They're off the island! They've finally left Dressrosa! By my count this arc is now 115 episodes long, which is pretty impressive even by One Piece standards. We can't say we've officially ended the arc and begun the next, since there's one last story beat to take care of, but Dressrosa as a location is now completely behind us.
The episode opens with Luffy and Fujitora's battle being interrupted. The colosseum allies who have been escorting the Straw Hats off the island have taken it upon themselves to put a halt to this while they can, and the giant Hajrudin grabs Luffy out of midair before making a run for the port. It's hinted that these guys have their own agenda with Luffy and friends and don't want a pesky admiral slowing them down.
If I recall correctly, this episode and last made up a single chapter in the manga, hence the extra slowdown in the pacing. Not wanting to let Straw Hat get away, Fujitora moves his enormous cloud of rubble out to the sea, ready to drop it on all the pirates' ships. This sequence is total molasses, taking up at least a third of the episode as we watch repetitive shots of the rubble slooooowly moving away from the island. Though Fujitora seems like one of the good guys among the navy, he's not letting prey escape him that easily.
He does give in, obviously. It's made pretty clear that Fujitora could kill all the pirates on the island if he wanted to, but we've still got at least a few hundred episodes of Luffy's adventure left to follow. He concedes defeat when thousands of citizens of Dressrosa come running to the port, shouting angry threats and trying to get Luffy to return Rebecca (whom he had recently “kidnapped”). Fujitora quickly deduces that they have no genuine malice in their voices, and the charge was a ruse intended to keep the rubble from falling, lest the navy admiral hurt any innocent civilians. He also overhears some chit chat about the adults knowing of Rebecca and Kyros' relationship all along and that they're happy for them, which is just a little bit too cute for my tastes.
The centerpiece of this episode comes at the end: Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats set foot on Orlumbus's ship and become bombarded with claims of “joining up” and “our army is yours” and so on from the various pirates and military leaders that make up the colosseum allies. Apparently, the various fighters who have been serving as our makeshift crew for the last few dozen episodes have hit it off and joined forces with the intention of serving the Straw Hat crew. The cliffhanger ends with Bartolomeo asking Luffy to drink "the cup of father and sons" with them.
This is a pretty crazy development. One of my favorite aspects of One Piece is seeing the Straw Hat family grow over time. For the most part, it remained about the nine established crew members, but there have always been exceptions with characters like Vivi and Law. What exactly does it mean to be part of the crew? How large can this family get? As of right now, it looks like our favorite pirate crew is about to become 5,600 men strong. I love the crap out of that.
No definitive answer from Luffy is given right now, so nothing is official yet. Otherwise, I can nitpick the slower-than-usual pace we've been getting, as well as the mediocre production values in general. There's a lot of natively low-detail drawings coupled with running scenes involving a lot of choppy animation. This is an important episode, so I was hoping the presentation would be a lot nicer. It's a classic example of an episode with good story content, but nothing to write home about in the execution.
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 ...
James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY.― Yatagarasu Gets Violent! James and Lynzee discuss the latest episode of Yatagarsu, in which Wakamiya plays his hand to find out the truth behind his older brother's scheming to obtain the throne. Plus, GoHands keeps making anime, and we don't know WHY; Hunter x Hunter manga is on its ...