One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 966-970

Again with another batch of One Piece episodes! I originally wanted to rush all the way to 976, the end of the Oden flashback, but... nah, let's take it slow, yeah? 

As with the previous ones, the usual disclaimer still stands -- this is less of a review and more of my commentary. For the reviews of the individual events, I think I covered them enough in the manga reviews. Anyway... 

Episode 966:

• God damn, the animation in this episode. 
  
• The heavens split when Whitebeard and Roger clashed. Of course they do! Was this explicit in the manga? I genuinely don't remember.
• We get name-cards for all the Whitebeard and Roger pirates! All the Whitebeard Pirates are characters we've seen before, either as major or minor characters, in the Marineford War. And then among Roger's crew we've got legends like Rayleigh, Gaban, Buggy, Shanks... and Nozudon and Sambel. I mean, being part of the Roger Crew definitely means they're above-average, but since all we know about most of the Roger crew are their designs and names... I shouldn't be so dismissive. Maybe we get a proper Roger flashback that builds up on them. 
• Holy shit, though, we actually see the Roger and Whitebeard crew clash! Vista fights against Sambel the giant fishman! Jozu uses his diamond powers against some huge musclebound dude! We get some dude with goggles and an orange jacket doing a badass zoom-in clash!  Rakuyo's giant chain chomp chasing Shanks and Buggy around! This is the filler we need. 
• What was Oden doing in the three-day fight? Fighting Scopper Gaban, apparently; dual wielder against dual wielder. 
• MVP of this quick sequence of scenes is Rayleigh, who blocks phoenix-mode Marco not with one hand, but with one finger. He's also implied to clash with young Blackbeard, but the way the scene is cut is a bit ambiguous. 
• Good fucking lord the budget really went into animating Whitebeard and Roger just ripping black lightning into the fabric of reality as they clash with each other, huh. 
• Oh yeah, Shanks and Buggy having a staredown with Blackbeard! That's always one of the weirdest details snuck into this flashback that's just a ticking bomb for some epic reveal down the line, isn't it?
• With voice-acting, it's a lot more obvious what the 'unheard goal' it is that Roger and Luffy said and shocked people like Ace, Oden and Whitebeard. 
• The very serious discussion of Roger begging Oden to join his crew, Whitebeard being very furious at Roger trying to take his family and Oden's huge world-changing decision... is punctuated by the running gag of 'you're annoyed'. Oh, Oda, never change. 
• Roger and Rayleigh does actually note that 'it's been a long time' since they held a baby. Oh man, this line led to so much speculation from the fandom, I remembered. 
• Surprise filler! The Roger Pirates stop at Jaya, and Oden goes shopping and gets into hijinks as he steals ingredients while Gaban and the two kids insist that the Roger Pirates never steal from regular citizens. It lasts maybe three or four minutes, but it does help to bridge the gap between what's literally just two panels of Gaban and the others being pissed at Oden into accepting him as a member of the crew. That's obviously not very necessary, but a neat one regardless. 

Episode 967:

• Bink's Sake! A good musical piece is a great excuse to actually take a scene slow and let it sink in without being boring. This happens twice in the episode, but also helps to sell the fact that Bink's Sake is a well-known pirate shanty in this world. 
• ...the giant Yoshi egg. What is it. 
• I loved this segment of the story. So many cameos to previous locales we've seen before! Skypiea! Water Seven! Fishman Island! Even fucking Tequila Wolf! I don't really think I have that much to comment without listing everything that happens in this episode (and I already did it a couple years back when it happened in the manga) but it's so neat to see the history of the One Piece world shown through the eyes of a previous pirate crew.
• Love the little tie-in to showing Roger carving the message on Skypiea, and him re-establishing how much Fishman Island is tied to prophecies of pirates.
• I completely forgot that Franky casually was just in the background while the goddamn King of Pirates and his crew visited Tom. I'm not sure why this came as such a shock to me back then -- in hindsight, it was obvious since we know Tom is acquainted with Roger, but still.
• Is Shyarly's fortune-telling powers just supremely powerful Observation Haki, I wonder?
• I really enjoyed this episode. A great adaptation of the source material. Don't have that much to say about it, but I did enjoy it! One thing I really do like is that while this episode is probably the heaviest as far as Poneglyph stuff goes, I really do love that the focus is still on Oden and his journey with Roger. To them, the journey's what's important and I really like how that's portrayed here. 

