One Piece Anime, Wano Arc: Episodes 1076-1078

And now we get to the final episode of the Luffy/Kaido fight. I thought about putting 1076 with 1074-1075, and leave the rest of the denouement chapters into one whole pile... but I took a while watching 1076, and that's why. Anyway... it's been a wild ride reviewing the Wano anime. It took me almost two years? Admittedly that's with a lot of hiatuses from my part, but eh, it's a fun enough project and I do feel like the Wano arc in the anime does benefit a lot from both improved animation as well as expansion of certain scenes.

Episode 1076:

• Splitting the original "Luffy beats Kaido" sequence into 1075 and 1076 to give the Hiyori moment actual time to breathe and for the final clash to be extended and played out a bit is, by the way, a great moment. I normally am not a fan of the old-school Dragon Ball Z mentality of 'let's have two people scream at each other for a whole episode while the peanut gallery makes comments', but in this case since we're covering the whole Hiyori subplot in 1075, it does mean that 1076 gives Momonosuke and, more importantly, Kaido, time to breathe. 
• And I still don't think the Kaido flashback in the anime fixes all of the problems I had with Kaido's portrayal in the Wano arc as a whole. But putting almost every single Kaido flashback piece, and highlighting just how much of his life has been embroiled with a 'might makes right' mentality, does make Kaido's character closure a whole lot better than what we got in the manga. 
• We get to see how little Kaido is a gigantic superstar in his home country of Vodka Kingdom, in a location where he's at the center stage -- which was not apparent in the manga, but it's interesting that the way Kaido is showing off his kanabo in front of the citizens of Vodka is framed very similarly to Queen's Performance Hall, indicating that Kaido at least partially built it similarly to how he was raised. 
• And then we get to see Kaido reacting and looking at the citizens being too poor and being abused by their kingdom's soldiers, who are collecting tribute to feed the bigger fish that is the World Government... and Kaido himself basically got sold off like an asset to the World Government. 
• "Don't use me for politics!"
• And this goes straight to present-day Kaido talking about how "you'll be betrayed if you're weak", and how he wants to plunge the world into one of violence. And... I guess Kaido was really hurting over that betrayal as a child in Vodka Kingdom, and presumably during his time in the Rocks Pirates. 
  
• Present-day Kaido also demands to know from Luffy what his goal was, after applauding his spirit and tenacity in gathering all of the pirates and samurai fighting against his forces. And basically this whole 20-minute episode is just this exchange, drawn-out. 
• There is, of course, some token resistance from Kaido unleashing more of his fiery power, and Gear Fifth Luffy struggling around and wibbly-wobblying mid-air.
• This sequence is punctuated with Kaido roaring that "you did great, but you can't change the world"... then cut to Kaido being captured and escaping from Marine vessels as a youth, getting his first bounty and eventually being recruited into the Rocks Pirates. 
• Interestingly, it's Whitebeard that recruited Kaido into the Rocks Pirates, and I really do wonder if some part of Whitebeard is basically trying to 'adopt' Kaido as an early 'son' or 'little brother', the way he would do to his own crew as he got older. 
• The mysterious silhouetted pirate that talks to Kaido is a man, but I must confess I don't recognize his voice. It might be Ochoku? Or just a generic deckhand.
• As with the manga, we only see scattered, out-of-context shots of all the scenes where Kaido works with the Rocks Pirates right before their disbanding.
• Man, young Big Mom really does look like Bonney from afar, especially in shots where the lipstick is a bit more pronounced. 
• 
  And then we cut to Kaido after he has recruited King, and is talking to Kurozumi Higurashi, who expouses the same 'you are so strong, it's natural for the weak to fall to the strong' sentiment that Kaido lives and breathes by now. This cuts immediately to Kaido giving a speech to his own Beasts Pirates, waging war against the government and "those who were merely born as nobles", and how he's convinced that if they can drag them to the battlefield then Kaido and his crew of powerful brutes will thrive. This is Kaido's definition of freedom. 
• And... again, it's not much, it doesn't paint a whole picture of Kaido's full trauma and I don't think the anime can do that until (if) the manga reveals even more of Kaido's backstory, but I do appreciate how we do get to see how the world moulded Kaido into someone so obsessed with strength. 
  
• We then briefly get a scene of Kaido talking to King about Joyboy, right as we cut back and forth to Luffy's Bajrang Gun overpowering Kaido's fire dragon attack, with a pretty cool shot of Luffy's giant fist hovering over a representation of Kaido's human form. 
• Oh, right. CP-0 agent Joseph survives and Geppo's away. Right.
• We then get an extended sequence of Momonosuke and Yamato trying to psych themselves out and... again, the Momo/Yamato lines in 1075-1076 are the best we've gotten from them. It's just that I've heard them so much that I'm sorry, I really do find it hard to care. 
• 
  There's a brief nice shot of Denjiro and Hiyori after killing Orochi, then the water starts flooding in and putting out the fires and saving everyone. All of this takes quite some time and basically covers a nice one-quarter of the episode or so. Not much to say, the episode would flow too quickly without this but it's also a bit too long for my tastes. 
• I do like the brief focus shown on Usopp, bloodied and wounded, but still hanging on to Kin'emon and Kiku like he said he would. Brave fucking Warrior of the Sea, that Usopp. (Fuck Hamlet, I guess.)
• Ultimately, of course, with none of Kaido's flame clouds to rely on, Momonosuke manages to create his own flame clouds and drag it to bind Onigashima. About damn time. 
  
