One Piece 1118 Review: Baby Doll

One Piece, Chapter 1118: Being Free

Hmmm, this one was... interesting? We follow up a bit on the Iron Giant, as he falls down and crushes a bunch of Marine ships. Yeah, Topman really doesn't give a shit about his little minions. We do get to listen a bit to truncated parts of Vegapunk's message, and it is something along the lines of "...and their name was..." with clear radio signal interference before and after this phrase. So if this isn't misdirection and actually is the continuation of last chapter's message, then it's likely that it's something along the lines of "among the D. is a [something] and their name was [something]". Which... yeah, get the usual suspects out of the way. There's a god, there's a traitor, there's a saviour, there's a chosen one... I'm honestly not super invested in this part since there's really only so much you can do with it, but it's kind of expected that this D mystery gets dragged on for quite a bit. 

Interestingly, we get internal monologue from the Iron Giant even as he sinks (and in the background you can see the poor Marines' ships sink into the ocean with him) and he's just wondering where Joy Boy went, since all he wanted to do was to cross paths with Joy Boy. It really dose feel like the Iron Giant is fully sentient, which was only vaguely implied previously but this is essentially confirmation. 

Interestingly, the act of headbutting the Iron Giant essentially exposes Topman Warcury in his all his piggy pig pig form before the Marines, who are terrified and confused at the appearance of a truly kaiju-sized monster before them. 

We also cut away to other parts of the world, where we get to see the reactions from the civilians in various cities. The cameos are a bit less interesting; we've got Koza and the rebels from Yuba, Alabasta. We've got Mr. 9 and Ms. Monday (who got married in a cover story in the timeskip, and now have a kid) in Whiskey Peak, and we get Rebecca and Leo in Dressrosa. I suppose the cameos are winding down now, though. We don't really get reactions from these specific characters, but more of the confused mob mentality of the civilians, many of whom are blaming Luffy for killing Vegapunk, mostly because from the little that they know of the World Government, it doesn't make sense in their minds that the W.G. would go and kill their top scientist for the bizarre crime of researching some weird part of history. It's really a nice bit of acknowledging how news and conspiracy theories are so easily moulded by public opinion. 

We cut to York, who's in contact with the Gorosei. York informs them that the two satellites that are still interfacing with Punk Records are Atlas and Lilith... which I guess really confirms that Edison died (or got disconnected) between 1117 and 1118. We get a col panel of the Gorosei splitting up to chase down these two loose ends, which I guess is going to be the final 'chase' part of this island's arc. Brogy and Dorry hop onto the ship, and I do like the little detail of Luffy asking where Usopp is because he knows Usopp is really into the giants. 

Apparently, Bonney had offscreen used her powers on Bluegrass and Doll, turning them into kids, and we get a rather cool panel of her in a superhero-esque pose while holding a gun. I like that we're reminded that she's still a powerful Devil Fruit user and a supernova on top of all the backstory we've just learned about her. 

There's a page-long scene of Sanji checking in on Nami on the Thousand Sunny. We don't quite see any more of the Zoro and Ethan fight, though. Sanji gets this whole gag about how he's going to make sure Nami, Robin and Lilith gets out okay and Usopp takes offense to that. Pretty typical stuff, though I do wonder if this will actually lead somewhere since we just had this whole scene of the Gorosei making it clear their desire to hunt down Lilith. Luffy goes off to consume the feast that some random giant cook is making, while Marcus Mars in his giant demon bird form is swooping down towards the Giant Pirates' ship. 

Marcus goes full-on Moltres, except it's a Flamethrower attack this time instead of a Hyper Beam.Or rather, I guess the huge laser beam that we saw a couple chapters ago is likely to just be super-condensed flame or however the heck that works. Two random giants who get names, Bjorn and Sig, try to block it with some arm-shields but they get knocked down. Again, notably, we get more confused Marines who see the giant bird monster. Really do wonder if these scenes of the Marines reacting to all the monstrosities will be followed up on! 

And then we get the don-do-to-to music, the drums of liberation, with Luffy yelling that his stomach is full and he's ready to go. The seas start moving and going crazy, which I guess is the effect from his Gear Fifth awakening. I like that the poor Marines just get super confused, as if this is the sea levels rising or something.

And we get the final two-page spread as Bonney meets Nika for the first time, and Luffy just tells her to 'believe in herself', leading Bonney to go into a 'Nika-like future' and... transform into a Nika giant? Eh. There is a nice panel with Kuma seemingly flashing back to the line where he tells Ginny that he'll raise Bonney well, and there's another shot of the Iron Giant getting activated because he senses Joy Boy's presence, but... I don't know. Ultimately the whole Nika thing is so weirdly ambiguous and this could all be just a cool moment that doesn't matter much at the end of the day, but I'm not the biggest fan of this transformation or just how quickly Bonney is able to just turn into Nika just with the power of belief and whatnot. I don't hate this twist, but I do confess that my reaction mostly boiled down to "but why?" when I saw the final two-page spread. I dunno. I felt like we could've done more to foreshadow this twist or this power-up, or at least make it feel more earned. 

Random Notes:

• Holy Inari Pilgrimage Yamato Cover Story: Yamato sure is eating some stuff while she's leaving the flower capital. Man, this cover story is very slow. 
• So what is the Iron Giant? Artificial intelligence (i.e. a real robot who developed a 'soul'), someone who ate some Devil Fruit and got trapped in it, a Klebautermann, a member of a now-extinct race, or what? 
• That one random Marine who mistakes Topman for a mammoth must be thinking of the Pokemon Mamoswine. 
• With Edison getting a dramatic sacrifice; and both Stella Vegapunk and Shaka getting on-screen deaths, I guess poor Pythagoras got the absolute least respect out of all of the satellites. 
• Apparently one of the giants had off-screen recovered the figurehead that Ethanbaron sliced off a couple chapters ago and tied it back with some rope. Nice little detail. 
• Kashi's still alive! He's beaten up, but he's still alive, and Oimo and Luffy have a bit of a scene with them.
• I guess the Vegapunk-style sci-fi suits just gets transformed to both Luffy and Bonney's "default" outfit whenever they transform into Nika mode? 

Reviewing Bleach Fillers -- Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc

Bleach, Season 13: The Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc [Episodes 230-255]

And we're back with the good filler! It's really interesting that the Bount arc was a single filler arc stretched across two seasons', while this is two filler arcs squished into a single season. The Zanpakuto Rebellion arc takes place over the course of 25 episodes of a 35-episode season, and we'll talk about the 'Sword Beast' arc that takes place over the final 10 episodes of the season in a separate article.

And... yeah. The Bount arc and the Shunsui Amagai seasons have always felt like they could be interesting stories, but a combination of uninteresting anime-original characters and being stretched out way longer than they had any right to be. There are some nice moments for the secondary and tertiary characters in these fillers, but... nothing of value will really be lost if you skipped through all those episodes. 

The Zanpakuto Rebellion arc, on the other hand, is a bit more fun because it does build up on an aspect of the story that feels so important to the setting, but isn't really touched upon by the story other than when it relates to Ichigo's own inner world... which is the Zanpakuto spirits. Sure, we've got some hints here and there with Renji, Hitsugaya and (somewhat) Yumichika dealing with their Zanpakuto Spirits prior to the introduction of Oetsu Nimaiya, the Asauchi and a whole lot of revelations in 'Everything But the Rain'.

But this filler arc, which is released during the height of the Arrancar arc... is a bit of an interesting one. Tite Kubo himself is responsible for drawing most (if not all) of the titular Zanpakuto Spirits, and there was a lot more of a personal stake for the characters involved in this arc since many of them, like Yumichika, Shuhei and Renji, are forced to talk and meet with their Zanpakuto spirits. The writers build up on a lot of character beats hinted upon in the source material (for example, Yumichika, Soi Fon and Shuhei's respective conflicts with their Zanpakutos) and knowing what we do know about the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, it's interesting just how much Tite Kubo probably told the staff what to do and what not to do with the Zanpakuto. If you squint, you could see hints that the storylines that's about to take place with Kenpachi, Sasakibe and arguably Renji are kind of foreshadowed here. The only really huge continuity snarl would be how Ichigo and his inner world works, but you honestly could just handwave everything there as Zangetsu-Juhabach talking shit and manipulating Ichigo to help him grow. 

There is always the problem with these filler arcs about how a lot of captains just... never do anything. It's particularly glaring in the Amagai arc, but this one at least gives us a nice little way to handwave how most of the more powerful captains are indisposed -- the enemies this time around are, after all, their own sword-spirits, so obviously the more powerful captains have to deal with their own sword spirits, right? Even if their abilities are not used or showcased, I do like that captains like Kyoraku and Ukitake don't feel quite as impotent as they do in other filler arcs. 

Only having 15 episodes to work with, this season also doesn't bullshit and build up side-characters with minimal relevance to the story, which I'm a fan of. Within the first episode, we're immediately introduced to our main villain Muramasa, who's kind of a ripoff Ulquiorra with super-long nails and he's constantly crying blood. In a hilariously similar scene to the upcoming Thousand-Year-Blood-War arc, the sequence opens up with poor, poor Chojiro Sasakibe showing up and falling unconscious and being taken out offscreen by their foes. Komamura is next to come up to bat to attack the new threat, but when he summons Kokujo Tenken Myo'o, he gets cut down by his own Bankai. Poor Komamura sits out basically the rest of the arc, but I do like this pre-emptive taking out of certain captains to weed out the cast to the ones to the characters that the anime writers wanted to focus on. 

All the Zanpakuto spirits manifest at this point, going havoc under the stated motivation of refusing to be shackled under the Shinigami's rule as tools or slaves. It's really fun to try and figure out which design matches which Zanpakuto. I think almost all of the Zanpakuto spirits are done appropriately, matching up to their sword effects and users surprisingly well. I feel like the villains being the Zanpakuto spirits also solves a problem that the Amagai arc has, where basically all the 'goon' villains felt so boring and generic. Here, we get characters that are known quantities and known powers matched up against unexpected opponents. 

There's also the surprise factor as our Shinigami are unable to initially release their Shikai, having to basically 'recover' their connection with their swords to properly re-utilize their abilities. Some of them default to the typical filler Hado, like Sokatsui, which is always kind of neat to see. Some of the more destructive elemental Zanpakuto like Kazeshini, Tobiume, and Sode no Shirayuki rampage in town, attacking generic Shinigami and causing some mayhem. Also worth noting that this is the first real reveal of Gonryomaru's abilities (beyond turning into a rapier), several years, I think, before the full abilities of Gonryomaru is explored in the Vandenreich arc. 

