As glowing as I was toward last week's episode, I was kind of conceding to its choice to frame Pedro's sacrifice as entirely heroic. I figured that either the anime wasn't interested in committing to the darker atmosphere and opted instead to play things completely straight, or that the murkier flavor was just me reading too much into things. So I'm elated to come back this week and see the show indulging in as much of that darkness as I could have reasonably asked for.
It's noteworthy that these days we have a show like My Hero Academia, which puts so much emphasis on asking its heroes to take care of themselves. It's a notorious struggle against overwork for manga artists and animators, which can so easily cast themes of self-sacrifice and tenacity in shonen manga in a new light. Eiichiro Oda is pretty infamous for an unhealthy commitment to his work. A series like MHA says don't get yourself killed. Think about how much pain you're putting your loved ones through by romanticizing that kind of overwork. Whole Cake Island feels like the most that Oda has ever empathized with that kind of message (appropriately at a time when the manga is taking more frequent breaks for this very reason), but in doing so, he seems to also acknowledge that his characters might be incapable of ever learning that lesson.
"I have to live up to the expectations that made you sacrifice yourself," is what Carrot says to herself in the wake of Pedro's death. The smoke from Pedro's dynamite blocks the daylight. The sound design is straight out of a horror movie. There's a jaguar-shaped hole in our crew now, and sympathy for the dead is just twisting the knife. I love how the Straw Hats are still glancing at the shoreline, expecting Pedro to have survived just as much as the audience, but instead it's that damned Perospero walking the explosion off with only a missing limb. The sickening mixture of emotions is so potent.
For how slow the anime adaptation can be, this is one of those episodes that feels like it's over within five minutes. On top of the Pedro fallout, the problems continue to stack up with Katakuri's counter attack, the Coup de Burst's warm-up time, and Big Mom already chewing on the back of the Thousand Sunny, looking even more like an actual monster. Luffy doesn't miss a beat in securing his role as captain of the ship. When the Sunny finally does blast off, he yanks Katakuri into Brulee's mirror world with him and smashes the mirror so neither of them can escape back to the Sunny. He's leaving the naval battle to his crew, the cake-baking to Sanji, and the fight with the one billion man to himself. The whole situation is so thrilling and badass.
The One Piece anime is firing on all cylinders this week. This is an alarmingly good episode, a cut above what I've gotten used to expecting. It's atmospheric, visually detailed, and rich with a plethora of emotions vying for the audience's attention. I know the show can't stay at this level of quality for long, but I desperately wish it could. Carrot gets a lot of focus this week, to my delight, and we see a version of Luffy that's been absent for a while—the underdog with balls of steel. The crew is willfully throwing themselves into those big one-in-a-million chance scenarios and my blood is on fire with excitement as a result.
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Assistant director Hiroki Hirano, writer Toshiya Ono replace director/writer Manabu Okamoto― The AnimeJapan 2023 special stage panel for the second Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation season presented the latest promotional video and visual on Sunday. The video announces the Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation II season's returning main cast, updated main staff, and July 2023 premiere. (The seco...
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SuperS/Sailor Stars anime's YouTube streaming, Song Collection, TikTok account also announced― The AnimeJapan 2023 special stage panel for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos the Movie, the two-part anime film project adapting the final "Shadow Galactica" arc of Naoko Takeuchi's original Sailor Moon manga, debuted the films' second trailer on Sunday. Sailor Moon voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi also an...
Park voices Star and Stripe― The sixth My Hero Academia anime season ended on Saturday with a trailer announcing that production on a seventh season has been green-lit. Romi Park will voice the character Star and Stripe. Character designer Yoshihiko Umakoshi drew the following illustration to commemorate the new season news: Kōhei Horikoshi launched the manga series in Weekly Shonen Jump in July 201...
Film adapts BLUELOCK -Episode Nagi- manga; Yūichi Nakamura, Makoto Furukawa, more join cast― The 24th and final episode of the current television anime of Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yūsuke Nomura's Bluelock soccer manga ended on Sunday with an announcement that production on a second television season and a film has been green-lit. The film is based on the bluelock -Episode Nagi- spinoff manga that has ...
Raven of the Inner Palace's first novel should please fans of its adaptation. It's easy to see what changes were made and understand why they happened, and it never feels like one version negates experiencing the other.― If you watched the 2022 anime adaptation of Kouko Shirakawa's Raven of the Inner Palace light novels and wondered how faithful it was to the source material, the answer turns out to...
Despite its loving connection to the original, you don't need to know anything about the 50-year-running franchise to enjoy and understand this film. However, its reverence for the TV show is also the source of the film's main problem.― Shin Kamen Rider is both a retelling of and an homage to the original 1971 Kamen Rider TV series. There are many recognizable characters and numerous shot-for-shot r...
Check out the gallery to see some of the coolest new and upcoming figures― AnimeJapan 2023 is in full swing today in Tokyo. Amongst the myriad of anime announcements, booths, photo spots, and stage shows, there are more than a few new and upcoming figures on display. Check out the gallery bellow to see some of the coolest. Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experienc...
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Watch all of this season's trailers with Lynzee Loveridge, Jacki Jing, James Beckett, and Geoff Thew from Mother's Basement! Find out your next "must-watch" in the 48 anime series set to premiere in April. Will we survive the entire stream? Will we unlock the hidden power of friendship and find our magical girl alter-egos? See for yourselves, live on Friday March 24 at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern!― Watc...
It's difficult to overstate both how good a chapter this is and how important it is, both for readers and for Nomoto as a character.― Note: You can read our review of the first volume here. Kasuga and Nomoto are still at it—Nomoto enjoys putting her culinary talents to use in ways she's never been able to before, while Kasuga is happy to eat what she provides, and the two genuinely enjoy spending ti...
Onimai might have had a controversial first episode, but it's a surprisingly sweet and nuanced story at heart. Steve and Chris give the series a second look.― Onimai might have had a controversial first episode, but it's a surprisingly sweet and nuanced story at heart. Steve and Chris give the series a second look. This series is streaming on Crunchyroll Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed...
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