Call me a cynic, but “One Piece” is the most inconsistent anime ever made. When the show brings its A-game, there’s not another series around that can match its harmonious mixture of action and comedy. Unfortunately, the series also has a tendency to slip into mediocrity time and again, and in the case of the first volume of Season Two, it happens more often than you’d care to see from a show with so much potential. With only 14 episodes included on the two-disc set, it’s disappointing to discover that the first eight are wasted on a stupid story arc involving a little girl named Apis and the millennial dragon she’s promised to protect. There isn’t any real progress made other than the fact that the Straw Hats’ detour eventually puts them back on course, and in fact, most of the crew members are relegated to background duty for many of the episodes. When they finally do reach the Grand Line, however, the series kicks back into high gear. The ship (along with its crew) is swallowed whole by a giant whale, and after Luffy figures out a way to escape, he’s lured into another trap set by a group of bounty hunters posing as pirate-friendly vendors. It’s this introduction to the Baroque Works crime syndicate that hints at “One Piece” returning to its winning ways in the next volume, but it’s just a shame we had to sit through this uneven batch of episodes to get there.
