If you're aiming big first you gotta start small.
Title: ''It Begins - The Great Kaido Takedown Plan!''
Chapters Covered: rest of 925-926
Episode Director: Masahiro Hosoda (***)
Animation Director: Kazuya Hisada (***1/2)
Time: 7:30PM EST
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Animation Director: ?
Watched the episode credits live, the animation supervisor for this episode is Kazuya Hisada.
The magazine's staff release this month is really off for some reason.
Tamura Makoto is VA of KING, He is the VA of Cider.
One Piece Episode 919 Preview
Not a bad episode. I know they stretched it out, but I did not feel it at all. They really have a lot of stuff to work with in Act 2 to make the fill in many of the skipped parts. The anime should be able to hit a good stride here
Yeah very good episode they can strech stuff without getting too noticed.
Next week looks like a ton of nothing.
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First half of this episode was terrible. Mostly the art was just awful for nearly every shot. The pacing in the opening scene was about four times longer than it should’ve been, and the animation wasn’t doing it any favors. Even Otama was off-model in the back part of this first half.
The second half of the episode was much, much better artwise. Direction was a little weird in the last five minutes (very tight on Nami at the end of her scene and weird direction for the three villains at the end). Storyboard has several good compositions (Ninja hiding behind paint, man finding something in his pocket, etc). The second half is arguably really good.
Really underwhelming episode for me. I loved the last few, though, so I suppose a break in quality is okay. Next week looks similar in quality.
I think content wise this was a bit of a nothing episode, but I think it was serviceable throughout. The number of cutaways throughout the episode certainly seem to be helping the pacing in a big way, even if the content itself isn't particularly engaging.
Art and animation wise, aside from a few awkward and lengthy long shots, everything was pretty much on point. Hisada's art was nice and sharp, and there was some nice kanada esque action animation from him during the Dog Duke vs Ashura fight.
Overall, a fine if dull episode. Considering that this section was a little stale even in the manga, I think this is the really the best the anime can hope to do. I'm thinking we can expect two nice action episodes at least in the next few months, even if we have to wade through serviceable though not particularly gripping episodes like this. Like the rearranging of stuff, also, I think whether the flashcards are used for character introductions is purely a director based thing.
! For Queen and King it kind of makes sense, considering they have moments when they are more formally introduced anyway, like King stopping Big Mum's boat, and Queen literally having a chapter named after him where his formally introduced.
This episode had some classic Hisada action in it that a lot of people who're nostalgic about him would be really fond of I believe, despite some of the sometimes awkward long shots. Yes there were some rougher looking shots here and there. Hisada's art can be crude sometimes which can understandingly be off putting for certain people, but it had a lot of interesting and dynamic poses which we're come to know from him in the past. Since it's a weekly long running show I don't expect every episode to be a 10/10 animation-wise.
Direction-wise it was pretty middle of the road outside of a few select cool moments like Kamazo and the Whitching Hour Boy. Hosoda's the episode director who I'm the most indifferent to. Most of his episodes episodes aren't terrible but they aren't great either, they're mostly alright. He's a rather inoffensive and middle of the road episode director.
It was kinda weird that we didn't get the titlecards for King and Queen in this episode.
The constant cuts to that Wano Musician are starting to feel like filler music numbers from Pasion de Gavilanes hahaha.
Sorry, Skippy, but when the first ten minutes cover a two page fight, I’m going to go ahead and strongly disagree that “the episode is well-paced overall.” The back half is, sure, but “overall” can’t ignore the first half.
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But on the other hand, that opening joke to your video is killer. Funniest one yet for me. Nice job!
