One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
We return to the realm of the chapter-long action sequence here. At the end of the last chapter, Buggy popped the top half of his body off of his legs and chased down Nami, knives akimbo. Obviously, Luffy manages to save her right off the top, here. Because Buggy leaving the lower half of his body behind gives him a completely foreseeable weakness.
You Will No Longer Load The Buggy Balls
Thus begins the systematic dismantling—both literally and figuratively—of Buggy the Clown. Luffy kicks him between the legs, he bickers with Nami over whether or not his treasure is “hers” even if she hasn’t technically fully absconded with it yet, and he makes a desperate attempt to launch an all-out assault by flinging his limbs every which way. This does not go well for him either; Luffy happens to notice that even though every other part of him can fly around freely if he detaches them from his body, the same is not true of his feet, which must remain grounded.
Yes, I am about to post Buggy Feet. You’ve been warned.
Although maybe I should’ve warned you more about some of these facial expressions….
Having Luffy attack his other obvious humiliating weak point distracts Buggy long enough for Nami to round up the rest of his limbs and tie them up. Meaning that, when he does finally pull himself together, he looks like this.
And Luffy finishes off the Clown Prince of the High Seas with a “Gum-Gum Bazooka.” Which mostly just seems to involve chucking him as far away as possible. And with that, it’s bye-bye Buggy, at least for now.
To the victor go the spoils, of course.
Tomorrow: What will Luffy do with that marvelous map he’s found?
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Today, in its cour finale, Spy x Family circles back on its core strengths, those things that make it good in the first place. To wit; the series is an action comedy. There’s a lot of both in ” “. What more do you need?
Well, I don’t know about any of us, but Loid “Twilight” Forger really seems like he could use a few vacation days.
The opening minutes of this episode establish that, on top of the ongoing Operation Strix, Twilight has been picking up extra missions by the armful. (He blames a staff squeeze, and I see no reason to question his expertise.) He’s been getting home late often enough that the apartment complex’s local hens have started to notice, and some of the women in question even wonder aloud if he’s cheating on Yor. (He would never, and I’m vaguely offended at the notion.)
Determined to keep up the appearance of the Forgers being a normal family, Loid insists on taking them out for a weekend trip, suggesting the local aquarium. This proves to be a problem for two reasons. One; some of those local gossipy housewives are also at the aquarium. Two; Twilight’s agency happens to foist another mission on him as he enters the building, to retrieve a film roll smuggled into the country via penguin.
Things unfold as you might expect; Loid has to go undercover as a penguin handler in order to get close to That Specific Penguin, and in the process completely shows up the lead aquarist. He fights an enemy agent, who also wants to get his hands on that bird’s precious info. Said agent “kidnaps” Anya—by which I here mean that Anya clings to his shirt and shouts “I’m being kidnapped!”—and the predictable result is him getting his shit kicked in by Yor. Loid wins a giant penguin plushie for Anya.
It’s a good, solid, fun end to the series’ first half. A rounding-out as it closes the first cour. There’s also a pretty excellent post-script where Anya inducts her new “secret agent”—that is, the penguin plushie—to her spy agency. AKA, her apartment.
Spy x Family will apparently return with a 13-episode second cour in the fall season. Until we rendezvous once again; be seeing you, anime fans.
You are #006!
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
Unsurprisingly, Buggy the Clown is not dead. But in contrast to last chapter’s pure, streamlined punch-and-stab machine, this chapter is a bit more all over the place. Not in a bad way, but it’s a lot less Just One Thing than yesterday’s.
Mainly, we learn a couple things here; about Red-Hair Shanks, about Buggy the Clown, and about the Devil Fruits themselves, which, it’s becoming increasingly obvious if it weren’t already, are the manga’s central plot tokens.
It’s worth taking an aside here to point this out; it seems like Mayor Boodle’s bravery has inspired his citizens, and they arm themselves while preparing to fight Buggy off. They don’t arrive at the site of the battle in this chapter, though. My guess is we’ll circle back on them tomorrow.
Much more of the chapter is taken up by a flashback from Buggy, where we see a slice of his youth serving as an “apprentice” aboard a pirate ship. We also learn why he ate the Devil Fruit in the first place and why he doesn’t like Shanks. In order, he ate it because he was trying to steal it, and he doesn’t like Shanks because Shanks saved his life. No, that was not a typo. Why did he want to steal the Devil Fruit? Turns out, a lot of people will pay good money for superpowers if the only downside is that they can’t swim.
