Treasure Islands: the second season of "Van Pease" was released with a Russian dubbing

All eight hour-long episodes of the new "Van Pease" ("One Piece. Big Jackpot") was released on Netflix at the same time, and so far it is obvious that the launch turned out to be very successful. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series has the highest rating from critics (100% "freshness") and close to it from non—professional viewers (96%). Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates continue their journey to treasure and glory, visit magical islands, make new friends and defeat enemies. There's nothing else in the series, but that was enough to make it an event.

What you need to know before viewing

You can watch the new Van Pease from scratch without knowing anything about this franchise. This is an important warning, because the facts about her can scare any normal person away from the new series in advance. In the three decades since the release of the first manga, Van Pease has grown into an independent industry with a huge fan base around the world. More than 100 volumes of the manga alone have sold a total of half a billion copies. More than a thousand anime episodes, a dozen and a half feature films, more than thirty video games have been released, and their own amusement park has been built in Tokyo. When you find out about this, it's already scary to turn on Netflix.

The second season of "Van Pease" is designed in such a way that the viewer can turn it on accidentally and immediately enjoy himself in horse doses, without thinking about anything else. Even a brief retelling of the first season seems superfluous. because the whole plot fits into a few phrases. A young man named Luffy dreams of finding a huge pirate treasure and automatically becoming the greatest pirate of all time. Luffy has a magical ability: he is practically rubbery, which makes him almost immortal. He has assembled a motley crew and is looking for that treasure on a sailing ship. In general, that's all.

The action takes place in an alternate universe, which for the viewer looks like a role-playing game using augmented reality gadgets. I mean, it's kind of like a fantasy world where we meet giants, dinosaurs, flying magicians, and tiny talking animals. But at the same time, film projectors, motorcycles and golf carts can be found here, and the characters often wear completely familiar shorts and T-shirts.

Maybe the fourth wall isn't broken here, but the characters often hint that they don't really live here, but just fool around and enjoy it. For example, heroes walk through the heat and talk: "Are you aware that you can take off your coat?" "No, it's part of my image!" "Image" is a very accurate word, and it's worth talking about it in more detail.

Why the TV series "Van Pease" is a success

They don't usually do that today. Modern TV shows are complicated. They metaphorically summarize the problems of the real world, say what worries the maximum number of viewers, the characters allow themselves to identify with them. We watch and learn, reflect, have compassion, reflect, and resent. We understand something, or at least we should understand about ourselves and reality, after watching a high-quality, expensive show. It doesn't matter if it's a "Transitional age" or a "Mandalorian", this applies to almost all the luxury content of online cinemas around the world.

Van Pease does not do any of this in principle. The heroes here are practically immortal, they are not particularly afraid for their lives, they defeat enemies with one hand, just to get to them. A treasure for Luffy and his friends is just an excuse to hang out together and ride around the world to have at least some purpose. The imperatives here are the simplest. Trust everyone you meet, and then we'll figure it out. In any unclear situation, act without delay, you will fix it on the go if something is wrong. Make friends with everyone, and even with monsters, murderers and tormentors, behave cheerfully and without malice. Because it's more fun that way.

The islands that the characters end up on are like the rides in a theme park. Here is an island with dinosaurs and giants, here is an island with a saloon like in the Wild West, here is a European port city with narrow streets paved with stone. Everything is oversaturated with details, and you need to look carefully, because the speed of events is frenzied.

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The costumes of the characters and their special skills are so spectacular that you need to turn on 4K immediately so that every detail is visible. And there are so many characters here that it's unlikely you'll be able to remember them, unless you're a fan of the Van Pease universe and know everyone by sight.

It's hard to remember, but it's impossible to confuse. The secret to the popularity of "Van Pease" is that the series, due to the very effect of "augmented reality", allows you to instantly drop out of everyday reality for an hour, where you open the news feed with horror, and when you go outside, you don't understand what else is going to happen to you today. Where you don't want to get up in the morning, and when night falls, you don't want to fall asleep, because you'll have nightmares again.

Van Pease is a total therapy, colorful sanatorium. Something like online role-playing games, only on the screen. Reality sometimes tries to cut in there: in newspapers, characters read about countries where a coup d'etat is taking place, and one character remembers going to the hospital room to see his dying mother. But all this is immediately banished from the plot.

We have to rest, we have to exhale, so here's a scene with the best swordsman in the world, who fights with three blades at once (one holding in his teeth). And here is a magician-artist who turns all living things into wax figures for the sake of eerie beauty, and only he appreciates it. He is played, by the way, by David Dastmalchian, who starred in Nolan, Villeneuve and Lynch.

Here's a sorceress who can summon a million human killer hands. But here is a creepy villain capable of swallowing, digesting and transforming any creatures and objects. Don't think, don't remember, don't be afraid — just watch the series and get emotions in their purest form. And there are so many of these emotions that the series received the highest possible rating on Tomatoes, even if it will decrease later when there are more reviews and not all of them will be enthusiastic.

Netflix believes in this series and knows how popular it is among Russian-speaking viewers, so "Van Pease" has a Russian dubbing. This is not so common today for top world series. However, it was clearly made with cost savings, and even if you compare it, for example, with a Japanese track, it sounds faded. It's better to watch it in English with Russian subtitles, they are also available.

And, of course, it is necessary to watch. Van Pease proves that spring has come, that there are many colors in the world that we have begun to forget about, that freedom, joy, adventure and, most importantly, carefree is not exotic, but a necessary condition for survival. «One Piece. The Big jackpot" may be a Kafkaesque castle that cannot be reached, but the values embedded in the series will remain with us somewhere in the subcortex, as well as Galich's synchronized, simple and important line: "Don't be afraid!"