Customer Reviews

One Piece: Season Three, First Voyage

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Starting with this volume, Funimation sails into uncharted territory. Here is where 4Kids cut off their association with One Piece, and at long last, we get to see the first episodes that were originally licensed to Funimation.
This volume begins at the instant that the last one left off, with an ancient ship falling out of the sky and about to crush the Going Merry. Odd. After dodging this unlikely hazard, Nami discovers that her Log Pose is pointing STRAIGHT UP. Even odder! Finally, another pirate ship arrives, captained by a giant monkey. Incredibly odd! The monkey captain Salvage King Masira is all fine with the Straw Hats as long as they don't interfere with his looting sunken ships, but of course they do interfere and get Masira angry, until Luffy accidently tells Masira how good he looks. That's odd too.
Luffy and Co. proceed to nearby Jaya Island to get some answers about how to get the ship into the sky. Jaya is crawling with pirates and nobody seems to mind as the Marines never come there. One of these pirates, Bellamy the Hyena, is trying to make a name for himself by beating up everyone who challenges him. When Luffy meets Bellamy and tells him about his dream to go to Sky Island and be the Pirate King, Bellamy tells him that all such dreams are crap and beats him and Zoro up (surprisingly neither of them attempt to fight back). Another pirate, a huge, coarse man named Marshall D. Teach, disagrees with Luffy on most matters but encourages him to keep following his dream.
Finding no help in Mock Town (aptly named), Luffy and Co. proceed to the other side of Jaya, where they run into Masira's brother Shojo (another salvager) and a treasure hunting hermit named Montblanc Cricket. Cricket claims to be the descendant of the legendary "liar" Montblanc Norland that was a popular fairy tale character in the North Blue (where Sanji was born). Cricket is ashamed of his ancestry but would like to prove his mockers wrong by finding something that could be linked to the legendary golden city of Shandora that Norland found and thus find some respect. Thus, he agrees to help the Straw Hats get to Sky Island and see if they can find the golden city there. Bellamy arrives to rob Cricket of his treasure and Luffy then has a good reason to fight Bellamy to get it back, which he does fairly easily. Masira and Shojo outfit the Going Merry to ride into the sky and the Straw Hats are set to go.
Meanwhile, a lot is going on in the wider world. Buggy the Clown is about to celebrate the finding of his latest treasure when he finds Ace (still looking for Blackbeard) on his ship. Most of Buggy's crew is afraid of Ace and want to kill him while he sleeps, but Buggy knows that doing that would awaken Whitebeard's wrath, which would be far worse than leaving Ace be. Ace wakes up and happily joins the party. Whitebeard (first time we see him), meanwhile, is met by one of Red Haired Shanks' crew who warns Whitebeard to call off Ace's hunt for Blackbeard. Whitebeard rebuffs him and Shanks decides to meet with Whitebeard by himself. At the same time, a high level meeting is taking place at the World Government capital. For the first time we see Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral of the Marines, Vice Admiral Tsuru (the highest ranking woman in the Marines), and two of the Seven Warlords of the Sea (Donquixote Doflamingo and Bartholomew Kuma). Another Warlord we've seen before (Dracule Mihawk) also attends the meeting. The topic of discussion: finding a replacement for Crocodile among the Warlords. Everyone is at an impasse until a mime like man named Lafitte crashes the meeting. Lafitte suggests that his captain, Blackbeard, replace Crocodile, but no one there has even heard of Blackbeard. Lafitte leaves and assures all present that Blackbeard will be well known soon enough. As it turns out, Blackbeard is WAY too close for comfort to Luffy and Co. Blackbeard figures the best way to get himself noticed is to capture Luffy and Zoro for their bounties and chases them right up to the Knock Up Stream that will take them to Sky Island. Luckily, the Going Merry manages to escape.
And if that isn't enough, we actually get to see the start of the Straw Hats' adventure in the sky, where they meet a masked tribesman on cloud skates and an old man in armor (Gan Fall) riding a bird (Pierre) who drives the tribesman off. Later, they arrive at the cloud town of Skypeia and meet a mechanic (Pagaya) and his beautiful daughter Conis (Sanji, naturally, thinks she's an angel). Trouble finds the Straw Hats right away when the local law enforcement tells them they forgot to pay their toll at the city gate (oops!). Luffy causes more trouble by fighting the police and the entire crew is sentenced to undergo the Ordeals of the Priests of Upper Yard (the huge nearby non-cloudy island).

