Nanatsu no Taizai 138 Review: Fraudrin Gets Worfed

The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 138: Battle Against Darkness

So, uh, this chapter is... weird. On one hand, I'm absolutely pissed off that Fraudrin gets hit with the Worf Effect something hard. For those who aren't aware, the Worf Effect is a term coined by people in the internet to refer to a storytelling trope when an established badass character (RE: Fraudrin) gets taken out by a bunch of new characters (RE: the Knights of the Azure Sky) to show how threatening these new characters are. And that leaves an absolutely bad taste in my mouth that one of the biggest villains in the series basically got, well, taken out like a bitch. But on the other hand, Fraudrin isn't exactly killed yet, his demon buddy is clearly watching it all go on and it isn't as un-foreshadowed as it seems since Wayeo was among the group that got knocked around by Meliodas before.

Anyway let's break down the chapter somewhat. The cover page is actually showing a scene happening elsewhere in the kingdom, all One Piece like, this time showing Guilla training princess Veronica. Though she really isn't doing all too well. Why can't Guilla be the one to train with the druids instead of Griamor? Guilla seems to be a lot more useful (and powerful) than Griamor will ever be.

We start the chapter off with Fraudrin-Dreyfus walking down this random mining town, taunting Dreyfus about how the three of them, with Griamor, had walked around here to buy Griamor's armour and ironically says about how he wants to be a Holy Knight. And Dreyfus is's apparently perfectly aware for however long Fraudrin's been possessing him... which is apparently very very long because Fraudrin claims that he knows Dreyfus longer than he knew his wife. Or son, by proxy. Dude, that's pretty fucked up.

Apparently Dreyfus can mount a small token of resistance, causing throbbing pain within Dreyfus's head, and actually making the demon tattoo disappear in one scene. But Fraudrin doesn't even treat it as anything more than an inconvenience.

Fraudrin is about to snack on a bunch of unsuspecting civilians when this little girl in a red riding hood outfit shows up and winks at Fraudrin all cute-like. She kind of flirts with him -- nothing too femme fatale or sultry -- but she's all like 'oh, you look like a Holy Knight!' and then throws off the hood to reveal herself as Deldrey, member of the Knights (or Pleiades, depending on your translation) of the Azure Sky, led by Lord Denzel. The name Denzel, whoever he is (he's no one we've met before) gives Fraudrin pause, but he goes straight into soul-eating mode. Apparently demons can gain the memories of the souls they eat.

But Deldrey is all confident and shit... and Fraudrin punches his own face. Which looks brutal as hell. For a moment I thought this was Dreyfus putting up some resistance, but Fraudrin suddenly says things along the lines of "what am I about to do to my beloved Deldrey?", and Deldrey explains that her power, Love Drive, causes any man to fall completely in love with her upon seeing the slightest wink or affectionate gesture.

Fraudrin's attempts to throttle Deldrey turns into a gigantic "I LOOOOOVE YOU" which is both hilarious yet upsetting because, well, here is Fraudrin, one of the Ten Commandments and arguably Meliodas's archnemesis, and he's being played like a fool by this random girl who literally showed up of nowhere.

Fraudrin is shown to be able to resist somewhat, as is seen by him tightening his grip and not blocking all the arrows that came next... because Deldrey's partner, Arden, shot a bunch of arrows aimed at Deldrey. Fraudrin instinctively blocks them with his own body. Deldrey then gives Fraudrin a big ol' Poison Ivy kiss on the mouth to better exert her control -- can't be too careful, after all.

Fraudrin then threatens to destroy the entire town with the ridiculous "Milky Way Breaker Blade"... I'm not quite sure if Fraudrin still uses Dreyfus's power of... breaking things instantly or whatever the hell that was? Or if it's Fraudrin's demonic power, but whatever it was, it doesn't activate. Arden, the archer boy, shows up and tells us his ability, Bane, which will basically increase the magic requirement for each arrow shot into his opponent. Which is all video-game like, yeah?

Since magic is a bit of a problem, Fraudrin just leaps up, ready to slice Arden into bits with a single strike of his hand... when that strike is blocked by this muscular mustachioed short man, Wayeo... one of the three Knights of Azure Sky we saw quite a while back. Fraudrin's strike is strong enough to blow up buildings and the ground, standard anime stuff, but Wayeo goes all 'Deldrey I want to marry you', all Sanji-like, before, well, simply just knocking Fraudrin out.

Yes, those three dudes just took out a freaking Demon of the Ten Commandment by themselves. And even if you can make an argument for Fraudrin being 'sealed' within Dreyfus's human body, Human!Dreyfus was still strong enough to bat around almost all of the Seven Sins one-on-one back during the whole Hendricksen mega-arc. I mean, upon closer inspection there are obvious workarounds around these seemingly game-breaking powers. Love Drive can apparently be countered and resisted depending on the degree of flirtatious action took, and it can only cause the target to defend Deldrey and doesn't prevent Fraudrin from attacking Arden. And while Arden's powers may be useful for suppressing magic, it doesn't stop him from being demon karate chopped to death.

Wayeo... just gets his powers from his ridiculous chest hair, I guess.

I dunno. I could think of several reasons why Fraudrin got taken out -- it's a bid so that he can regain his real body, it's because he's stuck within Dreyfus's body, it's a trap to get to see this mysterious Lord Denzel... the fact that the Legion-esque masked shadow-Quintesson demon member of the Ten Commandments is just hovering and not helping Fraudrin out seems to imply that they're using Dreyfus-Fraudrin as... bait.

But still, the point of this chapter is still to make the Knights of the Azure Sky look good by taking out Fraudrin. And I guess I should be cheering for a bunch of good guys, but I dunno, it just looks cheap and I honestly don't particularly care for any of these three.

At the end we see Ban, revived from being turned into Ygdrassil fertilizer, apparently just going around looking for rumours of revival objects. Did we need that gigantic two-page spread of Ban? I mean, I like Ban and all, but that does seem too excessive even with the increased page count. They follow a tip to go to the bandit town Ravens, which seems to imply some connection to, y'know, Ban-dit?

Also holy hell Jericho really looks like Deldrey and I got confused that Deldrey was working together with Ban until he clarifies things up.

Overall I don't really know what to make of this chapter. Obviously Ban's appearance is a welcome surprise, but the whole worfing of a Ten Commandment member just for the sake of introducing these Knights of the Azure Sky dudes... it does set them to be important, that's for sure. Eh, I dunno. We still definitely haven't seen the last of Fraudrin yet, and I'm curious to see how this is handled. Not the best of chapters, certainly, due to how relatively obnoxious Arden and Deldrey were.

