One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 1026-1028

After we recently saw the stuff with fake Oden and the Ice Oni virus being resolved, finally, we go back to the Roof Piece! This is all one chapter in the manga, huh? Damn, though!

Episode 1026:

• Okay, it got eclipsed in the midst of the badassery of Hakai and Zoro blocking Hakai and everything that takes place in this episode, but that Red... Hawk/Roc that Luffy does is very clean. 
• Yeah, the confrontation between Orochi and the Scabbards is a lot cooler in that burning hall backlit by the flames. 
• That Oden flashback isn't the most necessary thing, but it is pretty animation and it does help to make Kin'emon and company's very badass stand-off against Orochi feel so much more poignant. They aren't crying and blubbering anymore -- they just want to cut down Orochi since he's just another pebble to deal with in the effort to make Wano peaceful again. 
• Damn that shot of Kin'emon in that field of sakura blossoms is powerful, though, considering how the anime has been using flower petals as a shorthand for death.
• Yeah, it is so satisfying seeing the Scabbards really not giving a shit while Orochi rambles on and on in his self-absorbed monologues. Particularly when Kin'emon's glare sends him into a panic. 
• We actually get to see how many heads get cut off here -- Denjiro cuts one off, Kawamatsu beheads three at once, Kiku cuts one, Kin'emon cuts one. That's six heads down to decapitation here. With one decapitation from Kaidou earlier in the arc, and a final one when Orochi dies at the end of the arc much later, that does add up to eight heads of the mythological Orochi serpent.
• Nekomamushi, Izo and Raizo do take part in bullying Orochi with their ranged attacks, but they don't decapitate the heads specifically. 
• And we're back to Roof Piece with some 'we only get to see the explosions as the two combatants clash', a la Dragon Ball Z. Kaido unleashing that gigantic burst of purple energy also has very strong DBZ vibes. 
• Okay, Luffy and half-beast Kaido just... just clashing and trading blows with each other? I didn't think that would impress me at all, not after everything we've had in Roof Piece, but damn this is just the arc that keeps giving.
• I'm not sure what she did, but Big Mom raising her hands and creating three... pink... lightning bolts that she lobs at the non-Luffy Supernovas is cool!
• Okay, so Law's antibacterial curtain is just straight-up a forcefield. What can't this man do?
• Withstand two bolts from Big Mom, apparently. That's a cool-ass explosion with lots of star effects.
• Damn, Kaido's hybrid blast breath looks much cooler than anything he ever did in full dragon form. Him jumping and catching Luffy with a punch is also pretty slick. 
• Oh yeah. I don't actually remember if Zoro standing up to Kaido, leading him to rant about doing something worthwhile with your death, and then Luffy blocking a blow meant to take out Zoro, is from the manga. If it is, it's clearly eclipsed by every other scene in Roof Piece. But this? This is badass as fuck, particularly that one scene where Luffy activates Ryu'o on his arm and we get a slow-motion shot of him rising it to punch Kaido. 
• Holy shit Luffy activating his Conqueror's Haki. Turning the entire battlefield red, then the zoom-in on the eyes, then on him as he activates his Ryu'o, then Kaido as he goes Super Saiyan... how many times do I get to say holy shit in this episode? Such a pretty episode. 
• Definitely not in the manga, but I really love the brief bit where everyone just piles on. Luffy and Kaido do some Dragon Ball shit as they turn into glowing light-beings that clash with each other. Big Mom charges in and bashes Luffy away. Zoro and Killer swoop in and clash with Big Mom. Kaido does a Blast Breath. Kid and Law toss Luffy back in, and he Red Roc's Kaido in the face... before Kaido does RAGUNARAKU from the manga. The chaotic bit of this whole scene really makes Roof Piece feel so much more alive.
• Oh, we get the shot from the anime opening, where Law and Kid catches Luffy as he's being tossed away by a Blast Breath, and the two other captains toss him back into the battle!
  
