Trafalgar Law is dead, according to the incredibly blunt title of this episode: “Law Dies! Luffy's Raging Onslaught!” Of course, this is One Piece and major character deaths are far and few between, so chances are good the show is pulling our leg. Though, it does raise the question as to what Law's big picture role in this series is. Either he's a main character forever now or he continues to live on until he fulfills some other dramatic purpose.
Before Law “dies” we revisit his most recent encounter with Doflamingo, where he restates the faith that he puts in Luffy and friends. We get a little clip show of all the famous acts of defiance the Straw Hats have committed to the world, reminding us of why Luffy and his crew is so notorious. Law believes firmly that, even if he died, Luffy would find away to take Doflamingo down. This clip show kind of sadly reminds me of how long it's been since we've really felt the stakes of what the Straw Hats were going through. The show is so much more about the world as a whole now, rather than the relationships and determination of the main characters. The experience hasn't been crippled in recent years, but I think it's been too long since we've seen some of those emotional highs.
The episode goes on to reminds us of that the ultimate power of Law's Devil Fruit is the ability to make somebody immortal at the cost of his own life. Doflamingo's best case scenario is to force Law to use this ability on himself. After all, an egomaniac like Doffy could do quite a bit of damage living forever and it gets at least one carrier of the Will of D. out of his hair. Obviously Law gives him the “kiss my ass” response you could expect, prompting Doffy to riddle him full of bullets in a bloody fervor. It's really brutal, and the number of visible holes punched through Law's unmoving body as he lays in a puddle of his own blood is pretty convincing as far as that “he's dead” thing goes.
I'm still pretty hung up on this idea of Law's immortality power. There's no way he isn't going to use it by the end of the series at some point, right? That power is a ticking plot time bomb as far as I'm concerned, but it's strange to think that Oda has set up a Chekov's Gun that inevitably involves a major character dying. I do have a low-key theory that Law will make Luffy immortal at some point way down the line, just as a side-sweep to all those far too obvious theories about Luffy's future Roger-like death, but that's neither here nor there.
So Law is quote-unquote “dead” now and it's up to Luffy to break through the floor and re-challenge Doflamingo, now angrier than ever for how the flamingo man manipulated Bellamy. There's some really neat animation as Luffy makes his grand re-reentrance. I don't know what it is but there's something about Luffy's animation model that feels really “right” within a few of these quick shots. It's stylistically what I want to see more of.
Luffy vs. Doflamingo is a fight I find myself having a lot of yearning for. In an arc this big and a villain this larger-than-life, a satisfying final battle is the least I can hope for. Fortunately, this arc has had a pretty good track record when it comes to animation featuring these two guys at fisticuffs. This episode's main accomplishment is getting Luffy and Doffy face to face once again. At the end, we hear Law's voice whispering mysteriously, signaling that he's (of course) not really dead. Whether he's got some sort of plan up his sleeve or not will have to wait until next week.
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 ...