Byakuya, who gets a huge chunk of importance later on near the end of the arc, gets to face off against Senbonzakura (interpreted as a masked samurai-man) and the two appear to disappear in a giant flood of petals. I'm actually not a huge fan initially of Byakuya's obviously-fake betrayal, but the reasons as to why he decided to take matters into his own hands actually makes sense for the character, and while it is a bit frustrating to see another 'don't get in my way, Byakuya' storyline, the arc goes by quick enough that it didn't stick around to grate the way it did in the Bount arc. 

Of course, we follow Rukia as she stumbles into the human world, where she's pursued by Sode no Shirayuki, who takes the form of a ice-white princess not too dissimilar to Rukia's future Bankai form. Sode no Shirayuki fights Ichigo, using Rukia's attacks a bit, but eventually retreats. This is basically the closest we'll really get to Ichigo fighting Rukia. Or at least Rukia with her ice powers without some wacky darkness-shadow powers like the third movie did, anyway. Ichigo holds back from finishing off Sode no Shirayuki for fear of breaking Rukia's powers, causing her to escape. 

We get some information-exchange as Ichigo is brought up to speed, and interestingly enough we leave the human cast of Uryu, Chad and Orihime behind almost immediately. Rukia sneaks back to Soul Society on her own, causing Ichigo and Yoruichi to follow suit. All of this 'moving people from one place to the next' sequences are honestly done pretty quickly, which is one of the bigger frustrations I had particularly with the Amagai arc.

And the next couple of episodes are just... fighting against the Zanpakuto Spirits. Rukia fights against Sode no Shirayuki and we get an interesting monologue from Sode no Shirayuki about how she feels being used as a tool; while Rukia insists that she never sees her blade as a tool but an extension of her soul. There's some interesting plot threads that are never really followed-up upon since it all turns out to be mind control anyway... but these are some rather fun questions to ask. Sode no Shirayuki seems to realize that she wants to be with Rukia all along, briefly reaching out her hand to Rukia when she's about to do a double-suicide move with a Hado combination... but Muramasa arrives to annul this moment and save Sode no Shirayuki. 

It really does help that the animation quality in the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc is pretty top-notch. Not all the fights are done equal, but the Rukia/Sode no Shirayuki one, and the later on Byakuya/Koga one are both pretty surprisingly pretty despite being filler arc fights. Rukia's ice powers are always something that could look really spectacular if given the animation budget, so it's certainly nice to see it done well. 

Muramasa reveals himself to be a Zanpakuto Spirit, and gives the claim that he wants to release all Zanpakuto Spirits from the enslavement of the Shinigami. Muramasa then summons Zangetsu (the 'old man') from Ichigo's soul, causing the two to fight. This is... weird, of course, thanks to all the revelations we now know about the true nature of Zangetsu from the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. But, again, it could just be Muramasa affecting the wrong power thanks to how uniquely Juhabach and 'White'/Zangetsu are connected within Ichigo's inner realm. 

Regardless, we get a very interesting fight as the Hollow powers take over Ichigo since he's outclassed by Old Man Zangetsu without the ability to go Bankai, leading to us the rather surprising return of Ichigo's brutish Hollow form that appeared during his Visored training. Ichigo manages to rip away the Hollow mask, but as he falls unconscious Muramasa follows Ichigo into his inner world, fighting against 'Hollow Ichigo'. Again, the anime is stil working under the assumption that 'Hollow Ichigo' is unexplained hollow powers that is still protective of Ichigo, but the moment of Ichigo realizing that Muramasa is trying to bind 'Hollow Ichigo' with invisible strings and then the two deciding to fight together out of spite against Muramasa to still be a nice moment of Ichigo accepting the aspects of power split apart within his body. 

Of course I'm sitting here complaining about the non-canonicity of this fight, but it really would probably be a very cool sequence to acknowledge back in the day before we're truly aware of the true nature of Kurosaki Ichigo's powers. It's a quick little acknowledgement that Ichigo also has a Zanpakuto spirit, anyway, explaining what would happen to our main character when Muramasa draws out his Zanpakuto spirit. 

Of course, all the talk about the Zanpakuto rebelling against their masters ends up coming off as rather hogwash because Old Man Zangetsu reveals that he was actually mind-controlled by Muramasa, though there's a hint of the frustrations being expounded by some of the Zanpakuto spirits to be their true emotions that's amplified by Muramasa's powers. 

Renji is the next to fight his own Zanpakuto Spirit, being confronted by his two-part Zanpakuto, Zabimaru... or 'Saru' (monkey) and 'Hebi' (snake), manifesting not as a strange nue beast as it did before, but as a huge buxom baboon-woman and a tiny floating gremlin snake-child tied to each other with a chain. Zabimaru has a unique ability to their fight in that both spirits are able to wield Zabimaru's Shikai form, but only one of it exists at any time so they keep teleporting the sword back and forth. 

After some lampshade about how different Zabimaru looks compared to their previous appearance, Zabimaru expresses some frustration against Renji for being weak and finding no real reason to fight. Again, just like Rukia a bit earlier, Renji is confronted to think about what makes him want to fight, and he thinks about his desire to surpass other powerful people in his life like Ichigo and Byakuya. This is enough resolve for Renji to finally release his Shikai. The rules of the Zanpakuto spirit manifestation is a bit weird, but I'm going to assume this basically allows Renji to 'wrestle back' control of Zabimaru and manifest the sword's effects on his own blade? This fight is pretty fun, with Renji having to constantly punch upwards since Zabimaru's able to go into Bankai to fight against Renji's Shikai.

Ultimately, Renji manages to make use of a combination of his weakness -- his terrible Hado, which Zabimaru wouldn't expect -- and breaking his own Zabimaru in order to use the pieces to attack with Higa Zekko. This eventually breaks the mind-control on the Zabimaru spirits. 

We also get a couple of shorter fights here and there, and one of the more interesting fight is when Shuhei Hisagi runs across his own Zanpakuto spirit, Kazeshini, taking the form of a black-and-red demon-man with a long, flowing head-tail. Kazeshini is an utter lunatic who loves cutting people up, and this ties in with the established canon during the Fraccion fights where Shuhei expresses frustration that he wants to his duty as a heroic Shinigami but Kazeshini goes into a psychotic torture device. The two have some real unresolved conflict, unlike Ichigo, Rukia and Renji, and it's very fun to see the more subdued Shuhei get angrier and angrier as he listens to Kazeshini rant and rave about how fun violence is. Kazeshini ultimately bets Shuhei, and he has to be bailed out by Kira, who uses Bakudo to bamboozle Kazeshini.

As Team Ichigo meets up with the other captains, we get a fun sequence as Gegetsuburi and Hozukimaru show up in front of Omaeda and a bunch of generic Shinigami. Gegetsuburi is bacically shown to be a more ornate, more oafish version of Omaeda. We... we don't really get any huge character breakthrough between the two, other than Gegetsuburi being slightly frustrated that Omaeda's not using him to his full potential. 

As usual, Omaeda ends up becoming the butt of a joke as he gets accidentally taken out by Ichigo's entry. Ichigo proceeds to fight (and quickly deal with) Gegetsuburi, while Madarame Ikkaku faces off against Hozukimaru, who takes the form of a gray-skinned, red-haired muscular man. We get an out-of-nowhere hilarious sequence as Hozukimaru proves his identity to Ikkaku by doing a silly dance. This is the realm of filler, so powers that are already revealed in the manga can get to be shown off at any time, so Hozukimaru goes into Bankai to face off against Ikkaku. However, this fight is interrupted by the arrival of Soi Fon and the Second Division, causing Hozukimaru to sulk, refuse to fight, and create a giant spinning whirlwind that covers his escape. Ichigo tries to chase down Hozukimaru, but he's stopped by Senbonzakura's blade petals, wielded by Kuchiki Byakuya... who disappears. 

In pursuit, Ichigo is confronted and attacked by Haineko and Tobiume, but then their owners -- Rangiku and Momo -- show up to take over the fight instead. And the whole crux of this fight is that Tobiume and Haineko always bicker with each other, with Tobiume disliking Haineko's more provocative style and Hainko talking down about Tobiume's traditional-woman qualities not hiding her terrible personality. It's to contrast how Momo and Rangiku are actually good friends... and I don't think this conflict piece work well at all. Rangiku and Haineko's "old woman" arguments are also extremely eye-rolling. 

However, what really shines is the character analysis on Hinamori Momo, which lasts throughout the course of this arc and elevates Momo a fair bit compared to other secondary vice-captains! Honestly, I've always felt that Momo was lacking a huge character spotlight scene in the manga since she's always either being treated as someone for Hitsugaya to rescue, or as just one of the vice-captains. Here, Tobiume (who gets a much more interesting attack mechanism with her rope-and-bell weapons) confronts Momo about always being weak and being the victim, and later on this pays off at the end of this fight -- and in the big melee at the end of the arc -- with Momo showing some self-confidence as she takes charge and prepares to rescue people instead of being rescued and 'used' by people all the time. 

The fight itself is also pretty fun. Haineko and especially Tobiume are two Zanpakuto that don't get that much spotlight in the canon material. It also ends with Rangiku and Momo tricking the two Zanpakuto spirits into being hit by their partners.
 

While all of this is going on, Hyorinmaru (a handsome long-haired man with a scar on his face) is just wandering around, having... lost his memories for... no real explained reason, other than to give Hitsugaya a bigger role? I feel like this really doesn't add up to much, and this might've been a B-plot that was truncated? It does give Hitsugaya a nice moment as he basically gets a flashback to his first meeting with Hyorinmaru from the source material, and the animation of Hitsugaya encasing himself and Hyorinmaru in ice is a nice one. Ultimately, though, this really doesn't serve to do much other than to take the two characters out of the fight for a while (Hitsugaya is knocked out by the effort, and Hyorinmaru goes to care for him).

Also, somewhere around this point, we get to see Muramasa wandering into locations with hollows and seemingly absorbing them, doubling over in pain and crying blood out of his eyes. 

Byakuya then reveals his apparent betrayal, with Senbonzakura attacking Ichigo, while Byakuya frees Tobiume and Haineko. Again, the betrayal angle is... it's kind of transparent. I can see why it's done, since it ties into Muramasa's backstory, but I felt like it was dragged on a bit longer than it should? We get Ichigo, Renji and Rukia all later angsting about this decision, and in the enigmatic untrackable cave that the Zanpakuto spirits are gathering, the other spirits challenge Byakuya's presence. Byakuya gives some excuse about fighting as per what his pride dictates, and this leads to Senbonzakura giving Byakuya the ultimatum of shattering Sode no Shirayuki. We get a brief fight between the two, but Byakuya uses a Bakudo spell to bind Sode no Shirayuki then shatters her, snapping her into her sword form. Later on, we learn that this is all just a sham act played by Byakuya and Senbonzakura (who came into his senses offscreen), but the drama is played up as a bit of an angsty moment, which I thought was done well, even if the sham was transparent.