• Damn, Ragnaraku looks so good with all the lighting and the haki blasting everywhere and Kaido roaring in the background...
• And here is the rest of the Supernovas doing the anti-Big-Mom trick.
• Homurasaki: ROKUDO NO TSUJI!
• So 'Punk Pistols' is... a giant-ass multi-barreled cannon that shoots harpoons that explode? Okay! 
• Law can't move Big Mom in his 'room' because of her immense Haki, but I love how Law uses a magnetic clamp to abuse the fact that he can control that. And Law just uses Tact to launch a giant-ass rock to push Big Mom away. 
• Holy shit, okay, the anime adds a scene of Zoro getting to slice the damn island to knock Big Mom off of Onigashima, making Zoro even more badass than he already is, and also gives him an even bigger contribution, while simultaneously making Big Mom look slightly less pathetic for falling off the island. 

Episode 1027:

• 
  Okay, yeah, between the wonderful shot of Big Mom plummeting into the ocean, the constant shots of Big Mom drowning, and her taking the mother of all big gulps when Prometheus does save her, it does really add to the tension of the scene.
• Oh, wow, okay, that's cool! I didn't quite realize that Law teleported Kaido to him. Right in the path of his Injection Shot. Also, god damn, Injection Shot do be hitting different in the anime. 
• Yeah, Law is totally refusing to let Zoro die. And to think there were people who were in the camp of Law betraying the Straw Hats back when Wano was running!
• Kid going off to hunt down Big Mom still comes out of nowhere. I had hoped for them to add a short scene to explain why he does that, but okay, sure.
• We actually get to see Promehetus make his request, and him having a bit of an internal dialogue about how he could use stronger techniques if his partner wasn't so weak. That's a neat little addition to explain a bit of his thoughts! Poor Kid didn't even get that.
• Okay, though, Jean Bart, but did we really need a flashback to a scene literally ten minutes earlier in the same episode when Big Mom fell into the ocean?
• Oh. Oh, that brief bit when Kaido sees the image of Oden behind him, when the only sound is just the howling of wind as Zoro unsheathes his swords? Oh, that's badass.
• Oh, and when the purple aura gets joined by a golden one and the cross-shaped glow from his eye? And then the golden Asura forms behind him like a fucking Stand? And the exploding rocks and shit! Yeah. Roronoa fucking Zoro is a badass. 
• KIKI! KYUTORYU! 
• ASURA!
• BAKKEI!
  
• Oh, shit, Zoro even gets to fight and clash against Kaido in Kyutoryu mode for a while, I didn't know I needed to see that! And then there's the now-expected explosion of cubes and slashes and Kaido seemingly evaporating into light particles and shit. It's still pretty damn fucking awesome. 
• Kyutoryuuuuuu! Asura Bakkei: Moja no Tawamure. Damn, the samurai-style kanji really do be hitting different. Kazuya Narai's voice acting do be hitting different. I will forevermore find it so much more easier to remember the Japanese name for Dead Man's Game. 
• Oh holy fuck, they made Kaido bleed. The anime made him bleed with the entire scene turning black and white with only Kaido's red blood gushing out. Again, with how much they've been shy at showing blood up until the Onigashima raid, it really fells raw. 
• "You possess Conqueror's Haki too?" and then the lightning runs down one of Zoro's swords. Damn that's a way to reveal that for sure. 
• Oh, I totally forgot that Kaido raimei hakkei'd both Law and Zoro right after this. Man, that looked like it hurt. 

Episode 1028:

• Damn, okay, Kaido showing off his own Conqueror's Haki at the beginning of this episode, with the DBZ-style red and black lightning aura, before he gets surrounded by a purple pillar of energy? That's cool. 
  
