When the crew of the Going Merry nearly gets sunk by ships falling from the sky (in pieces) they discover that somewhere up above in the clouds is an island and, more importantly, adventure. After an attempted salvage, interrupted by a giant ape named Masira and his crew, Luffy discovers a map that offers up further proof to himself and his crew mates that there is in fact an island in the clouds. They set sail for Mock Town to find anyone who may have information and run into pirates led by a ruthless bully who believes himself part of the new era of piracy. Can the crew get out alive and even if they do will they have the information they need to make it to Sky Island? Set Sail For The Sky with all your favorite characters of One Piece and get ready for adventure.

One Piece has been put through the wringer for awhile. A lot of fans had been put off by the 4Kids version of the show, which FUNimation has tried to correct as much as possible; no more lollipops for Sanji, the crew doesn’t mince words, and battles are bloody and brutal. With that out of the way I was pleased with Season Three, The First Voyage. One Piece isn’t revolutionary as far as the animation goes but the story is usually great. It does tend to have rants during fight sequences, which most anime of its caliber do, but the action is consistent and so is the adventure. Every crew member adds to the fun and with a lot of familiar voices on deck its all the more familiar for me even though my experience with One Piece isn’t extensive. One of the stand out features of the series is probably the music which is never just generic or out of tune with what’s going on, even the breaks have some interesting tunes that fit the show. The best feature has to be the Marathon option for watching the show in a play all mode that offers you up an opening theme song then never plays it again ending with end credits with the last episode on the disc. It takes away from having to skip through the “What’s next?” segment and repeating the opener for every episode. Seriously, that feature should be placed on every anime set. I love it.

Was there anything that I truly hated about the set, show and all? As usual FUNimation offers up very little as far as bonus features go. Again, Marathon Feature. Loved it. 1 commentary track, the usual textless opening and closing sequences, and trailers. Nothing extraordinary there. As far as the show goes it was fantastic up to a point where the show seemed to teeter dangerously close to making religious statements that took the fun of the show and made it awkward. If there had been a real point to them then fine but they just seemed to pop up and then fade out leaving you scratching your head wondering if the dialogue had been written with an agenda in mind or just to create some filler chatter. Its soon forgotten though as the goofiness of the show comes back in and leaves you waiting for the second voyage to arrive. All in all though if its adventure your looking for there’s no better place to find it then with Luffy and the crew of the Going Merry. Just don’t go in expecting anything less then plenty of laughs and some great action. Enjoy.