The enthusiastic but slapdash structure of Whole Cake Island's climax has been starting to take its toll these past few weeks. Things were just heating up with Fourth Gear Luffy's onslaught against Katakuri, but the entire reason Luffy waited this long to bust this transformation out in the first place is that he knows it has a time limit and a gnarly recharge time. Katakuri's Observation Haki has returned and now Luffy's power is beginning to deflate, meaning he has to hightail it out of the mirror world altogether. He finds Brulee hiding around one of the corners, so he's able to kidnap her and escape.
There's a lot that's hit and miss about this portion of the battle. It seems with each escalation of the stakes, something else has to get dramatically undercut in the process. Luffy is able to escape the battle and leaves Katakuri stuck in the mirror world. That's good! But the mirror he exits from just happens to bring him to Nuts Island, where Big Mom is actively rampaging and throwing skyscraper-sized peanuts around. That's bad! I love that the second Luffy uses his Get Out of Jail Free Card he accidentally stumbles into a much, much worse scenario. There are so many places this could go, but unfortunately this will ultimately prove to be a momentary breather from the Katakuri fight, and all we're doing is wasting our time. The tension that was building during the actual important part of the story has been shot in the foot.
The animation isn't helping a ton either, and it really shows during the scene that needs it the most: a new musical number! That's right, this is still a musical arc, even in the heat of battle, and this time it's Praline singing away the Big Mom pirates' territory sea slugs. This is a nice return of Jimbei's Sun pirates, and a further extension of this arc's crazy Rube Goldberg machine of a plot. Though, it should feel a lot more effective and whimsical, really nailing the arc's equilibrium between the Straw Hats' crazy luck and their systematic domination of the Big Mom pirates, but it's barely animated and the song's composition feels unfinished. This could have been a perfectly timed breath of fresh air to contrast against the same-y Katakuri fight, but instead it's just really boring.
This is a big turning point for the climax of the arc. Luffy has changed locations, the Sunny crew is getting ready to make their next move, and the breading of the new wedding cake has been finished, meaning Sanji and company will be heading out to sea while they put on the finishing touches. Sadly, it's all too little too late. We're constantly waiting for the next big shake up, and yet when we get it we still feel like we're jogging in place. I like a lot of what this big operatic chase adventure is going for, but the weaknesses are showing through way too much this week.
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 ...