第56回：Payback is a Beast

Talk about getting your just deserts, Zunisha ends the battle with Jack exactly how Jack started it weeks ago. Jack took his first swing at the mink with his trunk and Zunisha returned the favor. JUGGERNAUT!

We also get our first look at Jack’s mouth and it appears that, if he’s human, he’s filed his teeth into points.

It’s a bit dark and dingy but is that Kid’s leg I spy locked up at Kaidou’s base!? If that’s Kid’s fate I wonder what befell Killer and the Kid Pirates. To mention this puts Kid’s aspirations of taking down Shanks on the backburner.

The voice acting team for many of the new characters have been officially unveiled! I’m most excited about Gaku Hamada as Mr. Tanaka.

Years ago I watched Hamada-san in the FujiTV drama, Operation Love, a television drama that I enjoyed so much, it partially inspired my marriage proposal to my wife! Watching that drama I could only think of one thing, “If there’s ever a live-action One Piece –not that there will be- Hamada-san would be the *perfect* Luffy. I’m serious, check out the drama and he’s oozing everything that we love about our captain! Well, he may not be playing Luffy but I sure can’t wait to see how his character Mr. Tanaka utilizes the powers of the Nuke Nuke Fruit!

Speaking of Luffy, his white casino getup had been bothering me for weeks!

I knew I’d seen it somewhere before! Finally, it came to me! The casino fashion has almost certainly been inspired by Johnny Depp portraying journalist Hunter S. Thompson in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas! Can you catch any other inspired designs?

It’s been almost a year since we covered the case of the Kuma-loving boy (Column #36) and I wasn’t sure exactly how Toei would adapt the well-hidden gag from the comic. The answer to that question was a resounding FRONT AND CENTER! Hardly a blink-and-you’ll miss it reference!

Green huh? My bet was on orange. :-D

Have you noticed that Luffy’s Gum Gum Leo Bazooka is slightly different in delivery than previous incarnations?

While the attack was previously delivered with his wrists together horizontally, this powerful form of the attack shows his wrists vertically aligned. Hey, it looks almost exactly like a Kamehameha! Well, *almost* exactly like one except for one detail, in the animation the left wrist is on top instead of the right wrist.

Episode 729 ends with colosseum warriors skewered by what *appears* to be Billow White but, is it really?

Billow White’s string bundles are white from root to tip while what we see here are clearly the Color of Arms-tipped clusters of Ever White.

Compare these lean and limber clusters with the thick and arced Billow White clusters from Chapter 785 and it pretty much confirms these as Ever White strands. What a great way to show the viewer just how far Doflamingo has gone off the deep end at this stage of the battle. Obviously he didn’t need to use a game-ending super move on colosseum fodder but he just doesn’t care anymore. Anyone in his way is going to suffer the ultimate punishment for defying a fallen Celestial Dragon.