Next: The Ordeals, the Priests, and God Enel. The Shandians invade Upper Yard. The Survival Game begins!

While this looks at first like just the next release in the mega-popular goofy pirate anime "One Piece," this box set Season Three, First Voyage is actually sort of a graduation event. The original licenser 4Kids Entertainment had taken a butcher knife to the series, chopping down 143 episodes into 104 episodes, cutting out anything that wasn't "kid friendly" like replacing Sanji's ever-present cigarettes with lollipops and even going so far as to re-color a black pirate a nice off-tan. Funimation has spent considerable time and effort re-dubbing/subtitling the series in an uncut release, but it is only with this boxset starting with episode 144 that they are hitting fresh territory.

Originally broadcast in 2003-2004, "Season Three, First Voyage" (actually Season Six by Japanese numbering. Not sure why that was done.) covers thirteen episodes, #144-156 and two story arcs. There episodes are split between two DVDs each packed in its own slim case.

The first story starts off at the moment of the end of One Piece: Season Two, Seventh Voyage, when a ship comes plummeting from the sky and narrowly avoids crushing the Going Merry. That is clearly the signal for a new adventure, even more so when the Log Pose begins pointing straight to the sky. There are rumors of islands in the sky, but most people dismiss these as fairy tales. Monkey D. Luffy is not about to let common sense get in his way, so if the Log Pose is pointing up then up they must go. Oh, and of course a giant monkey arrives to salvage the fallen ship, so it is business as usual in the "One Piece" world.

One the quest for a way into the Sky Islands, Monkey and crew head to a near-by town where they encounter Bellamy the Hyena and his crew and a massive pirate named Marshall D. Teach (whose name should be a clue to anyone who knows famous pirates) and of course manage to get themselves into some fights. Meanwhile, a clue leads them to treasure-hunter Montblanc Cricket, the descendent of the legendary Norland the Liar who first described the Sky Islands hundreds of years ago. And more giant monkeys of course.

All of this is just lead-up to the main event (very good lead-up though!) for when the Going Merry rides the water-spout up into the mythical land of Skypiea, where dread foes and strange Gods await time.

"Season Three, First Voyage" is the launching point (pun intended!) for the Skypiea story arc that will take up the next few box sets from Funimation. "Season Two, Seventh Voyage" was a bit of a break after the Alabasta story arc with a lot of filler, but with this release the Going Merry crew is gearing up for another major adventure. Quite a few important future events are set into motion here. The pirate Whitebeard appears in the flesh for the first time, and new-comer Blackbeard enters the game chosing Monkey D. Luffy at his ten-million berry bounty as his first target. Dials also show up for the first time, a technology that will become more important as the series progresses.

once again luffy and the gang have driven themselves into impossible odds, as this time they plan to set sail to the mystical sky island. but before even getting the chance to attempt it, they must conceive a plan before pointlessly throwing their lives away. This is officially where the anime takes a completely new twist, and thats not a bad thing. get ready for one thriling ride as the straw hats make their way onward.

As many of the other DVD sets for One Piece, Season 3, 1st Voyage holds 13 episodes...or episodes 144-156.

This set pulls away from the filler arcs of the final voyage of Season 2, and jumps back into the manga based arcs with the Jaya arc and the start of the Skypiea arc.

