One Piece (2026-) ‒ Episode 1180
Episode 1180 of One Piece is a visual feast for the eyes.
What a gorgeous-looking anime. The Toei team pulled out all the stops for this one. It's almost incredible to look back on the long arc of this series and think about the reputation that it has had. When I was first getting into One Piece in those long-forgotten days of 2018, I was weighing whether to start the anime or the manga. A lot of the existing fans told me to stick with the manga, and they had a whole host of reasons for that recommendation: it's the source material, you can read it at your own pace, etc. Among these wise words was a recurring theme that the anime at the time was simply not up to the quality people wanted.
Looking at an episode like 1180 makes me realize just how far we've come. The idea that you would dissuade someone from watching the One Piece anime because of how it looks is, frankly, a bit laughable. Even if you don't agree with every stylistic choice being made, it's still pound-for-pound one of the most exciting visual spectacles each and every week. This was a real show-stopper of an episode to end a season on and once again firmly plants the flag that One Piece is not a show to be missed.
The actual events are shocking but relatively simple. Gunko uses her powers to begin converting the giants of Elbaph to evil. That's a big deal, though it's basically all that happens. Watching this conversion play out across the runtime is a tad slow for my tastes, but it's hard to argue with the choice when the transformation process is so well-animated. The deep shadows and lighting changes alongside shocked expression work from the onlookers do a great job selling the sheer terror of the events on display.
Perhaps most interesting of all was the Othello motif. It's a simple enough concept, having the giant visualizations of the game pieces flipping over from one side to another to represent the changes. What's so uniquely One Piece about it is the Othello board being textual as well, with Dorry and Brogy standing on either end of lines of giants to convert them all at once. Even the way the giants are flipped end over end as they are pushed underground, as though standing on giant game pieces, is a terrific bit of imagery. It's rare to see board games mentioned in this way outside of Go, Chess, or Checkers, and it's a nice flourish that adds a lot of texture.
A fun episode to watch for certain, and it'll be a long wait before the next season starts.
Rating:
One Piece is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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