One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 1021-1025

More One Piece, more Roof Piece, more Wan Pisu goodness!

Episode 1021:

• Was it really necessary for Robin to have that pink aura as she walks towards Black Maria? Does it really make sense? No, not really... but damn if it doesn't look cool! Damn, Robin. And this is before Demonio, too!
• That "I can't help but show a little of the devil in me" line is badass as shit!
• Brook's "o-bakeeeee" delivery is hilarious!
• Bao Huang's over-the-top yelling of her lines is great! 
• "Hide within my clothes!" Hahahaha, that's hilarious. 
• Shinobu totally killed that one Beast Pirate in the middle who got kunai'd straight through the forehead. 
• Actually, there's a whole lot of blood in this episode from Shinobu's kunai. Hyogoro's slash last episode was also pretty bloody. After spending practically the entirety of the Wano arc prior to the raid being literally bloodless, it's a bit surprising.
• Okay, Carrot blasting a melted hole through that Candy Maiden is pretty damn cool. Did we ever get to see 'Candy Armor' in the manga? Either way, considering Carrot is kind of just offscreened in the manga, I really do appreciate that the anime makes it a bit more clear just how close she came to beating Perospero in her rage. 
• Back to Roof Piece! Okay, Hybrid Form Kaido looks pretty cool with colours. Making him actually be distinctly blue does make the hybrid mode look much cooler than how I first perceived him in the manga. 
• Killer's Scyther Sonic gets a pretty cool kanji name-drop, that's cool. He gets immediately bodied by Kaido, but hey, at least he tried. 
• Black Maria's tattoo reveal is actually pretty damn cool. 

Episode 1022:

• I really don't care all that much about Hyogoro. Like, at all, literally until I watched his episodes in the anime. And he's still pretty much a side-character in the greater scope of things, but his scenes with Luffy in the prison and all the stuff in this Ice Oni arc has been pretty well-executed, if nothing else. 
• Right, right. I may have mentioned at one point that Hyogoro transformed into his full 'peak form' mode thanks to something like Life Return, but it's just the Ice Oni virus causing all of his stored-up strength to return. 
• Okay, yeah, damn, Apoo totally got spooked by that flying sword slash. 
• God damn, that Flaming Hair Slash attack with Ryu'o that Hyogoro does is given way too cool of an animation for something that takes down just Hotei. 
• The Mimawarigumi are still as completely worthless as their manga counterparts, but at least Hotei gets a speaking line before Hyogoro one-shots them. And their defeat is shown on-screen. It actually does speak to the quality of the Wano arc in general -- if this was Great Ninja War era Naruto Shippuden, Hyogoro fighting the members of the Oniwabanshu and Mimawarigumi would've been stretched out to 2-3 episodes. 
• That said, while this episode does have pretty great animation on Hyogoro's part, it's pretty reused-animation-heavy from the ten minute mark onwards. It's at least thematic to Hyogoro's monologue. 
• After taking down the four members of the Mimawarigumi, Hyogoro also takes down a big stone-skin dude that looks like a yokai. After a bit of googling through the wiki, turns out that he's also a member of the Mimawarigumi. 
• Damn that split-second of Haki-infused veins when Luffy armament haki's up his arms. 
• Wacky Oniwanabshu minions:
• Yazaemon is a straw Snorunt-looking guy that shoots arrows out of his hair-turret.
• Sarutobi and Chome: beaten by the unleashing of Hyogoro's Super Saiyan haki. 
• Daikoku, Kazekage, Bishamon, Yazaemon again, Jigoku Benten, Hanzo: all beaten off-screen! Daikoku, who has had probably the most speaking lines out of these other goons, doesn't even get a fight scene, which is pleasantly surprising. 
• Always a great pleasure to see Marco's phoenix flames, and his Phoenix Brand that knocks Queen back is a cool move. Also, how cool is that bit when King slashes off one of his wings, and he just very casually lets it dissipate while he spins around and revives his form? Man, Marco's cool as balls. 
• Bluebird doesn't quite work like how I thought it worked back in the manga, but man, the feathers turning into a giant flaming spiral then into a fireball looks cool as shit. Even cooler, though, is Marco proceeding to do a goddamn Kamen Rider drop-kick knee bash thing onto a building. 
• ONGLE! Hot damn that looked like it hurt. We even get one of those black-and-white 'impact' split-second shots.
• Really, how many times have I gone "man, this looks cool as shit" while commentating on this anime arc? I'm just a happy child watching this arc.
• Okay, shit, Chopper's skin cracking and showing a lava-like interior like he's bursting open like a chrysalis... that's making the Ice Oni cure a lot cooler than it actually is. 

