I'm going to do my best to write about this episode without absolutely frothing at the mouth over giant evil women. I'd also promise that would not color my review, but I won't make a promise I can't keep…
Episode 1044 continues to illustrate some of my core theses about One Piece. Firstly, the episodes which delve into the emotional context of the core Straw Hat crew are far and away the strongest material in the series. Secondly, Nico Robin is a strong enough character to have her own series entirely.
Let's take the flashbacks for example. Most of the flashbacks we see, while artfully done and cinematically rich, are reminders of what we have already seen. Events such as her mother's death, Saul teaching her to laugh, being hounded by other people, and so forth – it hits hard, but there's not much in the way of new revelations here. We already knew most of these things and their emotional beats (though they are always nice to revisit).
The one new piece of information we do get is a bit about Robin's time with the revolutionary army during the time skip. We still know next to nothing about what happened during those two years, and this flashback doesn't exactly reveal a whole lot. We knew she spent time with Koala and Sabo, but now we get more details about Koala teaching her a few Fish-Man Karate techniques. It's a very small amount of new information, but everything – from their little arguments about who gets to work with Robin to her emotional journey in self-worth and fighting to protect herself and others – is incredibly engaging. Robin was with the revolutionary army for two years, and finding out about a single moment in that time is enough to fill an episode with depth and introspection.
Not to mention the marquee fight being an absolute tour de force. Black Maria and Robin's throwdown is somewhere between a kaiju battle and a Devilman fight, and it is full of gorgeous visuals and fluid motion. Toei really made this feel like the highlight of Wano – and I wonder if they'll be able to top it by the end.
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 ...