Episode 1036:
- Chopper's young, yes, but he really should know better than to cry like a little bitch, huh?
- Izo uses his Haki-infused guns to shoot at a giant member of the Beasts Pirates, then Kawamatsu River of Retribution's him. Pretty cool since these two are the Scabbards who arguably did the least (after Ashura Doji) so even little moments like this does build up the fact that they're doing something in the raid.
- Queen has extendable mini-teeth inside of his teeth. That just sounds like overkill!
- That is a pretty cool Diable Jambe! The Wano arc has always been great with fire! ...and then we get the slapstick ridiculousness of helicopter-neck Queen literally helicoptering around.
- "He'll have the strength of 10 men." -wakes up- "2000!"
- And we cut back to the attic, and... at least we make it immediately clear that Kin'emon avoided having his upper body being smooshed, and that he collapses with his head and torso intact. It's a scene from the manga, yes, and so is the flashback to when the time-travelers returned to the present-day. It kinda helps to establish that Kin'emon might have something more to give... but I still do think that Kin really should've died here. Such a great note for him to go out on.
- ...it is a bit of a terrible plot point to foreshadow, yes, but having Kin'emon fart in the flashback while talking to Momonosuke does, in a way, help to build up the farting thing that comes later on. Sigh.
- No, Kaido still stabs Kin'emon instead of slashing him. We do get some more establishing shots of Kin'emon lying there with the sword sticking out of him, but... eh, I don't know. This whole episode is very dramatic and well done, yes, but knowing what comes next does kind of ruin my enjoyment of it.
- There are so many dramatic moments in this episode! Kin'emon trying to practice not saying Momonosuke-sama, Kaido being a dick about samurai dying, Momonosuke remembering Kin'emon's words about crying and conquering his fear to tell everyone of Luffy being alive, the visualization of Momo's Voice of All Things... bah.
Episode 1037:
- Yeah, everyone's giving Shinobu shit for really not doing anything super awesome, but the balls on this woman for holding her ground in front of Kaido and tossing those useless kunai onto his eyeballs. Good job, Shinobu! Then that Jiki Jiki no Jutsu just in time to escape from Kaido? Good fucking job, Shinobu.
- Ah, yes, Climatact Zeus. Always kind of obvious for me, mostly because Oda wouldn't give Nami a power-up just to literally take it away next arc.
- Did we really need a full flashback to Nami rescuing Zeus from Hera, though?
- Ah, the setup for Kid and Law teaming up to fight Big Mom. Not the biggest Kid fan, but it is kinda neat to see him talk about the 'new age' he wants to create. We never really got a follow-up to what, exactly, that is.
- And we get the CP-0 talking about stats in Onigashima on their Go Board... mm.
- ULTI! I like Ulti.
- As awesome as the MASER Cannon animation was, I really didn't need to see another recap of the entire scene wholesale.
- Usopp shot Ulti right in the boob! I don't really remember if the Usopp/Nami and Ulti scene is extended from the manga version.
Episode 1038:
- Yeah, a good chunk of this episode is just getting Tama to speak and get the Gifters that ate the kibi-dango on the good guys' side. A scene that's kinda obvious, and at least not as frustrating as the ice oni virus. I guess a lot of the Gifters already get a fair amount of additional scenes in the anime, so... I guess it's something rather interesting to add?
- We literally replay the 'Zeus can extend into a spiky club' and Usopp shooting the Sargasso at Ulti. It's pretty noticeable, really. I don't know... I guess I just expected Nami defeating Ulti to get a little bit more, considering how Ulti's been a pretty recurring character and the fight between them was kind of an afterthought? Eh.
- I did really like the execution of Nami's very smug face at the name "Fluffy".
- Yeah, that instrumental 'We Are' as we cut to all the Straw Hats fighting before Tama speaks is actually quite well-done!
- We also get a scene of the Heart Pirates all fussing over Luffy and trying to get him out of the ocean. Basically it's an excuse to have Jean Bart use his super-large body to pump out water from Luffy's lungs.
- HOLY SHIT THOUGH Yamato and Kaido at the end, what a beautifully animated scene. It lasted 2 minutes or so, but still. Particularly after that purple explosion of Haki when the animation studio suddenly changed. Damn! How smooth are those lightning bolts running up Yamato's kanabo, or Kaido slamming his feet, or that demonic look on Kaido's face as he screams YAMATOOOH or that spinning camera around the two's clash? The colours of the yellows and purples around them... Beautiful!
