Hello guys Justin here welcome to another edition of the Otaku corner and this month it’s another Memories of One Piece. This is where I take a look back on an event or arc of One Piece and give my thoughts on it. As we all know One Piece is one of the longest animes out there to this day and as always with these long animes you have fillers. Yes fillers, episodes that in no way are connected to the actual continuity of the series and just serve as a way to buy time for the manga to get further ahead on its story. They usually take place after an arc as a way to give animators a break and a way to allow the director of the anime to tell their own story in the series. Most of the time these fillers aren’t good and go on for way too long and yes One Piece has had its share of bad fillers (questionable. Though I have to admit even their bad fillers are better than most animes that do fillers. I’m looking at you Naruto and Bleach) but at the same time it’s had really good fillers as well. The one filler everyone seems to like both fans and non-fans of the series is the G-8 arc. The G-8 arc is the 5th filler in the One Piece series and takes place after the Skypeia arc. If I’m being honest this is not only the best filler arc in the series so far but it’s the best filler arc I’ve ever seen in an anime. Why is that? What does this filler do better than other fillers? Where does this filler succeed where other fillers fail and how did they succeed where other fillers fail? Well let’s take a look at G-8 arc and see if we can find answers.
Plot
In this arc the crew have left the sky ocean and have returned back to the blue ocean only to find out that they’ve landed in the middle of the marine base G-8 an island comprised of a huge mountain, water, and a ring of rock cliffs that form a wall making it impossible to escape once you’ve entered the base. The crew is forced to ditch the ship and disguise themselves amongst the marines where they get separated, have to reunite, and figure a way out of the base before they’re captured. Through a string of events they manage to get back to their ship and blast the barricade door open to escape but just as they’re escaping they discover that the marines took their gold so they decide to stay in the base to get it back and once again through string of events and a little bit of luck they get their gold back and escape the base.
The plot itself is a cool setup. This is the first time we’ve seen the crew in a really tight spot. They’re literally trapped on an island populated entirely by marine soldiers and the only way out is closed off by a steel door. The whole situation almost seems hopeless but despite that the crew still keeps their hopes high not worried in the least and try to come up with a way to escape the base. While they’re trying to escape we find out the base is being inspected by a snarky marine from headquarters who wants to shut G-8 down because it rarely has to deal with any trouble and can be seen as a useless base so the commander of the base has to prove this snarky inspector wrong by capturing the Strawhats and showing him that his men and his base aren’t a waste of time and money. Like I said before the setup is cool. Most filler arcs just usually stick to the bases of the arcs in the main series. Bad guy shows up and our main characters have to beat them. But here, the crew isn’t really going on an adventure, this is straight up survival. They’re either going to escape and continue their adventure or they’re gonna be thrown in prison and executed. There’s an air of suspense as you’re not sure how they’re gonna escape thus this makes the whole situation all the more engaging.
The Enemies
Most filler arcs have bland, generic and forgetful enemies/villains. For example, in the Naruto filler arcs I honestly can’t remember any of the villains for the life of me or what their objective was. Here, the enemies are actually pretty memorable and some even go through character development. In fact, I honestly hesitate to call these guys enemies. Okay yeah they’re trying to capture the crew but for the most part I honestly like these guys. Some of the characters that stand out to me the most are the snarky inspector who is possibly the funniest character in this arc. He’s always shouting at people, he thinks he knows what he’s doing when really he doesn’t, his facial expressions are hilarious, and he helps Usopp deliver one his best lies in the entire series: https://youtu.be/XlFpAiWrGoE, when I first saw this scene I laughed for minutes. This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire anime. There’s an old carpenter at the base who examines the Merry-Go and sees all the slight damage it’s endured but also sees the repairs Usopp made to fix the ship and gets a great amount of respect for him. He has a daughter who serves as the nurse of the base who’s quite clumsy but still does her best despite her shortcomings. She befriends Chopper who helps her handle some injured marines showing us that even though Chopper’s a pirate he’s still a doctor first. Luffy and Sanji disguise themselves as chefs who came from Marine headquarters and have a cook off with the chefs of G-8 where Sanji teaches them a valuable lesson about ingredients: https://youtu.be/UV0_8rSFBF4. When the chefs find out they’re pirates they kick them out but we see later on in the arc that the soldiers who ate Sanji’s food earlier want his food over their food and wouldn’t you know it he left the recipes for them. Jessica doesn’t want to use them but she finally caves in and decides to use Sanji’s recipe however they all vow to cook better food than him in the future.
