The battle at the prison continues. The goons finally come to grips with the powerful figures they are facing, legends from Wano's past, and the poison bullets start flying. Prisoners begin falling ill, prompting Luffy and the others to join the fray and put an end to this. The members of the Akazaya Nine of course do massive damage with each attack, sending guards flying in all directions.
Eustass finds himself staring at the keys to freedom. When Raizo sees this he tells him to use them and break out. Kid's eyes glow red as Killer's laughter echoes.
More and more prisoners fall to the poison rounds. More horrifying, they soon rise like zombies and surround the others - infecting them in the process. Luffy and the gang are surrounded, facing down innocent but infected prisoners. The prisoners for their part know that they would rather not fight the heroes but against Kaido, the animal pirates, and Queen's bullets - what else can they do?
Then: Luffy reaches out and infects himself with the poison!
Running forward with his arms spread wide, Luffy then pushes the crowd back. He grips them in a giant bear hug and tells them of all the strong samurai he knows, reflecting on them in a flashback. Luffy tells the prisoners that they have had their spirits shattered all over measly dumplings.
“You're given enough to keep from dying and you call that living?!” he roars before throwing them all to the ground. More than that he thinks about Tama and what all she has been through. Luffy tells them to make a decision: stand with us or with Kaido. This makes them waver.
On the sidelines, Babanuki realizes that they are not pressing in any longer. He decides to throw a bomb into the crowd and turn the tide - one full of 200 plague rounds. As he goes to fire from his trunk, Kawamatsu notices it. He tells Luffy who leaps into action by tying o ff the end of the elephant's trunk.
The bomb kersplodes.
Babanuki goes bye bye.
Luffy points at the remaining guards and tells the prisoners to take care of them. The prisoners make their choice and revolt, making it game over for the guards.
The big emotional high point is Luffy and the poison rounds. Straw Hat is always willing to save others and free them from tyranny/slavery. In this instance he willingly infects himself to share in their burden so that they no longer feel that they have to oppose him, taking on their burden to enable them to fight back. Even still, ultimately it is their choice to join his cause. Luffy takes away the roadblocks to their agency yet demands nothing from them in return, allowing them to choose their freedom for themselves.
That's why we love that sunshine lad.
Visually this episode had plenty to chew on too. While there were a handful of reused sequences with the guards firing the pistols, the highlights more than outweighed this. Each oft he Akazaya Nine getting a cool flashy attack was a treat - Kiku's particularly. The glowing red eye effects on her mask and the splotchy purple filter over the slideshow-style sequence of her sword strikes was phenomenal.
The explosive ending was fun too. I really thought it was an interesting choice to have Babanuki go into a sketchy, almost formless state of gray/black sketchiness as he exploded. It felt like the art itself was breaking down, making it that much more violent that it might otherwise feel. Also Luffy got to do the “cool guys don't look at explosions” walk away bit, what's not to love?
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 ...