One Piece - Episodes 919 ~ 921 [Review]

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Princess Connect! Re:Dive - Episode 13 [Review]

“In which nothing beyond the immediate threat is resolved.”

After 13 beautifully animated episodes, we have reached the end of the series--though this episode feels more like one set in the middle than the final climax.

At the end of the last episode, Pecorine, Karyl, and Kokkoro were whisked away by Labyrista when they found themselves unable to defeat the giant shadow monster that had been unleashed on the castle town. Awaking inside what appears to be the castle, Kokkoro stumbles across a painting which shows Pecorine is (unsurprisingly at this point) the literal princess of this kingdom. Soon Pecorine herself shows up and reveals her backstory to Kokkoro (and a hidden Karyl)--basically explaining that when she went on a journey to understand the plight of her people first hand, everyone in the kingdom had their memories about her wiped and a usurper took her place.

This explains why she is so touchy-feely with the guild--and why she drags them along on adventure after adventure. She is desperate to make strong, interpersonal connections so that those dear to her won't forget her again. And given that she has no idea how everyone was made to forget her, this is an understandable fear.

This also explains her warped view on reality--why she insists on seeing the world as a better place than it actually is. It's only by believing in something that it can become true. And because she has lived that way, it's not only her guild which she's made connections with. The common man loves her far more than the royalty at this point--to the point where they antagonize the city guard in an attempt to help her. In a very real way, she has become the people's princess. In the end, she recognizes this. While she may have lost her old family, she has made a new one that loves her just as much.

Karyl, over the course of the series, has been torn between loyalty to her master (i.e., Pecorine's usurper) and her new friends in the guild. It's always been a matter of when she'd have to choose between the two. What's interesting is that, in this episode, she makes the hidden third choice: to die.

Knowing Pecorine's tragic backstory and knowing that her master is responsible makes it clear to her how torn her loyalties are. She's reached a perfect balance--she can't choose one over the other. If she fights the giant monster and destroys it, then she'll be betraying her master. If she simply stays out of the fight and lets it kill Pecorine and the others, she'll be betraying them.

Thus the only thing she can think to do is to fight the monster alone and die--leaving neither side betrayed. The trick is, however, she is not allowed to make such a choice--not when Pecorine is around. What Karyl fails to realize is that the interpersonal connections she's built with the guild are a two-way street. Unlike her master who demands loyalty and gives nothing back, the guild loves Karyl for who she is--not what she can do for them. They wouldn't sacrifice her for any reason. And this display of affection is enough to get her to move directly against her master's wishes in the heat of the moment and defeat the monster alongside her friends--well, once Yuuki shows up anyway.

But while the monster is destroyed and a bit of character growth is had by Pecorine and Karyl, this doesn't feel like the final, climactic episode of the series--honestly, it feels like a normal (though important) episode. In last episode's review, I listed the plethora of unanswered questions the story has set up. Among the twelve I listed, only a single one was answered in this episode.

And that's the problem: the series as a whole feels like a prologue or perhaps the first half of an opening chapter to a bigger story. In the grand scheme of things, very little that has been set up is resolved. Yuuki still lacks the vast majority of his memories, Karyl is still torn between her master and her friends, and Pecorine is still an outcast princess with an evil usurper taking her place. Worse yet, even at this point, I'm still confused by basics like the rules of this fantasy world itself and the proper nouns the characters throw about without explanation (“Princess Knight,” “Re:Dive,” etc.).

In a lot of ways, this anime feels like a trip to nowhere. Now, was the trip a fun one with colorful characters, good humor, and astounding animation? Sure. I just wish there had been a destination--a complete story that tied everything together. Instead, what we're left with is a six-hour-long advertisement telling us to play the smartphone game if we want any answers--a game not released in English, I might add. And I'm not gonna lie: that sucks.

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One Piece - Episodes 919 ~ 921 [Review]

Episode 919

We open on Nami and Shinobu's castle infiltration mission where they are on the run from the guards. Nami tries to mew mew mew like a cat to throw them off their trail and shushes Shinobu by cutting off her air supply. Blades through the ceiling let them know that the guards are not having it and they escape onto the roof. Shinobu reveals her fear of sharp objects to Nami before waxing poetic about a mature woman's beauty being as deadly as a weapon. As the wind picks up Shinobu uses her kite jutsu and they soar away across the city. Nami reveals that during their spying she saw the name of the port for the arms shipment, a critical piece of intel.

