Good assessment on the episode, my thoughts exactly. The animation quality was solid but just like with the Sanji fight they didn't keep the same finish. Not sure why they changed it up on those final attacks but both Sanji and Zoro got done dirty. Sanji's finish caused a big explosion that we should have seen from a further away perspective and Zoro's final attack was supposed to cut the dragon as if it was a living thing.
Either way I was still happy with the episodes. Hope they keep this quality for the rest of the arcs serious fights, especially Luffy v Kaido which still has a lot left in it. But the preview has me a little disappointed because they won't get rid of Luffy's glowing gold aura. Like wtf. Zoro just used aCoC the way its intended which is just the streaking lighting. Why can't they get that effn right.
Sanji's main issue was the anime gave a time difference between beef burst and the rest of the spam. While in manga, Sanji attacked him non stop without giving Queen room to recuperate, which was more solid.
Queen also looked more damaged by the end of that in manga, which it didn't in anime.
With Zoro/King, I absolutely loved that they differentiated King's final attack instead of it just being a bigger fire dragon lmao.
But the ending should've mirrored what happened in manga. Let's keep all the extra small dragons anime added,
AND have the manga finale? Like Zoro cutting the fire dragon's entire body clean and then cut King? That would've made this episode a complete 10/10
Auras gonna ruin Luffy vs Kaido. I am just so glad that they kept auras restricted to Zoro's sword for the most part in this episode lmao.
I also don't expect much out of G5 vs Kaido. Hated it in manga too. I don't know how the anime can make this joke and troll of a fight any better, except for the finale which I'm sure anime can gas up quite nicely.
Best hope is that G4 Luffy vs Kaido would be top tier animation, it was great action in manga too.
I honestly don't understand how anyone can look at that and not see just a bunch of visual diarrhea.
Everything about this fight is a microcosm of my feelings about Wano's animation as a whole. The stuff that's expanded on truncated stuff in the manga, like King's flashback? Great. The dump trucks of neon paint and a camera being wielded by the Noid on coke? I could do without that.
Honestly, I get the Bleach-ification of the fight scenes. I don't like it, but it's *fine*. What I don't get is taking out key visuals or altering things for the worse. Queen being launched didn't need to be changed, and Zoro slashing the one(!) fire dragon didn't need to be completely omitted.
Some of it was over the top.
But it was mostly fine. The final attack especially was amazing, the charging felt like as nuke and the dragon diverging into different heads/smaller dragons was great IMO too. The anime differentiated King's final attack, rather than it just being a bigger and stronger fire dragon compared to what he used against his fodder subordinates.
I was afraid that they would aura spam and ruin everything, but aura was kept to a minimum for modern Wano standards (in fact it was mostly limited only to Zoro's sword...pleasantly surprised there lmao), and the animation was quite clean.
King especially was animated quite well.
But yes, 100% agree on the bold part - point of anime omitting the most important slash lmao.
They added Zoro slashing extra small dragons. But offscreened Zoro slashing the main dragon and King himself! WTF lmao