I’m a huge fan of One Piece but even I know that eventually you run into some filler episodes. Sometimes even the filler episodes can be fantastic. Remember the time the crew was exiting Skypiea and they landed in the Navarone Marines Barracks. That was a good time even for a collection of filler episodes. One Piece Collection Four is unfortunately not that great because half of the episodes are all filler. Well, we discover how the Straw Hat Crew came to have Chopper on their crew as the ships doctor and who and where he comes from, but it’s mostly a snooze fest.

In the last collection The Straw Hat Crew had just taken on a quest with a Millennial Dragon, run across an interesting whale that swallowed their ship, found a prehistoric island complete with giant men, and battled the numbered agents in an epic brawl. Their collection ending last mission was to return Vivi to her kingdom of Alabasta which is where you would expect to start off, but no.

When Collection Four begins Nami is gravely sick and the crew must find a port to dock in and hopefully find a town with a doctor in it. While on the water they run into a pirate named Wapol, a guy whose devil fruit power allows him to eat anything. If he eats a weapon he is able to add that weapon to his body and other strange abilities. A quick tussle and the crew are off where they land on Drum Island. It is here from episode 79 to 91 that we endure the story of Chopper. It’s an overdramatic little piece of misdirection that eventually ends with Chopper joining the crew. Unless watching over an hour of the crew attempting to scale a mountain while dodging bear sized carnivorous bunnies and battling enemies that stand no chance at all of even providing a fairly decent fight is your idea of fun, well, your going to be bored.

Eventually as we stride into episodes 92 and to the collection’s finale at 103 things get interesting. The crew finally make it to Alabasta, we meet a family member of Luffy’s who literally lights up the series, and things start moving more towards the One Piece we all know and love; action, hilarity, excitement, and food. Of course being a completionist I would never suggest skipping over this collection simply because it takes forever to get through Chopper’s story, but because his story is there nonetheless this collection wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. As always final judgment is yours.