Fairy Tail 450 Review: Baby Makarov

Fairy Tail, Chapter 450: The One and Only in this World

This chapter is... decent, I guess. I mean, I wasn't reacting particularly strongly to any of it because a good 80% of the chapter's events could've been inferred from last week's chapter, and, again, it would've worked a lot better if it was a single chapter. As it is, the earlier bits with all the obviously-padded-out scenes of Makarov being born felt, well, exactly like padding. Like the author has these scenes that would work in a single, very busy chapter, or in one-and-a-half chapter, and decided to stretch things out. There's the rather eyeball-rolling thing of Makarov's mother wanting to give birth in the guild building because LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP before she, well, died. That part was written relatively well, though personally it still kind of fell flat on me. 

And Yuri's probably going to become evil to exact revenge on Mavis for stealing his wife. Or something.

We have a bit more padding as Mavis runs around and her death aura thing goes out of control, before meeting Zeref and speaking in riddles for a bit. Again, nothing particularly bad or regurgitated like some of the scenes from recent chapters, but nothing particularly groundbreaking either. We also have Zeref re-iterating his plans to create the Etherious Demons that can kill him (they suck) and the totally-not-a-retcon plan of him building an empire and the justification that he views them as chess pieces so the curse has no effect there.

Yeah, that's totally bullshit and the writer is just making it up to go along with the brand-new idea he had at the start of this arc. After seeing the sheer amount of foreshadowing that some manga like Tokyo Ghoul have, this kind of sloppy "oh this is his plan all along" kind of leaves a bad taste. It's not anywhere as poorly handled as Naruto's Zetsu bullshit, though, I'll give you that.

We then get a bit of an interesting view at Zeref, who, apparently, is crazy under all his cool-anime-boy demeanor. Which is actually kind of interesting -- he wants to have fun enjoying playing chess with his country, but he doesn't want it to just be a game. He wants to see his brother, but to destroy him, but wants to be destroyed by him. It would be interesting if I had any faith that this would be truly explored and built upon, but it's probably going to have a single line or two as a payoff, if it even has a payoff (RE: Frosch, Dragons Disappearing).

What I realized later after writing this review, though, is that it does give Zeref's rather... cryptic and differing characterizations over the series some kind of explanation. And does it set up Zeref for eventual redemption and Ankhseram (if he/she/it's ever going to appear) as the true big bad? Eh, we'll see. Zeref being redeemed is way too obvious, but we'll see if it'll be done well.

We then get a bit of a romance-y moment as Mavis tries to get Zeref to find a cure together and they cry and kiss and it would be kind of creepy if you consider their ages and their physical appearances. There's a narration about the abyss of magic and love, and their love for each other was the largest contradiction and apparently it caused Mavis to go into a coma.

Okay yeah I don't get that bit either, but I did like the little backstory they got going on with Mavis over here. I really still think that this should be the whole backstory of Fairy Tail Zero instead of the humdrum Generic Anime Filler Plot #3 we did, and maybe the actual chapter in regular Fairy Tail could've been a one-chapter recap. But while I admit that I kind of glossed over many of the pages when Mavis and Zeref are talking, it still overall reads relatively well. Though, again, it's rather padded out.

Still don't have much faith in this final arc. I really don't. But at least I do hope that this last myth arc about Zeref and Acnologia can be done relatively well, unlike the bullshit we got for the dragons. 

Boku no Hero Academia 56 Review: Dog Puns

My Hero Academia, Chapter 56: The Conclusion

We get an awesome, awesome colour page with Iida and Stain all set-up like a superhero comic book cover and I [i]love[/i] it.

The first half of the chapter centers on Stain and him just raging around before fainting while standing up. Which would be redundant if not for the utterly [i]awesome[/i] art that just illustrates how freaking scary Stain is. We get him reiterating his ‘I will purge all phonies’ motivation, while everyone is just kind of surprised at what the fuck’s going on. Shigaraki is all like “I can’t even find the words, fucking goddamn” as he observes everything, getting pissed off that the Noumus die, and why it can’t go as he wanted it to.

Endeavor shows up, throws his weight around a bit to talk shit about these second-stringers who are just standing around doing nothing, and noticing Stain he goes straight into battle mode and is about to launch a stream of fire when Gran Tourino stops him. Pretty sure Gran Tourino did this for Midoriya’s benefit, since Midoriya is still, like, lying next to Stain. But then Stain just goes “ANOTHER PHONY” and holy god that expression, and that “someone must stain himself in his blood.”

Everyone, from Todoroki to Iida to even Gran Tourino and Endeavor himself, are all just, well, visibly flinching and reeling backwards from Stain’s proclamation. The next few pages had Stain just go all “THE WORD HERO MUST BE RESTORED! COME YOU PRETENDERS” while looking all crazy and awesome and holy shit. We even see Endeavor of all people – Mr. Bigshot himself – take a step backwards. And not even the more heroic Gran Tourino is immune to it.

But Stain lost consciousness, still looking scary crazy as ever. And we get a monologue from Midoriya how he later found out that Stain passed out because one of his broken ribs pierced his lungs… and observed that while Stain didn’t lick any of their blood, and was injured like hell, he was still the only one who stood his ground – not even Big Shots like Endeavor and Gran Tourino can claim that.

We get a brief glimpse of the three Noumus being cleaned up (one of them – the one Gran Tourino and Endeavor teamed up to fight – was captured alive) while Shigaraki and Black Mist beats a hasty retreat. Shigaraki is still visibly pissed.

The rest of the chapter is really just a lot of talking and a cooldown as Midoriya, Todoroki and Iida hang out in the hospital and Iida kind of apologizes to them. But Gran Tourino, Manual and this new character Police Chief Tsuragamae. Who has the head of a dog, and makes painful dog puns. He goes on a long tangent how technically the Yuuei kids have broken rules by using their power without authorization, and how they and their handlers – Endeavor, Gran Tourino and Manual – will face consequences. Which naturally pisses Todoroki off. Rightfully so. Because, well, it’s as much self-defense as anything because Stain is, y’know, the Hero Killer. And while Iida is acting stupidly and irresponsibly, he did save the hero “Native” (my one-time joke about Native American Man actually called his real name!).

Tsuragamae kind of then explains that he truly respects how they’ve been heroes, and how the incident will be “covered up” with Endeavor dealing the final blow to Stain that took it out. Nothing really much on this end of the chapter, really, just a lot of talking and a couple of worldbuilding on how the structure of the My Hero Academia world is, and I really do think it ran on for a fair bit longer than it did. And the dog puns, jeez, the fucking dog puns.

But still, a pretty decent chapter all around, if only for the insane Stain bits in the beginning because, well, Stain is awesome and I am extremely intrigued just what his backstory is. 

