Oden heads straight for the Flower Capital, intent on revenge. Oden is full of rage at the treatment of his family and his homeland, and seeks to confront Orochi directly. He attempts to slay Orochi but one of the shogun's subordinates creates a barrier around him, protecting Orochi from Oden's wrath. Undeterred, Oden demands that Orochi relinquish the throne he is sitting in, as Oden has returned to take his rightful place. It is in this moment that Orochi reveals he is no mere warden of the throne - Oden's father named him the shogun in truth, thanks to the shapeshifting abilities of his associates.
In addition, Orochi reveals that his family suffered greatly under the Kozuki clan. Orochi says that he will spare the people of Wano from his wrath if Oden plays the fool and embarrasses himself daily. Oden begrudgingly agrees. The people of Wano, at first excited to see Oden's return to liberate them, now look on in horror as Oden prances about and sings silly songs while they suffer under Orochi's rule. He becomes a figure of disdain, with parents telling their children not to grow up to be like him, and a dark time begins for Wano.
Then news arrives of Roger's death. Finally executed by the World Government on the grand stage, Roger's career ends and a new age of piracy begins as the next generation of lawbreakers watches on with mixed reactions. Whitebeard takes the news in stride, reflecting on conversations they had in the past. Oden is brought to tears and weeps for his lost friend, marvelling at the life Roger led as the episode draws to a close.
As the retelling of Roger's life ends, the true story of One Piece begins.
It is hard to capture the momentous importance of this episode and its events. Obviously, the Oden flashback will continue - and if ever there were a truer One Piece moment, it would be that this flashback alone is longer than some arcs in other manga. But the legendary time of Roger's life fades into history once again, and our brief glimpse into that time closes out. It has been a treat to see these events in full, or at least a portion of them, when for so long they have been hazy myth and legend. Now we have a sense of who these great figures were and what that past age looked like for the first time.
Most importantly, I think the revisiting of Roger's flashback signals a certain trajectory for the series. One Piece clearly has many years left in it, and rumors of its impending end have often been proved false. That being said, it is hard not to see the gravitas of all this. Luffy and his plucky band are battling Emperors toe to toe, they are collecting poneglyphs and unearthing ancient secrets. And now we revisit the opening of our tale - Roger's execution - with newfound clarity and emotional weight.
It's hard not to see this as a setup for the final stages.
Eiichiro Oda always has a few extra tricks up his sleeves, so perhaps this is just the time he chose to tell these moments and there is still plenty of One Piece to go. Truth be told, even if the next arc were the :final arc of One Piece, it would still take years to tell if it were “just” as long as Wano arc has been. So we still have plenty of pirate adventure ahead of us. But in a bittersweet way, it is hard not to feel like we are setting up for the final stages of this great story.
Oh, and this episode has Doflamingo being totally bare-chested at Roger's execution. Talk about a power move.
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 ...