The one hurdle that I think Whole Cake Island is going to struggle with until the end is that it's really hard to nail that "Oh no! A Straw Hat might leave the crew!" trope that the series has done so well in the past. I'm reminded how badly I want to be on the edge of my seat as Luffy and Cracker fight, exchanging banter over whether Sanji would ever want to sail on a pirate ship again after being promised a life of luxury among royalty. Luffy argues against this, and I wish it could feel more cathartic as he does because come on, how could anybody ever feel the suspense at this point?
I say this because otherwise Luffy vs. Cracker is a great fight. Last week got us going, but this week we barrel forward into a well-directed episode full of animated character acting from both combatants and some fun twists to the battle. Luffy unleashes Fourth Gear for the first time since Dressrosa, and we all remember how much of a last ditch effort that was with its dramatic cool-down phase. Cracker is that level of an opponent, being one of an Emperor's top generals and all.
I also like the mild scenery change that we get as the fight takes them to the outskirts of the Seducing Woods, where they bump up against the wall of Whole Cake Chateau. There's a clearing with a little Hansel and Gretel house that they get to smash into as the fight goes through its ebb and flow, before Luffy smashes Cracker back into the woods with his new power-up. The best part, however, is when Luffy's attack seems to break Cracker in half, and we discover that the large-bearded man we've been fighting this whole time was just a suit of armor for the real Charlotte Cracker, who's got a much leaner (and in my opinion, cooler) design. Cracker's been so good at hiding his true persona that even the Navy's wanted poster of him only shows his armor, none the wiser.
Cracker has a "Biscuit" Devil Fruit that allows him to summon a seemingly infinite amount of carb-heavy materials and shape them however he wants. This means that the armor that Luffy had been struggling with so much can be one of many, piling on the excitement as we wonder how Luffy could possibly fight his way out of this. A shonen hero never giving up is a cliché, but I've always loved how much One Piece makes you feel it.
In general I would describe this as a very pretty episode. We cut back to Sanji and Reiju, and all that stuff looks great, but I did find myself chuckling at the on-the-nose visual metaphor that the anime included, where Sanji is admiring a butterfly that flutters away the second he's reminded of the bomb cuffs around his wrists. Nice try, guys. Very subtle.
My Hero Academia has really raised the bar for me when it comes to looking solid and on-model at its worst and mind-blowing at its best, so when a One Piece episode makes me say "I wish this is how all One Piece episodes looked!" I have to pause because even that height isn't quite up to snuff compared to other modern shows. It's still true though, and when we do occasionally get an episode of One Piece that has that extra bit of pulse, all is right with the world.
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 ...