For clarity's sake I'm referring to
But if your REDACTED is what I'm thinking of I can't image the team not being ambitious with it...after wishing Oda a warm spot in Hell.
For clarity's sake I'm referring to
But if your REDACTED is what I'm thinking of I can't image the team not being ambitious with it...after wishing Oda a warm spot in Hell.
RIP to that one guy who got absolutely murdered by S-Hawk.
I don't think the manga did this, I might have to doule check, but I really enjoy how the anime's had Lucci running around on all fours in his Awakened form like an actual beast during these two episodes. It really sells the form's ferocity and differentiates it from being just his Life Return form with black clouds. The anime's definitely going to elevate REDACTED big-time when it eventually gets to it.
Also making Dawn Rocket a call ack to when Luffy first hit Lucci with Gear Third in Enies Lobby and knocked him out of the building was inspired; I don't think that was something Oda had intended when he drew those panels ut it was a nifty pick-up.
Not quite biblically-accurate though. Maybe if Gear Fifth Luffy hit one.
Title: ''The Strongest Form of Humanity! The Seraphim's Powers!''
Chapters Covered: 1070
Episode Director: Wataru Matsumi
Animation Director: Yong-ce Tu + Ziwei He
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
@ the couple of JJK2 refugees on this episode.
The episode was almost entirely (very well-animated) fighting so I don't have much to say other than that it was a very fun watch. It might've been better placing to put the upcoming CP9-themed recap episode before this episode rather than after it.
Lucci, unironically: "Nah, I'd win."
Title: "Another Level of Power! Luffy vs. Lucci!"
Chapters Covered: rest of 1069
Episode Director: Nozomu Shishido
Animation Director: Keita Saito + Hirotaka Ito + Hiroyasu Oda (new)
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Resurrection of "L".
Title:"Prepare to Intercept! Rob Lucci Strikes!"
Chapters Covered: rest of 1067-1068
Episode Director: Kenichi Takeshita
Animation Director: Masayuki Takagi
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Hah, I'm talking about the Ghibli movie. I have a feeling that old shows and movies involving long-lost technologically advanced civilizations from the 80s and early 90s like that and Future Boy Conan are going to end up being required viewing as One Piece gradually inches closer and closer to its endgame.
The anime team is having a lot of fun bringing Vegapunk's monologues to life.
Note to self: Watch Laputa some time.
Title: ''Unbelievable! The Genius Envisioning Dreams!''
Chapters Covered: rest of 1067-1068
Episode Director: Toshinori Fukazawa
Animation Director: Shuuichi Ito
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
If Kazuhiko Inoue voicing Dragon in the flashack is an indication that he'll be taking over the role when he reappears in the present or when Shibata passes that's an excellent choice. He's one of my favorite voice actors and it's great to finally hear him in One Piece with an important role to boot.
Huh, briefly checking the corresponding chapter, that is indeed Hajrudin and Gerd helping fish the books out of the lake. Seems like that passed a number of people by.
I can't believe they actually used that Mori Calliope song, RIP
VOID CENTURY IN LAKE.
Title: "The Will of Ohara! Inherited Research"
Chapters Covered: rest of 1066
Episode Director: Hazuki Omoya
Animation Director: Kenji Yokoyama
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
No staff list was shared for this month's batch so we're flying blind until the episodes actually air.
Damn, sounds like he could've had a head injury or similar.
It's sobering when a giant of a medium or work near and dear to one's heart passes, doubly so to realize that they're about the same age as my own parents. RIP, and what a legacy he leaves.
I've been thinking about finally cracking open Dragon Quest XI lately, and I think this news clinches it.
Since the anime often gives a stronger sense of location I have to admit that ever since I read the manga chapter I thought the giant robot and the scrapyard were like, deep underground in a basement level of the lab and not out there in the open air.
I was surprised at how animated this episode was for a talking heads chapter (lol at how Sanji's reaction shot was punched up) and I agree that they did a good job of integrating the new shots of the Ohara flashback with the stuff from nearly 18 years ago. I could tell the difference, but I imagine the layperson couldn't.
A 1997 story taking place on an ocean-covered world about treasure hunting, lost technology, and a super-advanced ancient civilization featuring a protagonist voiced by Mayumi Tanaka. Am I talking about One Piece, or Megaman Legends?
