Review

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My Hero Academia - Episode 59 [Review]

When last we saw our youngling heroes, they were faced with a manufactured crisis situation meant to be the final test in their Provisional License Exams. The kids had enough of a challenge dealing with injured citizens, but at the last second we met Gang Orca, a pro-hero who looks enough like a villain to play the part in this simulation.

Even though this exam is designed to test the kids' heroism and teamwork, it quickly turns into a petty competition. You'd expect Bakugo to be the troublemaker here, but surprisingly it's Todoroki and Inasa from Shiketsu going at it instead, maliciously getting in each other's way during the showdown with Gang Orca. It turns out Inasa has beef with the Todoroki family, starting with Endeavor coldly rejecting an autograph when he was a child, and his icy-hot son demonstrated a similar brash attitude during the U.A. entrance exam (which Inasa passed and then rejected). It pisses Todoroki off to hear himself being compared to his dad, and I like how the real "fight" of this episode is Todoroki dealing with the fact that he hasn't grown past the issues that he thought he had.

This being the finale of the arc means that it's also the best-looking episode in weeks. We get those beautiful bold outlines, and I love the added visual effect of Todoroki's heat rising too. It communicates the anger that's building inside of him, while he and Inasa have to reconcile with the fact that their grudge match risks hurting those around them. I found myself pumping my fist when Midoriya emerged to save Shindo from their crossfire, shouting at them in genuine anger. It's a battle of hot tempers vs. sober logic. They both know they're mucking up, but they just can't help it.

The episode ends just before we see the results of the exam, which we know are tallied by number of mistakes more than anything. It's hard to imagine Todoroki and Inasa aren't about to face some real consequences for their sudden scuffle. The show had been hinting at something being up with Inasa, but seeing the truth derail the exams so much was a pleasant surprise. I'm eager to see where else the story wants take the unpleasant father/son similarities.

With the earlier episodes of this arc taking their time to flesh the exams out, I have a growing appreciation for episodes like this that just snap to the most important stuff. There's a rawness to how this show lets your expectations wander and then BAM, it's the climax already. It took me a few arcs to get the hang of it, but I feel like that's this series' hidden strength. This is a really great episode, offering plenty of action but more importantly offering some intriguing questions about where these kids are heading in their path to heroism. The hot-blooded wunderkinds tend to be my favorites, the kind of people most likely to botch their own potential.

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One Piece - Episode 852 [Review]

One thing I wish we'd gotten more detail on last week was the elaboration on Pudding's relationship with her older sister Lola. See, a lot of Big Mom's children are put in charge of the smaller islands within Totto Land and serve as "ministers": Katakuri is the Minister of Flour, Perospero is the Minister of Candy, and so on. We learned last week that Pudding is the favorite candidate to take over as the Minister of Chocolate, but she's been turning the role down over the years, hoping to keep it vacant in case Lola—the only surviving runaway of the family and the original Minister of Chocolate—ever returns. This is one subplot of many that goes tragically unaddressed by the end of the arc, but there's so much to unpack nonetheless. Ideally, we'd hope that Pudding could get out of this family, as opposed to asking for Lola to come back.

It's funny that the title and preview for this episode exclusively focus on the continued Luffy vs. Katakuri fight, which makes up such a small percentage of an episode that clearly belongs to Sanji and Pudding's side of the battle. The baking trio has arrived at Cacao Island, but Sanji has to be snuck into the Sweets Factory unseen and Chiffon has to be let in with handcuffs since she currently has criminal status. (They just blame her actions on her husband.) Pudding then has to wipe the memories of all the chefs they'll be working with, so they just think they're helping Sanji and Pudding bake their first cake as newlyweds, and they have no idea about the Big Mom vs. Straw Hats chaos going on outside.

This is where the general flow of the protagonists vs. antagonists story gets really goofy and mechanically complicated, since both sides want this cake baked, but for slightly different reasons. The bad guys want to help Big Mom and Katakuri crush the Straw Hats, but they don't want Big Mom to keep rampaging and killing everyone else afterwards. They're counting on Pudding to have this cake ready, but they don't realize she's playing double agent for the Straw Hats and that Sanji is helping her ensure it's the most delicious cake Big Mom has ever eaten. Mom doesn't appear to be especially nice to any of her children, but how much they're still playing for her team seems to vary from person to person.

For what's mostly a breather from the action, this episode is jam-packed with content. Sanji gets to strut his stuff as a cartoonishly talented cook, drawing up a recipe and blueprints for the new cake perfectly from the mere scent of the original. This is also the turning point where the gamble on Pudding's characterization starts to pay off. Her silly reactions no longer feel like a gaudy burden on the story, and now she's just a landslide of charisma. You really understand why she's so popular with the locals of Totto Land, and her pairing with Sanji turns them into a supportive and mutually attracted couple who make ridiculous goo-goo eyes at each other while working together on this project.

