A Celestial Dragon! Doffy's Stormy Past

Asleep at Spider Miles, Doflamingo relives the day commoners strung up his family by the arms outside their burning home, debating how best to make former World Nobles suffer. A bowman taunts the blindfolded boy, demanding to know whether a Celestial Dragon has ever felt hunger or pain before loosing arrows at him. Doflamingo wakes drenched in sweat, and a Den Den Mushi brings word that Law has done something.

Seventeen years earlier, Homing renounced the family's noble status, scandalizing Mary Geoise, and resettled them on a North Blue island to live as ordinary humans. The townspeople recoiled on learning their origins, and after Doflamingo demanded servants and a gun, a mob burned the house and chased the family into the forest. Rejected when Homing begged the World Nobles to take his wife and sons back, the family sank into starvation, and their mother died, with Doflamingo blaming his father.

Giolla and Machvise drag Law before Doflamingo after catching him fleeing, but rather than punish the stabbing of Corazon, Doflamingo welcomes Law into the Donquixote Pirates, sensing rare quality in his eyes and promising that a black-market Devil Fruit might one day cure his Amber Lead poisoning. Corazon covers for Law, claiming an enemy gave him the wound. Law trains in firearms with Gladius, martial arts with Lao G, and swordsmanship with Diamante. Two years on, pressured by Buffalo, Law reveals his full name, Trafalgar D. Water Law, alerting Corazon, who hauls him into an alley, speaks aloud at last, and warns him to get away from Doflamingo because of the D. in his name.

The anime softens or alters several mob details, fires two arrows at young Doflamingo instead of one, and gives clearer views of Doflamingo and Rosinante as nobles. It extends Homing's exchange with the World Nobles, shows him introducing himself to townsfolk, and places the family behind him during his plea to Mary Geoise. Doflamingo stands before a treasure chest Rosinante opens rather than sitting atop a pile, and Pandaman joins the delinquents beating the brothers. The episode follows the volume dialogue and shortens its next-episode preview to fit a look at Episode of Sabo. Wellington debuts. Rated 8.1.