One Piece Episodes 1017 Review

Wano is not an easy arc to talk about on a weekly basis under normal circumstances, but we have entered a particularly difficult section to review. I can only say that the battle on the roof of Onigashima is perhaps the MOST Wano of all Wano thus far. Here the titan’s clash and the world shakes.

Week.

After week.

After week.

Like most of Wano, your mileage will vary on whether you will actually enjoy watching this particular battle, yet here this holds truer than perhaps any other section of One Piece. The highest of highs for the longest of times.

The animation is flawless of course, there’s no denying that. Every single frame of this episode is beauty in motion, every attack rendered with the kind of artistic vision and cinematic flourish that would make most feature-length films blush. These are your favorite characters brought to life in the most vivid, beautiful form imaginable as they tear the world apart with every bone-crushing swing.

And boy is there are a lot of big swings in this section. This is like late-game Final Fantasy where everyone in your party is dropping summon attacks that do massive damage after a 90-second cutscene. The boss here just has so much HP that you’re going to have to get used to seeing him get hit again and again.

That’s what makes this stretch hard to talk about. Even with all the great gags and character moments, even with the beautiful destruction and kaiju-movie sense of grandiose scope… there are just going to be a lot of big hits for a long time on repeat. It is in some ways the shonen formula distilled into its purest essence: weirdos shouting and punching each other. Oda and the Toei team have been building up to this moment for literal years, and it’s all been earned, but settle in because we’re going to be here a while, as I keep trying to figure out how not to rewrite this same review every week.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars.

One Piece Episodes 1017 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com.