One Piece Anime, Wano Arc: Episodes 1079-1081

As we wrap up the Wano arc, let me quickly blaze through the final denounement episodes just for completion's sake. It's mostly just the after-arc parties and Aramaki.  

Episode 1079:

• Always nice to see the Gorosei. I'm actually surprised we get to see Saturn's mouth! I've always visualized him talking without us ever seeing his mouth, and just his beard that's moving. 
• We actually do get to see CP-0 agent Joseph reporting to the Gorosei, about Zou disappearing into the fog... which is interesting since the manga's equivalent of this is kind of ambiguous about references to Guernica... and I think until now, it's still kept ambiguous whether Guernica survived Kaido's bash or he sent out the photos prior to his death. 
• The biggest change is that we get the identity of the mysterious person who hacked into Joseph's Den Den Mushi. It's Ryokugyu. Okay??? I've always thought that this was someone affiliated with Big Mom or something, but I guess this kind of makes sense?
• The anime adds a bit of an extension to the Hawkins/Drake scene. In addition to making Hawkins sound a bit more morose, we also fix the earlier episode where Hawkins identifies the "1% survival man" as Drake... and Drake confronts Hawkins about it in the anime's extended version of this scene, with Hawkins confirming that the man with a 1% survival rate in this war is Hawkins himself. 
• Yeah, giving Hawkins a bit of a morose sequence where he actually acknowledges that he has no right to suck up back to Kid despite seeing their probable victory is a nice moment for him. He's dead now, right?
  
• Not much to say about the scenes of the Flower Capital flourishing. They are all nice adaptations of the manga's version of the scenes. 
• Something that the manga either didn't show or just glazed over is a nice moment of Kawamatsu and Onimaru meeting each other while they visit Ashura and Izo's grave. Onimaru just kind of disappeared after the second act, and it's nice to have a bit of a resolution. 
• HIYORI DROPKICK!
• There's some hilarity of seeing Luffy's arm zip and bounce around like Gear Fourth Snakeman, or Zoro unleashing motherfucking ASURA to eat meat and drink sake. 
• We spent how long between Enies' Lobby and Wano to get Zoro to show off Asura for the second time... and the third time he does it in the anime is just to eat sake. God bless the One Piece creative team. 
  
• I do enjoy the sheer size difference between Momonosuke (who has Oden's genes) compared to Luffy and Zoro being regular-ass humans. 
• "I came back from hell to kill you. DIE GRACEFULLY!"
• Of course they milk the hot springs scene for all it's worth. Including the in-universe reactions to characters like Yamato going into the male bath. 
• In the manga, the Franky Shogun mech just shows up with no real explanation in Egghead, with the implication that Franky fixed it up offscreen. Here, there's a brief shot of the fixed Franky Shogun.
• Apoo really does just still recover offscreen without any explanation. 
• And the episode ends with Ryokugyu helicoptering around on a plant like a total goober.
  

 

Episode 1080:

• I do like the little line about the Gorosei being pissed and wanting to remove the "D" from Monkey D. Luffy's name, which is consistent with how they treated Gol D. Roger. 
• Yeah, while the anime doesn't confirm it either, the fact that the pictures of Gear 5th Luffy came from Guernica, and Luffy transformed after Guernica interfered in the fight, really is kind of a confirmation that he survived Kaido's kanabo attack, huh?
  
• "I won't let them manipulate information", says Big News Morgans, as he manipulates information. Got to love that stupid-ass bird reporter.
• The Sabo picture in the background of that random country is a lot more evident in the anime with the colours and all. 
• Oh yeah, that's a nice little shot of Kid and Law parting ways for Luffy to jump in and land next to his assembled crew. That looks like it's taken from an anime opening or something. And then we get the bounty posters, which... isn't quite delivered in an epic a manner as I'd like. 
• Obviously they're going to drag out the festival scene... but not as much as I thought they would -- and seeing Luffy, Chopper and Yamato play the games is pretty cute. The post-Ryokugyu scenes dragged on a bit, though.
• I am disappointed we don't actually get a full rock cover of Moon Princess by Brook featuring Hiyori. 
• Robin and Sukiyaki/Tengumaru have a comedic moment, but otherwise the exposition is more or less delivered as it was in the manga. 
• And we get the very surprising but very welcome full on fight between Ryokugyu versus King and Queen in Udon Prison! Starting off with a badass explosion of wind as Ryokugyu arrives, King and Queen reacting in shock, and we get a fight!
  
