By the end of One Piece 1076, Kaido is - at last - finally defeated. Thus ends an eye-watering long arc of anime and a new era dawns for the series.
The episode itself is what you expect by and large. We check in around Onigashima, get a flashback or two, then get one last big punch to bring down the curtain on this fight and we fade to black by the end. I'm not sure if there's much here to unpack - Raizo and Jinbei do some water control antics, Usopp saves Kiku and Kinemon, and we get some sunlit reaction shots from onlookers - and that's all she wrote.
Mostly, I want to reflect a bit on the sheer enormity of Wano. I have been writing the weekly reviews for One Piece here at ANN since the summer of 2020. In that time… this is the only arc I've written about. I've spent four years of my life reviewing One Piece week in and week out, and we're now just concluding the ultimate battle. Truthfully, we have some wrap-up episodes and post-battle partying still to conclude, so I've got a few more weeks of Wano coverage left.
The Wano arc is certainly an ambitious effort. This arc of One Piece alone is longer than the entirety of other anime series. Has it been worth it? Has the payoff met the expectation? That's not something I can definitively answer for you, dear reader, and I think answering it even for myself is a conundrum. There have been times when I've just wanted it to end already, while there were other stretches where I simply could not wait for more Wano. I think the fact that this enormous arc has been animated to such consistently high fidelity and helped deliver the emotional beats present in the manga speaks to the success of such a huge risk - it's hard to imagine thinking of this as anything other than a smash hit since I'm going “Uh, yeah I think four years of this was good to great by and large.” Lord knows I don't think I could sustain a similar level of creative quality and output over the same period, just reviewing the episodes has felt tiring at times.
That said, I'm unequivocally delighted that the sun of Joyboy has risen and we're about to move on to new horizons. I think the story of Wano has been told with aplomb and more adventures await.
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...
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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...
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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 ...
James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY.― Yatagarasu Gets Violent! James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu, in which Wakamiya plays his hand to find out the truth behind his older brother's scheming to obtain the throne. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY; Hunter x Hunter manga is on its ...
Making a sequel to Code Geass is a daunting task. But with its fantastic main character and a story that doesn't undercut what came before, Rozé of the Recapture is on the right track.― Making a sequel to Code Geass—especially one set close to the end of the series—is a daunting task. Any story that involves an ongoing war massively undercuts both the finale of the original anime and the sacrifices ...
The Switch sequel console is finally happening! The details are scarce, but you can find out more in this week's column. Also: an interview with El Shaddai's Sawaki Takeyasu, Microsoft layoffs, and more.― Welcome back, folks! What a wild week this has been for the gaming industry. We'll go further into it, but jeez. This past week also saw the disappearance of Capcom's Dark Void and Dark Void Zero. ...
The Code Geass creator discusses his new project with Web3 company Azuki, Enter the Garden, and his hope that this new path could help the medium evolve.― Los Angeles-based Web3 anime-styled brand Azuki and advertising conglomerate Dentsu debuted the first nine-minute episode of their joint anime endeavor, Enter the Garden, on April 30. The episode, which has already racked up a quarter of a million...