As they float over the city they notice a large number of young women lined up in the streets. It turns out they are waiting for Sanji's cooking, and Nami makes her feelings on that known with a ~_~ face. It turns out that Ladies Love Cook SanJi, and he's beaming with pride as they eat it up. In the shadows, a shady group glowers at Sanji for muscling in on their turf.

We cut back to the prison labor camps to see an old man named Hyo begin horribly mistreated by the prison staff. Additionally, Luffy and Kid engage in various feats of strength. They are running full tilt carrying cartoonishly oversized blocks of stone to earn more and more food, much to the dismay of the guards who realize they are this powerful while wearing the sea prison stone cuffs. They are rewarded with piles of food which they gobble up in short order.

Soon Dobon the hippo man arrives, demanding to know which prisoner ate all the food in the back. The guards bring out Dynamax Luffy and Kid who are swollen from how much they've eaten. The duo perform a Kirby-style inhalation and exhale the pounds away, with Kid specifying that in fact Everybody Poops – I guess he felt that was revelatory.

Dobon complains about the amount they ate, to which they reply that they worked hard and used the scrip system to earn the food. Ah, but that was supposed to be Dobon's food you see, and he's going to punish them regardless. He swallows them both in his enormous mouth to slice them up, and a scuffle ensues in the hippo's mouth that manages to be Man vs Man, Man vs Self, and Man vs Nature conflict all at once. Kid and Luffy emerge victorious, scoop up Hyo to carry him to safety, and become heroes to the prisoners. Our old friend the To Be Continued card arrives and the episode draws to a close.

I enjoyed myself quite a bit with this episode. The visual standouts were not as frequent, but there was a lot of ground to cover and it can be hard to squeeze in those moments with the exposition and setup. Still, it had its moments. The scene with the cherry blossoms surrounding Shinobu complete with sparkling shojo bubbles was a delight. Plus the brief sequence of Luffy and Kid tossing gigantic stone blocks onto the boat was impressive and definitely the biggest *pop* in the episode.

I think the real joy in 919 is all the little characterful flourishes. when Nami is trying to pass off her and Shinobu's intrusion as a cat's meow and they are discovered, Akemi Okamura's scream includes a sort of cat-like “meow” in her performance, a brilliant addition that she pulled off expertly. This arc exudes a lot of Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no Ken energy – which I am 1000000% here for – between the football armored and be-mohawked goons, the very wasteland warrior vibe of Queen, King, and Jack, and Wano's vast stretches of post-industrial wasteland. The extra oomph on that front is Luffy calling Kid “Jaggy” which cannot help but bring to mind Kenshiro's biker Zoidberg brother Jagi.

The real star of the show is Dobon though. Dobon is one of the most absurd character designs in the series and Quintessentially One Piece™ from the comedic beats of no one being able to understand him with his mouth closed to the sheer absurdity of it being a part of his fighting style. Not to mention that his consumption of Luffy and Kid acts as a not-so-subtle “in the belly of the beast” allegory for their current status in prison.

As always, Oda incorporates an undercurrent of the systemic cruelty of the world amongst all the more overt symbolism. Luffy and Kid have not done anything wrong – they worked and earned the food in exactly the manner they were told to. But it was never about “earning” the food, not really. The system was designed to be overwhelmingly cruel and punitive, they weren't supposed to be that strong. So because of that they get punished anyway. Always nice seeing guys like this get walloped by our rubbery lead.

Episode 920

Sanji continues serving food to the ladies of Wano. Just as Franky begins berating Sanji for not cooking enough spicy food to attract samurai, three goons arrive who start messing with Sanji and his customers. They identify themselves as being from the Kyoshiro family and claim that this is their turf. Sanji continues to serve food anyway, giving a bowl of soba to a young girl named Otoko. In perfect villainous mook fashion they knock the soba from her hands and spill it on the floor. She begins laughing and crying at the same time, clearly upset by this.

At the sight of wasted food, Sanji goes beast mode and attacks them with a solid spinning bird kick. They pull out sword, but no metal can withstand the hairy leg of the culinary Straw Hat and it shattered beneath his heel. Franky cannot help but join in and delivers a titanic Frnosuke Iron Suplex on another goon. Sanji forces the goon to eat the food off the ground, and Usopp recalls having met Otoko previously at a shrine. Sanji prepares her a fresh bowl of soba with what he has left. He weeps and says she has to return to work then mentions the approach of Oiran's procession. An elder woman arrives to describe Oiran Komurasaki to the Straw Hats, and notifies Robin that she has been summoned to Shogun Orochi's palace.

