One Piece Collection No. 9   Starring (voice): Akemi Okamura, Hiroaki Hirata, Ikue Ohtani and Kappei Yamaguchi Distributor: Manga Entertainment RRP: £34.99 Certificate: 12 Release Date: 13 April 2015

Another month and another release for One Piece, the anarchic show which follows Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates.

One Piece: Collection 9 covers episodes 209 to 229, this is presented on a four disc DVD set. The show currently stand in excess of six hundred episodes so far, not including the OVA’s.

If you have never seen the show, it stars Luffy, who has the ability to stretch his limbs (Think Japanese Mr. Fantastic). He and his crew are on a quest to find the ultimate treasure, the One Piece, which will transform Luffy into the next king of the Pirates.

The first show concludes a long running story before starting the 'Water Seven Saga' and the 'Davy Back Fight' arc which involves the Straw Hats chancing upon the Foxy pirates, which starts a long and hilarious contest between the two groups.

The show is presented with an aspect ratio of 16:9 - 1.78:1 with an English surround sound 5.1 or Japanese 2.0 audio track. The first episode on the set is in 4:3, but this switches to an anamorphic wide screen presentation for the rest of the episodes. There is also a noticeable uplift in the animations quality after the first episode.

There are a number of extras in the set including full length commentaries for episode 211, 215, 218 and 229 as well as two textless opening and two textless closing sequences and the English trailer. The commentaries are par for the course from Funimation, a mixture of information and goofing around.

Overall it’s a collection of canon stories, from the manga and filler. The fight with the Foxy pirates has been elongated, but then with the comedy being very reminiscent of Looney Tunes, this is not a bad move.

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Charles Packer