892: ''The Land of Wano! To the Land of Samurai Where Cherry Blossoms Dance''

[Crossword]

Title: ''The Land of Wano! To the Land of Samurai Where Cherry Blossoms Dance''
Chapters Covered: rest of 909 and 910
Episode Director: Tatsuya Nagamine (*****)(new series director)
Animation Director: Midori Matsuda (***1/2)(new character designer)
Time: 8:30PM EST
Watch It: ​www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece

[imperioonepiece]

New opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqx08guz0VI

[thaihoa91]

[HD] One Piece Opening 22 - Over The Top by Hiroshi Kitadani & Kohei Tanaka

One Piece Episode 893 Preview

Zoro in Wano + New Eyecatchers - Episode 892

[wjbraden]

How on earth are there no comments yet, that had to have been one of the most beautiful episodes to date, no joke. The new art style and filter is gorgeous, the pacing was great, and there was virtually zero CGI (even for the Thousand Sunny). Plus we got new music, new Wano-themed eyecatchers with remixed character themes, and the new opening (which, I'll admit, wasn't quite what I was expecting, as I thought they would have gone with a Japanese-themed song for this arc, but I like it).

This is the breath of fresh air the anime has needed for a long time. Here's hoping the new staff can keep it up!!

[Sano]

I really enjoyed this episode. The Wano eyecatches with the new verisons of Luffy and Zoro's eyecatches music was really nice. I hope we get new verisons of the other Straw Hats for this arc. I'm surpised that we got a new next episode preview music for this arc.

[No Zaku]

The new OP was great, although I didn't expect it to show anything from Act 2 nor did I expect

Spoiler:

King's wings to be white

. The new art direction is beautiful, and I'd even say that Kin'emon looks better animated in this art style than in the manga. Even the filler is as good as the Katakuri fight filler, hope they can keep it up.

[Darkestsith6]

WOWOWOW, ok, so many things to say about this amazing episode.

1) love the new opening. Filled with spoilers, but glorious for us manga readers
2) New eye catchers with a Wano twist! Luffy/Zoro ones were bad ass, and I cannot wait to see the rest of the crew's
3) Animation was gorgeous once again. If they can keep this up the whole arc, it'll easily be OPs best anime arc.
4) Zoro was a BEAST this chapter. Feel bad for the scrubs who thought they had a chance versus him

First time in a while I even watched the recap portion of an episode because it was so beautiful.

[Blissed]

Goodness what an episode. Goes without saying that it was stunning, but what I really appreciated was finally getting to hear the shamisen being played.

[Crossword]

One of, if not the most visually-interesting episodes of One Piece so far? I'd certainly say so. While I'm kinda 50/50 on how the arc's been unfolding so far in the manga, this was an excellent opener and incredibly atmospheric through the use of color and music. Like the city's colors popped really well, and using heavy use of whites and pinks during the seppuku sequence is a stroke of genius if you happen to know the significance of those colors in traditional Japanese imagery. That was really striking to me. And the use of simple, traditional instruments in the soundtrack made for a great sense of immersion, especially during the nighttime sequence with Zoro.

Animation-wise they probably won't be able to keep the same level of bombast seen in the opening (between Tu, Ishizuka, Mori, Kojima, Umakoshi, and Ishigami that was seriously stacked) for each and every one of the arc's action scenes but the new linework style made even the scenes that were weaker artistically more interesting to look at than they would've been before the change. Kojima's already much-discussed scene from the PV of Zoro cutting down dudes was less flashy than stuff we've seen in the past but displayed a great sense of 3D space that you don't see often in the show. And the new eyecatches with the Straw Hats' leitmotif jingles arranged with traditional Japanese instruments is wicked cool.

Excellent start for both the arc and the new staff and hopefully there'll be some super cool stuff in store for us as we plod deeper into the arc.

[FelRes]

Basically everything you guys said, but to add - dat Zoro manservice. The way they showed him stroking his abs. Just... damn. Fantastic new start, I hope they can keep up that kind of quality.