Episode 1023:

• So yeah, the Chopperphage nebulizer sequence. It... it goes more or less like how you'd expect it to go in the manga, really. The animation's nice, Hyogoro and Chopper's voice acting are nice, and they do build up the tension with Hyogoro and that one other yakuza dude about to be killed by their comrades. But ultimately it's not really a scene that excites me all too much. 
• We do get some more of Marco vs. King and Queen. Queen actually manages to slash apart Marco's bluebird attack! That's more than I expected out of him, actually. 
• Just to get that punchline, the scriptwriter made sure everybody yell out 'tanuki-san' a lot. 
• Haha, Queen's entire cigar is larger than Chopper's body. 
• TANUKI JA NAIIIII
• ...okay, maybe it's the delivery, or maybe it's the way the shot is cut, or maybe I'm just a bit tired watching this episode, but this comedic moment didn't quite hit as hard as other comedic moments from this arc.

Episode 1024:

• Bless you, Bao Huang, and your dramatic narration. 
• Damn, though, the purple lightning that Yamato unleashes from her kanabo looks badass as all hell. 
• Another nice moment in Momonosuke's character development that helps the gradual change from his huge moment in this arc is here, huh? Him feeling guilty that he has to constantly rely on others for protection, as he sees the wounds that Shinobu is covered in. That he's only hanging off of his father's coattails, and everyone's praising him for things he isn't even capable to do. You know what? Momo, you grew from that snot-faced dipshit we met in Punk Hazard into a damn fine young man. 
• Okay, so that is how dragon-mode Momonosuke fits into Yamato's kimono. 
• CP-0 gives us a convenient recap on the artificial Devil Fruit. Can I just say how pleasing it is to hear these recaps with the Japanese instruments in the background?
• Oh yeah, fake Oden. Again, kudos as always to Kin'emon's voice actor, who balances ugly crying and seriousness pretty well. Kiku's flashback is also nice, but... this subplot is kinda just there, huh. Even with the anime extending it by a fair bit, knowing that this leads to the [slight spoilers for the manga] death of Ashura Doji... yeah, it ends up feeling a bit rushed regardless.
• That frozen smile of disbelief and denial that Kin'emon has, though, is amazingly animated and voice-acted.
• Although, to be fair, I have always appreciated that it's Ashura Doji that is the first to be cynical. The anime adds focus to Raizo as well, who catches the 'tell' of Kanjurou mentioning something that Toki would never have said. I'm not sure why Raizo out of everyone else there is also one of the ones that managed to catch it, but hey, good for him!
• The anime gets pretty explicit at showing Ashura Doji getting run through by the ink Oden's sword, making it a bit more believable that he succumbed to his wounds. 
• "I've been to hell many times" is a pretty badass line, though!

Episode 1025:

• Knowing that this is also one of Kanjurou's final send-off (we don't count the big blob form), it is kind of poetic, I guess, that after all the theories on whether he's going to do a heel-face-turn, his lines here are all mocking versions of "hey, we're all friends here, right?" 
• Also, okay, yeah. It's not the best flashback or whatever, but Ashura remembering Oden picking them ruffians as his samurai, and his final words being "do not sully Lord Oden's name anymore!" is a good way to go out. Again, I still do think that there are ways to make Ashura's death a lot more impactful, but the anime did its best in extending what originally felt like a fake-out death in the manga into an actual death scene. 
• Zooming into Ashura's dead, broken body also helps to sell the scene, too. I remember the manga equivalent we cut away after the explosion, and we maybe see his blackened hand in the foreground? Seeing him still and lifeless works a lot better to make this scene as a proper confirmation of Ashura's death. 
• Oh yeah, Orochi. You're a thing. 
• Jack! I do like that Inuarashi not only recognizes Nekomamushi as someone with beef with Jack, but also Raizo. 
• HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT WAS THAT MARCO KICK THAT WAS SO PRETTY WTF
• Okay, so Orochi was going around killing all the firefighters. That makes him a bit more competent than just 'haha let's just spill some alcohol and set fire to it'.  
• Oh damn, that Hakai attack. The black cloud aura. The zoom-in to their psycho eyes. The entire battlefield bathed in red. Their haki swirling around them like a storm. Damn the animation studio really loves roof piece. 
• The ball of Hakai is just... purple, green, black and red? I guess it's just so powerful it warps even colours itself, like a damn JoJo episode. 
• Also holeeeee fuck Zoro blocks the Hakai. It's still badass even when I know it's coming. 
• Okay, Zoro and the Hakai are the spotlights of this episode, but Luffy's Red Hawk transformation and him forcing Kaido to dodge? That's clean as hell too.