Assuming a “berry” is roughly about a yen, a hundred million of them is about $743,000 USD. If it’s actually closer in value to a US dollar, then it’s about $100,000,000 USD.
Buggy, via an ill-considered harebrained scheme, ends up both accidentally eating the fruit and nearly drowning. Shanks has to save him, and in spite of that, Buggy ends up blaming him for the failure of his get-rich-quick plan. This is the rare shonen flashback that actually manages to make a character even less sympathetic than they already were, it almost comes across as parodic. (Obviously, that’s intentional, but still, it’s pretty funny.)
Importantly, though, it does establish that Buggy’s fixation on literal gold-and-jewels-style treasure is deep-rooted. Which makes it make sense when he actually cuts and runs from his fight with Luffy. Literally! He pops the top half of his body off and flies at Nami like some kind of cutlass-wielding aerial drone, a shot on which the chapter ends.
Tomorrow: Buggy vs. the thief of pirates!
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.
Rarely do I feel the need to start an article with disclaimers, but this is one of those few cases. The RWBY phenomenon largely passed me by, in its original form as a 3DCG cartoon. I was dimly aware of the much-hyped color trailers, the fanbase the series eventually acquired and the eventual backlash to that fanbase. I was also aware, again in only a broad sense, of its status as Rooster Teeth‘s golden egg, of the deeply sad passing of original series creator Monty Oum, and in a general sense, of its history. I even personally know a number of people who are or were huge fans, including my three younger siblings (this is probably the first thing I’ve ever written that there is a non-zero chance they might stumble upon).
Nonetheless, in spite of all that, RWBY was very much something I just knew about. I never really engaged with it at all, beyond occasionally playing the fighting game BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, in which some of RWBY‘s characters appear. (My younger brother bought it for our then fairly new PlayStation 4.) So, when I write about Ice Queendom today, its curious spinoff / reboot / reinterpretation / something at the hands of Studio Shaft, I write about it as a more or less total outsider. I am judging it largely on its own merits as an action anime, not in terms of how faithful it is or isn’t to the original story, which I’m largely not familiar with, or how well it executes some abstract “vision” for the franchise. (Every long-running franchise has such a thing, an ideal, imaginary form that only exists in the minds of individual creators and fans. Rarely is discussing them productive for anyone.)
To me, Ice Queendom is primarily interesting because of that connection to Shaft. As a studio, it’s hard to argue that Shaft aren’t noticeably past their prime, with their biggest impact on the world of anime—the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica—over a decade in the rearview at this point. But that doesn’t mean they can’t still make good things, and they have recently, including both Madoka’s own spinoff Magia Record and another battle girl anime, Assault Lily Bouquet. There’s some pedigree here, and while I’m only broadly familiar with the man’s work, industry lifer Toshimasa Suzuki seems like a solid choice to direct such a thing, too.
But perhaps predictably, it’s more complicated than that. Through a morass of wonky art, confusing pacing, and at least one hackneyed political allegory, RWBY: Ice Queendom‘s first episode(s?) adds up to perhaps the year’s most confounding premiere. Given that 2022 has given us sheer WTF bombs like Estab-Life and Birdie Wing, that’s pretty impressive in its own way, and not all of the surprises here are bad. But suffice it to say, I think you’d have to be a fairly particular sort of person to want to watch this. Even its format is somewhat screwy; Crunchyroll lists the single-video premiere as “episodes 1-3.” God knows what’s going on there.
But upon starting the episode, what struck me first were the character designs. I’ve never seen the original RWBY, but I have seen screenshots and gifs of it—I had a tumblr in the early 2010s, it was practically omnipresent—and while it never struck me as a visual buffet or anything, it at least looked distinct. The same isn’t really true here, with all four of the main heroines being squashed into a frankly rather generic-looking visual mold that seems suited for an anime much less ambitious than this. Over the course of the hour-long premiere special, I got used to it, but it took a while, which is not a great sign. (Also, in an attempt to emphasize their lips, all of the female characters are given what ends up looking a lot like lip gloss. This is a visual trope that bugs the ever-loving fuck out of me.) Occasionally they’re drawn a bit differently (presumably the result of different boarders or even different animators) and look a bit better, but it’s still going to be an adjustment not just for returning fans but for anyone who even vaguely knows what the original series looked like.
Some characters take to it better than others. I like how Blake looks, in particular.
