899: ''Defeat Determined - Attack of the Strawman!''

[Crossword]

Strawman, my favorite forgotten Robot Master.

Title: ''Defeat Determined - Attack of the Strawman!''
Chapters Covered: rest of 913
Episode Director: Yusuke Suzuki (***)
Animation Director: Toshio Deguchi (**)
Time: 8:30PM EST
Watch It: ​www.crunchyroll.com/one-piece

[thaihoa91]

One Piece Episode 900 Preview




Zoro vs Hawkins & Okiku appears - Episode 899

[FelRes]

I like that the preview shows Tama's eyeballs leaving her head

[jmbjr]

Good step up from last week's disappointing episode imo. The expanded Zoro vs Hawkins stuff was handled better than I thought it would be (especially compared to the uninspired choreography last week), and the finisher looked amazing, so I was cool with it taking up so much of the episode.

Urashima having pink hair is unexpected and weird, but I guess there have been weirder color choices. Kiku's color scheme is surprisingly normal, though.

[Crossword]

I can't watch the full episode since I have work early tomorrow, but I can tell from a quick skim that it looks miles better than last week's. It's really fun to look at the evolution of Ishizuka's style and see how much more modern it is now compared to his work from only a few years ago, especially compared to his work from sixteen years ago!

Yeah, Urashima having pink hair is another one of those really WTF choices, especially compared to Kiku's pretty normal-looking palette. His outfit though would look really nice on Jimbei with those colors, though!

[BellisarioFaith]

I find a lot of the hair colors hilarious even just because of how much they don't match up with what the black-and-white manga colors would suggest.

Example 1: Rebecca, Toko, and Urashima all have pink hair, with Toko's and Rebecca's in particular looking very similar shades of pink.
-->In the manga, Rebecca is drawn with "light" (i.e. white/not colored in) hair, Toko and Urashima are drawn with "dark" (i.e. black/colored in) hair.

Example 2: Toko, Komurasaki (teal), and Queen (blond/yellow) all have fairly light hair. Shinobu has dark brown hair that's considerably darker than all of theirs. Kanjuro's dark pink hair is also darker than all of theirs.
-->Toko, Komurasaki, and Queen are all drawn "dark"-haired in the manga, and Kanjuro and Shinobu are drawn "light"-haired.

EDIT: And yeah, it's not like it's a big deal or anything, I just can't help but chuckle at it now and then as people's weird hair colors that are not what you'd expect at all continue to be revealed.

[Zephray]

Why did they end on Kaido? Random. They could’ve ended on Law just fine.

Wasn’t so impressed by the direction and animation in the first half, surprisingly. I think I actually like the last half of the last episode better, insofar as the Hawkins fight goes.

Enjoyed the back half of the episode; didn’t even catch that O-tsuru was hiding in the tail when I read the manga chapter twice. Great to see the anime draw more attention to stuff like that.

Looks like next week we’ll get a full chapter!

[uniaka ikuzakas]

Hawkins's fruit doesn't even work the way toei thinks it does. Not to mention zoro only took 2 of his lifes not all lol.

[JazzMazz]

Hawkins's fruit doesn't even work the way toei thinks it does. Not to mention zoro only took 2 of his lifes not all lol.

They did expand upon it in the anime, with the strawman being able deflect damage as well as Hawkins himself...

[Kishido]

Far better this week but I still have to LOL at Law's outfit with their jolly Roger on it

Makes totally sense

[Zephray]

Hawkins's fruit doesn't even work the way toei thinks it does. Not to mention zoro only took 2 of his lifes not all lol.

Yeah. He had no defense. Episode made Hawkins look weak. Zoro could hit him ten times no problem.

[yorosenpai]

Wow, Zoro vs Straw-moster was very good . The animation is insane, Zoro is just epic here

[JazzMazz]

Yeah. He had no defense. Episode made Hawkins look weak. Zoro could hit him ten times no problem.

