After One Piece’s anime announced an unexpected six-month hiatus, Toei began airing a remastered version of the Fish-Man Island Arc. It’s a relatively short arc compared to the others, but fans have often complained about the pacing and the animation quality. The arc has 56 chapters in the manga but 58 episodes in the anime version. Toei cut off a lot of scenes while staying true to the manga and enhancing the animation quality for the remastered version. It now tells the same story in 21 episodes, which is a delight to manga fans. The One Piece manga debuted in 1997 and the anime in 1999.
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Since then the anime has been released weekly alongside the manga, making it a bit difficult for the animators to avoid catching up to the manga. Hence, they include several anime-only moments while also making the pacing slow, especially after the time skip. The hiatus was also a result of the anime almost catching up to the source material, which could’ve proven to be a challenge in the next few months. However, while the remastered Fish-Man Island Arc delivers the story’s true essence, it removes a crucial and heartwarming Ace callback from One Piece’s original anime.
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One Piece’s Fish-Man Island Remastered Version Removes this Luffy and Ace Parallel
One Piece Episode 565 first shows Luffy using Red Hawk, one of his most iconic abilities and an extension of Gear 2. After entering Gear 2, he hardens his arm with Armament Haki and then stretches it before igniting it and releasing a stream of fire in the process. Luffy then delivers a powerful flaming punch. This attack signifies Luffy’s growth over the past two years as he is now a skilled Haki User and has better control over his devil fruit. Fire isn’t technically an ability that’s related to his devil fruit, but somehow using his Haki and friction, he can create flaming punches.
In the original episode, Luffy’s punch takes longer to land and it even shows Ace while the protagonist is preparing to hit the villain. Portgas D. Ace is still one of the most beloved characters in the show and fire is his specialty. The Fish-Man Island Arc follows Luffy’s first journey after the tragic death of his brother. Hence, the parallel signifies their bond and the notion that despite moving forward for the sake of his crew, Luffy still keeps his brother in his heart.
Ace’s death is still considered the biggest tragedy of the series and the story made a major turning point after that. Luffy has become considerably stronger since then as he blames himself for being weak and unable to protect his brother. The remastered version focuses on excluding those extra anime-only moments and trimming the unnecessarily lengthy scenes. In Chapter 664, Luffy first uses this ability but the manga doesn’t show this parallel. While it’s simply an anime-only scene, it still adds depth to the scene.
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