Episode 968:

• 
  Oden and Toki's marriage is just so wholesome. Oden's straight-up willing to give up his adventure and stay with Toki on Wano, as much as it visibly pains him. While Toki point-blank refuses to allow Oden to do so. Selfish? Oden-centric? Perhaps, but I guess that's why the Oden-Toki marriage ends up working so well. 
• Knowing what eventually happened to Wano thanks to Orochi's taking over, and knowing that Oden could've stopped it if he actually stayed behind in Wano at this point in time... while also knowing that there's no other way for him and Roger to discover the truth of the world... god damn, even with hindsight, Oden's really had an unenviable choice before him, huh?
• Note that Kanjurou's the one that immediately suggests attacking the foreign pirates.
• I do like the little detail that baby Hiyori is immediately attached to Kawamatsu when they first met the retainers. 
• I really do also like tying in the whole 'voice of all things' stuff with the Sea Kings last episode and Zunesha in this one. 
• GENGHIS BAAN
• Did I never get the whole fact that the four Poneglyphs make a huge X-marks-the-spot? Dang it!
• I have also completely missed the fact that Roger gave Shanks the straw hat over the comment of "if we're going to reach there, we're going to do it with our own ships". Heck, I think I missed the fact that we actually saw the big moment where Rogers gave Shanks the hat entirely. 
• That Laugh Tale scene is actually pretty damn powerful, huh?

Episode 969:

• I wonder why Rayleigh really wants to see the 'world turned upside-down'? I really do like this small conversation between Roger and Rayleigh. There's a very strong bond there, some deep history between the two that we're not (yet) privy to, but these small conversations really do a great job at showcasing that, yeah, when Roger went around on his journey, there's probably an equivalent of huge crewmate-centric stories in his life, too. 
• Hearing it spoken out in Japanese -- "Gorudo" versus "Goru Di", makes the distinction between "Gold' and "Gol D." a lot more easy to tell. 
• SHIKI CAMEO! SHIKI CAMEO! SHIKI
• Man, that Sea King prophecy is still so freaking weird. Part of it almost definitely refers to Shirahoshi, but I really do wonder if Luffy is indeed a 'child of prophecy' (tm)? 
• "Just like the farewell between men, no one cried a single tear."
• "Welcome home, you bastard."
• That wound on Toki didn't become important. It probably will become important in the future, which would imply that Toki will show up in the present day, but... I really don't like that idea considering how nicely her story ends in the flashback.
• The artwork for Oden getting angry at "a little thing???!" is pretty great. 

Episode 970:

• Angry Oden is a badass Oden. That red glint in his eyes when he's about to slash Orochi is badass. Also badass is the slow-motion grin we get on his face when Orochi thinks "he's crazy!"
• Holy shit, though, he just literally jumps out of that his castle and ran all the way to the Flower Capital.
• Damn the Bari Bari no Mi is pretty damn badass. 
• What did happen to the real Sukiyaki? We are told he died, but since this is One Piece, and we never saw the body...
• Ah, yes, the naked-dancing scene. The 'oden wouldn't be oden if it wasn't boiled' scene is, I assume, formatted after a kabuki song. We hear Oden singing this while on Roger's ship, and it's the one he sings over and over while dancing naked, which makes that line spoken at the end of the flashback actually thematic -- since all of Wano would've heard it and associated it with ridiculing Oden. 
• Roger's execution! We get to see it again, with a whole ton of cameos!