The Toei team is back to spoiling us again with another amazing twenty minutes of weekly television. There were a few negatives to contend with before we get into the good stuff: there was a slightly longer than usual recap sequence of prior episodes' animation, and quite a few repeated sequences. In the latter's case, it was particularly egregious with the Yamato hallway running sequences, which we saw two to three times shot for shot. But that did not detract from the highs this episode had, which were just phenomenal.
The Ulti versus Luffy fight is the big bombastic centerpiece of the episode. The sibling bickering shtick getting replayed was slightly annoying, but once Ulti and Luffy got to their standoff, everything really ramped up. The actual fight between them, replete with high-flying headbutts and thunderous throws, was jaw-dropping and of the quality we have come to expect during Wano's big moments. There was plenty of gorgeous animation and dazzling effects to go with each bone-crunching blow.
Yamato's arrival is also a welcome one. Anime viewers finally get to see the son of Kaido arrive on the scene and begin one of the most interesting character arcs in recent memory. Wano is full of terrific characters, but in my opinion, Yamato is perhaps the truest culmination of everything at play in the setting locally and globally. Not only that, we get to see Yamato deliver an absolutely terrific home run hit in Thunder Bagua, one of my favorite sequences in an arc already hitting top-shelf quality again and again.
Even some of the slower moments like Ulti and Luffy conversing were very well done visually. I thought the softer linework the Toei team used in those moments was reminiscent of the Baron Omatsuri film (and the trademark visual flair of many of Mamoru Hosoda's works) in the best way. Other visual flairs like the recurring motif of eyes in close-ups and through masks – windows to the true soul and determination of the many characters involved in these world-shattering events – were more icing on the cake.
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 ...