I switched to the anime for Water 7/Ennies Lobby. Basically done with it, just got past the episodes with Garp/Coby/Helmeppo. I did a mix of dub and sub - dub early on, then I reached my limit of tolerance for the dub voices so I switched over to sub
I thought it largely ruled. It got off to a bad start because I was getting sick of the fucking Davy Back fight and then Luffy said he wanted a REMATCH and I was like "no, just absolutely fucking not" and then looked it up - and realised that the anime had added way more to it to pad it out. I then researched and found that didn't happen again for the rest of the saga so I just skipped past the rematch. Otherwise I'd have gone back to the manga.
The earlier more relaxed stuff in Water 7 was good. Nice to have low-stakes character interactions and the characters enjoying life and getting a bunch of money, and a good sense of tension as it all got built up. The reveal about the Merry hurt. I knew about Lucci already, but I didn't know about the others all being CP9, including the secretary, so that was a twist I appreciated. It then felt like they were in that fuckin building with Iceberg for ages but whatever.
Then they got on the train and that was cool (apart from the weird Ramen/Sanji fight). Obviously Sogeking was perfection and I'm glad I watched the anime just for his ridiculous theme song and the way he quietly sang it to himself at times for the rest of it. I am so glad everyone just knew it was Usopp (except Luffy and Chopper). Much funnier that way.
I think they did a good job of making Spandam look like the biggest piece of shit in the world, and essentially a nepo baby, given Lucci was obviously stronger. Very satisfying when Robin eventually snapped his spine in two, I didn't think they'd go that hard but he felt like he deserved it more than any other character so far.
The incredible momentum once they reached Ennies Lobby and Luffy just went on a tear for a few episodes was fantastic. I could have watched another episode or two of Luffy just decimating the Marines. Very fun to watch. Robin's flashback more than earned the multiple episodes it got; I knew about "I want to live" already but it still hit pretty hard, really well done. The fact that she repeatedly turned them down and told them to stop trying to rescue her - at Water7, in Iceberg's building, on the train, before the flashback - strengthened the whole thing so much. Took a lot to tear down those walls.
A bunch of the stuff before Robin got out of the cuffs but after they got into the building was just...jesus. The pacing fell completely off a cliff and I really had to look for the good stuff. I skipped forward 10 seconds more often than ever as I tried to get through it. The episode where Spandam triggers the buster call and the rest of the episode is basically just people reacting to it was borderline criminal (though Robin's trauma about Buster Calls was well handled throughout the arc). Zoro and Usopp getting cuffed together was a funny gag and led to some funny stuff like Zoro using Usopp as a sword and Zoro again suggesting amputation, but then they were cuffed together for something like 285 episodes so it massively overstayed its welcome. In the meantime (I think) Franky, the character I care about least (I actively dislike his design) was fighting the most annoying member of CP9 or something and Nami was having (what felt like) a very long and silly fight, and I just wanted it to be over. Once it sorted itself out and Zoro fought Kaku and Sanji fought wolf guy, it felt better and more substantial.
Luffy's fight with Lucci seemed...almost inconsequential? Like everyone else beat the rest of CP9 and got Robin out of the cuffs, and was fighting off the Marines, so it felt like it was more about Luffy himself. Which I suppose is fine, but there was a sense of urgency in the other fights that didn't quite exist in that one until the very end. Also it went on for fuckin ages. Tiny Luffy after Gear 3 was funny though.
So yeah a lot of stuff in the tower felt like a 5/10 or worse (just spread way too thin and horribly paced) but the stuff before and after was mostly terrific good, somewhere between a 7 and a 10.
I'll probably switch back to the manga for the next arc, but I'll come back to the anime at some point I imagine.