When the clock strikes midnight, it's time for the dog to go to sleep and for the cat to take over the night. This episode introduces us at last to that cat, the Duke of the Night known as the Cat Viper. Unlike Dogstorm who seems fairly collected and withdrawn, Cat Viper is wild and unhinged. He has a big poofy lion's mane and dresses like a Japanese crime boss, meaning that's he's obviously one of the coolest new characters in recent memory.
However, he's only present for about the last fourth of this episode, if even that. The rest of the episode is the padded continuation of Dogstorm and the Musketeers fighting off Jack and the rest of Kaido's men in flashback form. There's something very unfortunate about the direction of this episode, because it's so notably lifeless for large chunks of it. Panels that I remember being amazingly cool in the manga (like Dogstorm stopping Jack's trunk in a big explosion of dust) are nowhere near as impressive here, and the pacing and music choices throughout demand little attention. My first thought when the episode started up was, “Wow, we've done nothing but watch this mammoth guy stand in place for three episodes now,” and that's really how it feels.
I've got mixed feelings on Jack at the moment. When one of his henchmen announces to the Minks (and more importantly, the audience) that his boss's bounty is a whopping one billion berries, my heart did a little pitter-patter of excitement. I've always loved bounties as a device in this series to create a hierarchy among the strong characters and establish who is a big deal and who is not very quickly. One billion is so much higher than what we've seen in the series so far (Luffy's 500 million is about as high as it's gotten), and yet Jack is still technically an underling of Kaido's. We've essentially just established the next ceiling for Luffy to break.
My mixed feelings come from just how unimpressive he is in this anime. Again, there's a lot of just standing around and talking, but even the big action highlights feel bereft of energy. We can safely assume that Jack and his henchmen are only being introduced at this moment, and that they will become more present and familiar as the Straw Hats get more and more entangled with Kaido, but there's still something that feels undefined. Like, could you imagine these guys being the common battle fodder in a Dressrosa-sized arc? Because that's what we'd have to expect.
Otherwise, this episode does give us the wonder that is Master Cat Viper. I was in awe when midnight hit, as we see his eyes open in the dark and hear his booming “nyaaaaa~" echoing throughout Zou. Dogstorm vanishes between shots like a slasher movie villain, aware that his turn has ended. There's still some wonkiness to the animation when Cat Viper arrives, but he enters the scene with so much speed and energy that I can forgive it. Jack and his men seemed like they were at least starting to sweat after hours of fighting with Dogstorm, and now they have a much wilder, well-rested opponent to fight.
Aside from Cat Viper, these last few episodes have been a bit draining. The fantastic production of the initial Zou episodes is on break, and we're in the middle of a slow-burn exposition dump as Luffy and friends get filled in on the happenings before their arrival. Both Dogstorm and Cat Viper are pretty cool dudes, but I'm hoping we get some forward momentum again soon.
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...
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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 ...
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The Switch sequel console is finally happening! The details are scarce, but you can find out more in this week's column. Also: an interview with El Shaddai's Sawaki Takeyasu, Microsoft layoffs, and more.― Welcome back, folks! What a wild week this has been for the gaming industry. We'll go further into it, but jeez. This past week also saw the disappearance of Capcom's Dark Void and Dark Void Zero. ...
The Code Geass creator discusses his new project with Web3 company Azuki, Enter the Garden, and his hope that this new path could help the medium evolve.― Los Angeles-based Web3 anime-styled brand Azuki and advertising conglomerate Dentsu debuted the first nine-minute episode of their joint anime endeavor, Enter the Garden, on April 30. The episode, which has already racked up a quarter of a million...