In general, there is a distinct feeling of visual cheapness throughout fairly large chunks of this premiere. The production bubble hasn’t been kind to anyone, and this would not be the first time a Shaft production took a noticeable hit because of it. But whereas Magia Record could get away with lacking polish to some extent by leaning into its abstractness, Ice Queendom mostly does not have that option. The fantasy world here is portrayed mostly in earthen tones, both literally and thematically, and it suffers noticeably from the lacking tactility and spatial definition.
This doesn’t mean there are no visual merits; this episode is pretty good at fun action sequences, definitely. There’s some good directorial work, too, with enough clever uses of manga-style paneling that it might eventually turn into something of a signature piece of visual work for the series. But really, if you’re just here for Sakuga™, there are a couple of real highlights. And in general, the issue is not the lack of quality, it’s the lack of consistency. Some scenes are excellent, and a few even achieve a somewhat surreal, spacey vibe that might dimly remind viewers of certain other Shaft shows, but others are just terrible (there is a very blatant instance of an unfinished animation being looped several times in a row in part 3, for a premiere, that’s a bad sign), and still others float somewhere in-between.
With its production a distinctly up and down affair, that leaves the story to carry the rest of the weight. But, even after having seen the entire premiere, a lot about the world of RWBY remains rather obscure to me. It’s possible this is on purpose, but it might also be semi-by-design, a case of trying to appeal to new arrivals and old fans simultaneously but falling between two stools in the process. (See also; that Pokémon movie I reviewed a few months ago.)
As far as I can tell, RWBY’s setting is defined by the presence of monsters called Grimms, which lack “Aura”—life force, basically—and turn into “Dust” when killed. Dust, as far as I can tell, can be broadly analogued to souls from Dark Souls. It has power of its own, and also seems to be used as a currency.
Grimms are fought by Hunters, which all four of our heroines want to become for various reasons. These are Ruby Rose (Saori Hayami), the bubbly title lead, her doting older sister Yang Xiao Long (Ami Koshimizu), the aloof, proud heiress Weiss Schnee (Youko Hikasa), and Blake Belladonna (Yuu Shimamura), who is a catgirl.
For the most part, they seem like rather simple characters with simple motivations, although Ruby is the only person we really get the full story of here, in that she wants to follow in her late mother’s footsteps as a huntress. Not for nothing is Ruby also the character who works best here, she’s cute as a button but also has a huge transforming scythe-gun thing. It’s hard to go wrong with that.
There are also many other characters introduced here. North of a dozen, if I had to take a guess. We learn rather little about most of them, this early on, although a small handful like honors student / cereal box model (really) Pyrrha Nikos (Megumi Toyoguchi) and the adorably terrifying Penny (Megumi Han) manage to make a decent impact in their relatively brief screentime regardless.
The actual plot? Our girls enroll at an academy for Hunters. I don’t want to say that “Harry Potter packing heat” is the general vibe here, but in spots it kind of is. Much of the specifics of this become the victim of the premiere’s downright bizarre pacing.
There is a pretty incredible moment where, because of a news story, three of our four heroines are discussing how corrupt one “Schnee Corporation” is, only for Weiss, who is the heiress of said company, to introduce herself to the group by overhearing it and taking offense. Was she just standing around eavesdropping? Is this bit of hilarious coincidence from the original show? I honestly have no idea. I’m not entirely sure it’s meant to be as funny as I found it.
It doesn’t really matter, because not long after that scene, our characters—plus a second team of hopefuls—are flung into a forest to take their life or death entrance exam. Here, the show comes to life with properly exciting action sequences and just enough forward plot motion to be compelling. Then, when our heroines pass their exam and are formally grouped together as “Team RWBY”—all of the teams have fun, pronounceable acronyms for names, I suppose—it immediately becomes boring again, focusing on the petty and uninteresting conflict between Weiss and Ruby or other similarly dull character interactions that just don’t mean much of anything because we haven’t gotten the proper time to know these girls, yet. Ice Queendom is frustrating in this way; at several points during the premiere, I was bored to tears, only for it to burst with exciting and fluid visuals or an interesting story tidbit once again, and then again promptly fall back asleep a few minutes later.
It’s actually Blake Belladonna who gets the shortest end of the writing stick, at least so far. Blake has the misfortune of being Team RWBY’s only Faunus—that is to say, a kemonomimi person—and consequently, she is the conduit for this episode’s utterly toothless gesturing toward political commentary. Over the course of the third part of the premiere, she and Weiss get into a big argument about the (pick one) terrorist group / brave freedom fighters / people just doing their best White Fang, who Weiss loathes because they’ve killed people she personally knows, and which Blake used to be a part of.