Toriko 336 Review: Holy Shit Unexpected Appearances

Toriko, Chapter 336: What Nakaume Saw

Toriko though! Bleach was pretty fuzz-inducing and One Piece was decent, but Toriko, once more, fucking blows both chapters out of the water by simply being just so freaking awesome.

It starts off innocently enough with Teppei talking to, well, I guess the dude's called Nakaume. And we're picking up where we left off last chatper and this really is one of the bigger myth arcs of the series -- what the fuck is Neo doing? And apparently it scared Nakaume so much his hair turned white just by remembering it. Because hair pigmentation totally works that way. We get a short look at Dragon King Derous (the only real king we didn't see last chapter other than Heracles -- who had an arc all to himself). Teppei notes how all the kings are moving, probably because of either the Gourmet Eclipse or because of the cooking in Blue Shell... I think it's talking about the mysterious city-wide cooking project, which is more likely than the tournament.

Apparently the Blue Nitro is doing the same thing in Area 1, and we see some Uzumaki-level shit as these zombie-like people are walking towards some mysterious-looking glowing crack in the ground. Is this what's going on in Area 6? Are the humans the ingredients and being fed to Maybe-Acacia?

Nakaume survived being taken there, though, and Teppei wants to know what he saw. Nakaume's fucking pissing himself, because what he saw took up two pages. And the weird bulbous Acacia-lookalike thing we saw last chapter? Well, it's shoulder has got some fucking bulbous tumour abomination thing that's like a PG-rated version of the demons in Berserk. And that thing is massive and apparently according to Nakaume it's going to eat everyone. And all these mini-tumours kind of forms a goblin-like face, and it's got like these sleepy-looking faces on the other sides of his giant face. Holy shit. What the fuck is that? Is that the food spirit within Acacia? What the hell? It's going to eat everything with its weird hole-mouth, I guess.

We then cut away to Joa Frohze Joie and she's doing some mysterious thing with weird spheres. What the fuck are those I don't even want to begin to speculate. But she realizes something's amiss, and sure enough, Teppei, all half-transformed with wood-arms and carrying Nakume on a little wood coccoon on his back, is trying to get out. He tells Nakaume not to worry because Team Toriko, Jiro and Setsuno can probably eat whatever it is he's afraid of...

But he suddenly gets attacked by Man-Eating Grass (of course). A bunch of string-like goop gets fired at Teppei, and he dodges them... but this ugly face suddenly says 'Pause' with a pause symbol showing up... then 'Rewind'. And 'Play', basically stopping time, rewinding time and playing it so that the globs actually hit Teppei. What the hell? This is, like, some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure main villain weird timey-wimey outcome-controlling power. And it's cool.

And this giant spider with a fucking twisted human face shows up and talks about how Playback is a useful ability to learn. I really didn't realize who this dude is -- his face looks familiar -- and Teppei identifies him as Mohyan Shaishai, the mysterious super Saiseya dude that was missing and revealed to be hanging out with Neo. He wasn't this freaky spider-monster back when we last saw him before the timeskip. I'd have remembered it if he were like that. Teppei tries to talk Mohyan down, but, well, Mohyan shoots out Thread Spear, which Teppei counters with Wood Spear (he's basically a less grandiose Senju Hashirama at this point) but Mohyan just Fast-Forwards his attack and Teppei barely got away with some acid sap. Because,y'know, acidic sap. Only in Toriko.

Teppei can't get out through the back channel in time, and he's just protecting Nakaume now... when his leg is wrapped around by some long thing. And he's captured by Mohyan's spider web once more.

And HOLY SHIT, we saw a bunch of dudes from back before and they're all different! Definitely more prominent than Mohyan was in the pre-timeskip chapters. We've got Joejoe, the Bishokukai Igor-scientist fellow who was basically in all Bishokukai base scenes, who's all bloated and gross and has a chameleon tongue which trapped Teppei's leg. We've got Kousairou, the black-skinned white-eyed hermit bastard who betrayed the 0th Biotope, and he's basically got a shit-ton of octopus tentacles growing out of his hair and body. And we've got the cooking king Zaus, who's got eagle wings. Well, I guess someone's been experimenting on them.

Teppei's attempts to cut off Joejoe's arms while reflecting to himself how he is fucked fails because Joejoe has super regeneration, but Joejoe's tongue gets cut in the next page. Well, Teppei's doing some crazy shit, I thought. But no, it's motherfucking ALFARO, the moss badass butler of all time, showing up with brand new golden plates like it ain't no thing. Holy shit, Alfaro. He does so little, but acts so badass in every fucking scene he shows up in.

He comments on how sharp his blades are, everyone is surprised and we get a closeup of Alfaro with a smug expression like "yeah you wannabe villains I was here first". Alfaro talks all calm like about how his boss isn't upset -- he just asked him to politely get rid of them. The Neo dudes all prepare to attack -- Zaus draws weapons with giant gorilla arms, Joejoe sprouts even more tongues, and Kousairou... uh... grows an octopus ink-mouth thing. Kinda silly looking honestly.

The next page then shows all three of them immediately getting utterly fucked up despite not moving an inch from their position. And I thought it was Alfaro just being a badass and trumping them with his plates... but no, we see gorgeous hair, and Zaus recognizes who it is. MIDORA. And his god damned weaponized tongue. Yeah, if it was Alfaro or Teppei who one-shotted those three dudes, I won't count them dead -- Zaus at least was pretty top-tier. But Midora? They be fucked.

Midora descends and holy fuck this is just all so awesome.

I have no words. Toriko is really making itself to be one of my favourite mangas of all time and it's chapters like this that make Toriko just so much more than just an insane cooking-hunting manga. Because really, every single damn page I was like HOLY FUCK HOLY SHIT HOLY FUCK TEPPEI JOIE ZAUS ALFARO MIDORA HOLY SHIT

So yeah we've got Neo dudes turning into animals and the weird cooking thing with the Demon Acacia thing eating the world and the Eight Kings moving and Midora and Alfaro and whatever the fuck Joie is doing and Mohyan's time-rewinding powers and did I mention Midora and Alfaro? Yeah, all the hype. All the yes.

Great chapter. Fucking great.

One Piece 798 Review: Luffy Mega Punch & Law's Closure

One Piece, Chapter 798: Heart

It's still a relatively m'eh chapter that's obviously prolonging things. And I'm truly of the opinion that the Rebecca stuff last chapter really could've been combined with the whole 'post-war recovery' chapters or, well, this one. Honestly throughout the Dressrosa arc the manga's really making liberal use of the many new characters to create large montages of Luffy's allies doing stuff... and we really don't need so many montages, especially when it's not developing any of their characterizations. And honestly the whole "Kyros wants to leave Rebecca behind because it's better for her this way" is really so forced that a shorter scene with them just hanging out together all reconciled and shit would be far, far more effective.