1096: "Forbidden History! A Theory About a Kingdom"
Chapters Covered: 1066
Episode Director: Tasuku Shimaya
Animation Director: Masahiro Shimanuki
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Grand Guerilla seems to have done a lot of Jojo fan art in the "official" style of the David Productions anime and I could see that serving them well on One Piece. The detailed closeups that I assume they handled in the first half with the multiple layers of light and shading meshed really well with Shida's style. Good directorial debut for Hyun Erei.
@Dahaka said in 1095: "A Genius's Brain! Six Vegapunks":
Another awesome episode filled with sakuga goodness.
Honestly the overall quality of this arc is even higher than Wano so far. People thought after Wano quality will decline, but no, it just keeps getting better.
Wano transforming the anime production into one with an environment that appeals to big-name animators and has them want to stick around is something that will continue to pay dividends for years to come, especially as things get tighter and tighter in the industry. We're already seeing this if you take Vincent Chandard as an example. Much ado was made aout him working exclusively on One Piece during the latter part of Onigashima, his contract concluded...only for him to come right back almost immediately for another whole year.
In my experience six brains or more in the same room make people dumber, not smarter and more efficient.
Title: "A Genius's Brain! Six Vegapunks"
Chapters Covered: 1065
Episode Director: Hyun Ieri (new)
Animation Director: Toshio Deguchi + Grand Guerrilla (new)
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
I have no idea who (or what) Grand Guerrilla is. Either a pen name or a bad, literal translation of a Chinese name.
Egghead Island, the arc where Oda became an ass man.
Title: ''The Mystery Deepens! Egghead Labophase''
Chapters Covered: 1064
Episode Director: Yasuhiro Tanabe (new)
Animation Director: Masahiro Kitazaki
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
The anime staff really struck gold with Henry Thurlow deciding to join the team full time. There've occasionall been anecdotes of animators not wanting to work on One Piece due to how complex the character designs can get and he's here relishing in adding as much detail as humanly possible to his drawings.
Well it's Blackbeard, so as long as the camera doesn't abruptly cut away to somewhere else mid-scene Law should have this one in the bag.
Title: ''Winner-Take-All! Law vs. Blackbeard!''
Chapters Covered: rest of 1063
Episode Director: Sho Inuzuka
Animation Director: Kazuya Hisada + Katsumi Ishizuka
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
This is the episode that Ishizuka has been working on ever since Zoro vs. King. I don't expect this one to hit quite those same incredible highs but this should be a great action showcase nonetheless.
There were some directorial choices that I wasn't a fan of (anticlimactically revealing the appearances of the remaining Satellite Punks - yes they're already in the opening but that's beside the point - and the names of Blackbeard's crew members' Devil Fruits) and the padding was extremely noticeable like I was watching an episode from nearly ten years ago since the material the team limited themselves to this episode didn't leave them much to work with. But that new piece of music at the end playing as Law's and Blackbeard's ships circled each other that sounded like it came straight out of a classic campy swashbuckling live-action pirate film was chef's kiss.
I don't know it if was deliberate, but I liked how the robo-cop Pacifista's flashing eyes made it look like it was wearing red and blue 3D glasses.
Most likely the plan since I believe 1093 is what Ishizuka has been working on ever since Zoro vs. King.
Clearly what the future needs to brighten up is more bloom and lens flare.
Title: "Bonney's Cry of Lament! The Darkness Lurking on Future Island"
Chapters Covered: rest of 1062-half of 1063
Episode Director: Katsumi Tokoro
Animation Director: Shigefumi Shingaki
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
I'm assuming that the second half of chapter 1063 is going to be broken off and covered in its own standalone episode.
I'm also a little disappointed that Queen's songs were omitted after the previous Wano/Whoke Cake Island OST release went out of its way to preserve all of the musical numbers. The versions of Luffy and Zoro's eyecatch jingles that were arranged with traditional Japanese instruments also seem doomed to the same state of non-release that Vivi's eyecatch from back in the day did.
