The opening portion of the episode was largely focused on Kinemon and Ashura. Kinemon admits to Ashura that he specifically caused the raids to antagonize Holdem, who would in turn attack Ashura and get him back into the revolution. Kinemon apologizes to Ashura by bowing low and admitting that he was wrong in his approach. Ashura basically lets it slide without saying as much out loud, and reminds Kinemon that he can never know what the past twenty years have really been like. However, he does have something to show Kinemon, but the episode cuts back to the prison without revealing what that is.
Things are not exactly going great at the prison for Queen and his henchmen because – dun dun dun – Big Mom has arrived. She tears off the iron gate with her bare hands and flings it away, entering the prison in search of red bean soup. Tama and Momonosuke are overjoyed by this turn of events, but Kiku reminds them that it is important they stay hidden. This doesn't exclude Kiku herself, as Chōpper reminds her, so she masks up and the duo enter the prison while Tama and Momonosuke hang back.
Queen is infuriated by Big Mom's request for his red bean soup. The soup is, by his own admission, like air to him, and he's not giving her a single drop. He even transforms into his brachiosaurus form to prove he means business. Big Mom's eyes glow red and she slams his face into the ground, shocking everyone right before we cut to the To Be Continued card.
This was a solid episode with some really great standout moments. First off, Queen's transformation is just an incredible visual – having a leather biker Fist of the North Star boss turn into a cigar-Chōmping dinosaur is precisely the reason I watch anime. Where else can you have this kind of fun?
Big Mom, as always, is a delight and the focal point of any scene she is in. She has a sort of narrative gravity that makes everything pivot to revolve around her. The gate-ripping sequence was terrific, and I love that the animation team gave it a floating leaf-like quality as it fell. It underscored how strong Big Mom is.
Kinemon and Ashura's scene was great too. Kinemon giving Yasui his due, while also showing the true humility of a leader who acknowledges that he's made a mistake, was great stuff and stands in stark contrast to Orochi and his villainy. I dug the shot that follows immediately after Kinemon's apology where the camera zooms in on Ashura's foot, which instills some doubt to how he might react. When Ashura pushes off of that foot it seems as though he might be moving to strike...but he doesn't. It's a great bit of direction that adds to the tension of the scene.
Far and away my personal favorite moment was Chōpper and Kiku's scene. Kiku putting the wrap on her head and thinking that was a sufficient disguise… I love it. I love these goofy characters so much.
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...
60th, final episode of previous anime streamed on YouTube on Friday― The official Twitter account for the anime of Penguin Box's Odekake Kozame (Little Shark's Outings) manga announced on Friday that the manga will get a new anime series. Update: The staff revealed a visual for the new series in a press release on Saturday. The previous anime series debuted on YouTube last August, and its 60th and f...
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 ...
As Slam Dunk reached its final stretch, I can see why this series is considered the sports classic that it is today.― This is the largest batch of Slam Dunk episodes that I've reviewed thus far. Originally, I wanted to review the show in more even seasons, but given its overall pacing and release, it wasn't easy to find a moment where it felt right to stop and start again. However, as we approached ...