There is a frankly incredible scene where Blake pulls off her bow only to reveal that she has cat ears that look exactly the same as her bow underneath it. It is incredible in every sense of that word.
There are, I’m sure, ways to handle this that are not completely terrible, but you won’t find them here. Blake and Weiss are treated as simply having a misunderstanding, and Weiss eventually kinda-sorta reconciles with Blake after only a few real-world minutes of self-reflection. Nothing is actually resolved, and Weiss apparent actual bigotry toward Faunus (yes, an anime girl who hates catgirls. Unreal.) is simply brushed aside. (And of course, despite the weird racism angle here, it will not shock you that at no point during the series so far has an actual POC shown up in a noteworthy role, which is just inexcusable.)
On the whole, Ice Queendom is a mess, really. Which is a shame, because there is some good stuff in here. In addition to the visual highlights there’s a neat plot—unresolved here, presumably it’ll be concluded in the next proper episode—where a Grimm that can imitate humans and trap them in mental prisons based on their own insecurities shows up. It’s defeated temporarily by a mysterious character who calls herself a “nightmare hunter.” Her exorcism method involves tying people up with weird purple string.
Bondage Joke.
It’s weird, it’s cool, and it points a way forward for Ice Queendom in general. It’s not impossible that the series will eventually find its legs. And I hope it does, both because I will probably continue watching it somewhat in spite of my own good judgment (I will remind longtime readers that I’m one of the few Blue Reflection Ray apologists, bad production has never scared me off), and because the people who have been ride-or-die for RWBY for nearly ten years deserve a good show, not something haphazard and half-assed.
The Takeaway: If you can stomach the bizarre plotting and wonky production to get to the standout action sequences and some of the weirder stuff, this might be worth checking out. If you’re a lifelong RWBY fan, you’re probably already watching it. For anyone else? I think this is probably a skip, especially with more promising-looking battle girl anime (eg. Lycoris Recoil) on the immediate horizon.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Heart to Heart! — Let your burning love reach everyone!
– Hoshin Culture Festival Motto
How do you open the two-part finale to your long-running love story? How about your heroine turning to stone and shattering? That’s the visual that Kaguya-sama: Love is War! opens on as its third season draws to a close; girl to granite to rubble. Why? Because Miyuki Shirogane is going to Stanford, and Kaguya Shinomiya knows she can’t stop him. And moreover, knows she shouldn’t.
It’s a visual metaphor, obviously; Kaguya-sama has loved those since it started and it certainly isn’t going to stop using them now. But, the literalization of the sentence “she was shattered by the revelation” gives you a pretty good notion of what we’re all in for here. If Love is War, this is the conflict’s turning point, where the generals and foot soldiers alike earn their medals.
Spare a thought for Hayasaka, who has been mostly-unwillingly playing both roles for ages now, and is who Kaguya goes to for comfort and advice as her carefully-laid plans for a full year of dating fall to pieces. Shirogane isn’t just going to Stanford, he’s graduating a year early to account for cross-Pacific grade differences. For us, it’s an elaboration as to why he’s been acting like time is running out, if it weren’t already obvious. For Kaguya, it’s a sledgehammer to the face. Love is a battlefield, and she’s been ambushed.
Hayasaka, again in her role as a beleaguered advisor, needles her mistress. If the day has to be today, then the confession of feelings—that old Japanese pop media trope so ingrained into the anime landscape that it’s practically part of the scenery—has to be perfect. Kaguya tries different phrasings, Hayasaka shoots almost all of them down. It’s amusing, yes. Kaguya-sama fully empties its bag of visual tricks here; starting with cheerleader-based how-to-confess diagrams and references to the ancient “yukkuri shitte ne” meme.
But the real emotional heft obviously comes when Kaguya-sama reigns it back in. As Hayasaka and Kaguya talk, the room is bathed in a scarlet sunset, and the core point the maid makes is simple; there aren’t any easy outs. Kaguya just has to tell the president how she feels about him somehow. There can be nothing else.
There is just one problem; in order to confess to the president, Kaguya has to find him, first.
In the meantime, theirs is not the only story freefalling through youthful confusion. As she searches high and low for Shirogane, Kaguya catches sight of Ishigami and Tsubame, which serves as a crossfade over to their side of the cultural festival.