As someone who's been striving to keep an up-to-date collection for like close to fifteen years now I'll agree that it's a treat whenever Tanaka brings back and updates old motifs. Like obviously I could pick up on the swinging jazz rendition of Sanji's main leitmotif in "Sanji vs. Queen" when I was originall watching that episode, but not the first half being taken from the two "Transform! Germa 66" tracks from Whole Cake Island. "K-Room" has "Surgeon of Death" in it, everyone's already picked up on "My Peak" coming from "Overtaken", and all of the Land of Wano tracks share a nice bit of continuity with each other. I'm a little perplexed by Shanks's track though; Tanaka composes a new, orchestral version of his original theme from East Blue, clearly meant to be used for his Conqueror Haki moment...and then it's not actually used in the episode. An odd choice on the part of that episode's director since that scene lacked a bit of punch as it was. I guess it can still play later on
So far for Egghead we have the BGM for Buggy's Cross Guild speech, Lulusia's destruction (the Imu/Five Elder theme?), that big choral piece for the Vega Force 01's entrance, the track that played for Lilith's introduction that sounded like "Food Fight" with surf guitar, Egghead Island's main theme that played during the teaser and the last episode, that sad track when Bonney says that her father was turned into a cyborg, two eyecatch jingles, and the instrumental version of "UUUS!!" used for the preview.
It felt pretty weird having an episode with so much CG in it, though the preview indicates that next episode Egghead's environments will revert back to the usual painted backdrops. The decision to portray the holograms that way made in-universe sense though and there were a few shots that were integrated so well I wasn't sure if they were CG or hand-drawn (also it gave the dragon-weary animators a break, haha). Some good jokes and visual humor along the way like Luffy's "Don't talk to me, I'm dead." line or Jimbei hiding a half-eaten drumstick behind his back.
Unsurprisingly Lilith looks to be one of those characters who's an animators' favorite since they paid extra attention to her face game.
Franky's voice sounded clearer this episode compared to 1090 and especially 1089 so I hope whatever issue Yao was having is either clearing up or becoming more manageable.
Imagine, you're an animator who's been suffering for four years drawing and animating Kaido's dragon and hybrid forms by hand, scale by painstaking scale. You never want to see another reptile ever again. But Wano's finally over, you're free of that hell. A new arc is finally starting, you receive the design materials and open them eagerly...
...there are more dragons.
Title: "Brimming with the Future! Adventure in the Land of Science!"
Chapters Covered: 1062
Episode Director: Sho Matsui
Animation Director: Keita Saito + Hirotaka Ito
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Maybe it's an affectation he's been doing for a while and I haven't noticed until now because Franky didn't have much to do during Wano or Kazuki Yao had some dental work around the time these episodes were recorded but Franky's sounded like he was talking through a mouth full of gauze half the time during this episode and the last. He sounds fine when he has to shout or exaggerate so I hope it's just that and not a sign of something more serious.
A chunk of this episode seemed to be outsourced if the credits are any indication so it was easy to tell which parts of the episode got the in-house spit and polish compared to what didn't (something something ashamed of words and deeds). I had expected Tomita to handle "Vegapunk's" entrance since she's a character who combines his two main pursuits as an animator: giant robots and T&A. The inclusion of the classic Newtype sound effect from Gundam at its entrance was pretty funny at any rate, and new episode looks pretty solid and fun.
They yassified Vegapunk!
Title: "A New Island! Egghead the Island of the Future"
Chapters Covered: 1061
Episode Director: Yusuke Suzuki
Animation Director: Masayuki Takagi
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
It depends. If there are multiple ADs or directors because the team knew that episode X was going to bring a heavy workload and prepared for it by dividing it that's a sign of good planning and a healthy production. If there are multiple ADs or directors because the team was running behind schedule for whatever reason and had to keep throwing bodies at the episode to get it out the door in a presentable state that's obviously not good. Given how this episode and the other big ones like 1017, 1072, and 1074 turned out I think it's safe to say that One Piece's anime is more in the former camp and that's been borne out through comments by Chansard and others (the mood between Sota Shigetsugu's tweets on his One Piece work versus his work on Jujutsu Kaisen's second season is night-and-day, for example).
Not that the One Piece team hasn't been facing their own challenges, it's just that they're in a much better spot than many of their peers right now.
Given the attitudes certain manga readers have had towards the anime over the years "but what about the anime-onlies?!" has always struck me as being hilariously hollow. Regardless, the only spoilers in the opening that don't need any preexisting context or pausing to go frame by frame to spoil are a couple of the fights. It's nowhere near comparable to Robin being shown as a crew member over a dozen episodes before it happened.