• Queen transforms into his brachiosaurus mode and launches a blast of laser, and Ryokugyu just effortlessly dodges it. 
• It really brings to question why they don't slap Seastone cuffs on the Zoans, and if they don't why Queen, King and the others don't escape. Mortal wounds or not (which Ryokugyu emphasizes) you'd think it's particularly stupid on the good guys' side.
• Also, where the fuck is Jack? No, seriously. I know the original source chapter only showed Queen and King, so I guess the anime team just wanted to play it safe?
• Babanuki seems to be still allied and friendly enough with King and Queen to jump Ryokugyu with a bunch of goons, before Ryokugyu stabs everyone and turns them into husks. Pretty cool shot of him impaling everyone. 
  
• King and Queen jump into the air and dodge the swarm of wooden branches, which swarm around the pirates like an attack from Naruto's Hashirama. Queen gets impaled from behind and it looks like it hurts. 
• Ryokugyu then delivers a barrage of punches to King with wooded-up fists. I like that this sequence takes place on top of a scaffolding, giving a bit more oomph to the encounter. 
• King then gets stabbed in the chest as we see a shot of flower petals exploding, before King hits the ground.
• And then we get King and Queen being drained as in the manga's version of this scene, but showing that couple of minutes of extra footage showing Aramaki curbstomping the two of them is really nice. 
• Buggy! Blackbeard! Shanks! Luffy! The new Yonko! That shot of Shanks really looks cool, as does the 'cracked glass' shot of all four Yonko. 
• That is a nicely ominous shot of purple-aura vines growing all around the Flower Capital as Ryokugyu gets a bit of an imagine spot, visualizing how he'll wreck everyone's day. 

 

Episode 1081:

• Ah, the Red Force. I think this is the first time I've seen it in colour, actually, though I'm 100% sure it showed up earlier in the anime. 
• Yeah, is it really necessary to repeat the whole Luffy-drags-Kidd-into-the-festivities sequence?
• While it's obvious filler, I actually do like the short scenes showing the more members of the Scabbards like Shinobu, Raizo and Kawamatsu reacting to the festival before realizing that someone snuck into the island, causing all the Scabbards to assemble like the goddamn Avengers. 
  
• The animation is obviously nowhere on par as Roof Piece, and there's noticeably a bit less shading when Raizo and Shinobu double-team Aramaki; and later on when Kawamatsu, Raizo and the two Minks quadruple-team him. The fact that we do get smooth animation for what's basically an offscreen takedown in the source material is appreciated.
• Kawamatsu gets to yell off a couple more named attacks! He is lacking a huge show-off moment among the Scabbards, and it's nice to give him even this little bit.
• Denjiro gets a couple of huge story moments, but not much in terms of combat. He gets to rescue Raizo and then parry some of Aramaki's Groves-of-Wrath forms' tendril attacks. 
  
  
• Yeah, the anime team really like to do the 'dark face, glowing eyes' for Ryokugyu. He gets to do it while attacking Shinobu, and then again when impaling Raizo. 
• The whole 'you have no rights since you're not part of the World Government' schtick that Aramaki spouts takes a darker meaning after the manga reveals to us just what the Celestial Dragons do to countries that are not part of it...
• Yeah, broccoli-face Aramaki still looks goofy. But I do think that no One Piece character is without some sort of goofy charm. 
• To be fair, the idea of a 'survival of the fittest' and 'some of the weaker must be fertilizer to the stronger' does fit the theme of a 'Woods Man'. It's just that it applies to, like, ferns and shit instead of entire countries of human life.
• "Discrimination is a comfort". Damn, though, Aramaki.
• Yamato has one hell of an epic entry. It really is kind of a shame that she didn't get to join the crew...
• Yeah, Limejuice from Shanks' crew cautioning against Kid... really doesn't mean jack-diddly after what we saw happen to Kid post-Wano, huh? 
• The flashback to Shanks and company attacking Who's Who's ship is done with a different set of dimensions and filter, which is definitely a nice touch. 
• I love that out of the junior Red-Haired crew, the one that's terrified of Luffy being some kind of a 'monkey monster'... is a gorilla-looking non-human or Zoan user. 
  
• So did Shanks's crew do something to Bartolomeo? We get a recap of the cover story, and I really do wonder if Shanks took care of Bartolomeo really quickly, leading to some kind of conflict with Luffy down the line.
• 'Sabo murders King Cobra' is finally shown to us here. Also, Kurouma! I forgot he exists. 
• Was "Insurgent Serpent" always there as Dragon's epithet? How the heck did I miss that in the original chapter?
• The episode ends not at an Aramaki or a Momonosuke moment... but with Akainu declaring his dedication at fighting basically the entire world... which then get upstaged with epic music and an epic filter as Shanks talks to Benn Beckman about getting the One Piece. That final scene with Shanks actually sent shivers down my spine, and I'm someone who saw this coming. Great direction and such a great delivery by Shanks's voice actor.