This episode is hard to review as a whole as it is sort of split into three parts. I'll do my best to break them down evenly.
The opening section focuses on tying up loose ends. Big Mom gets to deliver a few big hits and we get some wonderful sequences where her lips are imposed over the blank background. Even after all this time since her introduction, she continues to inspire fear and provide viewers with excellent attack animations to savor. Also, Page One's pursuit of Usopp and Nami continues; I honestly forgot that this was still happening, but the shot of Nami electrifying him is, well, electrifying – animated to the nines and with a terrific chaser reaction shot of Usopp and Nami together. They're always a delight.
The middle section focuses on Eustass and Killer battling Hawkins. I have to admit, of all the various Wano threads I find Killer's to be weirdly endearing. There's not much in the way of moral conflict or grand stakes here: Killer was used and he's bitter about it, so he's going to make good on his name and shed some blood. That's it really. Simple, direct, and definitely relatable, it's nice having this overt revenge plot in Wano because it's incredibly easy to jump back into and root for Killer at the drop of a hat.
The final section is the Luffy and Kaido fight and… wow. I have said it again and again yet here I am saying it for the one-hundredth again: the Toei team is pulling out all the stops for us. The shimmering golden sparks, the expertly cut flashbacks, the gorgeous backgrounds, the sense of raw energy coming off every punch...it really does feel like the fight on top of the world that will usher in a new era. And when Luffy is uppercutting and "WE ARE" is blaring, it's hard not to feel that same rush that I felt when I first fell in love with the series. That boy really will be king of the pirates, and Toei has anointed him with a crown of shimmering jewels with their animation.
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 ...