One Piece: 3D2Y is a television special for the One Piece anime that aired on Japanese television on August 30, 2014.

One Piece: 3D2Y
English Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
Format: Blu-ray/DVD Combo
Release Date: January 22, 2019

This One Piece television special is set during the two year timeskip that takes place between Episodes 516 and 517 of the anime series. Right at the beginning of the special, the audience is reminded of the important events that led up to the timeskip and why Luffy is training with Silvers Rayleigh.

While Luffy is training, a convict named Byrnndi World escapes and wreaks havoc on the high seas. World had been locked away on Level 6 of Impel Down but had escaped during Blackbeard’s infiltration of the prison. We see that World isn’t above sacrificing his own crew to accomplish his goals, and this clearly sets him up as the villain in the special. World makes enough of a ruckus that the World Government takes notice of him and summons the Seven Warlords. When World catches wind of this, he decides he needs to strike first, and discovers that Boa Hancock is the Warlord who is closer to his location. He kidnaps two of Hancock’s sisters, and this is what ultimately sets the overarching story of the special in motion.

Luffy pauses his training and joins Hancock on a mission to save her sisters from World. The story ultimately leads to Luffy fighting against World, while Hancock fights against Nightin, one of World’s crewmembers. The fight between Luffy and World is what viewers have come to expect from fights that Luffy takes place in. Hancock’s battle against Nightin, another woman, was also interesting to watch. Nightin finds crazy and unusual methods to try to avoid falling prey to Hancock’s Devil Fruit power attacks. We’ve seen how much Hancock’s powers affected men prior to this special, but it was interesting to see a woman potentially falling for these charms as well. At least it was nice to see that women aren’t necessarily immune to this power.

Overall, I appreciated the fact that this special tried to fill in some of missing story from the two year time skip in the main One Piece story. And to be honest, it made sense to focus the story on Luffy, instead of trying to cover what Luffy was doing as well as the other Straw Hats. The anime series gives the viewer some insight into what happened with the other Straw Hats, but we really didn’t get to see much of Luffy’s training. We saw enough to establish the idea he was training with Silvers, but that was about it. And of the Straw Hats, Luffy is not only the main character and the leader, he’s also the one who went through a lot emotionally in the wake of the Battle at Marineford. It made the most sense to have a story that was focused on him.

I would recommend the One Piece: 3D2Y special to fans of One Piece, so they can see a story that helps to fill in a piece of the two year timeskip that takes place in the series. While this story may not be part of the canon storyline for the manga, I feel it was a necessary work to help flesh out what was otherwise unseen events in the One Piece timeline.

The Blu-ray included in this release has 1080p High Definition 16:9 (HD Native) video. The audio includes Dolby TrueHD: English 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 2.0. The DVD included in the release has two audio options: English 5.1 Surround and Japanese Stereo.

Unfortunately, FUNimation Entertainment didn’t really go to much effort for this release of One Piece: 3D2Y. The only bonus feature included were trailers for other anime releases from FUNimation. Instead of being presented with a menu to choose trailers to watch, it just launches into playing several trailers back-to-back. It would have been nice if FUNimation could have somehow negotiated with Toei to be able to include the commercials that would have aired on Japanese television to promote the broadcast of the special. That would have helped to make it feel like there were actual bonus features included on this release.

This Blu-ray/DVD combo release is the only way to acquire the One Piece: 3D2Y special in North America, so even though there are no true bonus features included, I would still recommend this release to One Piece fans who want to own this television special in their anime home video library.

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