It's starting to become tradition that every major One Piece arc will have that one mysterious character detail that remains a painful tease and nothing more. In Dressrosa it was Doflamingo's eyes, and in Whole Cake Island it's Judge's eyebrows. Big Mom dropped the thunderbolt on Judge's face and cracked his helmet wide open, but its contents are still covered in shadows, leaving all my theories up in the air. I'm still pretty sure that his eyebrows are massive and bushy, with six swirls on each side (Get it? Germa "66"?), but it looks increasingly likely that we may never find out. Perhaps it never really mattered to begin with.
Anyway, this episode suffers from a lack of polish. The first half continues to be action-heavy (still adding embellishments on top of the original manga material) but there's a notable lack of detail in most of the drawings. There manage to be some stand-out moments of animation sandwiched between the endless reaction shots of characters hanging out on the sidelines, but it's an awkward mishmash of good and bad, both aesthetically and pacing-wise. Right up until the big scenery change at the end, this episode gets bogged down by a lot of meaningless noise. If you want to see the Vinsmokes and the non-Katakuri members of Big Mom's family get some more time to shine, the anime has you covered, but the content can still get boring.
That said, a major scene I forgot to mention in the last review was the continuing adventures of the Tamate Box, the bomb-rigged chest that Mom was hoping to open during her daughter's wedding. It ended up in the hands of Du Feld, one of Big Mom's guests, but before he could open it and discover its "treasures", he was slain by Stussy, who turned out to be a double agent working for the government's CP-0 group this whole time. And before she could open the box, it began tumbling down the side of the Whole Cake Chateau. I think this episode does a good job getting our protagonists to an emotional low point, with Big Mom crushing the Vinsmokes effortlessly and her kids successfully capturing Luffy and Sanji just as Katakuri's Haki alerts him of the falling box. We've been anticipating this bomb going off for months, and once it hits the ground it creates an explosion much bigger than expected; it takes a big chunk out of the chateau, and Big Mom's entire castle begins to fall.
There's real joy to be had in seeing the tables turn in our heroes' favor so drastically and unexpectedly. The chateau falling will take at least another episode to play out, but the excitement in Capone's demented laughter once he realizes he may have won is infectious, and it's cool to see the camera cut between all the various rooms we've visited throughout the arc being destroyed. You can only imagine how dumbfounded the Big Mom pirates must be as they topple and roll off the side of the building. Luffy's "gift" from all those years ago paid off tremendously, and this final sequence was enough to elevate the whole episode for me.
This set piece flings the entire cast into the air to fall thousands of feet, bringing the adventurous spirit that this arc has desperately needed. We're doing away with Big Mom's tea party and moving to the ground level where the Straw Hats will have a renewed chance to book it towards the sea now that their goals have been re-accomplished. Honestly, the next episode could spend most of its runtime in midair with the heroes and villains still falling, and I'd still probably have a good time. That scope and whimsy are the shot in the arm I needed.
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It's starting to become tradition that every major One Piece arc will have that one mysterious character detail that remains a painful tease and nothing more. In Dressrosa it was Doflamingo's eyes, and in Whole Cake Island it's Judge's eyebrows. Big Mom dropped the thunderbolt on Judge's face and cracked his helmet wide open, but its contents are still covered in shadows, leaving all my theories up in the air. I'm still pretty sure that his eyebrows are massive and bushy, with six swirls on each side (Get it? Germa "66"?), but it looks increasingly likely that we may never find out. Perhaps it never really mattered to begin with.