The manga really should have been like this. So much fun with Luffy eating everything, and Cracker's VA had quite an entertaining performance. Now everything comes full circle, rather than just…going halfway and then skipping to the end.
Though I did start thinking that we had a bit of anachronism stew going on here. The Cracker fight only skipped to the present time in this episode, after the turning point was portrayed. But the whole Sanji storyline already skipped 12 hours ahead to when Ichiji and Niji first arrived, so when Luffy found out Cracker's weakness, the whole Sanji story shouldn't even be technically happen despite the two storylines going on side by side, haha. I don't think the anime gave any time measurements as to the length of the fight with Cracker, so for all anime watchers know Luffy spent 12 hours incapacitated in King Baum's mouth, hahaha.
Looking forward to next week's episode. I'm interested in the anime's approach, where instead of pulling whammies with attacks in the same way the manga did, they essentially hype it up and promise to give you a good show with it the following week. I think the only time they took the manga's normal approach was when Sanji kicked Niji, and the funny thing is that wasn't even used as a cliffhanger in the manga.
@churlyryan:
Jeez, its length in the manga was bad enough, but in the anime, its one and only purpose is "Stretch it as long and far as you possibly can." no pun intended.
Honestly, most people complained that the conclusion to this sub-arc ended too abruptly in the manga. This is the part of the arc where the Straw Hats are in over their heads in new territory, and the Big Mom Pirates are actively at work to get rid of them. The struggle should be appropriately long. Plus it's not like we've ONLY been in the woods, we just had quite a few Sanji-focused episodes for crying out loud.