One Piece Anime, Wano Arc: Episodes 1063-1065

Even more One Piece! This is a bit less hyped-up than the Zoro and Sanji vs. Queen fights, and I did take a rather extended break from watching One Piece, but it's still a pretty solid batch of episodes! It just took me a while to get to watching them.

I also skipped ahead and watched the Gear Fifth episodes, but I'll slowly work up there. My One Piece watching schedule is very erratic!

Episode 1063:

• Perhaps to compensate for the very high-budget last couple of episodes (and the next couple), I did feel like this episode replays a fair bit of the Zoro/King fight. I mean, I'm not complaining, it's a pretty fight, but it's also a bit noticeable.
• There are a couple of clashes between Big Mom and Kaido against their respective opponents, but I genuinely can't tell if these are just new animation or reused ones from before.
• We also get the CP-0 guy in the room, as well as the narrator, basically outlining what would happen if Onigashima is allowed to crash and our heroes fail. It's... it's admittedly just filler, but it is kind of important to highlight the scope of the battlefield? This feels like one of those 'Oda draws a cross-section of Onigashima' panels. 
• Yamato and Fuga beat that one other Number in this episode. I thought it'd be obvious for them to add the SBS backstory that Oda gave for Yamato and Fuga, but I guess the anime team never found out about the SBS backstories? I want to say that, but we do get Kid's SBS-exclusive backstory, so...
• Usopp helping Kin'emon and Kiku is still a very eye-rolling scene, with the exact exception of Usopp's angry rambling about 'what the fuck is wrong with your samurai culture? I would hold on to life with snot dripping, even if it's unsightly!' 
• The flashbacks to the Dressrosa arc is... it's thematic, actually, and probably combined with the Sogeking moment, the two big 'Usopp is already a legendary warrior of the ocean' moments in this story. He just really needs to acknowledge himself.
• Okay, that was an epic tattoo-showing strip by Izo.
• "God Usopp!" "Eh, you know me??" One of the underrated funniest moments in the arc. 
• Ah, right. Raizo and Fukurokuju. I feel like they added just enough to make their conflict feel a bit more protracted without deviating from the vibe of the manga. I could see a different anime team (like Naruto Shippuden's final saga anime) expanding their whole fight into two episodes of its own. And while this is still a fight I wished we had more focus on, it does fit with the original intent of the manga. 
• 
  Okay, so Guernica taking down Drake and the purple Number is just still kind of an understated moment. These guys, on the other hand, I really wished we had an extended fight the way the Sanji/Page One fight in Wano's first arc was extended. 
• Luffy casually letting loose a little shot of Ryu'o Haki is very clean.
  

Episode 1064:

• We get to see the festival in the Flower Capital again, and... at least we get some new scenes and dialogue? Toko running around and stuff? It's a scene from the manga that we haven't seen before, but I really can't say much about it. I guess it's a bit less repetitive this time around, is all.
• There's a shot before Kaido walks in with the booze of Luffy activating Haki on both arms. One of the bigger complaints about the manga, particularly once we get into the intricacies of Haki, is that we sometimes aren't clear whether it's Armament, Ryu'o, Conqueror Infusion or something else being used, and I do like that the anime does take time to show these off in a cool manner. 
• It is kind of hypocritical for Luffy to get pissed at Kaido for drinking in the midst of the battle when he's been commenting about how fun battle is for the past couple of episodes and scenes. 
• Luffy claims he doesn't like to drink. I know he's not a boozehound like Nami and Zoro, but I'm pretty sure that pre-timeskip, he's downed a couple of beers.
• Ah, yes, the various phases of Drunk Kaido. His sad, crying wororororo is hilarious!
• Happy-drunk Kaido gets to goof around a bit more, and it's... okay, I'm still not the most convinced that this was necessary even as a way to 'lighten up' this long-running fight, but I do like that this does help to explain the suicidal-I-want-to-kill-myself Kaido that we saw for the first time in the manga. 
• Warai Jogo: RAGNARAKU! Lightning Hammered looks great in the anime with purple lightning in the background and black-red Haki lightning splitting the foreground. 
• But goddamn, he does sound like a very happy drunk. 
• Sad 'woe is me' Kaido is... I'm not sure how accurate I am because I'm not an animation buff, but I think it reuses a fair bit of the Tatsumaki animations we've seen before? If they were going to reuse animations in the Kaido/Luffy fight, this is actually a surprisingly 'fun' but ultimately nice budget-saving spot. 