A good four pages are wasted just showing the Tontatta fucking shit up -- Leo stitches a bunch of ships together, other Tontatta are stealing stuff from the Marines, Mansherry's actually using her donation drive thing to distract a bunch of troops... which is yet even more padding. Any reason that these actions by the Tontatta couldn't have been collapsed into a single montage with the gladiators last chapter? No, not really. Most of the main fighters -- Bartolomeo, Cavendish, Sai and all those dudes -- are just trying to stave off Fujitora behind Bartolomeo's barrier and Fujitora's just taking his own sweet time walking because, well, none of these mooks are really a threat.

Meanwhile, one of the more interesting encounters this chapter is Sengoku apparently seeking out and finding Law just to talk to him and get some closure. We get a bit of a redundant flashback of Rocinante reporting to Sengoku about Law's existence... we didn't need an entire page for that, if we hadn't already gotten confirmation that Sengoku knows about Law and Rocinante (I can't be bothered to look back to confirm). Sengoku apparently raised Rocinante up like a son and we get another more effective flashback of Sengoku just crying his eyes out when he saw Rocinante's corpse in Minion Island.

Sengoku kind of confronts Law about it, and Law tells Sengoku about how he's been planning to bring down Doflamingo for years just to get revenge, and we get a couple of nice little cryptic hints about "D." And Sengoku knows what's up, though he isn't keen on divulging it to Law or us readers. Sengoku notes how there is no way Rocinante knew Law was a D, and it isn't some destiny or fate or whatever and basically tells Law that, yes, Rocinante loved him. Sengoku then kind of just buggers off with the excuse that he's no longer an active officer and basically tells Law to live his life free, for Rocinante's sake. Great closure for Law -- why couldn't this gotten the entire chapter if we had to have padding instead of Rebecca? Though I guess it's just at the right length not to drag on for too long.

We get three entire pages showing Fujitora levitating an entire city's worth of debris into the air and while, again, obvious padding... it's still pretty fucking awesome. We get the Marines basically in shock and retreating because, well, no one needs reinforcements when you've got freaking Fujitora in your way -- again it emphasizes just how the Marine Admirals are on a whole different level. We get another needless page of everyone reacting "fuck we're doomed" which is all unnecessary because come on, that splash page speaks more than reaction shots.

Law arrives, and when Bartolomeo spies his Luffy-senpai running up, they all wisely begin a mass retreat before Fujitora literally brings down a rain of destruction on them. Luffy, however, runs up to Fujitora, asks the gambling man if he remembers him... and just shouts out loud "Imma punch your face!" And, well, he does exactly that, doing a gigantic Elephant Pistol straight onto Fujitora and holy crap never has punching an unsuspecting blind man looked so damn badass and awesome.

Bartolomeo and Sai are so shocked their eyes and teeth pop out (I'm surprised Bartolomeo didn't die of an orgasm right there) and Luffy proclaims that while he probably can't defeat an Admiral, he's fucking tired of running away like he did two years ago so he doesn't give a fuck. Admiral, Marine, Yonko, he's going to be the King of Pirates and he's going to beat the fuck out of everyone.

So yeah, at least chapter 799 is going to be a fucking entertaining padding before the big event at 800. I don't really rate Luffy's chances that highly, not unless Zoro, Law and everyone else pitches in to bring down Fujitora. I also have a feeling that this is going to be interrupted. Sabo, perhaps? Blackbeard? Kaido? The Kid Alliance? But whatever the case, next chapter it looks like we're getting Luffy fighting against Fujitora. He's wounded after fighting Doflamingo, and to be fair I do think Fujitora's going to try to go easy on Luffy for the sake of Dressrosa (though he's also all about justice so hey), but, well, it's going to be fucking interesting to see him at least try and put up a fight.

Nanatsu no Taizai 137 Review: Love Triangles, Power Levels, Dragonhawk and Random Dudes

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 137 Review: Between the Two of Us

Definitely a slower chapter after the whole Ten Commandments bit, but we get a couple of things going on. The first few pages dealt with the love triangle between Zanneli and Elizabeth over Meliodas' affections, and Meliodas is just basically sorta-ignoring Zanneli, not intentionally but very obviously, and we discover that the reason Elizabeth failed her druid power test is because Zanneli didn't even put a seed in the cup of soil that Elizabeth is supposed to use. And for a moment I thought it was an eye-roll inducing moment of petty jealousy because, y'know, this is end of the world stuff. But Zanneli has a justification -- she knows Meliodas will never love her, but she also knows how Meliodas will flip out if Elizabeth should be harmed and/or die. So her big (stupid) idea is to draw the two of them away because... Elizabeth is the reincarnation of Liz OH MY GOOOOOD

Okay yeah literally no one is surprised by this particular plot twist. They like look alike, have the same name and fulfill mostly the same role. Didn't need a two-page spread, certainly.

But it's nice to have confirmation, even if Zanneli's actions doesn't make sense. Like, at all. Meanwhile, Hawk goes around measuring everyone's power levels. Gilthunder and Hauser's powers have increased from the 1900's to 2300's... with Hauser actually being higher than Gilthunder now. But I don't think it's really a significant increase in the grand scheme of things against the goddamn Ten Commandments. Meliodas, meanwhile, has increased to 3250... er, 32500. Hawk forgot a zero. And I do like how Gilthunder was already fanboying when he heard '3250' and he's like "yep we got this in the bag."

And Escanor's power level is even higher than Meliodas' 32500. And Meliodas still isn't fully recovered, according to him. Well, it's good to see Escanor in the present day at last. Curious why King listed Escanor as 'dead' during his first appearance. 

We also learned why Hawk turned into, well, a Dragonhawk (no, not the Warcraft creature). While fighting a Tyrant Dragon with Oslo, Hawk got eaten. So he ate his way out of the dragon's stomach, which is badass, so he's turned into a dragon-pig hybrid. Okay. I'll go with that. Maybe there's something more to Hawk than meets the eye? Meanwhile, Griamor is still a baby and Arthur has a cat stuck to his head.

Meanwhile, Dreyfus-Fraudrin shows up at a random city, observed by two random people, who are members of this 'Knights of the Azure Sky'... as the internet informs me, we saw them -- the generic mooks that were beaten down by Meliodas back when power levels were first introduced. They are Arden and Deldrey, and were featured on the cover page (I spent like five minutes wondering who they are supposed to be) and recognize Fraudrin as the demon he is, and note how they were reassigned away from the capital.