What really makes me feel good about where the anime is at right now is just how good it looks, even when there's little movement. This has been five episodes in a row where, at a bare minimum, the art has been wonderfully detailed and polished with the intent of breathing as much life into Eiichiro Oda's art style as possible. This continues to be true in the Luffy vs. Katakuri fight in particular, which is still bringing the goods. Katakuri has upgraded from imitating Luffy's gatling attacks to imitating his Third Gear attacks, only much stronger. By the end of this episode, Katakuri's siblings have found another mirror in the mirror world that connects to the Thousand Sunny, and now Luffy has to worry about shattering it to make double sure his friends are safe.

Somehow events feel like they're just flying by. This is a very plot-heavy episode as the cake-baking has to lay a lot of groundwork for the remainder of this climax. The actual baking is going to take several hours, and in that time Sanji has to trust his crew to survive while also strategizing about how they're going to get this giant cake to Big Mom in the first place. It's been a long time since I've found myself this eager to tune in to the One Piece anime every week, and we still have some of my favorite material in this arc ahead of us.

Feels good, man. Feels good.

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Attack on Titan - Episode 44 [Review]

I'm going to begin this review by talking about the episode's second half, since that's where the meat of the story lands this week, as Reiss offers his daughter Historia a terrible choice while Eren emits muted screams from his perch in the crystal cavern.

The main question at hand for the past few episodes is whether or not Historia would be willing to go along with her father's plan to be transformed into a Titan so that she can eat Eren and reclaim the Power of the Titans for the Reiss bloodline. Even given how much screen time she and Ymir got last season, we've still learned very little about her personal beliefs and how much she might value the bonds she's forged with her fellow soldiers when the chips are down. Seeing how traumatized Historia has been by her fractured upbringing, would she choose her paternal family over her brothers and sisters in arms?

After Rod explains to Historia that only a true Reiss can unlock the full Power of the Titans, including the memories of what human civilization was like prior to the erection of the Walls, Kenny arrives to throw a fit about his crushed ambitions. He tries to turn Historia against her father, but she won't have any of that. Historia holds the syringe of Titan fluid to her wrist and threatens to take charge of her destiny and consume Eren, though she balks when Kenny removes Eren's gag and sees that Eren still refuses to fight against her. Bloodied and weeping, Eren demands that Historia go through with the plan and relieve him of his life and his titanic burden with it.

This interaction between Eren and Historia is one of the most heartfelt and tragic moments of the series so far, because for Eren the real pain of the truth he's learned lies not in his father's betrayal, but in the many friends who died trying to protect him, despite his power being stolen through the murder of Historia's family. It's too much for Eren Yeager to bear, and in this moment he's weaker than we've ever seen him; the ferocity and vengeful drive that has defined Eren for all of AoT's run has been replaced with truly haunted remorse. Yuuki Kaji's performance as Eren has always been good, but I don't think he's ever been more effective than in this scene – the stifled rage and sorrow he communicates ranks among the best vocal performances that Attack on Titan has ever delivered.

Still, even better is what Historia does next. I've always liked her character as Ymir's cute girlfriend with a moving past, but she rocketed close to the top of the show's best character ranking when she slapped the syringe out of her father's hand before flipping him over her shoulders and defiantly striding up the chamber's steps to free Eren. She even smacks our protagonist around a little to get him out of his self-loathing funk, declaring her ethos as the heir to the kingdom's throne:

“Exterminate the Titans?! Who the hell wants to do that bullshit?! I'm starting to hate humanity! Let 'em get wiped out by Titans! I'm humanity's biggest enemy! Got it?! I'm the worst girl who ever lived!”

Even when you consider that Historia may or may not be declaring war on the entire human race, this is one of the most stone-cold badass moments to come out of this entire show, so much so that it overshadows the entire first half of the episode, which consists of a white-knuckle showdown between Levi Squad and Kenny's droogs. This whole sequence is pretty brilliant, and it highlights what I love so much about the new human-on-human battles of this third season. More than ever before, Levi, Hange, and the others have to figure out creative strategies to beat their opponents, leveraging the tactical differences between their swords and their opponents' guns in their favor while also taking advantage of the strangeness of the environment. Sasha uses her skills as an archer to explode some barrels of oil and take out a few of Kenny's fighters, while Levi and Mikasa take the lead in absolutely brutalizing their foes. The action here is exceptionally well-animated, and the choreography tends to be clean and coherent; there were a few beats where the direction failed to capture the intended speed and weight of the maneuvering fighters, but for the most part this stood out as one of the best action scenes of this third season.

