After a rather tedious episode last week, Wano swiftly gets back on track with both bombast and story progress. We left off with Basil Hawkins and his straw man pursuing Luffy and Zoro as they dash their way through the dessert, hoping to find a nearby village to get Tama her much-needed first aid. The first half of this episode concludes the Hawkins fight, with Zoro going all out to tear the straw man to shreds in a slickly animated finishing move. The sinister clouds part and Hawkins retreats, leaving our heroes back to square one.
We meet a few new characters this week, starting with Otsuru (not to be confused with the Navy Vice Admiral, also named Tsuru), the Ukiyo-e-faced teahouse owner that Zoro inadvertently saved a few episodes ago. Tsuru leads our protagonists to Okobore Town, where we meet Okiku, the stupendously tall teahouse waitress currently fending off the advances of Urashima, Wano's reigning sumo champion. Urashima is well-regarded and rich, so he can offer Kiku a comfortable living if she'd marry him, but she insists that their social standing is too different, trying to keep her rejection polite. The private farms that the shogun and his associates use are brought up in this conversation, which are the only sources of clean food and water in the country. Kiku seems to know what's up, however, and wants nothing to do with the sumo-champ or the shogun.
The table scraps of plot we receive this week are at least satisfying in execution. One of the greatest attributes about this adaptation continues to be in the opportunities that the anime can add scenes to connect plot points together more organically. In the manga, there's a lot that's skirted off-screen as Luffy arrives in Okobore Town and Urashima gets shooed away. In the anime, we get the whole sequence of events as the Straw Hats arrive with a sick child, giving Kiku a reason to blue-ball Urashima and tend to someone else. Threatened by these tough-looking new men, Urashima walks away, inviting Kiku to a sumo show in the neighboring town and setting up a later scene in the story.
It's the last few minutes of this episode that provide the largest whirlwind of new information. We end up cycling very quickly between our introduction to Kiku, and then our reintroduction to Trafalgar Law and the Heart pirates, and then we wrap the episode up with an anime-original scene showing Kaido ominously sitting on his throne. "He's the strongest creature in the world, but for now he's simply waiting around and biding his time," the narrator pointedly tells us. No, seriously, this character is going to be important eventually! It's a little silly how calorie-free this tease is, and yet it sells the crap out of Kaido's sinister presence. He's truly a mythical, larger-than-life figure, and the atmosphere alone goes a long way in rousing the audience's attention.
We're tiptoeing our way through the early stages of this arc, but there hasn't been a boring scene in Wano outside of last week's episode. There's a lot of important set-up this week, and even the Hawkins material manages to wake up and put on a show. Okobore Town is the first proper village outside of the bustling Flower Capital that we've encountered, so this is where we'll be getting into the nitty gritty of the country's poverty, and its citizens' relationship with the powers that be. For now, the scenario is fairly standard as far as fantasy epics go, but for now I say it's worth trusting the pondering drip feed as this ocean-sized story gradually takes shape.
Crunchyroll to stream upcoming anime― Aniplex and Crunchyroll announced on Wednesday that the late manga creator Hisaya Nakajo's Hana-Kimi manga is inspiring an anime. In addition, Crunchyroll announced that it will stream the anime when it premieres in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the CIS, and India. The announcement did not reveal the deb...
James and Lynzee look into Hideaki Anno's latest hint that there might be more Evangelion after the last movie and news on the Lord of the Rings anime film!― Could There Be More Evangelion on the Horizon? James and Lynzee look into Hideaki Anno's latest hint that there might be more Evangelion after the last movie and news on the Lord of the Rings anime film! Plus, we catch up with Kafka and the Ka...
Grant Jones dives into the wild world of giant monsters and how Kaiju No. 8 builds on their legacy.― Kaiju No. 8 is a series that wears its influences on its sleeves. As the first word in its title suggests, it comes from a long line of works in the kaiju genre, using giant monsters and burning skylines as a backdrop to tell stories. While many likely know kaiju in a passing sense, it may help to h...
This steamy manga's appeal is going to depend on how much you can stomach a female protagonist who kicks off the romance by assaulting her former fiance.― This is a tricky one. Before You Discard Me, I Shall Have My Way with You is, to all appearances, a story that opens with a sexual assault. Agnès has been betrothed to Crown Prince Lucilleur since childhood, and she's been in love with him just as...
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...
Director adds that there are no definite plans, but it would be helmed by "someone other than himself"― In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, director Hideaki Anno acknowledged that "there may be plans" for more in the Evangelion anime franchise, but possibly with "someone other than [himself]" at the helm, who would receive a high degree of freedom. He added that there are no defi...
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 ...
Kenichi Suzumura, Ayako Kawasumi, Hiro Shimono, Nao Toyama, Takumi Yamazaki, Takaya Hashi join cast― The official website for The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies, the television anime of late creator Cocoa Fujiwara's Katsute Mahō Shōjo to Aku wa Tekitai Shiteita. manga, revealed six new cast members and a third promotional video for the anime on Monday. The video reveals ...
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...