They kind of look generic, honestly. Arden looks like your generic shonen protagonist, while Deldrey looks like a hybrid between a knight and a wizard, who, in true anime style, wears armour but leaves the top half of her boobs and shoulders exposed. The knights of the Azure Sky we saw before weren't much -- weren't even better Griamor, the weakest member of Team Meliodas -- so unless these guys are so super-good and the dudes Meliodas met are just like, new initiates or whatever, they're going to really fuck up. And honestly, two dudes we've never met before, against what's arguably one of the main villains, one who killed Meliodas's love of his life? Yeah, Deldrey and Arden are going to die. Not sure why they're introduced, honestly.

Fairy Tail 449 Review: Mavis the Death God

Fairy Tail, Chapter 449: Mavis and Zeref

Overall... still mostly disappointing. And another reason that the whole spinoff Fairy Tail Zero didn't need to happen -- or at least it should've in my opinion completely replaced the whole 'let's gather everyone like utter idiots in an arc that has no substance whatsoever' thing post-timeskip. It would've been nicer, actually. Zero had pacing problems, but it was at least overall a decent read, moreso than the idiotic Avatar bullshit.

Thankfully this chapter subverts recapping the entire prequel spinoff manga in three pages... before adding even more material to it. And takes way too long to tell it. It's something, I guess, to see the actual creation of guild laws and the wars and Mavis being a tactician and whatnot. Necessary? Not. Interesting? Not really... though it's a whole lot better than last chapter, because this is at least world-building.

Then the rest of the chapter is basically Mavis meeting Zeref for a second time. We've got some generic shippy moments between the two that honestly just plain fell flat. And then apparently Mavis' attempt to use Law during the Zero arc has hit her with the curse of Ankhseram as well, causing her to, well, be just like Zeref. It's just that she's just so preoccupied with the wars and whatnot to think about the value of human life... which, uh, doesn't exactly make sense if you think about it, but Fairy Tail never runs on proper logic so yeah, whatever. Plot twist!!!!!!

So, yeah, I guess Mavis' death-god-ness and immortality is the whole reason why Lumen Histoire is so secret and powerful and desired and whatnot. She's basically sealed herself all naked into that crystal to curb out her own curse from affecting the world. It's... a plot twist, I guess? Possibly one that will be as "impactful" as Igneel's unceremonious death and the whole mystery about the dragons and whatnot. I'm sorry. I'm just still pissed about the shitty payoff for the big missing-dragon-parents myth arc that was barely a footnote on the mess that is Tartaros.

Also yeah Zeref is totally going to be defeated with the mother of all friendship speeches at the end of this courtesy of either Natsu or Mavis or maybe both so yeah. Let's hope all the manga in between this point and the final Zeref Friendship Speech will at least have something substantial to comment about.

Boku no Hero Academia 55 Review: False Conclusion

My Hero Academia, Chapter 55: Conclusion?

So last chapter, apparently that one last blow from Midoriya and Iida actually took out Stain and knocked him unconscious… for a little while, at least. He’s too cool (and the students too weak, relatively speaking) to be taken out so early and not by the actual big guns like Gran Tourino or Endeavor. Overall it’s been a pretty awesome cooldown chapter, and it’s actually a bit of a fake-out conclusion. It has all the markings of a normal cool-down chapter with the main threat, Stain, dealt with last chapter, and the rest of this chapter shows the mop-up of the lesser villains… except, y’know, that’s not quite the case, and it seems like we’re going to have this drag on a little bit longer.

We start off a couple minutes before the end of last chapter, with Endeavor and Gran Tourino (who recognizes Endeavor as ‘Todoroki’, which of course, is Endeavor’s family name) fighting the multiple-eyed Noumu… which has multiple quirks. It’s strong enough to withstand a low-burst flame from Endeavour – which, like any normal flame would do, will completely take out normal humans. It’s got some kind of bulking-jumping ability, and a quirk that lets his tongue grow out all gross-like like a net. Gran Tourino takes out the Noumu no problem by just zip-FAKOOM-ing the Noumu to the ground.

We finally get confirmation that Gran Tourino’s quirk is “Jet”, which allows him to propel air from the bottoms of his feet, but like Eraserhead there’s a bit of a funny restriction: he can only use air that he breathes himself, so it kind of ‘rattles his old bones’. Apparently Gran Tourino has less control, because, well, he completely fucked up the ground when he knocked down the Noumu.

Endeavor calls Gran Tourino a ‘Golden Ager’, another nice little meta-joke for this superhero comic-book inspired manga. Endeavor gets a bit of a flashback a bit to when his team arrived at the scene – where he shows that he’s a competent team leader and hero even if he’s a shitty father. And I do like that Todoroki (when I say Todoroki, I of course mean Todoroki Shouto, since both of them are technically Todoroki but y’know, I’m more used calling Shouto as Todoroki), while running off to back up Midoriya, does acknowledge that Endeavor is going to easily resolve of any problem. Which is nice. Maybe Endeavor can learn to not be such a colossal piece of human filth.

Endeavor tells Gran Tourino to head to the address Todoroki had told him before, delivering a badass boast that the only assistance required to take down the Big Noumu is only him, Endeavor.

Stain wasn’t completely taken out by that two-page-splash chapter-ending punch™ we saw last chapter, and Midoriya seems to have broken something on his arm. But Todoroki fucking burns Stain in the face while Iida kicks him in the gut. This seems to kind of knock Stain unconscious for a bit. Todoroki saves them all with an ice slide, and tie up Stain with some rope they found from a recycling trash can thing. Alongside the nameless Feather-Head Superhero who’s carrying Midoriya around, they come across Gran Tourino, who’s all pissed off that Midoriya went off on his own. Other lesser heroes sent by Endeavor show up too late to serve as backup, and they acknowledge that they don’t have useful quirks to fight against the Big Noumu.

Iida apologizes to Midoriya and Todoroki, they tell him to pull himself together, and they kind of note that the battle only really lasted around 5-10 minutes but felt a lifetime for them… but it’s not over! The Winged Noumu, minus half his face, suddenly swoop down and grab the paralyzed Midoriya away. Gran Tourino note that the height that the Noumu is flying is too far even for his quirk, but unexpectedly, Stain breaks free with a little knife hidden in his armband, gives the lady superhero guarding him a fucking gross lick through the face because some of the Noumu’s blood splashed there. That freezes the Winged Noumu, and allows Stain to fucking hop up and murder the shit out of the Noumu with a badass talk. “The phonies that have overrun society, and the criminals who so aimlessly sprinkle around their power…those are the targets of my purge. All of this for the sake… of a just world!”