How did this episode make Hawkins look weak when he was far more of a pain in the ass than he was in the manga, and Zoro had to go the extra mile to keep up with him that he didn't in the manga?

[MythicalDragon]

Solid episode.

This is definitely Yusuke Suzuki's best episode so far. It's definitely a step in the right direction for him because there were some really cool angles in this episode. Idk if it was Suzuki or Nagamine, but the latter most likely was involved in this episode's storyboard. However there were still definitely some direction and board choices that rubbed me in the wrong way. Either way, a younger episode director like Suzuki is definitely gonna learn more from an excellent director like Nagamine and I hope he'll use this great opportunity to improve.

Really good bits of animation on this episode, the one that stood out the most to me was ofc Katsumi Ishizuka. However gotta keep an eye on Tetsuro Tsuyuki, he's also a force to be reckoned with. Tu Yong-ce's scene was nice, but he can do better. Can't really blame him considering the amount of work he's tackling every time (and it's still turning out decently after all).

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/85820

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/85819

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/85817

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/85818

Midori Matsuda, the character designer of the series, is from now on credited as the chief animation director alongside Keiichi Ichikawa since she's been pretty involved with her corrections in the latest episodes (also because she loves drawing Zoro the most). Very impressive considering the amont of work a character designer has to do.

Next week's landmark episode gonna be very interesting as it is gonna be directed by one of our co-series directors and arguably the best episode director right now on the show, Aya Komaki.

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

Wasn’t so impressed by the direction and animation in the first half, surprisingly. I think I actually like the last half of the last episode better, insofar as the Hawkins fight goes.

Wait what? Did you even see Katsumi Ishizuka's scene? How's that unimpressive? That scene alone is better than the majority of what last week had to offer in terms of animation. And last week's 2nd half, exept the Strawman morphing animated by Tu Yong-ce and Shimanuki's scene of Hawkins impaling the lizard horse thing, didn't really have much animation compared to this week. The direction and storyboarding was better in last week's 2nd half though and that's what mainly carried it.

[Blissed]

Good episode, I like Kiku's VA as well

[Zephray]

How did this episode make Hawkins look weak when he was far more of a pain in the ass than he was in the manga, and Zoro had to go the extra mile to keep up with him that he didn't in the manga?

Zoro got a few small nicks and Hawkins lost more than half his available lives and had shit defense.

[JazzMazz]

Zoro got a few small nicks and Hawkins lost more than half his available lives and had shit defense.

Think that kind of underplays that Zoro needed to use double gorilla in order to match up to the strawman, the fact the strawman was actually capable of holding multiple lives as opposed to just being one, and the strawman showing it can use its giant nail hands for offensive purposes. Not to mention, Zoro was shown to be notably more strained after the confrontation than he was in the manga.

Anyway, I find this sort of argument to be baseless, considering that as opposed to you, I've seen other manga readers be upset that Zoro struggled so much with Hawkins, so I'm just here wondering, was Hawkins tougher or not, since one crowd is saying he was giving Zoro too much of a hard time and the other says he got his ass handed to him...

[Blissed]

I've learned to just generally stay away from discussions over Zoro's portrayal.

[Zephray]

Think that kind of underplays that Zoro needed to use double gorilla in order to match up to the strawman, the fact the strawman was actually capable of holding multiple lives as opposed to just being one, and the strawman showing it can use its giant nail hands for offensive purposes. Not to mention, Zoro was shown to be notably more strained after the confrontation than he was in the manga.

Anyway, I find this sort of argument to be baseless, considering that as opposed to you, I've seen other manga readers be upset that Zoro struggled so much with Hawkins, so I'm just here wondering, was Hawkins tougher or not, since one crowd is saying he was giving Zoro too much of a hard time and the other says he got his ass handed to him...

Honestly, I think it was fine in the manga. He knocked off a life or two from Hawkins and got a little scratched up in the process. In the anime, though, he nearly killed all of Hawkin’s lives and only got a few scratches. It’s a difference.

[Skippy]