As soon as I think Wano fatigue has finally set in, they pull me right back from the brink.
The big rumble with Queen is one of the things in Wano that I struggle to get invested in. I understand the function of it, mind you. It's important to remind the audience that Onigashima is not simply just a few skirmishes between big personalities, but a sprawling battle waged by thousands of warriors for the fate of the new era. It just feels like we cut back to Queen laughing and people turning into ice oni one too many times at this point, and it is starting to wear on me.
That said, boy did we get a big mixup this week.
The battle with Kaido on the roof is expectedly great. I think what really sticks out to me is that even in the face of Kaido's wrath, the source of the Akazaya Nine's fear is not Kaido as much as it is seeing Oden in the afterlife with their duty unfulfilled. They are truly his retainers eternal, and it's heart-wrenching to see them give it all they've got and still come up short. Having no music during the fade to the eye-catch – and making Kaido's booming approaching footsteps the last thing viewers hear before the commercial break – was a brilliant touch.
Then of course it's Zoro time baby. Our favorite green-haired swordsman always gets the jaw-dropping visuals, and Wano has been particularly kind to him. What can I even say about the sequence where he takes down Apoo? How many times can I compliment the team at Toei for their incredible work? We're like three years into Wano at this point, and it's basically been an unbroken run of gorgeous episodes. They pulled out all the stops so many times that they had to have new stops installed just to pull them out again. The cracked shade POV shot from Apoo is somewhat reminiscent of the sequence with Trunks and Frieza, and the glass effect is another nice touch that gave it new texture.
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...
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 ...