I think somewhere around this point is also when Mayuri and Omaeda experiment a bit on the captured Gegetsuburi. It's more wacky joking on the expense of poor Omaeda, with Mayuri and Nemu forcing some experiments on Gegetsuburi and casually breaking it. Earlier there was a fair bit of drama about how breaking a Zanpakuto spirit would also cause the powers associated with the Shinigami to disappear, but... it's quickly handwaved as being a misunderstanding of how the Zanpakuto spirits work. Mayuri just finds that a spirit must fight and be defeated by its own owner for the brainwashing to fall off. 

The next leg of the arc is also pretty fun, with a fair amount of great battles. Byakuya and Senbonzakura arrive to give Rukia back the pieces of her sword and... it's revealed that it's all a trick, but man, Byakuya, did you really need to traumatize your little sister so? Renji and Zabimaru team up to fight Byakuya and Senbonzakura. The animation of the fights at this point are rather fun. The fight itself isn't anything super special that we haven't seen before, with both Renji and Byakuya just using their regular powers, but it's pretty well done and a nice little showcase of Renji attempting to surpass Byakuya -- a goal that was kind of shuffled to the wayside in the manga. Hihio Zabimaru and Sebonzakura Kageyoshi ultimately clash and Renji is still defeated, but it's some nice effort. 

And then everyone arrives. A whole bunch of Shinigami and Zanpakuto Spirits all show up, and a lot of these scenes happen simultaneously so I'll just talk about the fights one by one. Ichigo fighting Senbonzakura is probably the most straightforward, and it's rather obvious that it's just a way to get Ichigo out of the way while the rest of the more emotionally-charged fights happen. It's not a bad fight, but it's clear that it's meant to be the side-attraction here. 

I do like that the fights happen between some of the more prominent secondary characters that the manga, at this point, has already revealed that they have a certain type of dynamic with their Zanpakuto. Madarame Ikkaku and Hozukimaru's fight takes up a fair amount of screentime, but other than Hozukimaru's willingness to unleash Bankai, their dynamic feels like just a more hot-blooded version of Renji's fight. I've always been a big Ikkaku fan, so more Ikkaku content is nice. I do like how Ikkaku's hot-bloodedness means that he manages to subjugate Hozukimaru's Shikai, and still just keeps going up against his Zanpakuto spirit despite being outclassed. Ultimately I'm still not quite sure how he and Hozukimaru managed that mutual-knockdown other than, well, this being less about power-scaling and more about subjugating a part of yourself. 

Far, far more interesting, however, is the fight between Ayasegawa Yumichika and his spirit, Ruri'iro Kujaku. The two of them have probably the worst canon dynamic between a shinigami and his sword, with the reveal that the beauty-obsessed Yumichika is a bit of a contradiction. His personality is one of someone that's analytical, vain and beauty-seeking... but his heart wants to be in the strength-obsessed 11th Division. This is a conundrum, of course, because the true form of Ruri'iro Kujaku is kido-based, which is why Yumichika continually calls his sword by the wrong name -- Fuji Kujaku -- to piss it off and prevent it from going into its true shikai. It's all well and good when Ruri'iro Kujaku is just a sword, but it's now a vain peacock-man who's pissed off at Yumichika. 

There are a lot of discussions about beauty, about hiding one's true self and after some flamboyant talk about beauty and appearances, Ruri'iro Kujaku immediately unleashes the reiatsu-draining vines, saying that he's willing to unleash his power anywhere, anytime. He's easily able to overpower his master, and goes into a tirade about how aesthetics dictate both of their worldviews... and it's of Ruri'iro Kujaku's opinion that Yumichika's wasting time with the barbarians in the 11th Division. There's a lot of arguments to be make here about who is correct -- Yumichika or Ruri'iro Kujaku, and I'm really leaning more towards Ruri'iro Kujaku's points of view, to be honest! Yumichika, however, gets a badass double-panel yell alongside his captain Kenpachi; before he gets his comeback. To Yumichika, being part of the strongest division in the Gotei 13 is his pride, is his aesthetic, and this pride is something that he deems worth dying for.

I'm still not quite sure just why Yumichika managed to defeat Ruri'iro Kujaku. He refuses to use the sword's power, he tricks Kujaku into using more of his power... and then one Bakudo spell and one zip behind Ruri'iro Kujaku and apparently Yumichika is able to take him out? There is some talk about how Yumichika would lose if Ruri'iro Kujaku 'fought normally', so I guess Ruri'iro Kujaku is just focusing on the reishi-draining power? Obviously this isn't a definitive conclusion for Yumichika and his sword's story arc, because this is still filler, but it's a nice way of showcasing Yumichika subjugating and/or compromising his sword. Whatever the case, I really do love this battle. It's probably one of the highlights from the entire arc, alongside the unexpected focus for Momo a bit earlier. 

Soi Fon, meanwhile, is the captain that hangs around the most in the battlefield at this point because most of the other captains that are allowed to rampage in filler arcs (Histugaya, Komamura, Byakuya) are otherwise indisposed. She gets to take on three Zanpakuto spirits on her own. First up, Gonryomaru and Tenken show up to double-team her, and... we get a rather hilarious joke at people being confused whose sword Gonryomaru is. In an almost meta sense, Gonryomaru states his frustrations at his own user not standing out more. I do like, too, that there's a nice little friendship between Tenken and Gonryomaru. Tenken is silent and glowering, while Gonryomaru's a bit more talkative but skittish... and considering their two masters are the two biggest Yamamoto fanboys, it makes sense. This also marks the proper reveal of Gonryomaru's lightning powers, something people could assume from the kanji of his name but I bet it was pretty great to see this revealed in a tertiary material back in the day. 

Soi Fon also has access to Shunko, which gives her a pretty great fight scene as she just envelops herself in wind and clashes with the gigantic, fire-breathing Tenken (who also uses fire bolas, making the fight dynamic) and Gonryomaru's lightning blats. Soi Fon almost effortlessly holds them back until her own sword spirit, Suzumebachi, starts stinging her. 

And Suzumebachi is a fun little interpretation, a combination of both of Soi Fon's Shikai and Bankai. She has a gigantic appendage forming her right arm, like Jakuho Raikoben, but that giant appendage isn't a missile but rather the needle of Shikai-form Suzumebachi. This flows immediately to a 1v1 between Soi Fon and Suzumebachi. It's not as bad as Shuhei or Yumichika, but the anime also does hint that Soi Fon isn't quite the biggest fan of how her Bankai looks. This isn't brought up in this arc, but Suzumebachi does give Soi Fon a dressing-down for being such a fangirl dependent on Yoruichi. The fight against Suzumebachi itself isn't the most exciting thing in the world, mostly involving Suzumebachi flying around and stinging Soi Fon over and over, until Soi Fon tricks Suzumebachi into charging in onto an obvious spot, before blocking the strike with Shunko and slicing off Suzumebachi's blade. 

While all of this is going on, Isane and Iba (neither of whom get their spirits unleashed for no real reason) encounter Ashisogi Jizo, and... the interpretation of Ashisogi Jizo as just a baby-shaped baby with moth wings instead of the giant, hideous form is adorable. Eventually, Tobiume, Haineko, Rangiku and Momo all get wrapped up in this fight as well, in kind of a mini-rematch. Again, maybe it's just me being happy that one of the ignored vice-captains got some personality here, but Momo does visibly look a fair bit more confident, impressing Tobiume. Ashisogi Jizo just butterflies around and uses some chest-knives to poison Isane. But their attempts to fight back against Ashisogi Jizo causes it to transform into its Bankai form, Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo, and chase them around. 

The last battle here that takes place before Kenpachi's epic arrival is Kira fighting against Kazeshini... an interesting setup. Kira did save Shuhei from Kazeshini earlier, but Shuhei's just... knocked out for the rest of the fight. Man, even in filler Mr. 69 can't catch a break! Kazeshini is just a lunatic and I really like how Kira basically just... uses his blase expression and delivery to freak Kazeshini into thinking that Kira has regained the ability of his Shikai. It's all a gigantic bluff, and Kira ultimately just attacks with Kido and some funky exploding bangles, and manages to take down Kazeshini. At the last second, however, Kira is sneak-attacked by his own spirit, Wabisuke, who takes the form of a wretched, crippled man weighed down by a gigantic slab on his back. 

And then ZARAKI KENPACHI arrives. His arrival is epic, heralded by some Dragon Ball Z levels of glowing yellow aura. Some really great moment of showing how the defeated Ikkaku and the then-struggling Yumichika are immediately revitalized a bit by the arrival of their captain into the battlefield. 

Now obviously Kenpachi's Zanpakuto Spirit is... very special, and it's honestly rather fun to see the cheeky explanation. You can't very well have one of the most popular and prominent captains sit out this arc, but you can't have Kenpachi ever meet Muramasa, otherwise all the mysteries surrounding his blade would be revealed prematurely. So Kenpachi and Yachiru were apparently just out of the Soul Society hunting Hollows and got lost. Wabisuke attacks Kenpachi and immediately just gets shattered in one shot. 

A lot of the conclusion of the fights listed above happen here, but of course we get the gigantic fanservice moment of finally having Kenpachi fight Byakuya. It's... it's animated well, but it's also very... safe? Kenpachi says Kenpachi things, Byakuya says Byakuya things, and Kenpachi sure swings his sword a lot and Byakuya uses a whole lot of Senbonzakura attacks. There's a pretty cool moment where Kenpachi says that he'd rather die trying while fighting Byakuya, which is juxtaposed with Yumichika's own moment, but that's more of a moment for Yumichika's benefit, yeah? The fight itself is all right. It's well-animated, the music and voice-acting is neat, it's just... lacking that oomph for me to get excited about this being a fight between two of the most popular and most powerful captains. That is the curse of filler, I suppose. 

Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo would later charge and spill into the main battleground, his poison gas disabling Ichigo and allowing Senbonzakura to escape, and for Byakuya to retreat. Kenpachi grabs baby Jizo in by the head, but then Mayuri shows up, presses a self-destruct button that he somehow installed inside Ashisogi Jizo... because of course he has it... and then reclaims his broken sword, promising to 'discipline it'. Yeah, poor, poor Ashisogi Jizo. You're traumatized as shit, huh? 

