-action show, the fact that Luffy actually puts his feet down and makes a decision here is probably going to be the basis as to why Zoro would demand that Luffy does the same. 

There's also a dream-vs-logic argument being done here, with Luffy and Zoro being all about the dream-chasing and the grandioseness, and Usopp being panicked, and Nami trying to talk some sense to them, leading to the very well-done delivery of 'because you're my friend, you idiot.' Again, this whole sequence isn't a moment in the source material, but it makes a lot of sense here for this to be the thing that clinches Nami's betrayal of the Straw Hats.

The fight between the two swordsmen takes place in front of the Baratie as it did in the source material, though of course the context is a bit different. It's shorter but pretty damn badass, and I love the brief moment where Mihawk comments about how he likes Luffy's hat, clearly recognizing it for what it is. I love, again, that they kept a moment that could've been ridiculous in live-action with Mihawk challenging Zoro first with the tiny cross-necklace sword. "I don't kill rabbits with a cannon."

And the fight scene is... it's pretty nice. Zoro not having named attacks to unleash one by one at Mihawk does hurt this a bit, and it does mean that it's all just sword clashing, Mihawk blocking, and... I don't really have much to say here. I want this to be more spectacular, but I also acknowledge that there's only so much that live-action can do when it's a choreographed fight. The fact that Zoro doesn't draw his third sword until the final strike also does hurt the scene a bit. Mihawk and Zoro's actors are casted well and act well here, though I'm not the biggest fan of Mihawk's "croak, croak, croak" trash-talking. 

Nami turns out to have not gone with the boatman and showed up to see Zoro... just as Mihawk stabs Zoro in the chest. Zoro gets a flashback to Kuina, emphasizes his dream, and Mihawk prepares to finish Zoro off with his true sword, Yoru. Zoro does the best impression of the anime/manga's Santoryu Ougi: Sanzensekai. At least he spins his swords! But the fact that this is live-action does mean that it only ends up with one of Zoro's swords clashing against Yoru as the two combatants speed-blitz each other. 

I do really appreciate them still at least preserving the spirit of the scene, though. A lesser adaptation wouldn't have bothered with the three-swords style. 

Zoro's two unnamed swords shatter, and he turns around to face Mihawk face-on. "Wounds on the back are a swordsman's greatest shame." Zoro says as he sheathes Wado Ichimonji, and Mihawk agrees that this is magnificent before slashing down Zoro in the front. The buildup with Nami's dread about Zoro walking to his death makes this feel much more like an execution, like a warrior accepting his death, and... the minimal blood splurting during the slash and Zoro's rather wooden fall does end up making me giggle a bit, I'm sorry. It's a bit better once Luffy gets to Zoro's side and we see the giant wound makeup, but the moment of the slash itself feels a bit off. 

Mihawk says the same things as his manga counterparts, praising Luffy's dream of being the King of Pirates, and saying to Zoro that he needs to grow strong and find him. Zoro then does his "I'll never lose again!" and... the dialogue is the same. Mackenyu does the pose with his hand on his forehead. But... this is where the lack of the manga's exaggerated art style hurts this scene. The direction for Zoro is also still rather stoic, when this is literally one of the very few points in the story when Zoro's being super-emotional. I would say that everything else about the Zoro/Mihawk scene is done very well, but this final declaration did fall flat for me, at least. 

The episode ends here, and... again, for an adaptation of the Zoro/Mihawk conflict, it's done rather well. But I feel that this episode compounds the problem I had about Usopp in episode 4, only this time it's Sanji that's bearing the brunt of the writing decision. He's not even there looking as Zoro fights Mihawk! Sanji ends up feeling like just another character the Straw Hats meet instead of being the next Straw Hat. A lot of the moments with Gin, which defines who he is and endears him to Luffy, ends up being exorcised. And while I don't disagree with trimming Don Krieg's role (and also cutting out Johnny, Yosaku, and essentially reducing Patty to a cameo), bit by bit this all ends up making Sanji feel like an afterthought in what's supposed to be his own arc. Dracule Mihawk, on the other hand, is adapted supremely well. Zoro and Nami's character developments are also two highlights in the story, and overall... it's definitely an interesting set of changes to be made as we start to see the larger changes in the story. 

One Piece Easter Egg Notes:

• Garp does the same thing he did in the manga's Alabasta arc when his ship was ordered to hunt down Luffy, which is throw cannonballs at Luffy with his own bare hands. 
• The other named member of Don Krieg's fleet, Pearl, can be seen lying on the ground with his distinctive shields as Don Krieg makes his entrance to face Mihawk. 
  
• The dish Sanji cooks in his first appearance is an elephant tuna dish. In the manga, Sanji prominently buys the elephant tuna on Loguetown.
• The dish itself is based in part from the official "Sanji's Cookbook" published by Shonen Jump with recipes based on One Piece. 
• The pirate with the interesting mustache that fights with Fullbody, at first glance, seems to be a new character... but he's actually Gally, the antagonist from the original Romance Dawn one-shot that would be revised into One Piece. Gally would make several minor appearances in anime filler, and would actually make a proper appearance in the manga in a cover story, appropriately enough set at Baratie. 
• Sanji offers Fullbody and the pirate he's arguing with a glass of Ithurzburger Stein. In the manga, Fullbody got into an argument and got beaten up by Sanji for trying to make himself sound like an epicurean in front of his girlfriend and waxing nonsense about that brand of wine.
• While talking to Nami, Sanji offers a 'Micqueot vintage' (which refers to the Ithurzburger Stein) and 'Umeshu'. Umeshu in the manga is the brand of alcohol Dr. Kureha is always drinking. 
• Luffy trying to pay Baratie with a 'Treasure Tab' is something that his manga counterpart did with Makino's bar in his child-age flashbacks.
• It is very hard to see and has to be confirmed by photographs of the set, but scattered around the artwork on the walls of the Baratie are paintings of other islands in the series, among others the Island of Rare Animals (including a cameo by Gaemon!), Sabaody Archipelago, Foolshout Island (Koala's home island), Kyuuka Island (from the Baroque Works cover story).