Ishigami remains as oblivious-self-conscious as ever, paranoid about coming across as a “creep” for having a command of flower symbology while at the same time being still wholly unaware that what he intended as a simple kind gesture has been taken by Tsubame—and indeed the whole student body—as a declaration of romantic love. Here, Tsubame begs his patience, but because he doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, things get muddled; intentions swept off the ground in the December breeze, and the half-punchline that is Ishigami’s continued unawareness can only do so much to pop the winter evening ambiance. Unintentionally, Ishigami gives Tsubame until March, when the cherry tree they’re standing under blooms, to truly answer his feelings. The gymnast is surprised by his mental fortitude, and the whole sequence is funny, but also very sweet in its own way.
It’s only after the two part that Ishigami gets some sense of what he may have actually done. A festival play recounts the legend that gives the culture festival its heart motif, and our boy comes within striking distance of figuring out that giving hearts out is an implied romantic gesture. Still, the second Tsubame herself takes stage in the play, all rational thought goes out the window for Ishigami, and he promptly stops thinking about it.
But, even if things between them don’t work out, one gets the sense they’ll both be fine in their own way.
Back at our main story, though, Kaguya is lost in her own little world as she prepares to light the culture festival bonfire via flaming arrow. She manages an impressively skippy internal monologue the entire time, as We Want to Talk About Kaguya! leads Karen and Erika cameo off to the side of the scene.
I wonder if Aoi Koga gets paid by the word.
Karen will write a doujin about this later.
But the bonfire-lighting itself is swept aside as the mysterious “phantom thief Arsene” makes his presence known; the papier-mâché dragon jewel is gone, and the thief’s calling cards float in the air en-masse as a shadowy silhouette cuts a looming figure against the night sky.
Of course, no one but us knows that Shirogane is behind all this just yet. Notably, Fujiwara tasks herself with solving the mystery, only for her grandiloquent proclamations of her own genius to dissolve into a puddle as it becomes obvious that most of the ‘clues’ she’s found are either her own inventions or deliberately planted to throw her off. This is Kaguya’s puzzle to solve, and there’s only one actual hint.
Karen, in what is to my recollection her single most substantial contribution to Kaguya-sama‘s story, points out that the small calling cards are made of flame-resistant paper. This sets Kaguya’s own mental wheels a-turning, because that kind of care and preparedness reminds her of a certain someone, and it does not take long for the rest of the game to click into place.
And to give us all just the slightest airbrake of comedy before rocketing into its last half hour, Kaguya-sama then pulls out the one-two punch of “Kaguya dropped the plastic heart she was going to give Shirogane” and “Kaguya does not know how coffee machines work.”
Very good, Miss Shinomiya.
Shirogane, meanwhile, is starting to get flustered. The usual pattern of his where he does something extremely teenager only to cringe himself half to death the following day beginning to kick in as the second day of the culture festival ends. The narrator puts it best; the final battle of this war of love is to be a fistfight.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War!‘s season finale is a fucking hurricane of romantic imagery.
Shirogane’s plan is grandiose, ridiculous, ostentatious, and the sort of thing that only a heartsick teenage boy could dream up. It leans hard on narrative convenience—the strings he’d have to pull make no real sense, and the post-hoc explanations given here don’t really either—and hard on pre-built character sympathy. If someone did this kind of thing in real life and you read about it in the news, they’d be a horrible creep and you’d hate them. This is a “proposing on the Jumbotron” gesture blown up to ridiculous fantasy proportions.
But that of course is part of the beauty of fiction. Kaguya and Shirogane love each other very much; we know this, and have known this. It’s been obvious to everyone, including much of the show’s own cast, for, at this point, real-world years. Anything that moves the needle at all is good. But this? This is insanity. Beautiful, wonderful, romantic insanity. If love is a sickness, Shirogane’s case is terminal.
He uses some mechanical doohickey to pop a massive balloon, sending scores of heart balloons out into the air above the festival, held aloft by the heat from the bonfire, the December night breeze, and the fact that anime is the highest form of art. Shirogane’s winding internal monologue about how he really wants Kaguya to confess first because he needs to feel equal to her only half makes sense, but that doesn’t really matter. None of the obvious little holes in Shirogane’s plan really matter. Do you see how hard Kaguya’s blushing? I got contact flutters from watching this. Frankly, I’m a little envious.
It would be one thing if it stopped there, but it does not.
This isn’t usually what one means when they say “popping the question,” but it certainly feels comparable.
Really stop for a second and think about what he’s asking there. Think about these two characters and their respective situations, think about the enormity of what he’s asking her to do. Even on its own, studying abroad is a huge undertaking. Studying abroad at Stanford University is quite another level beyond that. Doing so in Kaguya’s specific situation is yet another step beyond that. This is an absurd ask. Kaguya says as much.