[MasterKingJC]

Holy shit. I'm speechless. I was prepared for big changes, but I wasn't prepared for how fresh and new this episode would be.
Nagamine and Matsuda are the killer combination of young new talent that One Piece has needed for years.
Over The Top is crazy good. The song is both vintage Kitadani and catchy melody that Super Powers wish it could be. This is the first opening to run at less than 2:30 mins and it benefits the opening greatly. Another shocking moment, the characters and events shown are really recent to the manga! Stuff that happened only a few months ago!
I loved this episode. I never thought I would see One Piece look this good. The colors, composition, music, and filter are all complimenting each other.
I'm seeing animators that haven't been on the anime in a long time, like Tetsuro Tsuyuki and Takashi Kojima.
Did I forget to mention the new eyecatchers? *__*
Sugoi!

Amazing first episode. What a standout job by the whole team.

[BobLoblaw]

It looked pretty good. Animation was consistently good, which is extremely rare in OP these days. Maybe I was looking at a badly encode file, but it looked extremely washed out in several places. If that's actually part of the new filter, then ugh. One step forward, two steps back.

[MythicalDragon]

I...I don't know what to say really. Absolutely outstanding episode.

So besides Tatsuya Nagamine, we have Kouhei Kureta and Aya Komaki who are the show's co-series directors. That really caught me off guard.

The direction was absolutely on point, as expected from someone as titanic as Tatsuya Nagamine. The photography department, which has been changed btw, really went above and beyond and it shows how much of an impact it can have on the look of a show. The lighting, the camera focus changes, great compositing really elevates the visuals to the next level.

The new line filter, also applied by the photography department, that's being applied is also doing wonders.

The new character designer, Midori Matsuda, really did an outstanding job as an animation supervisor this week. Many great shots from her. Ichikawa let her (Matsuda's a woman btw) handle the entire supervision without stepping in at all, which allowed us to see her artistic capabilities. And btw, Matsuda's no question a (****) animation director for me easily.

The highlight of this episode animation-wise is Takashi Kojima, a quite renowned animator in the industry, who animated the Zoro slashing all the fodder with the seppuku blade sequence.

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/81967

You might remember him from OP 3d2y when it comes to OP:

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/21767

Kojima also did a scene during the Dressrosa arc, which let's be honest, is not representative at all of his capabilities as an animator and I'm glad that this episode changed this in that regard.

Another great animation sequence by Tetsuro Tsuyuki, a name I'll be definitely be paying attention to onwards:

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/81970

[Miss Saturday]

Damn they really went all out, didn't they? Almost everything was upgraded. You can tell this is the arc they are most excited about.
Opening is visually good (if not extremely spoilery); the music I can take or leave. The episode itself looked and played out as if it was animated by an entirely different studio. Imagine if every episode looked like this... God damn.

[blackness662]

Fantastic start for the Wano arc, everything was even better than in the manga!
The art style, the music and the sound effects are good additions to the setting.
If they keep this up, then the anime will be great. :)

[YoiYoi]

No one is commenting over the fact that Zoro is massacring Policemen who think he's a serial killer?

[Kishido]

Loved everything of the episode and I hope the quality will stay like this. This is the anime OP deserves

[G1Ravage]

That was marvelous. The opening was fast-paced, and finally did away with most of the opening tropes we've come to expect with the series. Interestingly, it seems they're sticking with the Reverie arc's shtick of placing about ten seconds of that episode's footage into the opening, a la Trigun. Not sure how others will feel about that, but I like it so long as the scenes chosen are interesting or impactful in some way.

The Wano arc will particularly shine in the anime, as the new sound effects and Japanese-styled music will really add to the setting. I really hope the series can continue to be this lively as time goes on. With the new opening, new music, new preview, and new overall style...One Piece has needed this refresh for quite a while.

[Kishido]

Now remake the anime as "Kai" version with that style for overseas

[Captain M]

I hate to be the voice of negativity, and I don't mean to kill the buzz of anyone else in the thread, but jumping in for this one, I wasn't blown away. It looks good, but only the standards set by the rest of the One Piece anime. Maybe it's because I watched the episode back to back with today's Kimetsu no Yaiba. Now that's an adaptation that looks good. This is a massive step forward, but at the end of the day, the anime still is and always will be constrained by the need to stretch its budget over a whole year and make a half a chapter fill a whole episode (though they did a good job of choosing new moments to add instead of stretching existing ones this week). Glad to see the improvements. Still not quite the the thing for me.