As glowing as I was toward last week's episode, I was kind of conceding to its choice to frame Pedro's sacrifice as entirely heroic. I figured that either the anime wasn't interested in committing to the darker atmosphere and opted instead to play things completely straight, or that the murkier flavor was just me reading too much into things. So I'm elated to come back this week and see the show indulging in as much of that darkness as I could have reasonably asked for.
It's noteworthy that these days we have a show like My Hero Academia, which puts so much emphasis on asking its heroes to take care of themselves. It's a notorious struggle against overwork for manga artists and animators, which can so easily cast themes of self-sacrifice and tenacity in shonen manga in a new light. Eiichiro Oda is pretty infamous for an unhealthy commitment to his work. A series like MHA says don't get yourself killed. Think about how much pain you're putting your loved ones through by romanticizing that kind of overwork. Whole Cake Island feels like the most that Oda has ever empathized with that kind of message (appropriately at a time when the manga is taking more frequent breaks for this very reason), but in doing so, he seems to also acknowledge that his characters might be incapable of ever learning that lesson.
"I have to live up to the expectations that made you sacrifice yourself," is what Carrot says to herself in the wake of Pedro's death. The smoke from Pedro's dynamite blocks the daylight. The sound design is straight out of a horror movie. There's a jaguar-shaped hole in our crew now, and sympathy for the dead is just twisting the knife. I love how the Straw Hats are still glancing at the shoreline, expecting Pedro to have survived just as much as the audience, but instead it's that damned Perospero walking the explosion off with only a missing limb. The sickening mixture of emotions is so potent.
For how slow the anime adaptation can be, this is one of those episodes that feels like it's over within five minutes. On top of the Pedro fallout, the problems continue to stack up with Katakuri's counter attack, the Coup de Burst's warm-up time, and Big Mom already chewing on the back of the Thousand Sunny, looking even more like an actual monster. Luffy doesn't miss a beat in securing his role as captain of the ship. When the Sunny finally does blast off, he yanks Katakuri into Brulee's mirror world with him and smashes the mirror so neither of them can escape back to the Sunny. He's leaving the naval battle to his crew, the cake-baking to Sanji, and the fight with the one billion man to himself. The whole situation is so thrilling and badass.
The One Piece anime is firing on all cylinders this week. This is an alarmingly good episode, a cut above what I've gotten used to expecting. It's atmospheric, visually detailed, and rich with a plethora of emotions vying for the audience's attention. I know the show can't stay at this level of quality for long, but I desperately wish it could. Carrot gets a lot of focus this week, to my delight, and we see a version of Luffy that's been absent for a while—the underdog with balls of steel. The crew is willfully throwing themselves into those big one-in-a-million chance scenarios and my blood is on fire with excitement as a result.
Mimori intends to continue voice roles, singing career― Voice actress and singer Suzuko Mimori announced on her Twitter account on Thursday that she is moving to the United States this summer. She acknowledges that the move will mean that her voice work will not necessarily stay the same as before, but that she will strive to continue performing her roles to the best off her ability. She also added ...
Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups.― Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News...
I cannot imagine how Square Enix could top themselves after this.― Final Fantasy VII Rebirth initially launched on the last day of February, and if you look at the date of this review's publication, you will immediately be able to discern one thing about this second entry of the FF7 Remake series: It is gargantuan. The first game got plenty of praise (and plenty of flak) for taking the relatively sh...
Anime's first season premiered in 2018― The official website for Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, the television anime of writer Midori Yūma and illustrator Laruha's Kakuriyo Yadomeshi (Afterlife Inn Cooking) light novel series, announced that the series will have a second season in fall 2025, and revealed a teaser visual on Wednesday. The novels' 2023 manga adaptation artist Tsugaru Toba als...
The Manga Guide library expands with six more series, including Trinity Seven -Revision-, Watch Dogs Tokyo, Fed Up With Being the Spoiled Queen's Genius Butler,, and more!― Welcome to Anime News Network's Spring 2024 Manga Guide! You may have seen one of our seasonal Anime Preview Guides, where a team of critics writes up each new anime television premiere as it airs at the beginning of a season. N...
With a new Nintendo Switch port available, even more gamers can experience Enoch's transcendental adventure across the world. How does it fare on Nintendo's portable device?― El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron was a curious game when it released in 2011. The world wasn't quite ready for it then, but time (and a PC port) helped people accept it. With a new Nintendo Switch port available, even more...
Manhwa is starting to find its footing in American comic book sphere, but it's not just another version of "manga." Find out what makes Korean comics unique.― The door to English-translated manga opened in the 1980s, and despite some fits and starts, essentially never looked back. Manhwa, or Korean comics, have had a much more troubled journey to popular visibility in English. Around 2006, manhwa be...
The new anime series is far more forthright about the idol and seiyū industry, from maintaining relevance on social media to subsisting on substandard wages.― The new anime series is far more forthright about the idol and seiyū industry, from maintaining relevance on social media to subsisting on substandard wages. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are...
Ultimately, my biggest problem with Shaman King Flowers is that it mostly just feels like a set-up to a much larger story that has yet to actually happen.― [Warning, this review will contain major spoilers for the ending of Shaman King (2021)] If there's one thing that can be counted on with battle shonen properties, it's that any of them that go on long enough will inevitably get some sequel series...
The Grimm Variations is one of those shows that tries. It almost tries too hard, and the result is that some of the tales are beyond recognition, while others play it too safe.― At the end of The Grimm Variations, Charlotte, the real-life younger sister of the Brothers Grimm (who were, in fact, only two of many Grimm brothers), remarks that she would like to see fairy tales where the protagonists ar...
The critically-acclaimed historical drama captivated audiences, but if you're craving more battle tactics and court intrigue, these anime will scratch your Shogun itch.― For the past couple of months, it's been hard to ignore the loud promotion of Disney+/Hulu's mega-budget Shogun. Based on James Clavell's feted 1975 novel, it's a compelling and glossy historical drama following a large cast of fic...