When we left off last week, Robin had succeeded in using her powers to nab Hakuba, who was speeding towards her with an intent to kill, right out of the air. It was a pretty cool moment (albeit, missing the swiftness of the manga), especially with Robin's confident smirk as she casually halted a character known for his superhuman speed. It turns out that Cavedish's Hakuba state really is a full-blown personality of it's own, and is able to talk and taunt as Cavendish fights to retain control of his body.
I half-expected Hakuba to be given his own voice actor, as I'm getting much more of a supernatural vibe from him than psychological one, but for now that mystery remains unclear. The exchange that Cavendish and Hakuba has, as they dip in and out of each other's control, raises a lot of questions about what their whole situation is. Bartolomeo made a comment last week about how Cavendish's face changed, so characters within the world can interpret that difference as well. It's also been made pretty clear that Hakuba is somehow faster than Cavendish is able to be on his own, as Cavendish has to take advantage of that fact in order to get himself and Robin out of a pinch later in the episode.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HYDE antics aside, this is Bartolomeo's episode. While Cavendish and Robin are up top on the plateau trying to figure out how to deal with Hakuba, Bartolomeo is on the ground using his Barrier-Barrier Fruit to hold off Gladius, the last of Doflamingo's officers to be dealt with in this group. This is where the endless match-ups of fighters gets a little too exhausting for me. Gladius is definitely one of the more boring officers, and while I love Bartolomeo and find him to be a super entertaining character with a great design, it starts to bug me that everything ultimately amounts to his Luffy fanboy-ism.
Bartolomeo's cool because, despite being such a weirdo who's rough around the edges, he is genuinely strong as demonstrated back in the Colosseum. When it was revealed that he was a die hard fan of Luffy's and that was his entire motivation for being in Dressrosa, that was just icing on the cake. Now that he's being given a proper one-on-one fight of his own, I'm a little sad that the big finishing blow still remains all about Luffy (he uses an attack called “Barrier-Barrier Pistol,” a very deliberate homage to Luffy's “Gum-Gum Pistol”). I get that his fanboy nature is what really lights a fire in a lot of audience members, but the fact that that's all he's about now is a little disappointing.
Anyway, this ends up being a pretty slow episode, too. Things got shifted around from the order that they played in the manga, and the result is that some episodes get to be nice and packed while others have to do the usual padding. Lots of air in the scenes, lots of characters repeating themselves, etc.
The final note that the episode ends on is that Robin has now succeeded in entering the Diamante fight on top of the flower field. She swoops in just in the knick of time to save Rebecca from Diamante's slice as Kyros tries to get the upper hand. Everything surrounding the Diamante fight is a minefield in discussions since it raises a lot of questions about One Piece and sexism. Future episodes will be a better time to really dig in and ask those questions but, for now, giving Robin some agency in the fight feels like a good save.
Like I said, this is a better conversation for another time, when Rebecca and Kyros' character arcs play out a little further. I know this topic is not black and white, and no single story decisions are going to break or amend the issue. At the very least, for the time being, the Diamante fight gets to feel a little less like it's about women being protected by men.
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...
Recently ended manga follows middle school student living with mysterious bird-looking creature― Shogakukan announced on Friday that Akira Konno's Kujima Utaeba Ie Hororo manga is inspiring an anime. The "bird(?) home comedy" manga's story starts when first-year middle school student Arata Kōda meets a mysterious bird-looking creature named Kujima in autumn. Hungry and craving Japanese food, Kujima ...
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 ...