For those who don't know, the story of One Piece follows Monkey D. Luffy as he searches for the One Piece, a mysterious treasure left behind by Gold Rodger, the greatest pirate to roam the sea. Luffy also aspires to become the next 'King of the Pirates,' a title that Rodger earned by being a complete and utter bad ass. As Luffy has progressed through the world, he's formed his own crew managed to recruit several people into his crew, whose individual ambitions rival his  The relationship formed between Luffy and his crew is the true heart of the show, and their interactions and clashing personalities make up a lot of the humor and emotion of the show.

This release, episodes 54 through 66, begins with Luffy's crew about to enter the Grand Line, yet immediately goes into a filler story involving a young girl trying to return an ancient dragon to its nest. Looking at it from somebody who has gone through this section of the story, it's clearly a bit of filler to pad time, as the show was about 40 chapters from catching up at the time.

This also shows why One Piece works so well. As the saying goes, it isn't the destination, but the adventure that matters. Since Luffy and company have to sail from place to place, it allows for large gaps of time where the crew could conceivably have a random adventure. If done correctly, the filler gives time for the viewers to get to know the characters better. It helps that this particular filler arc is at least entertaining, if not up to the standard of the rest of the series.

For the most part, the events of the filler arc (which lasts eight episodes) are inconsequential in the scheme of the whole story. Yet, the material presented isn't bad. Yes, the villains (an obese commodore named Nelson and an ambitious assassin named Eric) never come up again and everything turns out to be pretty pointless. However, it doesn't do anything that contradicts the story or the world (with the exception of Zoro cutting through steel , which becomes an issue later.)

The second half of the set returns to the main story, where the crew finally enters the Grand Line. It leads into the beginning of the Alabasta arc, which takes up roughly 60 episodes and has several mini-arcs within it, so if you get sucked in now you're going to have to wait awhile to see the results.

Praise must be given to the writers, who have managed to make a dub so enjoyable that I can't decide version which is better. I find myself alternating language tracks from episode to episode, just so I can hear the characters reactions in both languages. The writing is clever and amusing while the voice acting is damn near perfect. Any damage 4kids did to One Piece should disappear with productions like this.

The disks are light on extras, with only trailers and textless OP and ED vids to be had, though both disks have marathon features that play all the episodes back to back without the OP or ED.

Overall, I completely recommend this release, especially if you're a One Piece fan. If you're interested in the series and for some reason don't want to go back to the first season, this part of the series is good to start off in since they haven't entered the Grand Line yet, which is where the real adventure begins.