The Jaya arc (ep. 144-152) is a pretty interesting arc in my personal opinion. Nami is confused because the log pose (for those of you that don't know much about the series a log pose is a sort of compass that points to the next island you need to go to by using magnetic fields) is pointing towards the sky. Not long afterwards, a gigantic ship falls from the sky and sinks in the ocean. Luffy and others gear up to go underwater to see what sort of secrets the ship has and find a 200 year old map to an island called "Skypiea". In the midst of this, a salvage crew led by Captain Masira, are also trying to get what's in this ship that just crashed. Eventually one thing leads to another and Masira and crew are beat down and the Strawhats continue forward until they find an island named Jaya and dock at a town appropriately named Mock Town. This town is filled with pirates fighting one another at almost every turn. Eventually Luffy & Zoro run into an up and coming pirate named Bellamy who ridicules them for their high aspirations and furthermore when asked of the possibility of an island in the sky. There's a small altercation and Luffy and Zoro are left beat up a bit, but still in good shape (they don't fight back). Not long afterwards they run into a pirate named Blackbeard, who seems like a very likeable character. He urges Luffy to continue to pursue his dreams and that he'll definitely find Sky Island. Eventually the Strawhats run into a man named Montblanc Cricket whom is ridiculed across Jaya Island because he had an ancestor who told stories of an entire city made of gold but the city was never found and he was labeled a liar. Over the years the story of his ancestor grew so famous there were children's books written about the man who eventually achieved the name 'Liar Norland'. Cricket believes Norland may have been telling the truth and as proof he has some gold artifacts from his daily underwater excavating in search for gold that could have been left behind from the ancient city his ancestor spoke of. The Strawhats ask for help finding Sky Island, and the old man recommends they find a Southbird (bird that always faces South), and use it to find the Knockup Stream in the ocean that could possibly blast them up to the island. While they are looking for the Southbird, Bellamy and crew find their way to Montblanc's house and rob him of his gold artifacts that he'd worked so hard for. When the Strawhats return to find Montblanc beat up and his gold missing, Luffy finds enough reason to give Bellamy the beat down he deserves and does so thoroughly. Not long after this the scene changes to marine HQ where they are trying to decide who will take Crocodile's place as a Warlord. At that moment, Blackbeard's own crewmate shows up and nominates his Captain to become a Warlord of the Sea. At the end of this arc, the Strawhats finally leave Jaya to get on the Knockup Stream and find Sky Island.

The Skypiea arc (ep. 153-156) is the next big arc of the series after the Alabasta arc, but this DVD set just starts to crack into it. The Strawhats ride the Knockup Stream to the very top and eventually land on clouds thick enough to hold the Going Merry above it. Not long afterwards, the Strawhat crew find their way to Skypiea, a town in the sky, which is a beautiful place, but deep down has very troublesome dangers that not only awaits the Strawhat crew, but the entire population of Skypiea itself. This DVD set ends with the Strawhats becoming criminals in Skypiea for not paying the admittance fee when first entering Skypiea and it eventually turns out worse when they attack the White Berets (name given to Skypiea's police squad).

This DVD set is simply awesome, the introduction of Blackbeard plays a major role later in the series. Cheers to the start of a new season, 5 stars...it's definitely worth a buy because it sets the tone for so many things that will happen in Season 3 and future DVDs of this series, but I would not pay the Amazon price that is currently listed at almost $50.00. Look around and you'll see most One Piece DVDs going for $25-$35, if you read my last review of the voyage before this one that's the price range I recommended buying that one for, and the same applies here, find it cheaper and definitely buy it especially if you're a fan of the series and even if you're not one but just a casual anime fan this is one of the best series you'll come across.

This anime is Awesome ! Hands down. This Ark is "Ok" the ending is amazing. This is where Luffy and his crew go to the Sky land and encounter God Enel. Wanted to give this a 5 but FUNimation has to be GAY. I mean 50 bucks for 10-13 episodes isn't "That" bad but... come on lets be serious ! This anime has 400+ episodes, and collecting all of these box sets are going to be Super Expensive. They need to start making box sets 20 - 30 episodes. I know FUNimation is releasing this slowly because it's ongoing in Japan. They can still release it that way and then come out with box sets after the ammount of episodes have come out in Japan. But yea anyway this anime is great; Must Watch !

Better than that horrible 4kids version. However, the Funimation English dub version sucks too. Because most of the voices don't match the characters, and also Zoro voice is way too deep. Some English dubs are a little okay, but I still prefer the Japanese dubs in anime. Because most English dubs sucks and too painful listen to.