TwiddleGeek

After departing Ring Long, Long Land, the straw hat crew land themselves face to face with a powerful Admiral named Aokiji who has a particular interest in Robin… but has no interest in fighting or capturing anyone… at first. When he suddenly changes his mind and attacks, Robin quickly falls into critical condition and is hurried back to the Going Merry for treatment, while Luffy tries to fend off Aokiji alone.

This [mostly] exciting hour-long episode starts to bring us into the Water 7 arc - finally good stuff after much filler and those boring Skypiea episodes. Aokiji’s an amusing character, and drops an interesting line about… Luffy’s grandfather? Huh? Maybe he’ll expand on that later.

Luffy n’ co. en route to Water 7 to commission repairs for the Going Merry, and maybe find a - particularly 5 meters tall - shipwright who’ll join the crew. Not much going on yet, but Kokoro, Chimney and Yokozuna are introduced for later use.

Upon arrival at Water 7, the crew splits up for various tasks: Luffy, Nami and Ussop set out to explore and exchange their gold for cash, Robin and Chopper browse the market, as does Sanji by himself. Zoro guards the ship naps. We learn from this episode that the Galley-La shipwrights are awesome, and that Robin’s likely to ditch you in a bookstore.

The Franky Family gang tries to rob Merry; should be pretty easy with Zoro fast asleep, right? Wrong. Luffy, Ussop and Nami collect their cash and have Kaku the shipwright dispatched to assess Merry. Some light humor here as characters repeatedly mistake Kaku for Usopp, and Califa goes into Chun-li style attack mode at the slightest offense.