• And then we get the nice shot of everyone seeing a brief glimpse of Luffy clashing with the glowing, burning Kaido from the hole in the ceiling. With an interesting emphasis (which I think isn't in the manga) on Kid and Law, 
• Kaido then yells about how the weak will die, and how he will rule the world starting from Wano... and demands to know what kind of world Luffy can hope to create. 
• Luffy's answer, of course, with a rather appropriate flashback to his initial scene with Tama? To create a world where no one will starve. 
• And finally, Bajrang Gun hits and overwhelms Kaido as Luffy yells about his dream, as Kaido's Rising Dragon Flame Bagua starts to disintegrate upon the impact of Luffy's fist... and then flashes to both scenes from Wano as well as Kaido's flashback. And, one delicious last shot of Oden yelling "Kaidoooo" superimposed on Luffy. 
• And then we get these glorious, glorious traditional Japanese ink-painting shots as the music swells up to show Kaido absolutely being blown away by Luffy's gigantic punch. 

• And... and I've always wanted Gear Fifth's first finisher to be more than just a big punch. Or at least, I wanted it to be a big punch that embodied the cartoony nonsense that Gear Fifth is supposed to be. But the anime does make it a tad bit much more epic thanks to the music and the art style shifts. Actually, the art style shifts really did carry a lot of the Gear Fifth action, huh?
• And then, of course, as the artstyle reverts to normal, we get Gear Fifth Luffy hovering mid-air as glowing balls of light -- the wishes of the people of Wano begging for someone to beat 'that scary dragon' rises up to him. A very messianic image, and we get some really cool shots of Gear Fifth Luffy basking in his victory. 
• And as Momonosuke drags Onigashima to a nice, secluded spot off the side of the Flower Capital, as Luffy laughs, as Kaido falls down The Hole... the whole sequence is laid over with past Kaido talking to King about how Joyboy is the man that will beat Kaido. 
• And ultimately... yeah. I was definitely in the minority in that I'm not the most impressed with Gear Fifth (at least until the Kaminari episode) but this final clash is pretty good stuff!

Episode 1077:

• And since we're out of the action-packed episodes, these next couple of commentaries are going to be much shorter and much less intricate. I just really want to get the Wano arc reviews over with, and truthfully I never found the denouement episodes particularly interesting to watch in the anime (compared to the manga) but I figured I might as well as talk about them. 
• Kaido falls into the lava! I love the brief showcase of the cross-section of the giant Wano geography to show the holes made by the two Yonko before we see Kaido revert to his human form and blorp into the lava. 
• Nekomamushi announces the victory for everyone to hear with the aid of a den-den mushi, and we get yet another cut to Oden on that pot of hot boiling water. 
• In addition to the Wano characters and samurai celebrating, the anime as always adds a couple extra lines for Kid and Law. 
• Also, we learn what took out Apoo and Inbi -- it's the flood from Raizo's attack, which apparently knocked out Inbi and caused him to fall over Apoo. Apoo kinda became irrelevant in the later stages of Wano and all, but it's nice to see what happened to him be resolved. 
• I actually do like the comedic gag of Usopp and Franky rushing in with the injured people they are escorting (Kin'emon, Kiku and Zoro) and Chopper freaking out more and more... and then Brook charges in saying "I've been burnt and turned into a skeleton". And then Robin adds a morbid joke about being burned alive on top of it. That's actually funny. 
• Tenguyama talking to Otoko about the price of Yasuie's sacrifice is all well and good in this episode, but we really didn't need the flashback to them eating the SMILE.
• The anime scene shows Yausie eating the SMILE, which retcons that one SBS or Vivre Card that says that Yasuie's only pretending to laugh out of solidarity with the Ebisu Town people. Knowingly eating the SMILE is much more dramatic and epic anyway, and it's still an act of solidarity. 
• Giant volcanic eruption! We still have no idea what's going on with Kaido and Big Mom, but I do feel like the anime implies that they got shot out of the underwater lava pocket outside of Udon Prison? It's kept entirely ambiguous, though, and I'm not sure why there's lightning dancing all over the smoke from the volcano. 
• Okay, it was pretty badass for Momonosuke to land on the ground and have him, Hiyori and all the Scabbards walk out of the smoke. 

Episode 1078:

• Yeah, a lot of reactions to Kaido's defeat and the arrival of Momonosuke and company. It's done well, the animation's good, the voice acting's good. I just really can't muster much enthusiasm to write too much about it beyond 's'nice'. I did like the shots of all the Scabbards showing up and posing one by one while the audience recognizes them, and of course adult Momonosuke's human form gets a nice speech. 
  
• Ah yes. The crew members actually reacting a bit longer to Yamato, and Yamato announcing that she'll be joining the crew. That... that's not going to be a scene that ages well.
• And we also get Otama's flashback. I think this is fairly expanded compared to the manga. The anime doesn't actually call into attention that Tama is a Kurozumi clan member, though.
• I really started off the Momonosuke saga disliking him. And I still really can't say that he's like a favourite character or whatever... but I really do like the brief moments where he's competent but then you remember he's still like a little child. So after giving a speech, he has to whisper to Kin'emon what else he must say... then he remembers Luffy's words and he gets a burst of confidence and does the "My name is Momonosuke! It means peerless!"