Anyway, speaking as a mod, that poster's post history is full of nit-picky negativity and vitriol towards oth the anime and manga. I don't see any point in engaging with them any further.
@Luff Now that I'm actually paying attention to the lyrics yeah, that's probably it.
Speaking of Naoki Tate episodes looks like he did some work on the opening which makes it the first time he's worked on the TV anime since a little bit towards the beginning of Fishman Island, I think. I wonder which part he did since he's fairly high up on the KA list. I see his fellow prodigal vet Onishi on there too towards the bottom.
That was an incredible episode, and a really powerful way to kick off the new year. Nozomu Shishido is one of Toei's more veteran directors and up until now he's worked on the One Piece movies but not the anime itself outside of storyboarding duties a few episodes ago and he knocked it out of the park here. The extended sequence of Lulusia being destroyed (by Uranus?) was genuinely harrowing while the second half was a delight and the energetic shift in animation style made me feel like I was back in 2010 watching a Naoki Tate episode.
The new opening, directed by Ishitani again, is far and away the craziest one yet visually. Tons of fight previews, tons of loving homages to what came before, tons of fun Easter eggs, colors, style, and the song itself let Kitadani flex his JAM Project heritage a bit while the power chorus and backup chorus tied it all together. It blows away the other anniversary openings. It's not even a contest. The ending was less crazy and wastes no time reminding you that it's the same singer behind "Memories" but it's a nice enough closer.
The "info corner" ending skit was kinda cute but of course useless for super-fans like us. I imagine it won't be used after every episode but the Egghead arc is pretty dense with callbacks.
2024, the year of the dragon, is set to feature more of Monkey D. Dragon than the previous two zodiac cycles combined.
Title: "A New Chapter! Luffy and Sabo's Paths!"
Chapters Covered: rest of 1060
Episode Director: Nozomu Shishido (new)
Animation Director: Shuichi Ito + Midori Matsuda + Ziwei He + Masami Mori
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
Tonight should also feature the debuts of opening 26, "US!", and ending 20, "Sunrise Dreamer". They're sung by Hiroshi Kitadani and Maki Otsuki respectively, reuniting the artists behind the classic OP and EDs of East Blue for the first time in almost 25 years.
Huh, I wonder if they're bringing a guest AD on board because the scenes from what I assume are the episode's B-part look very Naoki Tate-ish. The staff list will be interesting.
Maybe it's Masami Mori, now that I think about it.
Remember when it was supposed to be the robots doing manual labor so that humans could spend more time writing music, pursuing art, etc.?
As the tweet above says "cutting-edge (...) technology" is probably just shorthand for CG and no more smelly, stinky SD 4:3 early digital cel poo-poo but AI generation would be a fitting cherry atop the tacky sundae.
WIT shows do tend to have good photography and visual effects when they're firing on all cylinders but here's a secret scoop: one of there collaborators in that area, Asahi Pro., already works on the anime. And have been since the start of Wano.
I've seen two or three tweets from a couple staff members being pretty leery of the whole thing. They're obviously not going anywhere, of course.
And TBH, given the reputations of both Netflix and Studio WIT among industry observers (WIT's head George Wada is cut from the same cloth as MAPPA's infamous Manabu Otsuka and has been on the record basically bragging about sweatshop conditions at the studio) this announcement strikes me as an executive vanity project and emblemic of how the anime industry is getting more and more creatively bankrupt each year.
WIT doesn't have the robust production pipeline or business culture that you need to properly sustain long-running adaptations and have already bailed on three ongoing manga adaptations they started (Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga, and The Ancient Magus's Bride). With how dense One Piece is as I said earlier and the studio's/Netflix's own precedent I don't think anyone should expect this to be a "One Piece Brotherhood" versus something like the super-condensed "Episode of" specials expanded to mini-series length. I'll be bold and predict that this thing won't cover more than the SD era and no more than up to the time skip at the absolute most if all the stars align. And a lot of them will have to align.
Maybe I'll be wrong, but the more I sleep on this announcement the more cynical it feels to me IMO.
@MetaMario Huh, that's surprising to hear; I'd figured he was at least seventy since the earliest roles I've heard him in were from Gundam Wing and Gundam X in the early 90s and he didn't sound all that different than he does now.
