Of course, the final battle between Luffy, Law and Doflamingo couldn't be that simple. We left off last week with Law ready to deliver the final blow. Here he mentions that, even if he were to fail, the Gamma Knife attack is designed to tear its victim apart from the inside, and that Doflamingo's organs were being ripped to shreds as they spoke. This seems like a pretty definitive win, but obviously we're still early in the fight and Law's attempt at a final blow leaves himself exhausted and tumbling back. Doflamingo has taken quite the beating himself, but that doesn't stop him from standing back up to everybody's surprise.
It turns out that Doflamingo's String-String powers never seem to run out of uses. He claims that he has strings working on himself from the inside as impromptu stitches holding his shattered organs in place. “It's a bit different from full recovery,” he mentions, implying that his body is still taking a toll from the damage. There has always been a precedent in One Piece that how you use your powers is far more important than what they are to begin with.
So this is our “all is lost” moment. Law is defeated and on the ground and Doflamingo is standing, as joyously furious as ever. Doffy is about to land the killing blow with a kick, but Luffy gets in his way, stopping the attack with his own foot. This was always one of my favorite scenes in the manga. Seeing the absurd size difference between Luffy and Doflamingo as they have their little stand-off is super cool, and the thought that little ole Luffy has no trouble stopping such a strong guy makes for some really exciting imagery. At least, in the manga that was the case. This episode seemed to have a lot of difficulty keeping the characters on-model, let alone capturing the strength of their body language.
Doflamingo tries to kick again but Luffy retaliates with an even stronger attack and suddenly the two are engaging in a battle of their Conquerer's Haki, marking this as a fight between two people chosen by the heavens to be kings. Trebol watches on, remembering the time when he and the other officers of the Doflamingo family took Doffy in and accepted him as their king on the basis of his Haki's strength. It was the family that nurtured his dark side and made him in to the champion of evil he is today. I have mixed feelings on this plot point, since another one of the Dressrosa arc's muddled thematics lies in Doflamingo's motivation, which has gone every which way over the course of the story.
There was once a time where Doflamingo was one of the few villains who seemed to be coming from a place of sincere emotion, but this scene seems hellbent on reminding us that he is just pure evil, and that this is ultimately a good vs. evil story. I liked seeing hints of a Doflamingo who cared about his crew and had ambitions of being the Pirate King, as Monet mentioned back on Punk Hazard. There was a chance to take Doflamingo, one of the most overwhelmingly sadistic characters we've met in the series so far, and give him a sympathetic character arc of some kind that came to an end with his defeat by Luffy's hand. I think there was evidence that Oda was toying with the idea of making him a deeper character, but he may have changed his mind by the time we got to this fight.
This an episode with some strong highs and lows. I love seeing Luffy and Doflamingo clash like this, and the Haki lightning that erupts through the second half gives the fight a strong sense of atmosphere. However, I'm less keen on the lower quality animation on display and the continued confusing mess that is Doflamingo's backstory. The more we learn about him and where he came from, the less I understand what kind of story Oda is trying to tell. I've mentioned before that I think Dressrosa is full of subplots that keep changing their mind, direction-wise, and I think this is a perfect example.
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...
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...
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 ...