With that second act done, we get some revelations as Yoruichi has investigated certain matters. Yoruichi explains to Ichigo and the captains as the scene cuts back and forth between Muramasa and Byakuya hanging out at the magic unexplained cave of secret-hiding, and we see Genryusai Yamamoto stuck inside a green pyramid-shaped forcefield, seemingly sealed by the powers of three powerful Zanpakuto -- Kyoraku's Katen Kyokotsu, Ukitake's Sogyo-no-Kotowari and Unohana's Minazuki. 

This, by the way, is a nice way to handwave the powers of four of the mightiest Gotei 13 captains without having them dominate the middle-tier fights. Remember that their abilities haven't been revealed in the manga and especially the anime at the time of this filler arc, and having these powerful Zanpakuto spirits work to seal the even-more-powerful Yamamoto is a fun narrative solution. 

Ichigo, Kenpachi, Yoruichi, Kyoraku and Ukitake form a strike team to enter the mysterious unexplained cave of all-hiding. The duo of Haineko and Tobiume attack again, in what's their third fight this arc, facing off against Yoruichi. There is some nice gag about Yoruichi lampshading that she and Haineko are both cats, and... this fight's actually pretty fun for how ultimately it's just a way to get Yoruichi separated from the group. Yoruichi trash-talks the two catty girls in a way that their masters didn't, ultimately managing to use a Bakudo spell to bind the two of them into the wall. 

Kyoraku and Ukitake are both distracted into dealing with their own spirits. Sogyo no Kotowari, taking the form of a pair of young twin boys, just want to play with Ukitake, only that they keep using their scrolls and fans to launch lightning bolts and watery blasts at Ukitake. We barely see what Sogyo no Kotowari's real powers are, and I don't think these match the 'absorb energy, unleash energy' powers that Ukitake uses in the Fake Karakura Town battle, but I wouldn't put it past a captain like Ukitake to have a couple more powers up his sleeve. 

Kyoraku's fight with Katen Kyokotsu (these spirit designs would actually appear in-canon!) is a bit more interesting because Kyoraku is just a much more entertaining character in general. Kyoraku notes that the two ladies are just seemingly holding back, and are unwilling to be truly hostile and deliver the killing blow. 

Kenpachi, meanwhile, faces off against the remaining two spirits still left, Tenken and Gonryomaru. Kenpachi realizes that Tenken isn't fighting to his full strength, and targets Gonryomaru first, snapping the poor, poor abused and underused fool because he realizes that Tenken is holding back for the sake of his friend. We get some pretty great shots of Kenpachi fighting base-form Tenken, and ultimately Gonryomaru's destruction causes Tenken to rampage in his Bankai: Kokujo Tenken Myo'o form. It's a great spectacle as Kenpachi fights this giant, blocks the blade, cuts off a horn... and we cut away and never see the conclusion of this fight. BOO! What is it with Kenpachi's fight against giants always being narratively aborted? 

Minazuki shows up before Ichigo and doesn't fight, just leads him on. Ichigo one-shots Kazeshini on his way, before encountering Yamamoto in his barrier. Muramasa faces off against Ichigo, and Ichigo dons his Hollow mask and unleashes a Getsuga Tensho. Yoruichi and Kyoraku arrive too late to warn Ichigo that this is exactly what Muramasa wants, because the hollow-infused nature of Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho shatters the barrier. Turns out it isn't the Zanpakuto spirits capturing Yamamoto and sealing him, but rather Yamamoto sealed himself in order to keep his immensely powerful Ryujin Jakka in check. 

As Ryujin Jakka -- not even manifesting in a humanoid form, just taking the form of a giant, sentient wildfire -- rampages, Yamamoto informs the characters about Muramasa's backstory. There once was a man who married into the Kuchiki clan, called Kuchiki Koga, who had a very powerful blade called Muramasa that's able to cause other shinigami's Zanpakuto spirits to turn against their owners. Koga rose quickly among the ranks of the Gotei, but his father-in-law Kuchiki Ginrei isn't the most pleased with Koga's attitude. Things took a turn for the worse as Koga gets framed for killing some friendly shinigami with the power of Muramasa, which is framed as being completely unfair. Ginrei tells Koga to wait and learn some patience while justice is doled out, but Muramasa manifests upon hearing Koga's call, and frees him from his prison. 

And this is when Koga basically took a step over the line, when he confronts the jackasses that framed him and murders them in cold blood. Ginrei tells Koga in no uncertain means that this is him turning his back against the laws of Soul Society... at which point Koga snaps and leads his own revolution. He cuts off his ties with the Kuchiki Clan, and even gets into a huge argument into Muramasa, who he thinks is trying to 'control' him. Poor Muramasa just wants to help, and you really can't help but feel sorry for Muramasa. Ultimately, however, Yamamoto and Ginrei show up and seal Koga away, and in this final fight, Koga desperately tries to call for Muramasa, who's unable to hear his words. 

After this flashback segment, we cut back to the present day, where... Muramasa apparently was able to access Yamamoto's inner world due to his power, and now know where Koga is kept, and leaves to free his master. It's... it's a bit stretching the boundaries of disbelief that Yamamoto, Ukitake and Kyoraku would just let Koga go like that, but okay, sure. Ryujin Jakka is rampaging. Hitsugaya shows up with Hyorinmaru, freezes the flames of Ryujin Jakka long enough for Ichigo to get out, while the old captains hold back to subdue Ryjin Jakka. I mean, okay, sure? I think it's at around this point that I kind of clocked out, because I just didn't find Koga all that engaging of a villain. As a 'surprise final villain' he's much better than Amagai, but we just go all-in on the Muramasa and Koga drama, and the original exciting parts of this arc, the Zanpakuto spirits, are kind of left behind. Thankfully unlike the Bount arc this only gets dragged for like three or four episodes, though. 

Of course, the place where Koga is sealed is in some backwater swamp in Karakura Town. Muramasa arrives and collapses... and due to a hilarious case of mis-communication (or no communication), Orihime stumbles upon this weakened emo man and heals him. Uryu and Chad show up, realize that the guy with demon nails and blood tears isn't good news, and they begin to fight. Rukia also shows up at this point. Koga unleashes a crapton of hollows for our Karakura gang to battle, and Muramasa finally releases his master Kuchiki Koga just as Ichigo makes his way into the battlefield...

...and Koga immediately stabs Muramasa in the stomach. 

And then snaps him into two after Muramasa goes all wide-eyed in shock and confusion, because all he ever wanted to do was to resurrect his master. It's really a 'kick the dog' moment, and the voice-acting for Muramasa is really neat! I haven't really cared about Muramasa before this episode, if we're behind honest. He's neat as a ripoff Ulquiorra, but it's amazing what a really great final moment can give. Koga's been basically driven into insane and jerkassery with his grief and isolation, thinking that Muramasa has betrayed him and abandoned him, when it just took Muramasa a long time to get to where Koga is sealed. This is also supposed to kind of be a commentary on a non-healthy Zanpakuto/Shinigami relationship, because Koga has none of the warmth or connection that characters like Ichigo, Byakuya, Rukia or Renji have with what's essentially part of their soul. 

And... again, I'm not the biggest fan of what comes up next, mostly because it's a bit straightforward and dragged on a bit longer than it should. Byakuya reveals that he's only hiding to prevent Koga's release because of the Kuchiki clan honour. Koga also just fights with one of the random weapons that was used to seal him and uses a combination of illusion and ice-based Kido, while Byakuya... goes all wild with Senbonzakura. Once it properly becomes a one-on-one, however, the Byakuya/Koga fight is surprisingly amazingly animated, and I think the animation team devoted most of the budget for the finale for this fight as opposed to the next couple of fights. And... it's pretty cool! Lots of great glowing reiatsu moments for Koga and Byakuya, and that is a beautiful Shukei: Hakuteiken that finishes off Koga. 

It is an appropriately wretched defeat for Koga, too, who falls into the lake calling for Muramasa (who can't answer him because Koga shattered him), while Byakuya's supported by Senbonzakura, who proceeds to wax lyrical about how Byakuya exemplifies Soul Society honour and puts it above his own personal one, while Koga betrayed the Soul Society for the sake of his selfish desires. 

The fight isn't quite over yet, however, because Muramasa apparently isn't dead. Just... driven out of control. He's consumed a lot of Hollows to sustain himself (how does that work?) and morphs into a gigantic blob-dome not too dissimilar to a less-disgusting version of Aaroniero's Glotoneria. I can't really complain because this is just an excuse for all the Zanpakuto spirits and their owners, now free from the brainwashing, to show up and help to fight against the Gillians. It's pretty fun to see the shinigami and their spirits finally fight side-by-side, and, hey, Komamura wakes up long enough for the finale! This one is pretty fun, just showing off the abilities and attacks of everyone. 

Meanwhile, Ichigo and Muramasa find themselves in the remnants of Koga's inner world, and we get a final fight between Ichigo and Muramasa. We get the explanation of the weird invisible tentacle ability that Muramasa used earlier against Hollow Ichigo -- that it actually works through water reflections. But compared to the Byakuya/Koga fight, this one just feels lacking. There's really not quite as much of a plot weight or a 'it would be so satisfying to see this guy taken down' feel as Koga's douchebaggery, it's just Ichigo dealing the final blow to essentially mercy-kill Muramasa. 

And... and we just wrap up the arc after that. Our heroes defeat the Gillians, Muramasa and Koga are dead, and rain falls and all the manifested Zanpakuto spirits return to their swords. I do feel like the ending is probably one of the weaker parts of the storyline, but all in all due to the concept and the fights, as well as the excellent design of the Zanpakuto spirits, this has absolutely been the highlight of the filler arcs I've watched for Bleach so far. 

Of course, it's not quite over yet, since we've still got around ten episodes of filler, as we go to the 'coda' of this arc, the Toju/Sword-Beast arc. 

Random Notes:

• Like most fillers, based on the captain lineup, this season would take place after Aizen and company's defection, but probably before Ulquiorra and Yammy's arrival in the human world. If we want to force all the fillers to be canon, basically almost everything takes place in that time period. 
• There are a lot of parallels to the TYBW arc's structure, huh? Chojiro falling in the opening stages of the arc, the Shinigami being unable to use their Zanpakuto abilities (just the Bankai in TYBW), some conflict with the two Zangetsu spirits, and one of Ichigo's allies going through a seeming betrayal that the audience can tell is bullshit (Byakuya/Uryu)?
• Out of the named captain/vice-captain Zanpakuto that were already revealed to the audience at this point, only Itegumo is conspicuously missing. Kubo would later reveal in an interview that the anime staff never asked him about Itegumo. 
  
