Summary
- One Piece Fishman Island Re-Edition addressed pacing, animation, and story issues effectively.
- The remaster improved art direction and trimmed filler content, making the arc more bearable.
- Despite initial concerns, the remaster shows consistent improvement in quality and pacing.
One Piece’s Fishman Island has always been a sore topic for fans of the series. While many are quick to defend the arc, others have healthy amounts of criticism for it, citing an overabundance of gags, weird animation, and subpar pacing. While most fans can agree it’s far from the worst arc in One Piece, with Long Ring Long Land taking the prize in that category, Fishman Island is arguably one of the most polarizing major arcs in the series.
Due to this, when the One Piece anime went on hiatus in December 2024, rather than just leaving fans with nothing to watch, the series released a new remaster of the Fishman Island Arc, dubbed, One Piece Fishman Island Re-Edition. This release, though far from being as exciting as new content, has done a good job of taking a polarizing arc and making it much more palatable to fans. In fact, with every passing episode, it seems that One Piece’s Fishman Island remaster just keeps getting better and better.
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One Piece Fishman Island Remaster Upgrades A Controversial Arc
This Rerelease Shows That There’s Always Room To Improve
Although the original Fishman Island anime of One Piece has its fans, the arc itself suffered from a few major issues: pacing, animation, and story direction. Firstly, many fans felt the arc, which could have been fairly quick, was drawn out and way too long. Next, many fans were not particularly fond of One Piece’s new art style overhaul for the anime after the time skip, especially since many characters lacked details and shadows in their expressions, making the animation feel cheap. Finally, many fans feel that Fishman Island overall has a weak story direction, filled with gags and an unmemorable villain.
We are so close… I know you can reach the light of the sun. – Otohime
However, with the release of Fishman Island Re-Edition, the animators have set out to solve many of the arc’s glaring problems in the One Piece anime specifically. Since the release, trimming various scenes, shortening the space between certain pieces of dialogue, and removing any unnecessary elements from the arc, cutting out over 30 episodes worth of One Piece filler content. Additionally, while the animators didn’t reanimate the arc, they were able to add detail to the pre-existing animation, vastly improving the overall quality. Finally, while the arc can’t change problems, like the fanbase’s disdain of Hody Jones, by trimming out all the fluff of the arc, things like gags seem far more bearable than before, even if it means cutting out some of One Piece’s best goofy moments.
The Fishman Island Remake Had Many Positive Changes In The Beginning
It Still Had Its Issues In The Beginning Like Pacing
- Fishman Island Re-Edition Had A Strange Start
- Pacing Felt A Bit Too Rushed For Some Fans
Despite the positive changes in the beginning, some fans were worried about the direction that the new One Piece Fishman Island remaster might take. Luckily, as of lately, it seems that the release is only improving in quality, showing how much One Piece wants to please its community. Consistently, the art direction in the newest episodes is now far more detailed, adding a layer of depth that the art style was lacking before. At the same time, despite cutting unnecessary content, details like Fisher Tiger’s and Otohime’s backstory keep the core of the story, without hurting the audience’s understanding.
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One Piece’s Fishman Island Remaster Shows Far Better Pacing Now
The Art Direction Seems To Consistently Improve Over Time As Well
More new episodes of One Piece’s new Fishman Island consistently show a stronger understanding of what content needs to be cut and what content should stay. Although at the beginning of the rerelease, some cut content felt important to the understanding of a scene, most notably Nami and Usopp, an underrated One Piece duo, reuniting in the bar, now, it seems like most of the cuts feel natural and necessary. However, at the same time, the final battles of the original Fishman Island contained a large amount of unnecessary fluff, giving those working on the rerelease many easy targets to trim out.
What will happen if you guys resort to violence now on Fishman Island? – Jinbe
Still, no matter how easy it is, One Piece Fishman Island Re-Edition seems to get consistently better as the season progresses. Although the start of the remaster had some issues, like cutting out necessary tension and buildup, the newer episodes trim hours of largely unnecessary content, while still keeping the heart of the original arc. In the end, One Piece’s Fishman Island rerelease seems like the start of an interesting trend that could spread to other long One Piece arcs as well, trimming the show to a much more manageable length.
