As of right now, the Luffy vs. Katakuri fight seems really at war with itself, since it's so long and slow without a ton of variation in the material, but even when it gets repetitive, the action manages to be interesting and engaging. The fighters have cool powers, and there's a much greater emphasis on the actual choreography than we often see in One Piece. Right now Luffy's greatest challenge is out-speeding Katakuri's Observation Haki. Since his opponent can predict his moves, he has to exhaust twice as much stamina to dodge. It doesn't help that now we're learning Katakuri has "awakened" Devil Fruit powers like Doflamingo, meaning he can turn the physical world around him into mochi as well.
Once again, there's not a ton of story movement as much as now would be the time for things to get going. I think the scene I actually appreciated the most this week was with the side characters chit-chatting on the shoreline of Whole Cake Island. Charlotte Montd'or and the Artist Formally Known as Baron Tamago (now "Count Niwatori") talk about the Straw Hats' chances at victory. An element that really gets lost when you're watching this show week-to-week is that enormous sense of gutsiness and achievment. Niwatori is looking back at recent events and remarks that Luffy's crew has already accomplished more than any other rookies could dream of, between breaking into the Emperor's lair, knocking her castle down, and (mostly) surviving all the way to this point. Montd'or doesn't wanna hear it, but the reminder is in the audience's head.
The biggest change this week actually comes with the Germa 66 fight, which finally concludes this week. It's funny, in the manga this whole fight was off screen until the very end where we see them chilling on a mountain pirate corpses. I didn't mind some of this filler but it really undermined itself by showing us the same batch of match-ups over the past several months, so the ending feels so much more extreme by comparison. Each Vinsmoke kid took several episodes to defeat their given opponents, and now they've suddenly taken out hundreds of people.
The episode ends with the Vinsmokes calling in and tricking the rest of the Big Mom pirates into thinking they were victorious on the Germa side of the fight, and now they're planning to make their next move. They're still in that quasi-ally state with the Straw Hats, so who knows what sort of help they might lend, if they're even in the helping mood at all after all this.
So we're two-for-two on Luffy vs. Katakuri fight episodes where not a ton happens, and we've had little of the other Straw Hats present to balance it out. There are parts of this fight that are definitely a long-winded grind, and if the show had the luxury of trimming it down, I think it'd improve the experience a lot. That said, the fight has yet to get boring per se, and it helps that the animation hasn't bottomed out, but we're in desperate need to get some of that oomph back soon. It's an acceptable episode, but I'm hungry for a lot more substance at the moment.
Japanese studio to handle production slated for broadcast, streaming globally― Kadokawa and Singaporean game developer and publisher Garena announced on Monday that they are co-producing an anime adaptation of Garena's Garena Free Fire battle royale shooting game, with a Japanese studio handling the animation. Kadokawa's Kadokawa Qingyu subsidiary is the production manager. The anime is planned to b...
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...
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 ...