Episode 1039:
- Which is kind of a shame since we go from Kaido and Yamato's confrontation to... just... a bunch of Gifters changing sides. I get it. We need a whole scene. And the Gifter minions like Daifuku and Speed and Gazelleman did get a bit more screentime in the anime. Everything is competently animated, it's just kind of a letdown after 1038 got my blood pumping so heavily. So I guess this episode is just going to be me pointing out cool, unnamed Gifters.
- There's a cool guy with like, stag beetle pincers for lower arms, and beetle wings, and a helmet and muffler that kinda screams Kamen Rider to me. Only except for the Kamen.
- There is a six-human-armed lady dressed up with a miniskirt version of Wasp from Marvel Comics, and she sextuple-wields whips.
- A giant guy with a boar head that just kinda screams 'Inosuke' to me.
- There's a pair of guys who literally have their upper bodies grow out of the spines of a crocodile and a kangaroo respectively.
- Okay, always admittedly nice to see Sanji and Queen both doing pretty flashy shit with their Diable Jambe and Black Coffee attacks respectively.
- Of course they animate Queen's transformation with a sequence that just screams 'giant mecha anime stock footage'.
- The main part of this episode that's kinda relevant is just the Baby-Gramps Chopper, and Who's Who little revelation that he's tied to the Gomu Gomu no Mi.
- I still like the conversation between Chopper and Caesar about pirates having to take risks. I still think the random Zou Magic Pill of Recovery is still a gigantic asspull that they really could've foreshadowed beforehand.
- Who's Who's little sword stuck on a long-ass sheath still looks ridiculous, and even more so since it stays on the screen longer than a single panel.
- We get to see Who's Who's transformation, and part of it is his hands explicitly ripping his gloves apart as he goes into hybrid mode. But... didn't he start this encounter with Jinbe in full sabertooth tiger mode? What, did he find a fresh pair of gloves when he returned back to human form?
Episode 1040:
- Oh yeah, this episode had a lot of flashback scenes. I kind of get the flashbacks showing Jinbe's history with Luffy. I really do! This episode is all about Jinbe showing his devotion to Luffy and the Straw Hats. But everything else? I can definitely do without.
- Cat Zeus is cute!
- Okay, Who's Who's Fang Pistol being drawn as these absolutely savage-looking flying fangs are cool. Even cooler, however, is Jinbe casually using Armament Haki to deflect them to the side. He even bleeds, which, again, I think is okay in One Piece anime now, but I really did wonder if the censorship laws changed since the beginning parts of Wano. Later on, we get a mass of Fang Pistols and Jinbe just so casually sidesteps all of them. What the hell!
- "My goodness, it's out of style nowadays to discriminate against Fish-men." is such a great passive-aggressive way to say 'wow, you're racist, you punk'.
- Okay, Who's Who's Fang Flash has him go all Super Saiyan Rose or whatever the hell the pink version of Super Saiyan is called, and it's animated amazingly well. After sitting through almost eight minutes of basically nothing, that's a nice breath of fresh air.
- The ora-ora barrage that Jinbe and Who's Who does later on in the fight is also pretty slick, particularly when Who's Who speed-blitzes Jinbe.
- That's a great split-second zoom-in on Jinbe's angry face as he does the jujutsu shoulder throw, with darker lines and stuff.
- "Sun God" Nika! Yeah, I really did wish that other than the brief vague bits of references in the Skypiea arc that we actually did get some Nika foreshadowing over the course of the series. It's not bad as Naruto's Kaguya (and the context of a final villain and the nature of a plot device is different), but I really did feel like they really did put this Nika reveal a bit too close to the actual reveal of it in the story.
- Oh, the animation studios did a great job at showing Jinbe's tranquil fury (soon to not be so tranquil in a couple of shots) when Who's Who insensitively goes 'oh, your Sun Pirates used to have slaves, right'?
- One absolutely wonderful shot that the anime added in this episode, however, is a brief blue aura of Fisher Tiger's face as Jinbe weathers the barrage of 'Spots', and turns full-body Armament Haki. And then we get the wonderful cracks as Who's Who's fingers snap and break
- And then Jinbe totally breaks the rest of the bones in Who's Who's wrist, tanks a kick to the face without even flinching, tanks another Fang Pistol (previously established to be able to break through Armament Haki), steps on his tail like a goddamn boss, and does the ONIGAWARA SEIKEN.
- There's just something so badass about Jinbe's fist stopping mere inches from Who's Who's face... and then the explosion of force happens. Holy fucking shit, bro.
- It's also something that I didn't notice in the manga, but the shockwaves from Demon Brick Fist totally blow up Who's Who's stupid cat towers.
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