Every review it feels like I have to come up with a new way of saying "this is moving way too slow," but thankfully the show makes it a little easier on me by having vastly different pacing issues just about every week. These past couple episodes are especially hurt by trying to contrive suspense around every minuscule detail—which can range from effective to hindering depending on the episode—but somehow this episode manages to come across even more lifeless and meandering than last week's. It's not just the lack of manga content to cover this time, it's the incredibly stiff editing as well.
As for what's going on in the plot: Sanji's back, baby! And now the Straw Hats are devising a plan to crash his wedding and rescue the Vinsmokes. Most of the episode centers around Luffy and Sanji communicating with the crew through a small shard of mirror, since the rest of the gang are still hanging out in Charlotte Brulee's mirror world. There's a moment of fear over how the others might react when they hear the plan to go headfirst into a fight with Big Mom, but the crew is so relieved to know that they have Sanji back that this cancels out the terror of imminent doom. One of the stand-out moments in this conversation is when Nami, happy to be talking to Sanji again, still has to play the "I'll never forgive you for scaring us like that" routine. It's played like a joke, but I think it's going to get brought back up again by the end of the arc.
Given how elegantly all the loose threads and subplots have been weaving in and out lately, it's a shock to remember that there are still a number of important characters we haven't heard from in months. Luffy and Sanji don't have any concrete ideas for how they're going to deal with this wedding, but with expert strategist Jimbei on our side, it turns out we have more options than we considered, most notably a potential alliance with Capone Bege of the Firetank pirates. This leads to a really good example of the editing problems in this episode, because it tries to Tarantino us at the very end with an extremely abrupt jump to the meeting between crews, with everybody decked out in new gangster duds, but the attempt to jumble the scene order only comes off jarring as opposed to creative. (And it turns out that they're just trying to get clever in avoiding the last two pages of the chapter that's being adapted.)
So we've known Capone to be working for Big Mom, having married into the family through Lola's twin Chiffon. We've also seen him conspiring against Big Mom earlier in the arc when he shot Pekoms off a cliff and into the ocean. It turns out that the Sun pirates caught and rescued Pekoms before being eaten by sharks, and this is how Jimbei learned of Capone's Big Mom assassination plan and decided to communicate with him. Capone and his crew have been trusted to operate security at the wedding, and now it's to be seen if a mutually beneficial partnership can be made between the Straw Hats and the Firetanks. Between Luffy's crew, Capone's crew, Big Mom's crew, and the Vinsmokes, this has been quite the arc of people plotting each other's demise.
I really love how Whole Cake Island continues to add new aesthetic themes into the mix, making the elevator pitch for the arc even more delightfully absurd ("It's a Game of Thrones/Disney musical/mobster drama with bunny girls!"), but I think we'll have to wait until the next episode before we truly get to revel in it. This is an episode of exposition that sets us up for the juicier exposition to come, and the pacing problems only seem to be getting worse. Sadly, I didn't find myself enjoying this week all that much, since the adaptation doesn't feel very engaged. The last shot of the two crews meeting, covered in solid black shadows and rad outfits, is memorable and striking, but this will be easier to gush about next time.
Manga about novelist, niece also has live-action film opening on June 7― Pony Canyon announced on Friday that Tomoko Yamashita's Ikoku Nikki (Diary of a Strange Land) manga is inspiring a television anime adaptation. The company also revealed a teaser promotional video, a teaser visual, and the show's main staff. Miyuki Oshiro (episode director for Durarara!!×2 Ketsu, Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go, To Your E...
Kaijin Fugeki manga launches on May 29― Manga creator Oh! great announced on Tuesday that he will launch a new manga titled Kaijin Fugeki in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine on May 29. A Twitter account for the manga also debuted on the same day. Oh! great launched a manga adaptation of NisiOisin's Bakemonogatari novels (pictured at right) in Weekly Shonen Magazine in March 2018, and ended it in Ma...
This week, it's hot monster mommies and less hot AI-generated light novels.― I Support Falin's Crimes We've long joked on the podcast about the quality of light novel writing, but the news is out that the developers of the RyokoAI project have scraped Shosetsuka ni Narou...are fully machine-generated LNs in our future? Plus: Things get gorier in Kaiju No. 8, the world of yatagarasu politics unfolds...
Each story is like a dark portal into a realm of human sexuality that society usually sweeps under the rug, but I can't look away.― Nude Model delivers on the promise of its lurid title. This manga, consisting of three equally intense short stories, is charged with eroticism and danger, with epiphanies lurking around every corner. Created by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, Nude Model is nothing like her most wel...
Find out about the young star who set the internet aflame and walked away with two medals. Plus: Thousand-Year Door updates, a new HunterxHunter game, and Miku!― Welcome back, folks! As is my wont, I'd like to plug my El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster that went up earlier this week... but I've also got the disappointing news that Megaton Musashi W: Wired finally released in the US la...
Daisuke 'Dice' Tsutsumi shares what it was like to leave Pixar and how his studio will never shy away from honesty in their work, even when honesty isn't pretty.― Director Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi contributed to films like Toy Story 3 and Monsters University while simultaneously crafting what became his Academy Award-nominated animated short film, The Dam Keeper. His latest short film, Bottle George,...
Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups.― Chris and Nick put on their headphones and dust off their vinyl records for a look at this season's guitar-strumming, mic-swinging girl groups. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News...
I cannot imagine how Square Enix could top themselves after this.― Final Fantasy VII Rebirth initially launched on the last day of February, and if you look at the date of this review's publication, you will immediately be able to discern one thing about this second entry of the FF7 Remake series: It is gargantuan. The first game got plenty of praise (and plenty of flak) for taking the relatively sh...
The Manga Guide library expands with six more series, including Trinity Seven -Revision-, Watch Dogs Tokyo, Fed Up With Being the Spoiled Queen's Genius Butler,, and more!― Welcome to Anime News Network's Spring 2024 Manga Guide! You may have seen one of our seasonal Anime Preview Guides, where a team of critics writes up each new anime television premiere as it airs at the beginning of a season. N...