• Big Mom creates Hera and they kind of extend this scene a fair bit, but it's at least filler that's a bit more constructive? We get to see her rip out part of her soul to make Hera, all the lightning powers and storms swirling around, and her reaffirm just how she's now laser-focused on murdering Kid. So her part of the motivations for this fight is done well, I guess, it's just I still don't really get why Kid's so happy to fight Big Mom instead of Kaido, the guy who really fucked him and Killer up.
• Holy damn, that shot of sketchy white line art on black background as we see Big Mom's face, then the katakana, then finally the kanji for 'Fulgora'? For an attack that took a small panel in the manga, they made Hera's Fulgora look amazing especially when the lightning bolt slammed onto Onigashima and made the island look so small. 
• Shit, Prometheus was right. You never see this kind of badassery from fucking Zeus. 
• We get a brief extended scene of Usopp and Nami using a bunch of tricks to get Page One wet and then thunderbolt tempo him, and the Koma-inu slamming Page One's head onto the terrain while he panics. Always welcome to see Usopp and Nami doing stuff. 
• A very nice, heartwarming scene as Killer processes the old line of Kid saying that he's going to 'send whoever talks shit about you to hell'. 
• Hawkins' arrival and his straw sword splitting Killer and Kid apart also looks pretty damn cool.
• His new Straw Face transformation also looks cool, but not as cool as everything else in this episode. 
• 
  Okay, that scene of Kid pointing his finger at Hawkins and saying that he's a shitty small fry who has no right to stand in the battleground when he's not willing to make his own decisions? That's a very cool shot. Kid's magnetism shows off as purple lightning all around him and while we do have a lot of purple lightning recently, it still makes the shot look cool. 
• Okay that is a cool shot of Killer swinging his punisher blades. Some great usage of colour, too, when all of Kid's intense rage has a lot of strong purples and blacks, while Killer's talking scene has everything bathed in a more mellow blue shade. 
• Oh yeah. Killer having a brief flashback montage behind his helmet before we get his badass pose telling Hawkins that he should essentially eat shit? (Okay, it's "I don't wish you any luck at all", but still)
• Damn, Kaido activating his Conqueror's Haki with all the red and black explosion rising up all around him? The animators really made Conqueror's Haki feel all-consuming and oppressive as it radiates out of these kings. 
• Also holy fuck the black and red really does make Kaido look fucking demonic. 
• And that one frame black-and-white shot.
• And those close-ups. 
• And here comes one of the best-animated scenes in Wano...

• Kaido's red-and-black lightning!
• His silhouette as he WOROROROROROS towards Luffy!
• Luffy's brief memory of all the times he nearly died (including the Magellan one)!
• The beautiful rendition of a 'Haki Bloom', represented by so many sakura flowers blooming around Luffy and causing his spirit to ascend out of his dying body!!
• The amazing shot of red and yellow veins/arteries across Luffy's arm as he activates Conqueror coating!
• The brief explosion of Haki colours before we cut to real-time with Kaido swinging in!
• SANDAL VERSUS KANOBO! THEY'RE NOT TOUCHING! AN EXPLOSION OF YELLOW PETALS IN THE BACKGROUND! RED LIGHTNING!
  
• Then Luffy manifests! Kaido screams! Lightning bolts extend out from their clash! 
• They go full Dragon Ball with charging at them! Smooth animation! Luffy and Kaido turning into stylized versions of themselves as they accelerate!
• BOOM another huge explosion!
• Those closeups on their faces!
• The animation showing Luffy using Hyo's teachings and causing his Haki to all flow to his fist!
  
• HE PUNCHED KAIDO! Damn, that brief shot of Luffy drawn with a slightly more smoother style? That is so cool. 
  
• The explosion of colours and gold and flowers in the background as Luffy sends Kaido flying!
• That... that whatever the hell that was as the screen flashes black then gold for split-seconds with red and black lightning and asdfghjkl can you guys tell I'm hyped as fuck?
• The flashbacks to Kaido asking Luffy what king he's going to be, then to Zoro's declaration last episode? Very appropriate. 
• BOOM that final punch! That stylized, manly shot of Luffy as he lands, with the goddamn glowing fist of Conqueror's Haki!
• Then that smile, that goddamned smile.
• Okay, yeah. I may have gone on record saying that I wasn't the most hype seeing Luffy activate Conqueror's Haki infusion for the first time? I think I was more hyped that he woke up again at all, and the idea of a new technique... but damn. Holy fucking damn. I am so glad I watched these episodes. It made one of the most epic chapters in One Piece into... into something legendary. 

Okay. Okay, god damn. The next episode is a Film: Red tie-in and you can insert me ranting about movie tie-ins breaking the flow of the anime fight, but you know what? I think I would've published this as a three-episode recap/review anyway, considering how fucking hard I fanboyed for these three episodes. God damn!