Just before the episode draws to a close we have a brief scene at the labor camp. Luffy is in full beef mode cracking stones with a pick as Hyo comes to thank him for saving him from Dobon. Luffy tells him it's no big deal and even hands over a clutch of the food scripts he's secured. Finally we see a glimpse of the main road once more and Oiran approaching before the To Be Continued ushers us out.

A delightful episode all around. Sanji is a character who can be difficult to root for at times, so when we get to see him in his element – namely cooking for others and protecting the innocent against bullies – that is a treat. Not to mention the scene with Franky getting excited to deliver an enormous aerial suplex the likes of which you usually only see in fighting games. I wholeheartedly approve. Yet again the visual flair of Wano is breathtaking to behold. The star of the show was Oiran's procession, from the cinematography to the closeups on her various jewelry/accoutrements. That penultimate shot of her in the road where the buildings and streets are vibrant pastels in all manner of hues while the crowds of Wano's people are empty faceless masses of waving limbs. It's another deft use of imagery to underscore the reality of Wano beneath its gorgeous veneer.

The facial work is another highlight this episode. The slow motion grin as Franky suplexes the Kyoshiro goon, his puffy cheeked laughter, and the exaggerated “OIRAN? KAMURO?” faces brought a huge smile to my face. Sanji's red-eyed glare as he told the goon “I need you to finish your food, dear customer,” was equally stellar. And of course there was plenty of Robin laughing and smiling, which improves any episode exponentially.

Episode 921

Toko rejoins the procession and Oiran mentions that she was worried about her. We are show a clutch of three rather gnarly looking dudes who are weeping at the sight of Oiran and clutching daggers followed by a sweeping shot over Komurasaki's garish attire.

Back at the labor camp, Luffy's work is interrupted by the return of Caribou. Any illusions that Caribou had become less creepy or disturbing in the time since we've last seen him are immediately dashes as he begins pestering our hero for food with his tongue wagging freely in the air offending both God and man alike. A short flashback to Fishman Island reminds us of Caribou's various misdeeds before we return to have Luffy tell him to get to work dude.

Back at the capital, Oiran's procession continues apace and we get an extended flashback related to one of her upset suitors. It turns out that she came to him in secret and confessed her love. She could be with him if only for her current contract! Of course this spurs him to trade away or sell off the entirety of his possessions to pay off her current contract with the Shogun. He shows up to the pleasure hall asking for her to come join him and he is laughed at by everyone, including Komurasaki. He is beaten for being an old lecherous pervert and sent away in shame.

In the present time once again we see these suitors have been taken out by the samurai guarding her processional. She is beaming so brightly it forces people in the crowd to avert their gaze, and she sends a deft stinger of a line at the cowering perverts saying, “I don't like poor people…” as a final mark of shame.

This episode's flashback is one of the most interesting in Wano. The way it frames these men as victims at first but slowly reveals their horrible natures is really spectacular. In a sense they have been taken advantage of by Oiran, yet we see how cruel, petty, and ruthless they were, and it recharacterizes how we see her character – a preview of things to come for sure. The most interesting visual is a cutaway shot we briefly get of a dead insect crawling with ants picking over its corpse during all this. To my mind it represented the way so many had taken advantage of Wano's “corpse” in the years since the fall of the Kozuki, men just like the ones Oiran was teaching a lesson to.

I have to say the real joy – if you can call it that – in this episode is Masaki Terasoma's performance with Caribou. He absolutely knocks his scenes out of the part with his outrageously evil delivery. When Caribou says “I beg of you” to Luffy I was both laughing and cringing at the same time, a testament to the skill of Masaki's delivery. It can be hard to ride the line between unnerving and hilarious and he manages to expertly deliver here.