• I love the post-credits gags for this season! There are a lot of funny self-aware moments, like Iba yelling about subjugating his Zanpakuto (and no one knows what it's all about), and I even like just how little of an impact Chojiro Sasakibe has in the canon material leading up to this arc that it's even part of Gonryomaru's character. 
• 
  I really do find it interesting that Tenken and Tobiume both fight with completely different weapons than their owners. Tenken fights with some fiery chain-bolas when Komamura has never showcased any of those abilities before; while Tobiume is waaaaay cooler than Momo with those giant metal fire-bells connected with a long cloth. 
• Taking into account that TYBW would reveal that Zabimaru has actually been hiding its ability from Renji, it would make sense, actually, that it would appear to Renji in different forms. It's also worth noting that when they use Bankai: Hihio Zabimaru, the baboon half of Zabimaru remains unchanged and only the snake changes into its giant serpent form.
  
• A fair amount of people get to see Ryumon Hozukimaru, namely Soi Fon and her Stealth Corps... but the TYBW arc would later reveal that the existence of Ryumon Hozukimaru is kind of an open secret among several captains anyway. Throwing Soi Fon into the mix of captains in the know wouldn't be that huge of a stretch. 
• I actually wanted to see more of Hozukimaru being 'lazy' and a 'slow starter' as described by Ikkaku, but we don't really get to see that. In fact, Hozukimaru just feels like a clone of Ikkaku's own personality. 
• It is rather interesting that Yachiru says absolutely nothing about the existence of Zanpakuto spirits running around her, but I suppose it's in her best interest to keep it all a secret, still... if she even understands her true nature at this point, even. 
• I absolutely understand why Minazuki would take the form of a hooded figure, since we only ever saw its manta ray monster shikai form, but... it's surprisingly similar to a certain Sternritter "C" that we'll meet in the future, huh? 
• I thought there was a pretty cool moment in the finale when Soi Fon just wants to charge in and just blow the shit out of the Muramasa dome, and everyone else freaks out because Ichigo's still inside. Ultimately Hitsugaya talks her out because of collateral damage reasons. 

One Piece 1117 Review: Fastball Special

One Piece, Chapter 1117: A-

Due to some scheduling issues and me wanting to give this chapter some time to breathe in my head, I ended up waiting until the official Viz translations come out due to the very... interesting cliffhanger to this chapter. It features worldplay, but is it English wordplay or Japanese wordplay or is it just a random sentence particle? I decided that everyone and their mother had some kind of idea on what this 'mo' could be, which, just like the 'D', could basically be anything and everything and nothing at all. So I will acknowledge that it's exciting that we get another literal breadcrumb of something related to the greater meta-plot of One Piece, but otherwise that's mostly what I'm going to say about the enigmatic "Mo".

The VIZ official translation goes for the 'sentence particle' theory instead, and has it be an interrupted "a-" instead of the beginning of an a actual word. Which... okay, that's where we're going with, and it really could be anything like "within you there is a traitor" or "within you there is a saviour" or a sun god or a leader or a pirate king or whatever it is. I'm really not going to speculate too much of this, other thana mentioning that we probably should be working under the assumption of the accuracy of the Viz translation where this is concerned.

We start off in Pirate Island, which... allow me to indulge myself and go on a tangent here. We get a reaction of people reacting to getting treasure from under the sea, which is all fine and good... but eagle-eyed viewers looked at a strangely-dressed man in the background and... holy shit, that's Pearl. Pearl of the Krieg pirates, just hanging out in the background exactly like his brief cameo in the Netflix show. And shit, that's Gin! Gin, but he's traded his tonfas for a sword! And next to him is... well, he doesn't look like Don Krieg, not with that super-long chin and long hair, but the armour does match! 

That's a cameo I didn't expect, and truthfully I wouldn't even expect. With the obvious exception of Buggy, Oda's been very elusive at showing the villains of the East Blue Saga ever since we moved into the Grand Line, with Arlong and Kuro both still being MIA ever since their respective arcs, and Morgan only showing up in cover stories. 

There is a small segment of the fandom that is super invested in Gin in particular coming back and getting some resolution to his character arc. I've always thought that this wasn't necessary since I felt like Gin's story was wrapped up quite well in the Baratie arc, but it is always nice to see cameos from older characters. I do find it interesting that they've found their way into the Grand Line, and apparently from what the panel implies they've thrown their lot in with the Blackbeard Pirates. I doubt that Don Krieg and company would be particularly a threat to our heroes, but it's nice to have some named pirates on the side of the enemy for whenever we have a big-scale war. Don Krieg could fight like, Leo or Ideo or someone, y'know? It's neat. 

We then cut away to the Saruyama Alliance from the Jaya arc, with Montblanc Cricket and the two monkey brothers being quite excited about the prospect of diving down, exploring and finding a whole ton of treasure. God bless the Saruyama Alliance, I do really like that their random role as divers makes them rather suitable to react to this. 

We get to see the Marines' GS hospital, where Koby, Hibari, Helmeppo, Prince Grus and Kujaku are kind of discussing the sheer amount of information overload they have. They're also all injured but alive, and we... randomly cut away to X-Drake, who actually didn't die like that last scene implied in Wano. Unlike other death copouts such as Pell or Pound, though, I actually do think Drake's story hasn't properly gotten a satisfying conclusion. While I highly doubt Drake would win in the competition against around 300 other secondary characters in terms of screentime, it's nice that he at least might have a chance to complete his character arc. 

Also, we finally, FINALLY see Smoker after Tashigi and the rest of the prominent Marines have shown up. I think this marks the last major character that needs to be reacting to this message? Smoker's on his wacky smoke-ATV-bike thing, and is just on top of some unspecified sea with the caption mentioning that he's in the 'New World' and nothing else. That's... you know what? I'm just glad he shows up. 

We take a break from the rest of the world to cut back to Egghead. The rest of the Straw Hats on board the Thousand Sunny comment about how they are about to launch the ship, and just need the rest of their teammates to gather. Jinbei and Zoro are almost there... but they're at the heels of a monster horse. A skeleton monster horse. A skeleton samurai Gandhi monster horse. 

It doesn't really feel quite as apparent as the sandworm or the demon bird, but yeah, seeing Jinbei and Zoro next to Ethanbaron's Bakotsu beast mode really highlights the size... especially when Ethanbaron prepares to slice the Thousand Sunny in half. He's almost bigger than the ship! 

And then we get what every Zoro fan and their mother has been demanding... a clash between Zoro and Ethanbaron! Swordsman versus swordsman! Jinbei pulls off what we in the X-Men fandom call the 'Fastball Special', using a Fishman Jujutsu attack to launch Zoro before he unleashes the post-timeskip version of the attack he used to slice the sea train in half (the second-coolest Zoro moment pre-timeskip for me, only really beat by nothing happened)... Nitoryu: Rashomon. It's called the Restful Paradise: Rashomon. 

And as Zoro's two swords clashes with Ethanbaron's single sword, the two warriors react to each other's blades and realize that it's a Kitetsu sword. This has been a fan theory far longer than honestly almost anything in the series, but it's finally all but confirmed that Ethanbaron's sword is the Shodai Kitetsu!

The clash knocks both warriors away from each other, without much of a conclusion. The scene ends with Jinbei catching Zoro, and Zoro yelling for the ship to cast off. 

We've got a bunch of the Vice Admirals like Hound and Urban yelling at the Marines to continue attacking the 'fossil pirates' that are the Giant Warriors, but then they start fighting back -- one giant is dual-wielding flintlock pistols and I find that hilarious but awesome. And just as much as I love the original entrance of Dorry and Brogy into this arc, I love the quasi-dual-page spread of the generic giant warriors just bursting out of their own ship and attacking the Marines. One of them is eating a hunk of meat, another one seems like he's rising out of the ocean like some kind of a sea demon...

And surprisingly, we get some fight-back from the Marines. Bluegrass arrives with the Ride Ride Fruit'd cyborg sea monster and laser-beams a hole into the giants' ship. Doll, who has been MIA for a while, jumps in and unleashes a Haki attack called "Rock and Roll" that one-shots a giant that I think is Oimo?

Luffy, Dorry and Brogy are still running away from Topman, but then they realize that the giant demon pig is gone. They discuss this for a brief moment before they continue to run again. And... we get a pretty cool panel of four of the Gorosei looming in their beast or half-beast modes around the Iron Giant.

Vegapunk, who has been recapping a bit of his message, finally ends it with "to those around the world who bear the Will of D, among you there is a-" before this gets cut by giant piggy-pig Topman rushing in and knocking the Iron Giant away, seemingly cutting off the transmission. We get some shots of some of the bearers of the will of D, as well as those connected to them. We get Monkey D. Dragon going "...", which seems to be the only thing Dragon can do. Sabo notes his brothers, Portgas D. Ace and Monkey D. Luffy. Koby thinking of the two Monkey D's, Luffy and Garp. Marshall D. Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard, reacts to it. Bepo, right-hand bear of Trafalgar D. Water Law, also calls for his captain. And lastly, Nefertari D. Vivi, who might not know that she's a D, also yells as the transmission cuts out. 

And... well, the manga is kind of ambiguous whether it's the act of Topman attacking the Iron Giant or the random shot of York seemingly shutting something down in the office being the cause. I... I obviously still want a bit more, the more we can get the better, but I also wouldn't mind if this is the end of Vegapunk's message. Over the past couple of chapters we've got a lot... and more importantly, the world in-universe got a lot of stuff that we as readers either already know or have taken for granted, but are world-breaking news to the populace.

Pretty good chapter. I wanted to wait and I did wait, and I think it's a bit nicer to review it without a shred of ambiguity. 

