It’s been just over a month since the anime returned, and One Piece is already breaking hearts with Kuma’s tragic origin story. Episode 1129 has finally kicked off the highly awaited flashback, and it’s clear the anime’s producers aren’t holding back in the slightest, especially when it comes to adding ambitious anime-original scenes. Having said that, One Piece’s anime has also stopped holding back with the blood and gore, finally making a change that fans have been asking for for a very long time and putting an end to the series’ history of censorship for good.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Episode 1129 of One Piece surprisingly turns up the blood and gore during the scene of Kuma’s father’s death. In the manga, only a few droplets of blood splash onto Kuma’s face after his father is shot, but the anime noticeably increases the amount of blood, making the scene much more jarring and visceral as a result. What’s more impressive is that the episode manages to pull off the blood splatter without coming off as cartoonish or funny, as such scenes usually do. More importantly, this means good news for the rest of Kuma’s flashback and the Egghead Arc as a whole as things are about to get pretty gruesome and One Piece likely won’t be toning it down anymore.
[RELATED: One Piece Preview Teases Very Important Piece of the World’s History]
One Piece Turns Up the Gore For Kuma’s Flashback
While One Piece’s problems with censorship are mostly associated with the infamous 4Kids English dub, even the original anime has been known to have toned down particularly gruesome scenes. Examples of this go as far back as the East Blue Saga, which notably changed the scene of Zeff eating his own leg. Other examples include Whitebeard’s injuries at Marineford, which were far more gruesome-looking in the manga than in the anime, and Luffy’s injuries after being pierced by Katakuri’s spear during the Whole Cake Island Arc, which, albeit bloody, was still toned down in the anime.
As such, it’s quite surprising for the anime to turn up the blood and gore as opposed to toning it down. Part of the reason that the anime can now be less cautious could be the new time slot change. With the return of part 2 of the Egghead Arc One Piece shifted from its usual morning timeslot aimed at children to a late-night one more directed at the series’ now adult audience. This especially bodes well for future episodes of One Piece and Kuma’s flashback, which will have to deal with fairly dark, mature themes going into the tragic future that awaits Ginny.
One Piece can be streamed on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
