Title: One Piece Collection 9
Director: Hiroaki Miyamoto
Original Creator: Eiichiro Oda
U. S. Distributor: FUNimation
U. S. Release Dates: April 15 2014
Format: DVD / 24 Episodes / 600 minutes
Genre: Fantasy, Action / Adventure, Shonen
Age Rating: TV14
Overall Personal Rating: B-
Synopsis:
After escaping the marine base, G8, the Straw Hat Pirates found themselves on the unusual Long Ring Long Land Island. As the name of the island suggests, all the plants and animals are much longer than normal, either by being tall or long. Luffy, Chopper and Usopp decided to explore the island, where they find a small house. Living near the house was what at first glance appeared to be a Giraffe, but turned out to be a very tall horse. As magnificent as this horse was, it wasn’t the most interesting thing near the house, for Luffy came across what he thought was a couple of moving trees. Taking them to be hostile, Luffy swiftly defeated them causing a small old man to fall from the sky.
Apparently what Luffy thought was trees were actually tall bamboo stilts that the old man, Tonjit, had been stuck on for the past ten years. Tonji explained that he was a stilt enthusiast who got stuck on his ever growing bamboo stilts, which caused him to be separated from the rest of his village that had long migrated to one of the other nearby island. Once a year the tides are low enough that people are able to move from one island to another, however the tide is only low long enough for the migration to be possible on horseback. So with the help of the tall horse, Tonji plans to return to his village within a few years’ time. However his hope to return home is short lived, for Foxy the Sliver Fox, captain of the Foxy Pirates, captured Tonji’s horse with no apparent reason and without that horse he would have to wait for over twenty years for his village to return to the island he was currently on.
While Luffy was dealing with the captain of the Foxy Pirates, the Straw Hat crew was dealing with them. The Foxy pirates were requesting that the Straw Hats play an unique game know as a Davy Back Fight. The basic rules for this game are fairly straight forward: if the other crew accepts the challenge, they will compete in a series of three events; after each event, the winning crew then takes one member of the opposing crew to join their own. A Davy Back Fight can only be accepted by the captain of a ship, and although the risk of losing one of his crew mates isn’t one that Luffy would often take, after the attack on Tonji’s horse, he was provoked into accepting the challenge before he knew what he was doing.
Commentary:
One Piece is a series of over the top action, with an interesting variety of characters and One Piece Collection 9 falls flat on that. Although the Foxy Pirates are a bizarre group, they lack substance as characters, especially when in contrast to the enemies from the previous story arc. Actually this whole story is a big step down, they were fighting a man who called himself God, now they are playing red light, green light.
Now I’m not saying that this collection of One Piece is unenjoyable, but it isn’t that up to par with the rest of the show. When I first read this story arc in the One Piece Manga, I actually enjoyed it. It was a short fun break from the action, but because there is filler arc in that anime that comes before this, the fight with the Foxy Pirates just feels tedious. As mentioned, the fight with the Foxy Pirates is short, and only takes up about half of the episodes on Collection 9. However the rest of the episodes are two smaller filler arcs, so ultimately the rest of the episodes are ever more tedious.
Overall Grade: B –
Although One Piece Collection 9 was rather uneventful, it was still somewhat fun to watch, which is what One Piece is about, but ultimately all these episodes can be skipped with no loss to the viewer whatsoever.

Review written by W. V. S.