Random Notes:

• I intentionally took a bit longer to write this chapter because I wanted to calm down about the "Mo" speculation and, well, basically end up at some conclusion, even if that conclusion is "no one can guess what this is, there's too many possibilities over multiple languages". 
• Cover story: Yamato's journey through the whatsits and whatnots... she visits Nekomamushi and Hyogoro, who's taken over the yakuza. Okay, neat. 
• Yes, Don Krieg gets the Treasure Cruise art. Whenever possible, I want to use random characters who most likely won't get the chance for me to ever use in a relevant way. 
• Other speculations that I actually do find probably when "mo-" was thought to be the word was "monster" and "monkey"... which is immediately disproven due to the particle 'mo' being written with hiragana instead of katakana (which is used for loanwords).
• Pandaman alert! Of course you need to have Pandaman listen in. He's one of the background characters right next to Kujaku's arm. 
• How's the logistics that Drake managed to get out of Wano and to the Marines? I guess he ultimately sided with the good guys, so he wouldn't be tossed into prison like King, Queen and the rest of the Beast Pirates, but all the Marines (the fleet that Zunesha scared; CP-0; Aramaki) left before there was any convenient time to pick Drake up. So...
• RASHOMON! I love Rashomon. 
• Doll's attack is called "Rock and Roll Blaster", probably because 'doll' and 'roll' rhymes. 
• Within the Gorosei's discussion, Topman is the one that specifically recognizes the Iron Giant that attacks Marie Geoise, which might lend some credence that the Mercury-Venus-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn might be the order of their ranking, with Topman being first and Saturn being last. This might really lend credence since Saturn seems to be the least impressive in physical combat (or that might just be bias since we saw more of him) but Ju Peter also has a weirdly non-real-life-mythological beast mode. 
• It's understated, and I don't think it will really come as a surprise, but Law and Bepo survived their encounter with Blackbeard and are taking refuge somewhere. 

Movie Review: Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle (2023)

Poor, poor Blue Beetle. I honestly do think that it's a superhero movie that's... okay? But it's just really circumstance that led to its abysmal box office performance. There was so little marketing done for this movie, Warner Bros. and DC are in the process of closing up shop and shooting out what's left of their original 'Snyderverse' or DCEU continuity movies -- Flash, sequels to Aquaman and Flash, and Blue Beetle. And it really is a shame that this happened at the height of superhero movie fatigue because Blue Beetle is just... 'another' origin movie. 

I like Jaime Reyes and consider him one of the best 'reinvented' legacy successors, revitalizing the original Ted Kord (who I also like!) and generally just being an interesting spin on the original name without disrespecting it. The story told in the movie adapts most of Jaime's backstory in the comics, right up to the fact that he's a successor to two different Blue Beetles (Dan Garrett and Ted Kord), and we get some really good visual effects -- the horror show of the Scarab merging into Jaime's body, as well as the Kamen-Rider-on-a-movie-budget transformation sequences between the Blue Beetle and OMAC armours. The fact that most of the suits are practical effects add to the delightful action sequences of the movie. Oh, and Ted Kord's big beetle ship also shows up. That's cool!

But... that's really it, and for a movie that runs for slightly above 2 hours, there really is scant little that sets this movie apart from the others. And I get that not all movies need a 'twist' to the formula, but Blue Beetle just takes all of the cliches and plays them straight. Which would be fine if the movie is somewhere between the 45-90 minute range, but this movie feels like it's a pilot to a superhero show that is stretched out over two or three times that the runtime deserves. 

More egregiously is that as someone familiar with Jaime Reyes from the comics and from cartoons, they could've actually added something interesting -- exlpain more about Ted Kord's legacy as a superhero (or what he is as a person, instead of just someone who leaves behind giant bug-ships), or even adapt and confirm the fact that, yes, the Scarabs are actually part of an intergalactic horde of invading aliens. Even if they didn't fully adapt the Reach, some hints to the Scarab as being something malicious would've been appreciated. 

While I appreciate Jaime's family and the themes of family as a supporting cast, it really feels like this is something we've seen, and done better elsewhere, yeah? The dad is very supportive and dies; the younger sibling is smart and mouthy; there's a wacky older relative that the movie thinks is way funnier than he actually is; the grandma is secretly hiding some badass skills... none of these are bad in isolation, and I enjoyed Alberto, Rudy, Milagro and Nana Reyes in isolation, but they also bog down so much of the movie and at some point they get irritating. Particularly Rudy, who the movie basically saddles as Jaime's babysitter-turned-sidekick. This really feels like it has a bit of the problem with the Shazam movies, except that movie at least knows to keep the focus on Billy and Freddy. 

On the other side of the story are the Kords. The movie reinvents the Kord legacy and uses a gender-flipped version of Ted's evil uncle Jarvis Kord into his evil sister Victoria. Again, the plot that she's doing isn't terrible. It's pretty serviceable superhero material. But all she's doing is to try and get the super-awesome plot device, the Scarab, to make her super-awesome robot suit army, the OMACs... and she doesn't care how many people she has to trample to get to it. Again, between Aldrich Killian, Norman Osborn, Carlton Drake, Dr. Sivana and many more I'm probably not thinking of on top of my head, the 'evil CEO is evil and doesn't caer about the little people' trope is kind of an easy enemy trope to use... except that Victoria really doesn't do anything with it. Her villainy borders on one-dimensional as she cackles while she invades the Reyes household and shoots up civilians. There's some attempt to inject some complexity to her with her vague mentions of being driven by sexism/favouritism because her father picked Ted over her, but it's glossed over so quickly that it might not have even been there.

Far cooler and far more interesting is her badass minion, the 'main' OMAC who is also able to 'suit up' into a robotic suit, Ignacio Carapax. In addition to having one hell of a cool name and a very cool robot form, it turns out that Carapax is basically a child soldier abducted and groomed by Victoria and manipulated for her own needs with some clearly-bogus promises of being 'fixed' by the end of the day. Carapax is probably the more interesting villain, which is a shame because he spends most of the movie kind of in a daze.

Rounding out the cast is the main love-interest and the good Kord, Ted's daughter Jenny, who is trying to stop her lunatic aunt from doing her crazy supervillain plan. I really can't tell you much about her other than she's heroic and that she ends up getting it together with Jaime. 

Which brings to us Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle himself. He's very fun! Again, some of the hero motivations are cliched and kind of generic, which is no fault of the actor. Xolo Maridueña plays the character well, pulls off the charming-bumbling vibe well, and the movie sets up the 'poor Peter Parker' opening act well, with Jaime's family being at threat of losing their house thanks to redevelopments (a plot point that is interesting but ultimately kind of gets brushed aside), Jaime being a good son who's trying to do good, and eventually gets embroiled into the Kord drama when he decides to, despite common sense, try and rescue Jenny. Jaime's increasing desperation as his family gets thrown into the line of fire of people with big sci-fi guns and robot suits is palpable, and I think that's one of the better-executed parts of the movie. Perhaps not the death scene itself, which is kind of overwrought compared to some of the other 'mentor deaths' and Uncle Bens that we've seen in other DC and Marvel works, but Jaime's reaction to it and his growing horror as, at various points in the movie afterwards, his 'muggle' family members are put in danger. This leads to a very telegraphed but well-acted moment as Jaime finally manages to beat the shit out of Carapax, and unlike before, it's now Khaji-Da the alien Scarab who has to talk Jaime out from killing Carapax -- especially with the context that Carapax isn't doing everything out of shits and giggles. 

Eventually Carapax blows up Victoria in a suicide that also takes out the OMAC factory, Jaime and Jenny become a thing, and the community and Jenny's Kord Industries band together to rebuild the Reyes house. 

Again, the movie isn't bad! Other than maybe a couple of Rudy scenes, the movie itself is perfectly fun superhero fare. It's just that it's so... it's so basic, there aren't really any huge twists or revelations, and some of the scenes that they play straight -- like Papa Alberto's death, or the 'loser Jaime' establishing scenes -- are drawn out for a fair bit longer than it needs to be. Of course, that's not getting into the fact that Warner Bros is in their "let's wash our hands of this and hope for a better reboot" mode and barely cared about promoting or editing this movie. It really is kind of a shame, since they did have some pretty nice talent (particularly the visuals!) in this movie.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The opening shot of the movie shows multiple different-coloured Scarabs being shot out throughout the galaxy, foreshadowing the true nature of the Scarabs and their connection to the Reach.
  
• OMAC (One-Man Army Corps) specifically takes its portrayal in this movie from the reinvention popularized in Infinite Crisis, as an army of humans mutated by nanotechnology and controlled by the satellite Brother Eye. Anyone can be injected and transformed into an OMAC, becoming a superhuman cyborg. The original OMAC is a standalone hero that didn't really interact with the rest of the DC universe.
• The name of the OMAC bearer, Ignacio Carapax, is based on the Blue Beetle villain, Conrad Carapax, who originally fought the original Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) and had his consciousness uploaded into a robot body. 
• Victoria Kord is a gender-flipped version of the comics' Jarvis Kord, though Jarvis was Ted's uncle instead of his sister. 
• Dan Garrett (Blue Beetle I) and Ted Kord (Blue Beetle II)'s costumes can be seen in the Beetle Cave.
• The Scarab is passed to Jaime in a Big Belly Burger box, a fictional fast food chain that's a recurring staple in the DC comics and its adaptations. 
• While Jaime no longer lives in El Paso, Texas like he did in the comics, he lives on El Paso Street instead. 
• Batman is mentioned several times by the Reyes family. Superman and Flash are also name-dropped several times. 
• A LexCorp logo could briefly be seen in the buildings next to the Kord Industries tower.

Gotta Review 'Em All - Shinies, Generation V Families

Generation V shinies now. This is the last generation where we use 2D sprites, and the last one where the shinies are simple palette swaps. 

Hmmm, it's all right. I would've preferred if the red 'V' is a different colour, but swapping the body's orange fur to white works. 

 

Very nice. The more neon shade of green used for shiny Snivy and Servine are okay, but I'm particularly a fan of the darker red and orange accents on Servine. And then shiny Serperior ends up probably being one of my favourite shinies in this generation with his very nice bright blue and green! I also really like that the head is that nice lighter shade of green, too. Extremely pretty. 

Hmmm, okay? Not the biggest fan of the two younger stages, though they definitely are distinct from their original palettes. Yellow Tepig just doesn't look that nice, and the purple highlights on shiny Pignite's onesie isn't the most flattering colour. 

But shiny Emboar's pale-blue flame and markings look amazing. You generally get a lot of great, easy Fire-type shinies by changing the colour of the flames, but Emboar also gets some extra oomph by swapping the colours of his belly and waist markings. 

 

 

Hmmm, a mixed bag due to how different everyone looks. Shiny Oshawott is a nice, pastel shade and that red nose really makes this feel a fair bit more different compared to the original. Shiny Dewott is the best out of the three original members, with a pale-green skin and a purple skirt. Very different.

...and then shiny Samurott is extremely disappointing, just being slightly darker. The shells barely changing is a huge disappointment. Shiny Hisuian Samurott, on the other hand, changes almost nothing other than the shells, swapping the edgy jet-black Dark-type shells for a nice, pearly-white set. Very different, and looks pretty cool!

Shiny Patrat is... eh. Changing the eye colour to blue and making the fur slightly off isn't the most memorable one. 

