Every bad guy's got to have their top officers. Doflamingo had his card suits, and now Big Mom's got her Sweet Three Generals (formerly Sweet Four, as we learn later in this episode), including none other than our current opponent, Charlotte Cracker. Luffy may be a big shot rookie with a 500 million berry bounty, but even he's a small fry compared to one of the Four Emperors who have henchmen nearing the billions range. I love it when we get a big dramatic bounty out of nowhere, just to get a whiff of the scale we're working with. Cracker's is 860 million.
Suddenly, my exhaustion with the Seducing Woods vanishes as we're able to set our sights on one very clear and challenging conflict. Nami has to remind Luffy to preserve his strength, because their goal is still to rescue Sanji and get out without a fight. If Luffy spends too much time trying to deal with one stronger opponent out of many, then this is going to be an arc of hardship like few others. The arc is still trotting along at its slow pace, but we're back to a groove I can sink my teeth into.
Also on the track of details meant to put the Straw Hats in their place is the story that Brulee tells about the other Super Rookies who have wandered into Big Mom's lair looking for a fight. Names that we know like Kid and Apoo never got anywhere, though Brulee's argument skills could use some work as she has to back-pedal on Bege Capone and Urouge. The former married into the family and Urouge was able to defeat one of the top generals, suggesting that maybe Big Mom's defenses aren't entirely impenetrable. It does make us wonder what kind of footing Luffy's pirate rivals may have found while we weren't looking, though.
Beyond that, this episode goes on to juggle the fights between Luffy vs Cracker and Nami vs Brulee. Luffy's as headstrong as ever despite his enemy not budging, but Nami is able to use her new Clima-takt to take out Big Mom's witch daughter for now. Pound, Big Mom's ex-husband and Lola's father, also finds the courage to fight alongside them for a brief moment, dooming him to an act of treason.
Multi-part fights are often hard to discuss an episode at a time, since the flow of several episodes running together is where their best qualities come out, but this is a decent episode all the same. The animation looks solid as Luffy does his best, and the next few episodes promise to escalate the action further. Now the Seducing Woods get to be what I hoped they would from the beginning: a little pocket conflict that the heroes have to fight their way through just to compete with the main story again. Before it was just a bunch nonspecific gags and challenges, but now it's got us wondering what will happen even if the main characters do win, because there's so much room for this fight to slow them down or tire them out while all the Sanji stuff continues on regardless.
Manga about novelist, niece also has live-action film opening on June 7― Pony Canyon announced on Friday that Tomoko Yamashita's Ikoku Nikki (Diary of a Strange Land) manga is inspiring a television anime adaptation. The company also revealed a teaser promotional video, a teaser visual, and the show's main staff. Miyuki Oshiro (episode director for Durarara!!×2 Ketsu, Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go, To Your E...
Kaijin Fugeki manga launches on May 29― Manga creator Oh! great announced on Tuesday that he will launch a new manga titled Kaijin Fugeki in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine on May 29. A Twitter account for the manga also debuted on the same day. Oh! great launched a manga adaptation of NisiOisin's Bakemonogatari novels (pictured at right) in Weekly Shonen Magazine in March 2018, and ended it in Ma...
This week, it's hot monster mommies and less hot AI-generated light novels.― I Support Falin's Crimes We've long joked on the podcast about the quality of light novel writing, but the news is out that the developers of the RyokoAI project have scraped Shosetsuka ni Narou...are fully machine-generated LNs in our future? Plus: Things get gorier in Kaiju No. 8, the world of yatagarasu politics unfolds...
Each story is like a dark portal into a realm of human sexuality that society usually sweeps under the rug, but I can't look away.― Nude Model delivers on the promise of its lurid title. This manga, consisting of three equally intense short stories, is charged with eroticism and danger, with epiphanies lurking around every corner. Created by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, Nude Model is nothing like her most wel...
Find out about the young star who set the internet aflame and walked away with two medals. Plus: Thousand-Year Door updates, a new HunterxHunter game, and Miku!― Welcome back, folks! As is my wont, I'd like to plug my El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster that went up earlier this week... but I've also got the disappointing news that Megaton Musashi W: Wired finally released in the US la...
Daisuke 'Dice' Tsutsumi shares what it was like to leave Pixar and how his studio will never shy away from honesty in their work, even when honesty isn't pretty.― Director Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi contributed to films like Toy Story 3 and Monsters University while simultaneously crafting what became his Academy Award-nominated animated short film, The Dam Keeper. His latest short film, Bottle George,...
Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups.― Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News...
I cannot imagine how Square Enix could top themselves after this.― Final Fantasy VII Rebirth initially launched on the last day of February, and if you look at the date of this review's publication, you will immediately be able to discern one thing about this second entry of the FF7 Remake series: It is gargantuan. The first game got plenty of praise (and plenty of flak) for taking the relatively sh...
The Manga Guide library expands with six more series, including Trinity Seven -Revision-, Watch Dogs Tokyo, Fed Up With Being the Spoiled Queen's Genius Butler,, and more!― Welcome to Anime News Network's Spring 2024 Manga Guide! You may have seen one of our seasonal Anime Preview Guides, where a team of critics writes up each new anime television premiere as it airs at the beginning of a season. N...