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Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2 - Episode 12 [Review]

This week, Kaguya-sama: Love is War closes out its stellar sophomore season with a finale that's equal parts hilarious and emotional. Episode 12's first two segments revolve around the loss of Kaguya's flip phone, which held a treasure trove of photos she'd taken since joining the student council. When her phone is accidentally broken during the taking of a commemorate photo, Kaguya is crestfallen to discover that there's no way to retrieve all her pictures. Hoping to make the best of a bad situation, she finally upgrades to a smartphone and assures herself that its top-tier functions will prove useful in capturing new memories. Fortunately, now that she has a smartphone, she's able to join LINE, prompting Miyuki to create a private group for the student council (which he'd previously held off on doing to prevent Kaguya from feeling excluded). Much to Kaguya's delight, the other members instantly begin flooding the group with all the photos they've collected during their time together, thereby ensuring that those memories will live on. As the narrator concludes, if the memories you share with others are truly precious, the people with whom you share them will want to hold on to them, too.

The final Kaguya-centric story of the season, these two segments seamlessly blend the show's trademark comedy with low-key drama. Although the story mostly portrays Kaguya in a sympathetic light, her devious side still pops up here and there—particularly in her response to the principal wanting Miyuki and Chika to pose as a couple. (Also humorous is how, as sympathetic as Miyuki is to Kaguya's plight, he has serious reservations about being the one to initiate the exchange of LINE IDs, as he believes it would be an admission of love. It's a startling contrast to Kaguya not caring anymore about such things when she so unenthusiastically asks him for his ID first.) While even Kaguya herself seems to realize that the loss of her digital photos isn't hugely important in the grand scheme of things, the show does an effective job of illustrating that one's emotional reactions needn't always be grounded in logic. In Kaguya's eyes, she's suffered a devastating loss—as evidenced by her complete lack of interest in engaging Miyuki in their usual mental jousts. The other members' collective concern and desire to raise Kaguya's spirits serves as touching reminder that despite all the backstabbing, one-upmanship, and general dysfunctionality that colors many of their interactions, this is a group that cares deeply for one another.

After dipping its toes in the drama pool, the show delivers a closing segment that's 100% focused on madcap fun. When Chika forces the gang to play a game that entails pumping air into a balloon until it bursts, none of the participants want to be the one who's up at bat when the thing finally pops. (Since both hands are required to work the pump, Kaguya can't even utilize her new calming ritual.) Even Ishigami, whose recent experience at the sports festival left him with heightened inner courage, is terrified of having the overinflated balloon pop in his face, leading the narrator to conclude that his character arc was pointless. Under intense peer pressure from Chika, Miko eventually inflates the balloon to cartoonish proportions, leaving it primed to burst at any moment. Just as a petrified Kaguya is about to deliver the finishing blow, a well-timed tangerine-based mishap (courtesy of Chika) pops the balloon, resulting in a massive explosion that engulfs the entire academy. As Kaguya and Miyuki stand up and take in all the destruction, they vow to continue their perpetual battle of the minds with renewed vigor.

As Kaguya-sama's zaniest offering in weeks, this season's parting segment is packed to the brim with fast-paced jokes and peppered with shades of self-parody. At several points, setups for epic displays of courage end in characters cowering in fear and opting to pass the burden of bursting the balloon to the other unfortunate participants. Ishigami failing to put his newfound confidence to good use is funny, but Miyuki resolving to take one for the team for Kaguya's sake, only to back down almost instantly, is particularly hilarious. In their attempts to avoid popping the balloon, everyone's most humorous traits are on full display, which serves as a great reminder that no matter how heavy things get, this series will always return to its comedic roots.

A satisfying conclusion to a consistently amazing season, episode 12 fires on all cylinders and leaves us wanting more. Going out on a note that highlights the collective friendship between the student council members rather than Kaguya and Miyuki's ongoing war is a great way to emphasize how much of an ensemble piece the show has organically become throughout the past season. Here's hoping Kaguya and the gang are able to continue their misadventures in animated form—and soon!

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Digimon Adventure: - Episode 4 [Review]

And we're back! An interesting effect of Digimon Adventure:'s “three episode movie premiere” vibe is that the show left us in a decently comfortable place before it took a couple months off due to the global pandemic. So with that initial teaser being all we had to digest, it definitely feels like the ‘real’ show is starting as we return with this fourth episode. There are more characters being introduced, and they're in the Digital World proper now, exploring this lush fantasy land in an adventure closer to the original show's journey. But as it has been since the series kicked off, there are a lot of pointed unknowables in play here, reminding us every step of the way that even if new Digimon looks superficially similar to old Digimon, the old rules don't necessarily still apply.