Then you got folks like Toshio Furukawa who's closing in on 80 and, while you'll never mistake his voice for that of a young man, can still believably voice much younger characters.
I think Kenji Utsumi was close to 90 when he passed away and during Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood his voice was as powerful as ever.
That was "Luffy's Dream", the final listed track on the upcoming "GEAR 5" OST release. And yes, that was indeed Kitadani.
The episode was mostly fine, but the premise of playing up what's supposed to be a big reveal, only to not actually tell the audience what it is, left it in kind of an odd spot IMO. Yokoyama's art and corrections were extremely solid throughout.
I don't know what was going on with those opening seconds of Hancock being lost in her own fantasy world while S-Snake (I'll be absolutely shocked, shocked if she doesn't turn out to be an animators' favorite) frolics to cutesy music surrounded by sparkling shojo bubbles.
I said this back when We Can! debuted too, but I'm still surprised that they're still using Kitadani since I originally thought after We Go! that they wouldn't roll him out again until the very end of the show. Not that I'm complaining, of course! Ending 20 will be performed by the original artist behind "Memories" to boot!
The upcoming cast list:
Vegapunk - Yohei Tadano
Shaka - Shuhei Sakaguchi
Lilith - Aya Hirano
Edison - Ryoko Shiraishi
Pythagoras - Tokuyoshi Kawashima
Atlas - Kaede Hondo
York - Mutsumi Tamura
Vegapunk was voiced by Yoshito Yasuhara during his Punk Hazard cameo and as far as I how he's still active and would've still fit the fully revealed character so I'm surprised to see him be recast.
Mutsumi Tamura voicing York is funny since some Japanese fans were guessing that she was Lilith instead based on the teaser. I'd imagined Lilith as a Fairouz Ai character but I'm sure Aya Hirano needs no introduction.
Ryoko Shiraishi was actually the actress I'd thought would play Yamato before Saori Hayami was revealed in the role.
I have a hard time imagining that this protect is going to boil down to anything other than an expanded version of those "Episode of" specials we got in years past, because otherwise trying to start a full adaptation of an incredibly dense, 1100+ chapter story from the very beginning, from scratch, especially on the Netflix model, is madness unless they cut out massive swathes of it (though let it never be said that the anime industry is full of smart decision-making, especially these days).
Why is there a random windmill next to Luffy on a cliff?
What, you actually believed him when he said that he wanted to become the Pirate King?
Title: ''Luffy's Dream''
Chapters Covered: rest of 1059-1060
Episode Director: Tatsuya Nagamine
Animation Director: Kenji Yokoyama
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
As Christmas Eve's episode will be a recap this will be the final episode of the anime's remarkable 2023 run. Episode 1089, and the start of the Egghead Arc, will premiere on January 6/7.
For those who don't remember, last year an adaptation of Monsters, that pre-One Piece one-shot Oda drew about Ryuma that he later incorporated elements into One Piece itself, was announced and today it's been revealed that it will be releasing on Netflix next month under the title Monsters: 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation.
Staff-wise the character designer seems to e Takashi Kojima, one of the many big-name animators who worked on Wano (Red Roc, part of Zoro vs. Killer, Zoro fighting the official's men during the premiere, etc.) but he of course has a lengthy, very respectable resume elsewhere throughout the industry.
The director meanwhile is Sung-hoo Park. He used to be one of MAPPA's top affiliated talents from even efore they became the crunch-tastic, exploitative, clout-hungry studio they are today. The last lamor thing he directed there was Jujutsu Kaisen's first season and after the 0 movie he dove through an escape hatch and got out of there. This OVA is the first project being produced by his new studio E&H Productions. Park's previous experience with the One Piece anime is some work on Film Z.
Character art:
I wonder if Ryuma and Cyrano are going to be voiced by Nakai and Kawamura similar to how Toei said "Fuck it!" and cast Akemi Okamura as Ann back when they adapted the Romance Dawn one-shot at the start of Wano.
Chapter 1059 was one of those montage-y chapters that Oda often likes to do and to me it felt like the anime struggled a bit to adapt it. A few typically awkward uncorrected drawings slipped through the cracks but the action cuts were pretty good but the boarding and visual direction made the battle on Amazon Lily feel very sparse. Going to the end of the chapter would've behooved it since there would've been less time to linger on those sparse establishing shots.
