@Skippy:
Bro half of these are nitpicks rather than genuine signs relax lmao, yall get a little too in depth sometimes. Episode had issues in the actual amount of content in the episode but it wasn't some rush job, and if you're gonna ignore that 988 and 989 were good then thats your fault then lol.
(also CG minions are better than having anime staff work to the bone to draw them in every single shot
)
Sure these are minor issues and nitpicks, but they accumulate, if you just focus on sakuga you aren't looking at the full picture.
Some nice Sakuga ain't gonna save an episode when everything else suffers.
A great example would be Episode of Merry where it was the cracks were obvious. Everything from the the video editing, timing, GGI, layering, lip-flaps, special effects and so on. It all leads to something which is very inconsistent.
Not including a huge group of minions in the background would have worked, half the shots they weren't present anyway. Everything about them were completely off from their character design, poses, expression, focus, repetition. I think there's a good reason why they didn't include shots containing the background characters in the NEP and opening preview. Main point - Toei still isn't ready for anything CG for character models, at least in One Piece.