The World's Strongest Weirdo! Jango the Hypnotist!

The butler Klahadore turns down the crew's plea for a ship and rounds on Usopp, mocking the boy's pirate father as a lowly thug. Stung, Usopp lashes out, and Klahadore drives the whole group from the front yard with orders never to come back. Inside, a tearful Kaya is consoled by the butler, who recounts how her late father took him in as a derelict in Syrup Village and how he vowed to guard her after her parents died, Usopp included among the influences he deems harmful. She forgives his rough conduct.

Out on the edge of town, Zoro and Nami pass time with the local children when one of them spots a peculiar moonwalking stranger. The man presents himself as a hypnotist and lulls the kids to sleep using a ring on a string, only to drop off himself by accident.

Perched on a cliff, Usopp and Luffy chat about Usopp's father Yasopp until they spot Klahadore meeting in secret with the hypnotist, Jango, at the base below. To their alarm, the butler is revealed to be Captain Kuro of the Black Cat Pirates. The two schemers intend to kill Kaya and seize her fortune, with Jango set to hypnotize her into rewriting her will. Kuro explains that he dodged the Marines by handing over a body double to be executed in his place, and that his crew's ship waits offshore, poised to storm the village.

The plotters catch sight of the eavesdroppers. Jango hypnotizes Luffy into a sleep so sudden that he topples headfirst off the cliff. Judging that no one would believe Usopp's warning, they let him run, and he bolts back toward the village.

The episode falls within the Syrup Village Arc and marks the anime debut of Nugire Yainu, the lookalike Kuro sacrificed to the Marines. A rippling water effect is layered onto the To Be Continued card for this installment.

The 4Kids dub retitled it "The Bluff and the Bluffer," a pun pointing both to the coastal bluff where Luffy and Usopp sit and to Usopp's reputation as a teller of tall tales.