She says yes anyway. An implicit fuck-it-all to her own upbringing and, really, her entire life up to this point. She doesn’t even really hesitate. She’s giddy, if anything.
They kiss. Obviously, they kiss. On top of a clocktower, hearts surrounding them in the air.
Elsewhere on the festival grounds, Hayasaka blushes like crazy once she realizes what’s going on, and Miko Iino, alone on patrol, is the only one not present at the bonfire. Ishigami brings her a recording—and a plastic heart trinket, for the lost and found—a much more subtly sweet moment that contrasts nicely with the star-scraping, wild gesture that Shirogane’s just pulled off. Could there be something between those two someday? I don’t think it’s impossible. (It will certainly be funny if Ishigami, the character that Kaguya-sama‘s least pleasant fans attach themselves to out of a misunderstanding of his character, ends up having to choose between two women who are into him, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)
And just like that, the festival switches off like a lightswitch, and we cut to the morning after. There is a postscript of sorts here; it’s very funny, and sweet in its own way, featuring a rare appearance from Kaguya’s childish “Kaguya-chan” personality. But with all I’ve said here, recapping that bit as well would feel a little pointless. It made me cackle out loud at one point, so you can consider that an endorsement.
It’s a valid question to ask; where, if anywhere, does Kaguya-sama: Love is War! go from here?
Well, not long after the episode aired in Japan, we got an answer of sorts. Whether that’s another season being announced, an OVA, a film, no one really knows yet. But Kaguya and Shirogane’s story doesn’t end here, and that’s the important part. I will spoil nothing, but there is much of the manga left to cover, so I am very curious as to what’s being planned. Kaguya-sama will appear here on Magic Planet Anime again, that much is almost a certainty.
But for now, the romantic rollercoaster ride has come to an end. Until next time, Kaguya fans.
Results for Today’s Battle: Mutual Victory
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
In which Buggy the Clown learns not to mess with Luffy’s hat.
Today’s One Piece chapter is another that’s essentially just a single, uninterrupted action scene. It’s also a bit longer than normal, with a few extra pages, presumably to commemorate the start of a new volume. But if you’re inclined to worry that this will dilute the action somehow, rest easy. There really isn’t much to this chapter but 20-some pages of blood and iron, but a series like this doesn’t always need much else.
We do learn one thing, though. That cliffhanger from the end of the last chapter is followed up on immediately; Buggy and Red-Hair Shanks once served on the same ship. Beyond that, we don’t get much detail, and it’s not like Buggy is going to tell Luffy anything else without a very good reason.
Of course, Luffy interprets Buggy’s reluctance to share info in a somewhat different light.
The remainder of the chapter’s pages are largely a tangle of rubber limbs and detaching heads; Luffy and Buggy seem almost an equal match, and I like the comedic detail of the more normal members of Buggy’s crew knowing to stay out of the fight.
What gives Luffy an extra edge? Buggy damaging his hat, of course, first just by nicking the brim and then by full-on impaling it with a trio of stubby daggers. That much is enough to turn the tide in Luffy’s favor.
Will it be enough to actually take the clown down? Well, we’ll find out together, tomorrow.
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Summer is upon us, anime fans, and with the changing of literal seasons comes also the changing of anime seasons.
I think most of you know the drill by now, but just in case you don’t, here’s how this works. You go to this survey, you check all the boxes for shows you’d be interested in me doing one of my weekly Let’s Watch columns on (there’s no limit. Hell, you could check all of them if you wanted to, as pointless as that would be), and that’s basically it.
I’ve changed the way the list is organized, somewhat. This time around, it simply uses Anichart.net’s order, and I’ve put in every eligible series under both its English-market title and the Romaji title. (In some cases, these are one in the same, those would be the shows with only one title listed.) I don’t use unofficial synonyms. So, for example; Call of the Night is in there both under that title and under the Romaji version of its JP market title, Yofukashi no Uta, but it’s not there under the little-used manga scanlation title Night Owl Song.
As with last season, you’ll note there are a few notable omissions. This is for one of several reasons:
It’s a sequel to something I haven’t seen, or I otherwise don’t have necessary pre-existing narrative context.
It’s in “streaming jail”, making covering it weekly impractical or impossible.