Stain looks even more psychotic than ever in that last panel, and I’m honestly really, really curious about this dude’s backstory. Just what happened to him that he hates all these fake, phony "it's only a job" superheroes? Not only is it an interesting, unique twist on all the superhero theme, it's also pretty fresh to have this serial killer turn out to actually be a cool anti-villain monster thing. 

Looking forward to see what's going to come next. 

Toriko 335 Review: The Kings!

Toriko, Chapter 335: Stirring

This chapter is just a big string of “HOLY FUCK” one after the other. It cuts away from the cooking tournament – and it’s rare that something that would seem so trivial starring a bunch of C-listers be something that I don’t want to cut away from… but it is something I don’t want to cut away from! Though the stuff we did get here is on a whole different quotient of Holy Shit-ness, so it’s not a bad thing either I guess?

We start off with a narration talking about how three great events may have caused a stirring – the birth of a new Herac, the dance of Bambina… and Toriko recovering after his fight with Starjun pre-timeskip.

Then we get a gigantic splash page of Whale King Moon… which looks like a moon replaced the front half of a whale, which isn’t something I didn’t expect. But apparently it resonated all around the world – we first cut to Area 5, where Zebra and Buranchi are like ‘oh no everything is shaking’, which seemed to imply that if Whale King Moon moved, it’ll cause earthquakes and shit (though considering it’s the size of a moon, I wouldn’t be surprised either). Zebra’s echolocation reveals that the forest they’re in… is not a forest.

And no, it’s not just any random freak natural phenomenon, because we cut to a two-page splash of the Deer King, Sky Deer! And holy fuck it’s awesome. Sky Deer has an entire forest on its back, and it looks more like an entire mountain formation just moved.

Meanwhile, in Area 4, Sani and Livebearer comes across what they thought was a wall, or a mountain… but, of course, is the god damned Mother Snake. Words cannot do justice how phenomenally awesomely gigantic the artwork make the Mother Snake and Sky Deer look like. The Mother Snake is likewise just freaking awesome.

In Area 3, Coco and Tyran sees that the sky grows dark – y’know, the Emperor Crow – and something falls down next to them and makes a gigantic impact… and it’s not the crow, but rather a detached feather. Yeah, the feather alone makes Coco and Tyran look tiny.

Meanwhile, in Area 2, Toriko and Starjuun comes across a ‘King Land Shark’, a gross-looking diseased shark with gigantic gums and a flower-tongue thing which appeared in one of the earlier chapters of this series, back as a showcase of the insane beasts in Gourmet World when Jiro talked about his full course. It’s a Capture Level 4450, and Toriko and Starjun discuss for a beat how it’s a monster that will attack one of the Eight Kings, and how Toriko alone won’t be able to handle it. Together, though, they think they can take down the King Land Shark, but not even Starjun wants to mess with…

The Battle Wolf. Who looks awesome.

Starjun brings up Terry Cloth,  remembering their earlier encounter, and then we get another two-page splash page of Bambina fighting with Terry, Kiss and Quinn. Which is holy fuck so awesome. I absolutely love that image of Bambina kicking Kiss which looks just great. Bambina seems to be having a ball! Zonge and his cronies are apparently still around, looking at some weird sci-fi space rift thing that apparently Bambina and company are training in. Zonge decides to escape, but of course, Zonge being Zonge I guess he’s doomed eternally to be Bambina’s bedside companion. Poor Zonge’s butt.

We then cut over to Area 2, Neo’s hideout, and we briefly see the weird-looking chef Apollo, before cutting away to Komatsu’s friend who was the non-jerk one that was kidnapped by Neo. He’s approached by Teppei, who note that they are the only two people not controlled by Joa’s “bacteria”, so he was of his sane mind when he, y’know, killed Komatsu. Which, as the characters themselves have pointed out, is too risky of a plan to be made of a sane mind and honestly a pretty damn dickish evil thing to do.

Teppei wants to know what Komatsu’s buddy (Umen, is he called?) saw in Area 1… and we do see it, which is this… well, man, who also happens to be a big tumour monster thing with six muscular arms, two gigantic bulbous tumours growing from his shoulders, and like two dozen abs. And he kinda sorta looks like Toriko. So is he connected to Toriko’s origin story somehow? Some people think it’s Acacia, which is rather likely too, so just what is it?

What is going on in this chapter I don’t even. It’s just a big series of grand reveals and I absolutely love it.

One Piece 797 Review: Basically What Was Expected

One Piece, Chapter 797: Rebecca

 

So, One Piece… yeah, I don’t really have much to say about this chapter compared to Bleach and Toriko. I certainly think it’s relatively weak… but unlike the Fairy Tail chapter last week, it at least progressed the plot and showed some things that needed to be shown. I still think going through the gladiatorial allies one by one and showing how they’re fucking up the marines’ attempts and hounding down the Straw Hats is obvious padding, though.

Basically Luffy, as expected, goes off to kidnap Rebecca and get her to talk to Kyros and have a father-daughter moment. It’s all dramatic and stuff and relatively well done, but really this should’ve happened right after the fight with Diamante instead of doing it now where we’re all excited for other things and the whole Kyros-Rebecca story has more or less been dealt with. There’s also a bit of that nice ‘oh noes evil pirates’ vibe when everyone else just gets absolutely gobsmacked that Luffy has kidnapped the princess – kind of like the reverse of Skypiea where the Straw Hats were actually stealing something while the villagers are trying to make nice with them. But eh, it’s hardly enough content to justify an entire chapter… or maybe it would be, if it was placed properly in this arc.

The chapter ends with Fujitora coming in to smash Bartolomeo’s little attempts to hold back the marines, while Luffy is just running. I don’t expect anything to really happen until 799 and 800, so I’m assuming next chapter will more or less be just filler.

Nanatsu no Taizai 136 Review: Demons and Demonpigs

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 136: Spreading Fear

Well, there's this to wash off the rancid taste of this week's Fairy Tail chapter. We start off right where we left off, with Galan picking himself off the ground, and demanding Merascylla (named after the Greek sea monster Scylla, I would assume) but both Merascylla and Zeldoris tells Galan to calm down because he’s going to get defeated again.

Zeldoris then tells the other Ten Commandments to head off in groups of two or more to recover their magic, and Zeldoris basically tells everyone to kill everything in their pathway, consequences be damned. Fraudrin cautions the others not to underestimate Meliodas and the Seven Sins (hilariously none of the others have any idea what the Sins are). Galan, meanwhile, flies into a rage and is about to say about how if he felt like it, Meliodas would be…before getting interrupted by the six-armed, hood-headed giant demon who tells Galan not to lie – because the Ten Commandments will incur their own curses on themselves if they break their own laws.