The Seraphim are supposed to have dark skin but S-Snake certainly looks pretty pale compared to King and S-Hawk.
"War on America", "War on Christianity", that sort of thing.
Tellingly, no "War on women".
Autocorrect is showing some concerning "corrections" for that title ngl.
Title: "War On the Island of Women! The Incident Involving Koby the Hero"
Chapters Covered: 1059
Episode Director: Hazuki Omoya
Animation Director: Toshio Deguchi + Yong-ce Tu
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
That's some twitter misinformation being spread around misinterpreting the announcement of the Egghead arc officially "starting" in January = literally no more episodes past 1085 until then. There will be a break week for New Years as always but that's it.
EDIT: Just saw the upcoming staff listings and there will be another recap special on Christmas Eve too so we're technically getting a two week break and the originator of that misinfo half-failed upward.
The tracklist for the new release has been put up on the official site:
Thirty-one tracks is more than I expected; I honestly didn't realize that Onigashima had introduced that many new tracks. None of the titles seem to map to that track that played for Robin's Demonio though and obviously nothing for Egghead, even that Pokemon-ass-sounding track from the teaser.
I'm looking forward to hearing "Zoro vs. King" without half of it being drowned out by the sound effects.
@Tabasco-Boshi said in 1086: "The New Emperor of the Sea! Buggy the Star Jester!":
What's the track that plays at the very end, when Buggy announces the foundation of Cross Guild?
That one was new, currently unreleased.
I had fun watching this episode. The presentation was more lively than I remember the episode that covered the Emperors' bounties being, and it's always a delight to hear Shigeru Chiba screeching his lungs out as Buggy. It's going to be a treat to continue seeing all the series's legacy characters in the new "Wano style" (this episode was a big refutation to the doomers who were expecting the visual quality to drop now that the arc is finally over), and that cut of the battleships exploding looked like it was directing homaging the scene of Zoro and Franky fighting Wapol's men from Movie 9.
I wonder how many it was that Oda was sitting on "Marine Hunter".
It's a brave new post-Wano world but Buggy's here to guide us through it.
Title: "The New Emperor of the Sea! Buggy the Star Jester!"
Chapters Covered: 1058
Episode Director: Tasuku Shimaya
Animation Director: Masahiro Shimanuki
Watch It: www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece
It never clocked for me until that teaser that the lower half of Jimbei's outfit is his original pre-timeskip clothing.
Well, Fukazawa is 2-2 when it comes to adapting unconventional arc endings now but I admit that I found his Whole Cake Island finisher more effective between the two but that's not really his fault because the source material was weaker this time (and has the twin albatrosses of the sudden Yamato rug-pull - regardless of which side of the argument you were on - and the tone-deafness of using the "Kurozumi was born to burn!" pun as a mic drop moment. Tama better spend the rest of her days sleeping with one eye open is what I'm saying). I can still appreciate the effort it took to bring that storyteller sequence to life in an authentic way though!
But that moment where Momonosuke breaks down in front of Luffy with his body language still clearly that of a little kid, and then when "Raise" plays at the end showing our final looks at most of the Wano cast for the foreseeable future and some of the other characters who've been with the crew for years and years and will likely only see sporadically in the coming years like Law and Carrot and Kid...those were the moments that made me feel something, and after such a bombastic arc I appreciate ending on a low-key note.
And finally, I have to once again remark how unprecedented it was that the One Piece anime, saddled for years with a (somewhat undeserved depending on the time period IMO) reputation for being unambitious and low-quality, managed to transform itself into an animator's and director's playground capable of attracting some very big industry names and delivering the gold-standard in shonen action that could trade blows with, and very often surpass, many of the seasonal tentpoles. That the team was able to keep a relatively high baseline of quality for four years straight, in a time when the industry is tearing itself apart through overextension and prestige shows are melting down left and right (looks @ JJK) and, by all accounts, didn't crunch themselves down into a fine paste to achieve it (again, looks @ JJK) is nothing short of remarkable. (not saying that Toei hasn't felt the pinch too, just that they seem to be able to navigate the storm much more smartly and efficiently than many of the other studios - yet again, looks @ MAPPA)
Anyway, regardless of how one might've felt about some of the things the source material did during this arc, the Wano arc was an incredible run for the anime. My hat's off to the whole team.