The final enemy is Jonathan the commander of the base, Jessica’s husband, and one of the greatest opponents the Strawhats ever had to face. At first glance the guy may not look like something and he really isn’t. He’s not muscular, strong, intimidating, scary and he doesn’t have a devil fruit power. He’s just regular Marine commander who’s pretty laidback and would much rather fish than do work. He’s essentially the least physically threatening person the Strawhats have had to face but at the same time he’s one of their greatest opponents because he actually uses his mind to fight them instead of power and strength. What Jonathan lacks in his strength he makes up for it in intelligence. The guy is very intelligent and again he doesn’t try to fight the Strawhats directly he instead out thinks them. He knows that the Strawhats are strong and knows that if he just sends his men in there with no strategy they’re just gonna get knocked out. Throughout the whole arc he sets up traps for the Strawhats outsmarting them every step of the way and at the end he almost succeeded in capturing the Strawhats. He almost had them and probably would have had them if Shepard hadn’t gotten in the way. Another thing I like about this guy is he actually shows respect to Luffy and his crew. Not once does he insult them or belittle them. He sees them as worthy opponents and even offers to spare the lives of the rest of the crew as long as Luffy and Zoro give themselves up (keep in mind, at this point in the story Luffy and Zoro were the only ones with major bounties on their heads. Everyone else, were just seen as extras and not a major threat at the time). Jonathan was a guy who proved to us that the secret to beating the Strawhat crew is to out think them instead of out power them.
Other notable aspects
Some other notable aspects this arc had over other filler arcs is comedy. The arc was funny. There are a number of funny moments throughout the arc. Whether it’s the Strawhat crew interacting with the marines, themselves, or trying to escape there are all sorts of moments that’ll make you laugh.
Scenes here: https://youtu.be/xidYoygpPcY, https://youtu.be/YDu-R9SriPA, https://youtu.be/IAL1i8MccHg https://youtu.be/eqRAO68po7A, https://youtu.be/wR0LH2oRf44, and https://youtu.be/V0yQqpBObBs
The action scenes are great to watch and the animation during this arc was crisp and nice to look at. The anime has gone through a number of different animation styles during its run but this is the one animation style everyone seemed to like the best. The current animation does look like a call back to this animation style only brighter and fluid. Hopefully this is the animation style they stick with. Finally, but most importantly there was effort put into this arc. The writer/s for this arc treated this arc as if it was an actual arc for the manga. You can tell they were passionate about this arc and worked really hard to make it entertaining. They weren’t just writing something to take up time they were actually trying to tell a very good story and it paid off.
Conclusion
So what, where, why, and how does the G8 arc standout above other filler arcs? For a number of reasons. It had a good story and plot, the enemies were good to watch and worked off the Strawhat crew perfectly. Not once do you hate these guys. You wanna see their base stay in operation. You wanna see Shepard get hurt and see the Strawhat crew pull through in the end and escape to continue their adventure. There was a right amount of action, comedy, and suspense. Not once do you feel bored watching this arc. The animation was nice and you’re constantly on the edge of your seat wondering what’s gonna happen next. Finally, effort. Honest to God effort was put into this arc. If I had to give a score for this arc it would be a 9/10 with the only thing stopping it from being a 10/10 is I wanted to see more of the base. Either way this is still a great arc, the best filler arc I’ve seen to this day and one that long running animes should take notes from. Is it possible to get another arc like this one? I don’t know. They say that lightning never strikes twice but life is full of surprises and you never know what the future will bring. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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