(spoilers to follow)
We can without any exaggeration say that the last episode of One Piece was one of the most impressive that we have seen in the 24 years of the anime. It was everything we've been waiting for since March 2022, when the Gear 5 was revealed to us in the manga and we've been dying to see "how cool it's going to be in the anime" and "if they're going to make it all Looney Tunes". Epic revisions of classic soundtracks of the series, action, color, zany animation designed by a Warner Bros. studio that perfectly marries the kangaroo of anime with the surrealism of American cartoons (yes, even in America you don't see such experimentation in big productions anymore).
(
This episode is a turning point both for the plot of the series and for anime in general: One Piece is currently becoming the most popular and internationally reaching marriage of Japanese and Western cartoony animation since the era of Osamu Tezuka (haters, this is the truth ).
From the beginning, One Piece was a cartoon with sheepish anime (but look at how everything is designed in this series!), an Epic that with its anarchic lightheartedness but also the values of freedom and companionship touches on universal issues and breaks the molds of "simple shonen anime", making but anime look in front of him just plain serious. Now he shows us his true face, revealing that Luffy's true power is literally making everything around him a cartoon, the absolute surreal anarchy, the absolute freedom!
All these people who designed and created the episode and left us in awe with sun god nika's powers in motion are really to be congratulated. And the best is coming in the next episodes!
BUT (the eternal "but") episode 1071 simultaneously brought all the drawbacks that have been ruining anime for so many years: repeated scenes, tiresome rehashing, 2-minute (!) flashbacks about things that happened in the previous episode (!!!). They filmed chapter 1044 all by itself in a 20-minute episode (about 2 chapters of the manga) (and it didn't even finish the scene with Hiyori and Orochi, so not the whole chapter)!
It's a chronic disease of the anime flagged by the classic excuse that the manga moves slowly - something I believe that with the compression that Oda does in the manga frames is not as valid as it was in the pre-sabaody arc chapters. Not to be misunderstood, I think it's very good that the anime gives more television time to scenes that in the chapters last a single compressed frame (see Zorro vs Shu from Ennies Lobby) and - damn the lies - the manga can't give the voices of the heroes and the soundtracks that took us by the hand and we loved. And obviously I'm not talking about the plot, which Oda weaves and complicates admirably over the years.
Despite this, the anime's flaws persist even though they have been overshadowed lately by the drastic improvement in animation in Wano's episodes. Whether due to Japanese nationalism towards the "island of the samurai", or a general gripe about the quality of the series, or both, the Wano arc has by far the most impressive and well-animated animation in 24 years of anime. The last special battles look like they came out of a movie and have impressed even the internet audience who had no idea about One Piece. An "improvement" which, however, often becomes just a fanfare display. As the slow-down of the plot and constant flashbacks continue, the impressive, upgraded and pompous animation becomes just an empty flourish, syrup on stale ice cream.
So even though Luffy turned into Joyboy and made us all gawp at the brilliance of his cartoon power, his anime chronic conditions live on and reign. In episode 1071, in addition to one of the saddest moments of 26 years of One Piece I saw all those reasons that made me give up anime 11 years ago for manga - always sneaking peeks at anime developments.
And my question is this: when the anime leaves Wano and the Thousand Sunny sets sail for the "final saga" that Oda also announced, will the animation quality drop back to pre-Wano levels?
Will anime continue to slide into the same problems that have plagued it for over a decade?
Or will we just all turn it into One Pace and be happy?
I used Screenshots from the episode![]
