Another heaping helping of “your mileage may vary” with Wano arc. As much as I personally would have liked to see more of the Robin and Black Maria fight, this week's entry instead shifts its focus toward boss Hyogoro. As such, how you feel about episode 1022 will likely depend on how invested you are in his character.
I like Hyogoro, so the overall experience is a net positive for me. Both familiar and unique, Hyogoro is in some ways similar to Rayleigh, an older mentor figure who helps Luffy unlock Haki/Ryou and achieve the next phase of his advancement. Unlike Rayleigh, however, Hyogoro is much more of a local legend than a world-famous pirate, and there's a greater sense of pathos surrounding him. Rayleigh is older, yes, but he seems to mostly have simply aged out of the game and moved on after Roger's passing. While that's still sad, he seems like a more jovial character overall, and provides a tangible link to the bygone era that is more reaffirming for Luffy.
Hyogoro has been a more tragic figure from the start. His long-term imprisonment, coupled with the horrible events that befell him in the takeover of Wano by Kaido and Orochi, have given him a more somber tone. There's an underlying sense of desperation with him that has made even Luffy's growth under his tutelage quite bittersweet. 1022 gives us a proper ending so to speak, a finality to his story as he faces down the disease that he can't seem to defeat. Chopper is working as hard as he can, but even victory may come at a great cost. Wano cannot shake off the shackles of tyranny unscathed – and Hyogoro knows that.
If you're not invested in Hygoro though (and who can blame you, he is one of dozens of side characters in this arc alone), this all may ring a bit hollow.
Healer Nanna's powers have one very unique caveat: she has to have sex with the person to heal them. See why Rebecca Silverman calls it "a cute story, decently racy, and generally good, fluffy fun."― One of the fun things about Seven Seas' Steamship line of racy manga aimed at a female audience is finding which romance tropes are prevalent in any given release. While every genre has its tropes and s...
What's the perfect recipe for waifu supremacy? Lucas and Nick look at fan-favorites from Yu Yu Hakusho to Spice & Wolf.― What's the perfect recipe for waifu supremacy? Lucas and Nick look at fan-favorites from Yu Yu Hakusho to Spice & Wolf. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.Spoiler Warning for discussion of the s...
Train to the End of the World and Voice Actor Radio are getting a lot of love these last few weeks! Discover which other series stand out in our weekly user rankings!― Let's have a look at what ANN readers consider the best (and worst) of the season,
based on the polls you can find in our Daily Streaming Reviews
and on the Your Score page with the latest simulcasts. Keep in mind that these rankings...
Crystal Kay previously sang themes for 2004's Fullmetal Alchemist and Nodame Cantabile― Recently, Anime News Network was able to sit down with singer-songwriter Crystal Kay and talk about not only her involvement with anime over the years but also what it was like to grow up in Japan as the child of a Korean-Japanese mother and an African-American father. Anime fans likely know of Crystal Kay throug...
The plot is excellent in the romance camp. Everything that happens is to get Eui-joon and Gunwoo together, and it works pretty well.― You can read The Dangerous Convenience Store in English two ways. The first is to read it on the manhwa site/app Manta, which has all seventy-five chapters and four bonus stories available. The second is to read Seven Seas' print (or ebook) edition, which, as of this ...
Some older mysteries inch closer to resolution as the true nature of the Abyss slowly comes into view, and long-posed questions start to be answered.― Sometimes, being a fan of Akihito Tsukushi's acclaimed Made in Abyss series means acclimating to suffering. Like many Western devotees, I was introduced to this bizarre, squishy, disturbing world via the 2017 first season of Kinema Citrus' fantastic a...
60th, final episode of previous anime streamed on YouTube on Friday― The official Twitter account for the anime of Penguin Box's Odekake Kozame (Little Shark's Outings) manga announced on Friday that the manga will get a new anime series. Update: The staff revealed a visual for the new series in a press release on Saturday. The previous anime series debuted on YouTube last August, and its 60th and f...
Recently ended manga follows middle school student living with mysterious bird-looking creature― Shogakukan announced on Friday that Akira Konno's Kujima Utaeba Ie Hororo manga is inspiring an anime. The "bird(?) home comedy" manga's story starts when first-year middle school student Arata Kōda meets a mysterious bird-looking creature named Kujima in autumn. Hungry and craving Japanese food, Kujima ...
As Slam Dunk reached its final stretch, I can see why this series is considered the sports classic that it is today.― This is the largest batch of Slam Dunk episodes that I've reviewed thus far. Originally, I wanted to review the show in more even seasons, but given its overall pacing and release, it wasn't easy to find a moment where it felt right to stop and start again. However, as we approached ...