One Piece: Episode of East Blue - Luffy to 4-nin no Nakama no Daibouken is yet another One Piece title, and honestly, as big a fan of One Piece I am, I absolutely can't get enough of it, I watched the series twice including all of the fillers, all of the movies, OVAs, and I finally had time the time to see these highly praised specials, I know how intense and epic One Piece can get, so I obviously got in with high expectations, but, did it deliver? - Story (8.0/10): This special was mainly focused on telling the five original Strawhat's backstories, how they met, andwhat they dream of. It was definitely without a doubt a solid refresher, but it always was extremely short and scattered all over the place, you can't possibly fit all Luffy, Sanji, Nami, Zoro, and Usopp's stories in an hour and a half long animation.
Still, as good a reminder of early events it was, I wouldn't recommend it for people who want to start their One Piece experience over watching the original East Blue Saga, while the original telling of the story has its own downfalls, it still holds up better than this special.
- Art (9.0/10):
If only the weekly production looked this good, I mean, everything, from the facial expression and character anatomy from up close, to the extreme details in the backgrounds, probably the best aspect of the special that's better than the original, considering the budget that went into this, I just loved seeing some crispy updated animation to the Zoro and Mihawk fight, and the Sanji and Ghin fight too, it really adds to the rather jiggly original animation that we have in the anime.
- Sound (8.0/10):
For the most part, the voice acting was as good as the parent series, the soundtracks still rocking, the sound effects don't feel dizzy and rushed, more is there to praise than to rant over.
- Character (9.5/10):
I mean, why would I get any less than a perfect score? the crew still feels like the OG crew, Arlong is just as mean and so are Kuro and Krieg, you get to hate the characters you're supposed to, and like the ones the writer wants you to, but still, the animation is not any soft on the fanservice part, and don't get me wrong on this part, I really enjoyed not having any extreme fanservice scenes, it all felt normal, but still, Nami and Nojiko, heck all of the females are armed with just as big of a pair of melons as the post time-skip chaos. But I guess, it wouldn't sell as much without that.
- Enjoyment (8.5/10):
This was a really enjoyable watch, currently, as the Manga is really kicking off the hype of the Reverie arc, it really is good to go back and see how things were before, much quieter, and no big deals lurking around the Strawhats, how it all began, and the feel of those initiative villains that always downgraded Luffy as a no-name pirate, who barks with more than he can handle.
- Overall (8.6/10):
Having not seeing any of the One Piece special, this one is sort of encouraging to see the others too, One Piece: Episode of East Blue - Luffy to 4-nin no Nakama no Daibouken was a great experience, It really filled my nostalgia tank for the week on one sit, whereas it would take several binge watching for old One Piece episodes clip, now, I would highly recommend this for the One Pïece fans that made it past the time skip and wanted to get a refresher to how it all started.