And it’s something that a lot of people have been speculating to be the case – that the Ten Commandments might be affected by their own curses and it would be the Achilles’ Heel for a fair amount of them.

Eight of the Commandments head off (Galan visibly jumps away while the others fly in little black streaks, which is a nice attention to detail) but not Zeldoris and Esterossa. Zeldoris apparently has something that he needs to do around there, while Esterossa just seems to be lazy and want to enjoy the sights… and it involves horribly mutating a random bird that perched on his shoulder into this big tumour monster thing before exploding in a shower of blood. Damn, Esterossa, you insane.

We see a bit of the Commandments going off – Monspiet and Derrierie goes off to some black market district, CuteTentacleGirl and GiantHoodHead arrive at where Byzel used to be, where these dudes have repurposed the giant boulder left behind by the Seven Sins’ battle… well, sucks to be you, Mr. Taizoo who I don’t remember but I am pretty sure showed up before.

We get a bit of the other characters basically calling Meliodas out and calling him an idiot for provocating the Ten Commandments and starting the invasion of the demons, but Meliodas, all calm and shit, tells them that there is no way that he can take out all ten of the Commandments at once, full power or not, so they’re going to pick off the Commandments when they’re separated into smaller group. Yes, there’s going to be casualties, but that’s better than, y’know, running in all suicidal towards the Commandments .

Hawk, meanwhile, has seemed to grown a pair of cute demon horns and scales… and absolutely no one pays attention or gives a shit about his change in appearance, poor piggy. Just what happened to Hawk inside that cave? He’s clearly not just any random pig, so just what’s up with him, really?

Meanwhile, Gowther and Arthur seems to have come into possession of an odd legless cat, while Threader is carrying out a naked, crying Griamor – who’s apparently aged down to a child. What in the actual fuck? Well, at least we know Threader’s probably going to make a good father in the future. Meanwhile, Elizabeth got a new outfit and failed her training. Oh well.

Overall pretty exciting! The Ten Commandments stuff is going on strong, though I really wished more focus is placed on them actually fighting the Commandments instead of just standing around talking.

Fairy Tail 448 Review: How to Utterly Waste Twenty Pages

Fairy Tail, Chapter 448: Fight the Power

This is going to be a short review, because how else can it be not? Is there anything of value in these twenty pages? I read it twice, and came out with... nothing. There is absolutely nothing. At least in previous chapters they were advancing the plot, however slowly and long-windedly and predictably. This chapter? There is absolutely nothing to talk about. The entire chapter is basically being all "STATUS QUO IS GOD NOTHING WILL EVER EVER CHANGE", which is something that I absolutely loathe about Fairy Tail. Again, it affirms that nothing can change the personalities of these characters -- they're making the same old jokes again and again -- and nothing can make any significant change to the characters. Team Laxus joins Blue Pegasus? Literally no one gives a fuck, because, yep, in two or three chapters they're back with Fairy Tail. Erza becomes the new master? Makarov is stuck in enemy territory? Status. Quo. The entire chapter, again, is re-establishing the same old things over and over and over again, with absolutely no new information whatsoever given to us. Then they make the same "oh we gon beat the super strong enemy because FRIENDSHIP" speech they made over thirty times. The same old inane jokes that's been made countless times throughout older chapters -- jokes that used to take two or three pages the first time they were told, are now stretched out over twenty pages. And we even had Lucy flashback to the very last chapter because Fairy Tail wants to outdo the already bad Naruto in terms of unneeded flashbacks. And the ending? Mavis showing up to explain Lumen Histoire, and then saying jack shit that we don't already know about? They're not even planning their next move, they're just reiterating their situation in different ways, then claiming they're going to beat their enemy just because and it's at this point that you know that these characters all have plot armour so thick that not a single one of them will suffer any more than a boo-boo during the final battle. That's it. Because status quo is god. Absolutely nothing changes at all. Literally nothing is allowed to change. Since the end of Tartaros until now, a good thirty-two chapters, only three things really changed: the Zeref Dragneel revelation, the fact that Natsu has a mysterious bandage, and Charle can transform into a loli-catgirl. Literally nothing else changed, because who the fuck cares about the Spriggan Twelve? Natsu's going to beat them by punching them without getting any sort of explanation of his power up.

Mother fuck, Fairy Tail, just because you have like seven spinoff titles that are telling the same bullshit story and a big selling anime that happens to be selling well (and honestly a good part of that is due to the pretty animation and voice acting) doesn't mean you can write bullshit like this. Not a single panel in this chapter told anything new or interesting.

Boku no Hero Academia 54 Review: Iida's Counterattack

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 54: Re-Ingenium

Still absolutely brilliant, as Iida doesn't need an entire fucking arc (or, as the case of Sasuke in Naruto, close to seven or eight years IRL) to wallow in anger and vengeance after being beaten by a more powerful villain and choose a darker route, et cetera. No, Stain's words clearly got to Iida and a good chunk of this episode had him just reflect on those words and on how utterly idiotic and self-absorbed he has been, and I do absolutely love how this little self-introspection is intercut with Stain just rampaging -- the art truly makes him look like a psychopath -- and being barely checked by Todoroki and Midoriya combined.

We get a short flashback of Ingenium, who's a decent nice dude, before going back to the present. Stain notes how Todoroki's over-reliance on his overpowering quirk makes his actual movements slow -- I think it's the same advice All Might told Tokoyami. But before Stain can bifurcate Todoroki, we get a majestic two-page splash of Iida, having recovered from Stain's powers deliver an almighty kick that smashes Stain's katana apart, and delivers a second kick to push Stain back.

Iida is all apologetic to Todoroki and Midoriya, but Stain, rather logically, doesn't buy it. Todoroki tells Iida to shut out Stain's words because they are bullshit, but Iida notes that Stain is right -- he just can't afford to run away now, because that will forever tarnish the name of Ingenium. Stain, meanwhile, just looks as ax-crazy as ever. 

They also note that despite the fact that Stain's quirk is technically not all that useful when fighting people of an incompatible blood type, and how his targets are only Iida and the Native American Man, he's, y'know, fucking rabid. Iida blocks one of Stain's daggers with his hands while trying to plan something out with Todoroki, asking him to freeze the area around his damaged leg engine. Midoriya, elsewhere, gets up, and both happen to get up at the same time and deliver an utterly righteous blow to Stain's face.

I still don't think it'll take him out of comission just yet -- he's not going to go down here -- but that might be the deciding blow that hurt Stain enough to make him retreat before Gran Tourino, Endeavour and the rest arrive. More interestingly is how Iida claims that he'll "sacrifice" the arm that Stain threw a dagger into -- the arm isn't sliced off or visibly broken, and we've seen some really awesome healing powers courtesy of the school nurse, so I think Iida's just being overdramatic. Though he might be referring to irreparable muscle or nerve damage or something? Eh, Iida fights with his legs anyway, I don't think it'll make much of a difference.