A big example of that is the question of motivation. As with a lot of alternate-world anime of the bygone era of the 90's, the kids in the OG Digimon were primarily looking for a way to return to their home world. But in this reboot, Taichi and Koshiro jumped into the Digital World mostly intentionally, hoping to find a way to fix the technological issues (a series of blackouts this time around) in their own world. Lost tykes surviving on their own in a hostile environment meant the Digimon kids always worked with their own level of agency, but this new framing makes them come across even more proactive now. The series hasn't really laid out anything about these children being ‘chosen’ yet, but their actions mark them clearly as ‘heroes’, apart from just trying to survive until they stumble across their Digi-destiny.

Though she popped up in a couple of the previous episodes, this one is our formal introduction to Sora, whose characterization so far encapsulates that ‘proactive hero’ style being impressed onto the kids. Some sharp writing here economically characterizes Sora as a responsible person who was buying emergency supplies for the blackout, so luckily she had them with her when she and Taichi need them to survive in the Digital World. And she's an empathetic, caring person, rushing to save Piyomon before she knows the bird is her destined digital partner. So it's easy as viewers to group her in with the boys and their goal of saving Tokyo since they're the only ones who know how. That underscores one of the major driving mysteries at this point in the series, which Taichi and Koshiro both remark on: Why are they the ones who made it into the Digital World and got the power of monster partnership needed to stop those attacking both worlds? It's the most obvious gesture at that concept of ‘destiny’, definitely strengthened by the characters' active desire to figure it out for themselves.

All that talk about the kids' more proactive style leads me to bring up one of the more specific strengths of this new show, and how that ties into that idea of partnership. Taichi, and now Sora in this episode, find themselves getting especially involved in the battles between their partner Digimon and the hostile wild beasts they encounter. The human characters in the original version of the show certainly weren't passive participants in their adventure, but when the monster-battling started there was a tendency to reduce them to the roles of cheerleaders, believing in their partners real hard until they leveled up to win the day. In this version, Taichi's been jumping in to bash monster heads since episode one, and Sora spends more time helping and saving Piyomon this episode than her presumed birdy bodyguard does for her. This nicely integrates the full cast so far into the adventure more, hopefully carving out the path for the whole cast to have active, key roles in the show instead of easily being siloed into human hero and monster-pet job classes.

These are all concepts put forward in service of presumably laying out how the show is going to work now that we're in the series proper, a tone that oddly leads to most of the criticisms I can lob at this episode. Things definitely feel scaled back from the cinematic ambitions of those first three episodes, as we get things like introductory name-text for each new monster advertised on screen, and a just-noticeable uptick in stock footage for things like Agumon's attacks. On the other hand, he also gets a lavish new stock-animation evolution sequence, so there are some nice side-effects to this presentational shift. There are also things like an insert song played during battle that mark this just a bit more clearly as a Sunday morning kids' show than we were led into with those first three episodes. It's not necessarily a bad thing—I love Sunday morning kids' shows—but it is noticeable.

The other noticeable point is a marked visual downgrade. The part of me that understands production schedules knows that this episode was likely completed before the show was decided to be delayed, and its lesser looks are simply the result of being the fourth episode of a series intended to run for quite a while that had a bombastic introductory three. But coming into this as Digimon Adventure:'s triumphant return can undercut its own hype somewhat, especially if you rewatch those first three episodes ahead of it. It certainly doesn't look bad, and it's still light-years ahead of the original anime's visuals, but all the little bits of stock footage and shortcuts add up to it feeling just a bit cheaper than before. Despite being intended as the threatening big baddie showcased this episode, Snimon especially is practically a one-mon slide-show for most of his presence in it.

There are other little issues I can take with some of the story choices. The main one that jumps out is that, ecstatic as I am to see Tentomon again, he does kind of come out of nowhere here. Since the next episode looks to focus at least somewhat on him and Koshiro, I'm hoping we'll get a little more elaboration on their thus-far offscreen meeting. That could be an intentional tease for such future developments, as Digimon Adventure: jumps into serious serial-style storytelling, ending on the twin cliffhangers of Koshiro and his bug-buddy being swallowed by a Whamon and us getting a peek at classic villain Ogremon going after Taichi and Sora. So even with some slight stumbles and downgrades, Digimon still has me delighted to have it back, and extremely hyped to see where it's going next.

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