Shiny Watchog, on the other hand, is a glorious cacophony of colours. Neon-lighting highlighter green is actually a perfect one to turn Watchog's 'warning colours' into, and the dark red fur is a nice contrast to both the neon green and Watchog's regular colours. Finally, having some shades of neon green and red in the eyes makes for a striking face even if it's overshadowed by the body's details.

The change isn't the most obvious on shiny Lillipup, but the dark-blue/blackish shade of fur becoming a nice shade of gray on shiny Herdier and Stoutland is rather nice. Stoutland's big beard having the cream colour go a bit further down and dominate the beard also makes for an interesting slight change. 

Rather pleasant, even if it takes a moment for the difference to set in. Shiny Purrloin becomes black with purple eyebrows, while shiny Liepard becomes a deep crimson. Both pretty appropriate alternate colours for these thieving cats, even if it takes a moment for me to realize what they usually look like. 

Shiny Pansage is a nicely different shade of bright green. Shiny Simisage is very disappointingly similar to the original. 

 

Likewise, shiny Pansear is a nice shade of orange to contrast the original, while shiny Simisear is barely different.  

 

The only one of the elemental monkeys to look different in both stages, shiny Panpour is still the nicer one of the two, being a nice shade of aqua green. He looks like some kind of exotic marine coral! And while still blue, shiny Simipour goes from light blue to a nice royal blue.

 

Both very pleasant! Shiny Munna is the better one here, swapping the pink for a cute shade of yellow, and having a nice green-pink set of flowers on its body. Shiny Musharna goes for a colour palette a bit closer to the original, but the body being blue and the dream-smoke being purple is different enough, and the colour palette works well on its own.  

Oooookay, terrible on all fronts. Shiny Pidove and both flavours of shiny Unfezant barely look different. You'd think the male Unfezant would be easy to make a shiny out of, but no! Shiny Tranquil is the only one that looks like a shiny, and he's tragically a terrible puke-green one. 

Eeeeh, they're all right, I suppose, but changing Blitzle and Zebstrika from black-and-white to dark-blue-and-white, and dark-purple-and-white... really doesn't make for the most exciting changes. Kinda wished they swapped the white stripes into like, traditional lightning colours like bright blue or yellow.  

Oh! Very pleasant. I have one of these in Pokemon Go! Shiny Roggenrola is nice enough, changing the dark blue main body into a nice shade of purple -- purple ores and gemstones are basically 'shiny' rocks, after all -- and the 'eye' turning from yellow to a reddish orange is nice. But it's shiny Boldore and Gigalith that really shine, where the glowing orange crystals turn into a majestic bright blue. It really looks like something right out of a fantasy setting, and with how alien Boldore in particular looks, I approve!

It's likely coincidental since we're still in a generation where the shinies are palette swaps, but the real-life Honduran white bats that inspired Woobat actually do hide under leaves in order to camouflage them as sunlight passes through the leaves. It's also an honestly pretty nice shade of green, not eye-searing like many other shinies. I do think I ultimately like shiny Swoobat much better, with its yellow-gold head and body. 

Very nice. Not the most creative shiny, but changing the highlights to pastel pink and blue really does make shiny Drillbur and Excadrill stand out. The pink and blue swap places from the stripes and the nose, which I thought was funny. 

Shiny Audino's great! He trades in the pink with a very nice shade of lavender. 

And shiny Mega Audino, despite being released in Generation VI... doesn't... even... change anything? Just the eyes? The white could've been changed to anything. Regular Audino's colours, shiny Audino's colours, anything instead of keeping 99% of the design the same colour. 

 

I have all of them in Pokemon Go, and... they're a bit disappointing. The shading are all just different enough for me to know that they're shinies (especially Gurrdurr), but they just look like they got a bit more tanned or a bit more pale. What's wrong with using a completely different colour? I think they also missed the mark by not doing anything with the items they're holding. At least Gurrdurr and Conkeldurr could've looked markedly different that way. 

Another all-around winner. Shiny Tympole being yellow is nice enough, a naturalistic colour that is very vibrant and distinct from regular Tympole. It also fixes a problem I have with original-flavour Tympole, where the human-flesh coloured face is a bit disturbingly weird. Rather serendipitously, this is basically the colour of future Pokemon Tadbulb, isn't it?

But it's shiny Palpitoad and Seismitoad that takes the cake. They go on the (probably unintentional) trend of turning blue frogs into a more common green, though, again, they go for a very nice shade of neon green. The orbs on Palpitoad and Seismitoad turn bright orange and a pinkish-orange respectively, which contrasts very well against the green and really ends up making them look like highly-toxic frogs -- which they aren't! That would be Toxicroak! But it's a nice visual regardless. Very pretty.  

Oh, very disappointing, just like their designs. Is it too hard to expect them to change the red and blue between shiny Throh and Sawk? Or change the colour of their clothes? Or even just the belt? No? They just adjust the shading by one value or something. 

Shiny Leavanny is the most boring out of the three, being 'just' an autumn-coloured shiny. I honestly wouldn't evolve my shiny Sewaddle or Swadloon if I ever got one! 

But the pre-evolved forms are very nice. Shiny Sewaddle just plays around with the shades of green, but the bright green they use for the leaves contrasts well with the lime of the caterpillar body and the bright red mouth and legs. Shiny Swadloon changes the yellow parts to a nice shade of brown, and his head becomes white. Both very nice!

This is the inverse, where it's shiny Venipede that's disappointing. He just looks dusty! But both shiny Whirlepede and Scolipede change just enough -- the normally red and purple rings on their body become an offensively bright blue, and the shading of their primary colours change just enough to be noticeable. A pleasant light purple for Whirlipede and a crimson red for Scolipede. Very appropriate, these look like the bright warning colours of a toxic animal.

Both are very beautiful. Shiny Cottoneee changes two major colours --- the eyes go from red to green, while the ear-wings go from green to orange. It's a very nice change that brings the attention to the wings instead of the eyes. I like it! Shiny Whimsicott goes for a full 'sheep' colouration, I think -- the skin becomes a much darker brown, the puff goes from cream to white, and the ear-growth things turn into a bright blue. Very pleasant!

I can't tell what's different with shiny Petilil. It's really evident side-by-side, Shiny Petilil looks like an unripe fruit next to regular Petilil. But, again, a pretty classic example of 'it doesn't look like a shiny unless you place it in a crowd of regular ones'.

Both shiny Liligants are very, very nice. The original Unova variant trades in her red flower for a pink one, but the most striking change is to swap all of the dark green leaves on her head, arms and skirt for a nice shade of blue. It reminds me a bit of the shiny Snivy line above! Regular Hisuian Liligant already has a pink flower, so she swaps it out for an orange one and also has the same leaf colour changes. 

All three versions of shiny Basculin are terrible, just having a brighter green than usual and slightly yellower fins. What's wrong with swapping the green out for another colour? Hell, just swap the green with the stripe, making the two original Unovan Basculin look vastly different! Disappointing. 

Being made in a newer game, shiny Basculegion looks vastly improved. Originally having red and white ghostly flame-fins respectively, the shiny versions of Basculegion traded them in for a starkingly different purple and yellow. This is what I meant about changing just a colour in a design, and ending up with such a starkly different appearance!

 

Another set of great shinies. Shiny Sandile goes for a nice little palette swap, exchanging the brown-and-black for a yellow-and-black... but shiny Krokorok and Krookodile goes a bit crazy, with both of their primary colours turning brown and their stripes going into pale yellow. A bit unexpected, and it looks expecially different on Krookodile whose eyes also get changed into the pale yellow!

Shiny Darumaka is a nice shade of pink that's a bit more evidently different to the original, but shiny Darmanitan just looks a bit darker in both the angry and zen modes.

The Galarian variants have much better shinies, just swapping out the highlights from dark blue to a wonderful shade of lime green. The ice crystals still look the same, but contrast much better against the lime green of both Galarian Darumaka and Darmanitan. Galarian Darmanitan's Zen Mode has a slightly different shade of red and pink, but otherwise is kind of disappointing.

Shiny Maractus is all right. The shocking pink highlights are nice. 

Shiny Dwebble looks barely different (I know the crab part is a bit darker) but shiny Crustle is a very... interesting shade of green. The green extends on both the crab and the layers of sediment, making for a rather interesting look. 

Like Dwebble above, shiny Scraggy is barely different than the original. But shiny Scrafty gets his orange skin turned super-pale, and his shed skin turns into a offensively bright neon green. Very punk-ish, I approve.

Oh! All these guys do have some pretty great shinies, huh? Sigilyph trades his usual primary colours for a very nice gradient of red, orange and lime-green. That lime green very much screams 'shiny'. I also like that the contrast of the detailing for Sigilyph's core head/body is a bit less obvious in this colour scheme, making the attention called to the 'wings' a lot more obvious. 

Very nice for the original Unovan versions of Yamask and Cofagrigus. I'm very sure they didn't have Runerigus in the pipeline when they thought about this shiny, either. Shiny Yamask changes the traditional blood-red eye for yellow, and swaps the yellow/golden mask for a silver one, a very nice change. Meanwhile, shiny Cofagrigus is the clear biggest winner here with the traditional golden coffin changes into an amazing shade of gray-white with glorious pink accents. It looks extremely sinister, a great spectral colour. 

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the much-newer Galarian shinies, which I find a bit surprising! Shiny Galarian Yamask changes the eye from purple to green, but one of the most eyecatching parts of its design, the actual rune piece, just gets lighter. The same goes for shiny Runerigus. Side-by-side with the original design it's clear that they upped the brightness to make him go from dull-gray-and-red to bright-gray-and-pink, but... but I'd rather they actually fully change a colour, y'know? The obvious would be to use Cofagrigus's colours, but even changing either the rune lines or the stone would've gone a long way to making shiny Runerigus a bit more interesting. 

Shiny Tirtouga is serviceable, with a nice neon-blue colouration. Shiny Carracosta is one of those "are you even shiny? I have to compare you with your reular sprite" affairs. 

Shiny Archen and Archeops aren't the most revolutionary shinies, due to them just changing the blue feathers. Shiny Archen looks very distinct with bright green. Shiny Archeops looks different enough, but I felt like they probably should've changed the colour into something else. 

All rather interestingly pleasant. Shiny Trubbish goes from a green trash back to a dull, almost black green. It's the colour of trash bags that I personally use. I also like that the little bits of random trash caught up in Trubbish's hands becomes neon highlighter yellow. 

But Shiny Garbodor is probably one of the better ones, too -- the trash bag on his head turns into an eye-searing bright green, like it's radioactive or something. It almost reminds me of medical waste? The greebles on his body also turn into pink and green, which are very distinctive. They didn't do too much with the shiny version of Gigantamax Garbodor, just mirroring the changes on regular Garbo, but I also acknowledge that it'd be hard to do too much to the sheer amount of random toys and junk on his body. 