Overall a great chapter, though I imagine one or two chapters to wrap this arc up would be neat. Despite its relative newness, I do think Boku no Hero Academia is quickly rising up to be one of my favourite mangas.

Toriko 334 Review: Yuda is a BOSS

Toriko, Chapter 334: One Millimeter Yuda

Yuda is... easily my favourite character in Toriko other than the Four Kings and maybe some of the Bishokukai people. He's always just been this funny old dude who keeps saying one millimeter while being scarily competent despite being old and a chef, and he's definitely grown in prominence through the Four Beasts and Cooking Festival arcs. And that's saying something, considering Toriko has a scary number of guest star chefs that are simply just one-note people with jack shit personality beyond a character quirk.

Yuda's full course is revealed at the beginning of the chapter, and it's filled with laughably weak capture levels -- somewhat similar to how Coco and Sani's filled parts of their full courses are, actually. And Condor, like most of the fandom, mocks this... but Yuda speaks about how full courses are the ultimate program for each person, and how his own full course reflects his feelings for his old Combo.

Condor continues to be a gigantic piece of dick, but the crab slices the space bubble they're on and drops them into the Soul Furnace, and they end up on a Seesaw Kitchen... which will teeter depending on who is faster in cooking. Which doesn't exactly make sense considering the overall mass and weight of both bubbles will be the same whether it's a raw fish or a cooked fish, but I guess in a comic with floating space bubbles spat out by coffin crabs and flames created by the burning hunger of the damned dead, I can't argue too much and just say it's designed to teeter depending on who's faster.

One of the commentators gets dragged by the Soul Furnace's screaming flames and he's basically reduced to a dessicated corpse and holy shit, that's brutal. And it shows that Blue Grill is playing for keeps, killing off whichever chef's going to lose.

Condor creates his bubble thing again, which is apparently called Warp Space, and Damala Sky studies it with his cyborg eye. We don't get any information from Damala, though, as a different commentator explains about how the gravity is all out of whack in the bubbles, and despite Yuda and Condor standing straight like it ain't no thang, every cooking utensil around them is just spinning wildly thanks to the psychotic gravity. And Yuda starts to slowly judge the properties of the Leaf Fish, how its scales are like medicinal leaves and whatnot.

Yuda's side of the seesaw suddenly drops, however, and apparently Condor is moving really, really fast. Yuda is all like "That's impossible! ... is that what you thought I'd think?" before making an utterly badass boast about how he's outgrown the concept of surprise itself over 100 years, barring the one exception of Komatsu making the medicinal cooking mochi that one time. Condor keeps trash-talking Yuda, and Yuda takes the insults in stride as he does this vitality-buffing trick he calls Ishoku Dougen Kiketsu Up.

And we get a fucking flashback for Yuda and normally I'd decry shoving in random flashbacks, but we don't know much about Yuda and this flashback holy shit is absolutely grand. Apparently back when he was young he was cool-looking and didn't have a mustache that takes up 70% of his facial surface area. He was a super-genius cook, but he is considered unworthy to inherit the shop by his master.

Young!Yuda travels throughout the land, and meets this sickly boy who's hunting Medicinal Cattle... who, despite its funny name, is this monstrous horrifying-looking carnivorous warthog who can swallow an adult man in one chomp. Young!Yuda, of course, slices its throat without looking, and returns to the village with the kid, finding out that the entire village is afflicted with a plague, and Yuda, being a medicinal chef, creates a medicinal dish to counteract this super-plague. However, because the medicinal dish is bad-tasting, none of the kids would eat it. Which, by the way, is utterly stupid because you wouldn't gulp down a bad-tasting soup on pain of death? Really?

The kid Yuda saved, Zen, was the only child who ate Yuda's medicinal soup, and while he remarks that the soup was awful, he talks about how he dreamed about being a Bishokuya, how he had a full course planned out, how it can cure the illnesses of people around the world. Zen talks about how Yuda can be his partner, and can make his disgusting medicinal full course taste good. Yuda is kind of snarking... when Zen suddenly, out of nowhere, coughs up blood. And fucking dies.

And we get this solemn panel of Yuda standing in front of Zen's gravestone, thinking about how during the preparation stage of the antidote cooking, for child use a slight shift was needed in one of the openings with a kitchen knife... a shift of one millimeter. And that difference, apparently was what killed Zen -- he probably overdosed on the medicine like how you can't feed adult doses of pain-killers or depressants into children or that will kill them. And while all the villagers are all like 'you saved the rest of us, master Yuda!' He definitely takes it to heart.

And all along we thought he was just a kooky old guy who just happens to have this weird quirk. It's apparently part of his tragic backstory... and it's awesome, from a storytelling point of view.

Yuda flashes back to his master telling him how without knowing failure, he will be confident, and subsequently be so overconfident to overlook a millimeter of negligience. And, of course, the full course that Zen has decided on is exactly the one that Yuda has in the present day, and the meat dish was the very same medicinal cattle that Yuda cooked and killed Zen.

Also, subtly for people who pay attention, Yuda named his shop, Zen-O, after Zen. So holy hell that was an awesome backstory.

Present-day-Yuda, meanwhile, is discovering things about the Leaf Fish, like how the leaves are multiple layers of thin membranes he needs to peel off one at a time, and starts beginning prep work with this Ashura Dance. Condor has finished cooking and starts talking about how each membrane was 0.1 millimeters and how it's impossible for him to finish cooking at that moment... shut up, Condor, you have four arms.

Yuda's side of the seesaw drops into the Furnace, but it suddenly rises up again. Yuda talks about how he can't win in terms of speed... but he will finish his cooking thanks to his prep work, and he has been fucking cutting the gravity around him, presumably with the aid of the Melk super knife thing he has, and apparently somehow altered all the gravitational space around him to point straight up, other than the area right around the Leaf Fish itself.

Yuda makes some badass proclamation about how prep work is crucial if you don't want to make mistakes, how less haste will eventually lead to more speed, and Condor falls into the Soul Furnace. Yuda says about how 3000 years of confidence has produced a megaton-class mistake. And as Condor is consumed by the furnace, Yuda proclaims with all the confidence of that badass motherfucker that he is that the lines within the gravitational space was merely... one millimeter. *ba dum tss*

Overall? Yuda is the boss. Fuck Komatsu, he can go around discovering secrets. Yuda's going to own this cooking contest. I'm likewise really interested in seeing the stories of the other four chefs that show up with Yuda, though I don't really rate their chances that highly. Some of them's gotta lose, right?