For a series about fun adventure, the actual fun adventures seem to be where fans tense up. This upcoming stretch of episodes with the Straw Hats exploring the candy woods of Whole Cake Island has been dreaded in the anime by friends of mine because so much of the exciting big picture plot stuff gets put on hold for it. If you want to know what happens next in the story, the best stuff will have to wait. If you're down to watch Luffy and crew wild out in a Willy Wonka style environment, then you'll probably be A-OK for the next couple episodes.
Maybe that description isn't entirely fair, because what happens here is important to the main plot, but it's dressed up as a series of inconsequential children's adventures. The crew finally lands on Whole Cake itself, instead of sailing around the waters of Totto Land, so it's time for them to split up with Pedro and Brook taking off to infiltrate elsewhere, and Luffy taking the rest of the team into the woods where he's convinced he saw Sanji waiting for him. Of course, that part may have been an illusion. The rest of the episode contains a lot of of repetitive sequences where the more excitable members of the crew eat all the different kinds of novelty candy that the forest has to offer.
One of the best moments in the episode comes when Nami is freaking out about a walking, talking, clothes-wearing crocodile that nearly eats them by accident, and then Luffy has to remind her that abnormal, sentient creatures are pretty familiar in their daily lives, with Chōpper and Carrot standing blank-faced right next to them. This would have been extra fun if the crew had their resident cyborg and skeleton with them at the time just to drive the point home further.
For the most part, this is a pretty good-looking slice of the anime, delivering its best at the end when Luffy comes across a mirror image copy of himself that he has to fight to no avail. I say "for the most part" because this episode also features the return of the show's extra-weird boobs. Not only do they look bigger than normal, but it feels like there's a director on set constantly asking Nami to pull her cleavage down further between shots, and the camera always makes sure her chest is in frame at every possible moment.
Other than that, every arc centered around a larger-than-life fantasy location is going to reach this particular point of the story, where it feels like the main goals get sidelined so that the cast can take in all the weird ideas that the author has conjured up for the given location. This happened in Little Garden, Skypiea, Thriller Bark, and most other arcs depending on how picky you are about defining these kinds of scenes. This is the traditional "act two" of however many acts you want to say a One Piece arc has. It usually works pretty well in the grand scheme of the story, giving us little loops to get lost in before we learn what's truly going on, but these are definitely the more challenging parts of an arc to get through on a weekly schedule.
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...
Anime premieres in 2024― Adult Swim's YouTube channel began streaming a first look video for the Rick and Morty: The Anime series on Saturday. The show will premiere on Adult Swim and Max in 2024, and will also run on Adult Swim Canada. The anime will be an original work, with adapted themes and events from the main Rick and Morty animated series. Takashi Sano (Tower of God) is writing and directing...
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 ...
2nd part opens in Japanese theaters on June 7― The staff for the four-part Code Geass: Rozé of the Recapture (originally titled Gode Geass: Z of the Recapture, or Dakkan no Zetto) anime project revealed a trailer and a visual on Saturday for the second part in the project. The below video previews MIYAVI's opening theme song "Running In My Head." The anime's first part premiered in Japan on Friday. ...
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 ...
Making a sequel to Code Geass is a daunting task. But with its fantastic main character and a story that doesn't undercut what came before, Rozé of the Recapture is on the right track.― Making a sequel to Code Geass—especially one set close to the end of the series—is a daunting task. Any story that involves an ongoing war massively undercuts both the finale of the original anime and the sacrifices ...
The Switch sequel console is finally happening! The details are scarce, but you can find out more in this week's column. Also: an interview with El Shaddai's Sawaki Takeyasu, Microsoft layoffs, and more.― Welcome back, folks! What a wild week this has been for the gaming industry. We'll go further into it, but jeez. This past week also saw the disappearance of Capcom's Dark Void and Dark Void Zero. ...
The Code Geass creator discusses his new project with Web3 company Azuki, Enter the Garden, and his hope that this new path could help the medium evolve.― Los Angeles-based Web3 anime-styled brand Azuki and advertising conglomerate Dentsu debuted the first nine-minute episode of their joint anime endeavor, Enter the Garden, on April 30. The episode, which has already racked up a quarter of a million...