• And obviously Kaido is an insane, evil man, but you can't feel just a bit sorry for him when he starts ranting about how he's just doing his best and nothing goes right for him. If not for the mass murder and enslavement, there's a case to be made for him being just a guy having a bad mid-life crisis. 
• And we get the epic headbutt with the two bright light auras, leading to Kaido being angry that he's being 'sobered up' and unleashing a gigantic blast of hyper beam energy at Luffy. Cool!
• And we of course end the episode with the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stand ora ora ora rush, between Roc Gatling and Kundali Ryuseigun. It is admittedly a lot more disappointing than the manga's version of this scene, though I think it's just because everything's moving a bit too quickly in this one, relying on motion blurs. 
  
• Again, just like how it was in the manga, this whole sequence of Kaido's different drunk states does seem like it's just there for a palate cleanser between fights, while still kind of 'progressing' the main plot by showing the main hero and main villain fighting each other. 
• Knowing what we do know in this year's chapters about what happened in Marie Geoise during the Reverie, it is hilarious to hear the Gorosei dismiss the 'Shichibukai thing' and the 'Alabasta thing' and focus on Wano. Honestly, you'd think that they'd focus more on hunting down the Revolutionaries ASAP! 
• And we get the scene of the World Government ships and Zunesha all coming in to Wano, which... really was brushed aside eventually, huh? It did really serve to hype shit up in a 'whoever wins, the government will sweep up the losers' vibe.
• We still don't really know their personalities, but it's interesting that it's Ju Peter that's raising such a huge fuss and confronting the other Gorosei -- or at least Warcury -- about the fact that they hid the identity of the Nika fruit. 

Episode 1065:

• Raizo vs. Fukurokuju! They sure are on fire!
• Yeah, I guess extending Jimbe saving those random samurai is an okay usage of extended scene that wouldn't eat into the 'action' animation budget.
• Yeah, Chopper reverting from Baby Geezer form to regular Chopper is definitely something the anime would drag out a bit. It's not as long as I thought it'd be, but it's noticeably longer than it should be. 
• It is still amazingly ambiguous what Zoro's meeting with the 'Grim Reaper' is. I don't know if Oda told the anime team what this scene is supposed to symbolize, but it sure as hell is extended with the surroundings taking a misty, sinister foggy hue; there being a black fog that appears from behind Zoro and coalescing into a dark orb, before the skeleton with glowing eyes manifest out of the shadows. 
  
• When Grimmy is fully shown, he does really look like Brook. Remember that it's a theory back in the day that it's just Zoro hallucinating Brook!
• It is nice seeing Franky running around and trying to reach wherever Zoro is fighting King. The anime made it a bit more obvious that Zoro and King really rampaged across the exterior of Onigashima. 
• Izo totally murdered a bunch of guys with the amount of blood splatters on the ground! I still kinda wished we get to see the specific fight that caused Izo to sustain so many wounds beyond 'damn those Animal Kingdom Pirates', but I do like that we at least do see Izo get a fair bit more screentime before his death. 
• Damn, he words it in a cool way, but in essence Guernica really did just say like 'man, I've got enough shit on my plate', huh?
• It also really does suck that Yamato's final fight is against Kanjurou's weird Kazenbou demon, huh? We get to see her do some ice breath and ice club stuff, but it really isn't the same. 
• It's really not something that's going to match up to the epic animation next episode, but we do get a pretty cool 'Fulgora' attack from Big Mom that blasts Kid and Law. 
• Okay, those random Kid and Law Pirates that charge in for that doomed attack on Big Mom at least tried to do something. It's not much and they got zapped by Big Mom's Tenjin attack before they even reached the old lady, but at least they tried.
• He doesn't do jack shit, but Chopper also at least tries to help in his capacity as a doctor.
• K-Room! Anesthesia! And... it still looks rather ridiculous, but it's a badass standing up moment from Law. I do really like that Law takes the chance of Big Mom thinking the fight is over and hovering up to help Kaido finish the fight with Luffy, and that gave Law the opening to stab Big Mom through the face. 
• Gotta love that while everyone is shocked and surprised at Law's attack, there's this one random orange-haired Beasts Pirate goon that's like 'Big Mom's dead!'
• Okay, Kid talks a lot of shit, but his badass boast as he creates Punk Corna Dio about how 'no damage' is bullshit is pretty well-delivered. 
• Shame that this is kind of the time where I kind of am sure that Kid's out of the running for a serious rival with his speech about being 'driven by a different purpose'. 
• PUNK CORNA DIO!
• And you got to admit, the formation scene of Punk Corna Dio, particularly with the random bull skull roaring and the kanji appearing on the screen looks pretty badass. Shame that the scene of the completed Punk Corna Dio goring Big Mom... is a bit sub-par. It's not terrible, but it is noticeably a lot less impressive than the preceding scene.