Or I’m planning to cover it anyway. (Although that doesn’t describe anything
I’m not sure how many, exactly, Let’s Watch columns I’ll be picking up this season. There have been some recent structural changes on MPA (I’m sure you’ve noticed, say, the One Piece Every Day project), but I will certainly pick up at least one community pick. This past season I ended up covering the tied-for-third-place Healer Girl as well as the outright winner Spy x Family, so don’t be afraid to punch in votes for obscure stuff even if you don’t think it’ll win. You never know.
I look forward to seeing your responses, anime fans!
Wanna talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers? Consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
Something I like about One Piece is that it has a certain “ah, just one more chapter” quality to it, at least in the format I’m reading it in. As I write this it’s a few minutes shy of 2AM local, and I should really probably be in bed, but I seriously want to know how this fight between Zolo and Cabaji went, so here I am, reading another chapter at two hours past midnight.
My utterly dreadful sleeping habits aren’t the focus of this column, though. Watching Zolo fuck Cabaji up is.1 And to that end, we get a really great page right near the top of the chapter here, complete with Cabaji dropping an old-timey pirate insult.
To be fair it’s not literally all about these two. Somewhere in here, Nanami sneaks off, assuring Luffy that she’s happy to team up with him….if he can get ahold of Buggy’s treasure and the map of the Grand Line, that is.
Far be it from me to criticize perhaps the most successful mangaka of all time, but what’s going on with Nami’s hand there?
But apart from that little aside, this is very much the Cabaji and Zolo show.
Buggy’s second mate leads with a bunch of crazy, vaguely “circus”-themed bullshit like this.
And Zolo counters by being a much better swordsman than Cabaji is. Eventually, Cabaji has to resort to cheating, and Buggy tries to ‘subtly’ help out his third-in-command. A classic heel move, but it doesn’t work. Luffy is still around, after all.
The trickery doesn’t help, and despite literally bleeding out the entire time, Zolo trounces Cabaji. Eventually finishing him off in what is probably the single best page of the whole chapter.
Proving that he isn’t actually an immortal sword demon and instead just fights like one, Zolo collapses from blood loss shortly thereafter, leaving Luffy and Buggy to finish the fight on their own.
And then, just as Volume II draws to a close, Buggy drops this particular bombshell.
And much as I am genuinely dying to know what’s up with all of that, it’s probably time for this old sea hag to turn in for the evening. (Besides, I’m leaning a little too heavily on screencaps, which is always a sign that it’s probably time to stop here for the day.) Before I do though, now that we’re two volumes and a couple weeks deep, I just wanted to ask how you’re all feeling about the project so far. Please sound off in the comments (or on my Retrospring) about any thoughts you might have; positive, negative, whatever they may be.
I look forward to hearing from you. See you tomorrow for the start of Volume III, pirates! 🏴☠️
1: A danger of late-night writing: I forgot the “is” in this sentence when I first wrote it and only noticed it later. This would be a very different kind of column if that were what happened in this chapter!
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
Alright, so I accidentally lied yesterday! Today’s chapter is less about the fight between Buggy and Luffy—presumably, that’s still to come—and more about the fight between Zolo and Buggy’s third-in-command Cabaji, who we met yesterday.
There is a little bit of Luffy-centric material, though. Especially when Nami freaks out about his balloon stunt from yesterday’s chapter. (And hey, to be fair to her; I would too.)
But yeah, mostly this chapter concerns the locking of blades between Zolo and Cabaji.
Despite Cabaji’s ‘noble blademaster’ posturing, he’s as dirty as the rest of Buggy’s crew, and he spends a lot of this chapter deliberately trying to re-open Zolo’s wounds.
But if Cabaji thinks that doing so will even out the fight, or even make Zolo an easy target, he’s sadly mistaken.
Live Buggy Reaction
Zolo actually does the rest of Cabaji’s job for him, deliberately injuring himself, just to prove that he doesn’t need to be on level ground with Cabaji to take him down. This kind of hot-blooded vainglorious nonsense is exactly what makes manga like this worth reading.
This pic goes hard, feel free to screenshot.
Once again, this chapter is mostly action (and that looks like it will continue to be the case for at least a little while longer), so I don’t exactly have a ton to say. But certainly, it’s a good chapter; solid, entertaining, and pulpy, exactly what you want out of your weekly comics. (They’re daily for us, but we’ll ignore that little foible.)
For lack of anywhere else to put it I do also want to mention the impressive opening sequence where Buggy uses his crewmen as human shields. Why do they like him again? Oh, but it is such a cool page. Maybe that’s why.
Tomorrow: The two swordsmen battle on!
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
But one thing I’ve not discussed is the second, other anime hidden in plain sight in Love is War! I am talking, of course, about the combined storyline presented by the Season 1 and Season 3 EDs.