Very nice for all members of the Zorua family, and it's clear that they paid extra attention here. Keeping the primary colours for both Unovan and Hisuian variants is a neat move, and changing the highlights to bright blue and deep purple works great for all of them. A very well-done and distinctive set of shinies, and I particularly love how the Hisuian versions look like ghostly flames. 

Oh! Both very nice. We haven't had a solid-pink shiny in a while, and shiny Minccino is a perfect one for it. Shiny Cinccino goes for a nice metallic gold, an equally pleasant look for this line. Honestly, I vastly prefer these two colourations compared to the original. 

Yeaaaah, I don't like these. I actually caught the fact that they changed the eye colours from blue to red, giving these shinies less contrast in colours... but I don't find them to be distinctly different enough. Shiny Gothitelle also goes a bit more pale, which... eh? I honestly wished they just did the easy thing and swapped the black and white parts of their goth outfit. 

These artwork make them look cloudy, like someone collected a dirty or algae-filled sample... but older sprites that coloured the cytoplasm a bit more vividly give shiny Solosis and Duosion a nice brighter shade of green; while shiny Reuniclus becomes a great blue cell-baby. Depends on the artwork, I suppose.

Shiny Swanna swaps her bra for a purple one and it isn't impressive. Is a "black swan" shiny too obvious?

Shiny Ducklett, on the other hand, also becomes a pink duck! That's much more distinctive.

Shiny Vanillite is amazing. Going frm blue to a cute shade of pink fits with this line very well! I have one of these pink cotton candy Vanillites in Pokemon Go. I'm a huge fan...

...and, sadly, this nice shiny is absolutely dropped by shiny Vanillish and Vanilluxe, who just gets a couple of shaders off of their regular blue. Boo, I say. 

Deerling's flowers change from yellow to pink, and Sawsbuck's main bodies get a bit lighter. Now I don't expect them to make unique shinies for each of the four forms, but I really did expect them to at least change something more significant? Eh.

It sure is a bit more pale? Disappointing. 

They sure are a bit more green? Shiny Karrablast is disappointing, shiny Escavalier's armour accents become pink, which is nice. 

Like Voltorb, they go from being Pokeballs to Masterballs. A nice change!

All very wonderfl! Male Frillish has the least change, and he's still pretty great! All four pastel members of the shiny Frillish and Jellicent line are easily some of my favourite shinies from Generation V. Honestly, scrolling up and down this page I find it hard to find any shiny that I would consider to be better than this set. 

Shiny Alomomola is a bit darker than regular Alomomola. Evidently a shiny, but could've done much better. 

An all right change of shade for Joltik, who looks juuust different enough. Galvantula is noticeably darker, but very disappointing regardless. Reversing the blacks and yellow; going for a 'forest' green; or even something more over-the-top like a bright purple or red would've been much better.

Shiny Ferroseed is passable, but shiny Ferrothorn is a very pleasant shade of gold-and-pink. The gold is always great on any metal Pokemon, but I really love the contrast with the pink, and it even looks like it's some kind of tropical fruit!

Again, the gold/yellow looks great for gears. Very nice and pretty! The green noses are okay, too, surprisingly. You'd think they would stand out, but it does make the shiny Klink line to look rather distinctive. 

Shiny Tynamo and especially Eelektrik are disappointing. Shiny Eelektross is a bright-green colour, and... it's okay in this Pokemon Home art, but previous iterations aren't really flattering for him. 

Shiny Elgyem changes the colours from green to red, and I can kinda 'see' this as the creepy aliens finally deciding to become hostile. But shiny Beheeyem is just slightly darker. Not a fan. 

And now we're in the good shinies! Shiny Litwick's light-blue flame looks a lot more different in the Home artwork compared to some of the older sprites. But shiny Lampent trades in the blue flame for a very striking purple one that contrasts the glass bulb's light blue. 

And then shiny Chandelure goes for broke and swaps all of his blue lights for a wonderful crimson -- which is normally the most common colour associated with fire, but this is just a great-looking shiny all around, isn't it? An obvious one, a simple change, but a really great one. I love that they made what should be mundane feel so badass by making this a shiny. 

And I have to say that I have a shiny Chandelure, which was already one of my all-time favourite shinies, courtesy of an outbreak in Scarlet/Violet. It... it took me a while and a lot of rage to get my adorable red-flamed Chandelure who I nicknamed Memento. Click here for my most visceral and personal encounter with a shiny through all my Pokemon trainer career.

Shiny Axew and Fraxure are both all right. Shiny Axew, again, looks better in subsequent generations where the fact that he becomes brown-with-pink is a lot more evident. Shiny Fraxure's neon-blue highlights are... okay, if goofy. 

And shiny Haxorus (which I think they gave out for free in B2W2) is one of the best and coolest shinies ever, by simply painting a badass dinosaur dragon black-and-red. On one hand, it's like the most obvious shiny out there. On the other hand, it's actually a colour that isn't seen particularly often among shinies, so it works amazingly well for a obvious but still no less badass look. 

Shiny Cubchoo having a purple head just makes me feel sorry for it and want to bring him to a vet as soon as possible. That must've been a really bad cold! Shiny Beartric is just terrible, and looks just slightly differently shaded. 

The spiky icy parts being a bright, eye-searing blue is cute, but the one change that makes the biggest impact for shiny Cryogonal are the glowing eyes turning into demonic fireballs. A very nice change. 

Much better-looking than shiny Karrablast. Changing shiny Shelmet's inner snail body to yellow is nice enoguh, but shiny Accelgor's 'helmet' turning from purple-green to yellow-pink, and the body becoming gray are all very striking changes. A pretty great shiny! 

Huh! Shiny Unovan Stunfisk isn't the most exciting one, just changing yellow to blue. Shiny Galarian Stunfisk, meanwhile, is coloured exactly like original-flavour Stunfisk, with a brown body and yellow highlights (for the paw-pads. I think I like this better than the original colouration!

Both very nice. I like shiny Mienfoo's blue/purple highlights moer than I do Mienshao's, but her pink highlights are neat. 

Extremely cute. I like this more than regular Druddigon? Green and orange contrast each other well, and it's a pretty grat standalone colour scheme, honestly. 

Not bad. I like that they changed the 'inner' parts of shiny Gollett and Golurk from a slightly-darker shade of pale green into a full-on black, making them 

Huh! I'd expected 'white' pieces to contrast the regular Pawniard line being the 'black' side of the board, but changing all the reds into a very pleasant shade of blue works amazingly well. I do love that shiny Bisharp adds a golden shade to the horns, and shiny Kingambit adds a bunch more red. All very pleasant-looking, even if the 'whites' on Bisharp looks a bit more stained. 

 

I don't remember regular Bouffalant well enough to remember if they changed anything. I think the horns and the rings swap colours? Eh.  

Shiny Rufflet is very disappointing, but shiny Braviary is a wonderful shade of blue. It's even still technically an American colour, right? With the red just shunted to the tail-feathers? It'd be funny if shiny Braviary was the colour of another country's flag, but eh. Shiny Hisuian Braviary is far more striking, however. The entirety of the bird's body becomes black, which is in and of itself a pretty badass look, but it's the additional bright-blue colours chosen for the psychic eyespots that make the deal.

The heads and furs are a shade different, but I'm not the biggest fan. 

Basically everything except for the lava-lines and the claws get turned into dark gray and black, making shiny Heatmor actually look like a walking furnace. A very nice, if somewhat obvious, shiny. I like it. 

Shiny Durant is okay? It goes from gray to a somewhat more chrome-y shade of gray. It's not quite 'gold' or 'rust' that you'd expect from a metal monster, or a 'red' fire ant or a 'white' termite or something. It's just rather different. I find it charming, though it's one of those that might have you second-guessing about whether it's the right shade of gray or not. 

I'm... okay with these? Green has always been kind of a more 'classic' evil European dragon colour, I feel, and the shade of green they used for shiny Deino and Zweilous is a much more nice, muted shade of green compared to the bright neon that they like to use for shinies. And then in shiny Hydreigon, a bunch of purple is added to the neck-frills and underbelly and it's pretty wonderful-looking. 

Oh, very pleasant! They just changed the fiery 'solar flare' aspects of shiny Larvesta and Volcarona into a nice, pale shade of yellow. A perfectly viable alternate colouration for a sun-themed monster.

Shiny Cobalion looks washed out, but at least distinctively a shiny, at least.

Shiny Terrakion extra-looks like a toy, thanks to the wekrd shoulder tabs being a bit more evident. The red horns are nice.

Oh! Very pleasant. Pink with a little dash of green and pastel blue works amazingly on shiny Virizion here.

All three of the kami don't actually change colours, just saturation. I can understand why; their designs are so lazy that colour is the easiest way to tell them apart. But they could've just, y'know, used three completely different colours? Like, red, purple and yellow or some such? Swap the colours of the tail and the body? Disappointing.

Probably the only one out of the kami/genies that look significantly different with the very pale blue and the added bright purple highlights. It's still rather disappointing.

Okay, Shiny Reshiram at least changes some details? It's a bit hard when your identity is the 'white' Pokemon. But I guess it's nice that they swapped some of the normally gray wings on Reshiram's body into yellow?

Maybe they changed some things on Zekrom. But I can't really tell. 

So shiny Landorus just got locked up in his shrine a bit too much and his skin became a bit paler. M'eh. Disappointing. 

They changed the forehead gem from yellow to purple, and maybe played with the shaders a bit? Yeah, I'm not sure how to make a good shiny Kyurem without ruining the black/white thing, but even swapping the colours would've been okay. As it is, I don't like them. 

Rather pleasant! A simple colour switch, they just swapped all of Keldeo's blue fur with a highlighter green, and made his hair a bit more orange. Interestingly, since they kept the dark blue horn and hooves, this means that this colour palette actually calls attention to Keldeo's big gimmick weapon much more readily than the base one. Very nice. 

Eh, it's... all right? I don't care for Meloetta, but even I can tell they changed the shade of her hair's green. And the dancing form definitely goes from orange to pink. I get why they kept the 'dress' still black, but I wonder if changing the dress would've resulted in a nicer shiny. 

A very obviously cool shiny, Genesect goes from purple to red. Shiny Genesect was prominently featured in one of the Generation V movies, and it's a very obviously nice colour. Unfortunately, despite being a red robot, shiny Genesect isn't three times faster than a regular Zaku. I mean Genesect.