Orochi continues to cackle at his own devious work at stopping the revolution. We are shown scenes of his henchman blowing up the bridges of Wano one by one, as well as the Thousand Sunny cutting off any access route the revolutionary forces can use to link up with the Akazaya Nine. Meanwhile, on the rainswept shores, Kinemon and the others decide that – army or no army – they are setting off to battle Kaido. Momnosuke pleads with them to stay but they insist that they must honor Oden by remaining his samurai to the very end.
That is when we enter One Piece Flashback Time™
*cue wailing sirens*
We (quantum) leap decades into the past to see Kozuki Oden in his prime. He is eighteen years old, fit and strong and a beast of a man. Wano is different too, a pristine verdant beauty free of industrial smokestacks and ash-choked wastelands. We learn of Oden's (in)famous deeds, from wrestling his nanny to visiting pleasure houses to starting harem wars (as one does, naturally). Oden is a man of great excess, womanizing and cooking food over the bones of the dead; yet he is also capable of great kindness, shaping the land of Wano to help its people or solemnly honoring the very dead he has his meal over. We also see young Kinemon and Denjiro as wayward criminals, the former almost being on the receiving end of Tsuru's (his future wife) blade for stealing. Eventually he takes a small white boar and, wouldn't you know it, that summons a terrasque enormous boar.
Oden shows up with an eager gleam in his eyes and, clearly getting ready to face down the giant boar, tells Kinemon to hand him the small boar just as the To Be Continued card flashes.
Another excellent, excellent episode for this season.
Wano has been strong material in the manga, but the anime has done such a tremendous job realizing the material that it's a delight. The direction was once again on point. I loved the use of stark foreground and background contrasts such as in scenes with the lit bomb fuses on the Sunny's deck, or how Orochi is literally painting inky X's onto the camera as he crosses off targets on his map of Wano. Another excellent sequence was him tearing up the map and throwing the pieces into the air only for that to be a match cut to the falling cherry blossom of Wano. Perhaps most evocative was the scene where the Akazaya Nine set out and are entirely cast in black and white, but Momo's tears and the rain are realized in a haunting cold blue. It's all yet more excellent work for a weekly television production that has continued for so long.
Oden's flashback is going to be a real treat to see in motion too. It's certainly full of big moments that leap right off the page of the manga, and already these early bits make them that much larger feeling. Oden's status as less a character and more a folk hero is an important one to keep in mind I think; whether by his actual feats or the aggrandizement of his followers, he has become a legend more than a man. He reroutes the mighty river and challenges beasts the size of entire cities! Even in the world of One Piece these are considerable feats that seem to stretch the bounds of what is possible. Keeping that folk hero identity in mind is a key component to understanding the flashback overall, in my opinion. I can't wait to see more.
James and Lynzee look into Hideaki Anno's latest hint that there might be more Evangelion after the last movie and news on the Lord of the Rings anime film!― Could There Be More Evangelion on the Horizon? James and Lynzee look into Hideaki Anno's latest hint that there might be more Evangelion after the last movie and news on the Lord of the Rings anime film! Plus, we catch up with Kafka and the Ka...
Grant Jones dives into the wild world of giant monsters and how Kaiju No. 8 builds on their legacy.― Kaiju No. 8 is a series that wears its influences on its sleeves. As the first word in its title suggests, it comes from a long line of works in the kaiju genre, using giant monsters and burning skylines as a backdrop to tell stories. While many likely know kaiju in a passing sense, it may help to h...
This steamy manga's appeal is going to depend on how much you can stomach a female protagonist who kicks off the romance by assaulting her former fiance.― This is a tricky one. Before You Discard Me, I Shall Have My Way with You is, to all appearances, a story that opens with a sexual assault. Agnès has been betrothed to Crown Prince Lucilleur since childhood, and she's been in love with him just as...
Japanese studio to handle production slated for broadcast, streaming globally― Kadokawa and Singaporean game developer and publisher Garena announced on Monday that they are co-producing an anime adaptation of Garena's Garena Free Fire battle royale shooting game, with a Japanese studio handling the animation. Kadokawa's Kadokawa Qingyu subsidiary is the production manager. The anime is planned to b...
Healer Nanna's powers have one very unique caveat: she has to have sex with the person to heal them. See why Rebecca Silverman calls it "a cute story, decently racy, and generally good, fluffy fun."― One of the fun things about Seven Seas' Steamship line of racy manga aimed at a female audience is finding which romance tropes are prevalent in any given release. While every genre has its tropes and s...
What's the perfect recipe for waifu supremacy? Lucas and Nick look at fan-favorites from Yu Yu Hakusho to Spice & Wolf.― What's the perfect recipe for waifu supremacy? Lucas and Nick look at fan-favorites from Yu Yu Hakusho to Spice & Wolf. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.Spoiler Warning for discussion of the s...
Train to the End of the World and Voice Actor Radio are getting a lot of love these last few weeks! Discover which other series stand out in our weekly user rankings!― Let's have a look at what ANN readers consider the best (and worst) of the season,
based on the polls you can find in our Daily Streaming Reviews
and on the Your Score page with the latest simulcasts. Keep in mind that these rankings...
Crystal Kay previously sang themes for 2004's Fullmetal Alchemist and Nodame Cantabile― Recently, Anime News Network was able to sit down with singer-songwriter Crystal Kay and talk about not only her involvement with anime over the years but also what it was like to grow up in Japan as the child of a Korean-Japanese mother and an African-American father. Anime fans likely know of Crystal Kay throug...
The plot is excellent in the romance camp. Everything that happens is to get Eui-joon and Gunwoo together, and it works pretty well.― You can read The Dangerous Convenience Store in English two ways. The first is to read it on the manhwa site/app Manta, which has all seventy-five chapters and four bonus stories available. The second is to read Seven Seas' print (or ebook) edition, which, as of this ...
Some older mysteries inch closer to resolution as the true nature of the Abyss slowly comes into view, and long-posed questions start to be answered.― Sometimes, being a fan of Akihito Tsukushi's acclaimed Made in Abyss series means acclimating to suffering. Like many Western devotees, I was introduced to this bizarre, squishy, disturbing world via the 2017 first season of Kinema Citrus' fantastic a...
Recently ended manga follows middle school student living with mysterious bird-looking creature― Shogakukan announced on Friday that Akira Konno's Kujima Utaeba Ie Hororo manga is inspiring an anime. The "bird(?) home comedy" manga's story starts when first-year middle school student Arata Kōda meets a mysterious bird-looking creature named Kujima in autumn. Hungry and craving Japanese food, Kujima ...