So we've now established the three battlefronts facing our heroes: Luffy's fighting Katakuri in the mirror world to keep the mochi man from interfering with his crew, Sanji, Pudding, and Chiffon are on Cacao island, baking Big Mom's replacement wedding cake as fast as they can, and the remainder of the Straw Hats sailing the waters of Totto Land to avoid a starving Big Mom and her massive fleet. There are a few ways in which these individual scenes can still interact and influence each other, like Katakuri's flunkies having access to the Sunny through its unbroken mirrors, and the plan to take the cake itself to sea once it's ready.
So far we've gotten episodes that have covered Luffy and Sanji's subplots pretty thoroughly, and this week we're putting our focus back on the Sunny crew and their naval battle. Sadly, the recent surge of quality for the One Piece anime is starting to simmer, and it's falling back into its usual stiffness. It's an extra shame because the centerpiece of the episode is adapting one of my absolute favorite scenes in the arc. Big Mom uses her soul powers to possess the water itself and animate a giant tidal wave (complete with a big cartoon face in the middle that's equal parts dopey and menacing), and Jimbei takes the wheel to steer the ship towards the danger and narrowly surf through the "green room", the open space within a collapsing wave.
With Jimbei's formal recruitment into the Straw Hats imminent, the audience has been wondering what his official job on the crew was going to be. Jimbei as the helmsman has always been the most realistic guess, but it's always been speculation based purely on the fact that we briefly saw him steering a ship hundreds of episodes ago. This episode makes it crystal clear that's where he's heading, and it makes perfect sense. It's a great confirmation scene that requires Jimbei to pull of a massive feat of technical skill. If he screwed up, they all would have died, so it feels nice to know our fish uncle is so reliable.
Unfortunately, as much as I like this scene in essence, it's barely a step above the rest of this chore of an episode. It's extremely underwhelming in execution and you can tell the anime's going to hit a rough patch while we wait for the next big exciting turn to get the anime staff enthusiastic again. The scenes that cut back to Luffy and Sanji's parts are also at risk of getting tiresome already, since they're easy padding for the episode. It always sucks when the anime can take something good and ruin it by repeating it too many times—which is where Sanji and Pudding are for me at the moment.
This is a limp episode that covers some good material that serves as a benchmark for Jimbei's painfully endless journey to Straw Hat Land. It's also a really novel use of Big Mom's powers, with a giant tidal wave being a perfect beat to really hammer home how aggressive and inescapable the villains are, but the heightened drama just doesn't come through enough this week.
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 ...
James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY.― Yatagarasu Gets Violent! James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu, in which Wakamiya plays his hand to find out the truth behind his older brother's scheming to obtain the throne. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY; Hunter x Hunter manga is on its ...
Making a sequel to Code Geass is a daunting task. But with its fantastic main character and a story that doesn't undercut what came before, Rozé of the Recapture is on the right track.― Making a sequel to Code Geass—especially one set close to the end of the series—is a daunting task. Any story that involves an ongoing war massively undercuts both the finale of the original anime and the sacrifices ...
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...