Now for anyone who's impatiently waiting for more Human vs. Titan action, things look to be gearing up in that direction, since the episode ends with Rod deciding to slurp up some of his Titan juice, which immediately begins the process of generating a giant serpentine spine with a Titan's head attached to it. Given how much this season has reveled in opportunities to defy expectations, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little while longer before we see another classic bout between humans and Titans. If the storytelling and acting continues to be this good, I won't be complaining about whatever the show decides to do next.

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Gintama - Episode 362 [Review]

After eight straight episodes of wearing its serious face, Gintama lightens the mood as it returns to its comedic and devastatingly sarcastic roots. With Utsuro vanquished and the Altana Liberation Army dissolved, episode 362 gives viewers a glance at the war's immediate aftermath and reveals what's become of some our favorite Kabuki District residents two years in the future. Although the Heavenly Bird was stopped from leveling Edo thanks to a last-minute save by Takasugi, the Kabuki District is largely in ruins, and Odd Jobs Gin-chan/Snack Otose is no exception. It's also revealed that Sadaharu made it out alive, but with every ounce of his Zen energy depleted, he's shrunk to a portable size and fallen into a deep sleep inside of a protective sphere of Altana. Since Ane and Mone have no idea when he'll awaken, Kagura decides to look for answers on other planets. Similarly, Gintoki informs the kids that he's “found something he needs to do” and leaves Shinpachi in charge of carrying on the Odd Jobs mantle.

Flash forward two years. Despite Shinpachi's misleadingly grim narration at the end of the previous episode, the people of Edo have become much stronger in the years following the war. (Even the ornery café manager takes a stand against the Chatorian ambassadors he once kowtowed to.) Gin and Kagura are still on their respective quests, and Shinpachi continues to run Odd Jobs Gin-chan by himself. Hasegawa has taken the lion's share of the credit for saving the planet and cashes in on his newfound fame at every available opportunity. Otae, having quit the hostess life, has gained weight and now commands a Ginyu Force-esque battalion of alien cabaret girls. Kondo has quit the Shinsengumi and become a dutiful househusband to Princess Bubbles, the third generation queen of Planet Gorilla and a literal gorilla. Gengai is still unable to repair Tama, but in her absence, he's activated Tamako, the Fuyu Number Zero's “mini version.” While Tama remains in sleep mode, everything Tamako experiences will become part of her memories. Princess Soyo has named Nobume Edo's first Commissioner-General of police, a position for which she's uniquely qualified. With the Meiji period dawning, Japan has moved to a parliamentary system of government, and the country's first prime minister has demoted and punished the core members of the Shinsengumi in various ways. This mysterious figure, who appeared on the political scene without warning and seized power in the blink of an eye, is revealed to be Katsura, who's taken on the name Donald Zuramp. Shinpachi ends the episode by musing that the country is doomed.

Gintama has always been a series that specialized in subverting expectations, and the latest installment is essentially an episode-length exercise in this. Within its first minute, the episode shifts from a thoughtful homage to Gintoki and Shinpachi's first meeting to an off-the-wall parody of that iconic scene. Expectations are turned on their head even more when it's revealed that the various indicators of Kondo and Otae being happily married are red herrings. (Kudos to Sorachi for not rewarding Kondo for his years of stalking.) Although these subversions sometimes seem excessively harsh on certain characters (particularly Shinpachi and Kondo), they're perfectly in line with the show's humor, which has always had a pretty brutal mean streak. In essence, this episode takes every natural narrative development and does a complete 180.

Episode 362 also functions as a pitch-perfect parody of shonen manga epilogues. Kondo's marriage to Princess Bubbles is a hilarious send-up of the random pairings that have been known to occur after time-skips, and Otose and Catherine's fear of being paired up with “randos” helps drive this joke home. Tamako claiming that Shinpachi is her father is another not-so-subtle dig at important developments that are glossed over in flash-forwards. However, despite all the laughs, the episode manages to work in a few emotional moments. The Odd Jobs trio going their separate ways immediately after defeating Utsuro is particularly hard to watch, especially after all the sacrifices they made to protect their home and stay together. It's probably safe to assume that the gang will be reunited by the end, but the dissolution of Odd Jobs Gin-chan truly marks the end of an era—for both the characters and viewers.

Following its longest foray into seriousness, it's great to see Gintama back in comedic form, and there's no better character to be at the center of all the insanity than Shinpachi. Though the characters make quips about the series coming to an end, it seems like Gintama has a fair amount of gas left in its tank before curtain call. In many respects, episode 362 feels more like the beginning of a brand new story than an endcap.

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