Unique to the anime, and with no real equivalent anywhere in the manga, these two EDs tell a wordless, fantastical otherworld version of Love is War!‘s central storyline, blown up to epic fantasy proportions despite their limited runtime. They cross Love is War!’s basic ideas with a setting that begins at Studio Ghibli and ends somewhere out near Starship Trooper. It’s a strange, singular thing, and I love that it exists.
Metatextually, they are presented as a pair of dreams. One had by Kaguya in the student council room as she dozes off after a day of hard work, and the other had by Miyuki in what appears to be the cafe` from season 2.
In this version of the story., Miyuki Shirogane is no student, he’s a plane mechanic. And Kaguya’s status as a “princess” appears to be far more literal, with all that implies. She’s also not human, possibly alluding to her namesake‘s nature as a princess from the Moon. By their nature, neither short has a terribly complex story. Indeed, the lack of any dialogue makes the specific events depicted in each ambiguous to some degree, but there’s no denying that they are telling a story, and that they do fit together.
Like her mundane counterpart, otherworld Kaguya appears to have her heart shut off from the world, and her only real companion is her maid, Hayasaka.
But it seems like some version of the student council did exist here at one point. A brief flash of a framed picture is all we get, but it’s enough to make the conclusion that Kaguya had bonded with these people—just like she did in the real show—only to have them taken away from her.
This frames what follows in a fascinating way; something like a mutual plan, by both this “aviation club” and Kaguya and Hayasaka themselves (the latter takes up a rifle here and looks perfectly at home holding it.) Kaguya escapes from the massive zeppelin all of her lonely isolation shots took place in, and literally sprouts fucking angel wings as she flees. In the pivotal, romantic clincher, she grabs on to Miyuki’s hand as he flies past in a biplane.
Ishigami and Chika are there, too, to give their approval. Kaguya is sometimes hard on these two, especially Chika, so it can be nice to have even small reminders that, yes, she really does care about them a lot.
And the short ends on a shot of Kaguya waking up in the council room, giving her friends a warm smile.
The second ED—again, from the third season. The second season’s ED was nice in its own way, but doesn’t connect to this story—is stranger and darker. Some amount of time has clearly passed, and Kaguya, here specifically marked out as an alien, has been once again spirited away by her people. The opening shot of the ED shows her coronated with a wicked crown that seems to change her very body and soul, a blunt and evocative metaphor for her abusive upbringing from the main series, and the “Ice Kaguya” persona she once put on to escape it.
So, what choice do our heroes have? Pulp sci-fi splash screens spring to life as they spell out the operation.
Miyuki broods as he remembers those he’s met over the course of what seems to be a rather long war (more questions unanswered, there). Hayasaka, Iino, and what appears to be his own family. But when the Earthlings arrive, there’s no time to reminisce; they come up against swarms of monster bugs, lead by Kaguya herself from the chair of command.
There’s a ton of movement in this microscopic fight scene—it really is only a few seconds—bullets fly and, at one point, Chika takes a shot to the head (don’t worry, she’s fine).
Through the furor, Miyuki can only think about one other person on the battlefield. An injured Hayasaka gives him Kaguya’s hair ribbon, and he dashes forward like a madman, leaping, seeming to knock the crown off, and tying her hair back into a ponytail. The spell is broken! Mission successful.
The dream ends here, and we see the real Miyuki’s eye pop open as Kaguya gently wakes him up.
Isn’t all this just adorable? That Miyuki fantasizes about being this romantic hero archetype rescuing the princess from the enemy’s clutches? Isn’t it adorable too, that Kaguya dreams of being rescued by him, even if she does a lot of the work herself, in her own dream? There is a lot of warmth between the two even in just the short few seconds they interact with each other at the end of the second ED.
To state the obvious; I would, of course, watch or read the absolute hell out of a spinoff that elaborated upon this story. But even as successful as Kaguya is, that seems unlikely. So, it remains, just these few minutes, like tiny jewels.
In general, I’ve always believed that Kaguya is at its strongest when making bold, sweeping, romantic gestures. It is at its weakest when it attempts to delve into gender psychology and make too-broad statements about the nature of love or sex. One of the reasons that these two EDs work so well is that they’re entirely the former, distilling down all of Kaguya‘s strengths and casually eliminating all of its flaws into just a couple combined minutes of excellence. There is nothing else like it, and as I already mentioned, I’m just happy that it exists. Hopefully you are too.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
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