This is one of those episodes that I struggle to write a review for. Most of the runtime is setting up for the next round of one versus one fights across Onigashima, while a dozen other battles are still raging. I would not go so far as to say that Wano is as bad as Dressrosa in regards to fight pacing and having too much going on, but it's still hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff happening and how many characters are involved.
Very little actual fighting happens in this episode to boot. It's mostly characters talking about getting ready to fight their next opponent: Jinbei and the beast pirates, Franky and Sasaki, Ulti and Nami, etc. Even if well-animated and directed, watching “Grrrr, I'm gonna beat you up!” repeated a few dozen times in vaguely similar disconnected locations across Onigashima is a bit tiresome.
I think what compounds the problem is the sort of hand-wavey feeling of Onigashima. Despite the maps Oda lays out from time to time, I still don't really know if I have a good sense of how big the island is or the sizes of the structures within it. Everything feels like it is as big as it needs to be – which is fine – but the act of traversing through these locations seems mind-numbingly long. Week after week of Luffy running through vaguely long hallways leading into darkness to get where he needs to be… just how much longer will Luffy be running? Another episode? Ten more? It's impossible to tell at the moment, and that deflates a lot of the tension that should be present in these scenes.
On the positive side, we get lots of great animation flourishes this week. Chopper hilariously rolling around in Marco's flames is a delight. Franky getting to flex (literally and figuratively) in the Iron Pirate with all the shine and dazzling lights is superb. And the introduction of the brief Ace bit at the end, tying him with Yamato, is a great sequence. It all looks and sounds terrific – I just wish these connective episodes had more to them beyond setup.
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 ...