 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. And today we have a review of episode 902, the Yokozuna Appears. The invincible Urashima goes after Okiku. And I'm pretty happy to report that this episode was overall quite good. A lot of people might be a bit initially disappointed just because of the content that was covered, but that is not the fault of the anime. Because apart from a few select moments, it really does stick very closely to the manga this week, adapting 13 and a bit's worth of pages, which is actually far above the average, which usually sits around 10 or 11. But as a result, what we have on our hands is a very sumo heavy episode with its good and its bad moments. But thankfully nothing like the ridiculous overpowered Batman stuff that we have had going on recently. So once again, I'm going to have to praise the filler of Wano actually, because my favorite moment of this entire episode was very anime original, and it was when Zoro faced off against Urashima's posse of sumo goons. But in doing so, he decided to invoke the art of sumo and it looked great. It was so strange yet very refreshing to see Zoro not using his blades to fight. And even then when he is unarmed, he usually just uses the no-sword style techniques that emulate his art form. But here he just went into an all-around sumo brawl and it was nice and fluid to watch as well, which is another great credit because usually when the anime goes off book, it doesn't quite hold the same level of integrity that it has when using the manga as a direct reference. Something I was a bit less keen on though was the slashing of a naked man joke. Well, not the joke itself, but what happened to it in the episode. Essentially what the anime did was it double tapped the joke and in an effort to explain the technical specifications of how Zoro let Kiku become captured, which just sort of happened in the manga. We actually have a sumo suggest the idea of not slashing him because he is a naked man, which you know, it's funny in its own right. But when the joke comes back around to its intended positioning with Zoro stating it, it does lose some of its punch because we already knew it was there. Whereas in the manga, Kiku gets captured and Luffy asks Zoro why he allowed it to happen, at which point out of absolutely nowhere. And in his very odd Zoro logic, he states that it wouldn't have seemed right to slice up a naked guy. And yes, like most things I say, this is a minor complaint, but I think double tapping the joke took away from some of the humor, but it was still funny. Another moment I quite enjoyed was Luffy's burst of conquerous Haki near the beginning of the episode. Now having just seen one piece stampede was underwhelming in comparison, but I liked how just differently it was portrayed here. I'm always intrigued by how individual creatives choose to visualize this particular form of Haki because it is very different every time. And in this particular case, I describe Luffy's burst as a bit of a golden shower raining down upon the denizens of Bakura Town. But the problem with having Stampede so fresh in my mind though is that no action can possibly hold a candle to it, and that applies to the rest of this episode as well. There was some legitimately great stuff like when Kiku finally made a move and sliced away Urashima's topknot, and as far as the anime goes, it was really well done. But to me, it still felt quite slow and not dynamic enough, especially considering how it was presented in the manga, which just felt so much faster, skillful, and more imposing of Kiku's true power. But once again, it was adequately done here. Something that I'd say was less than adequate though was the film scene involving Urashima fighting the group of random sumos, and I get why it was done. It was a good opportunity for some non-impactful filler to take place, but I don't think it was very well implemented. Compared to the rest of the episode, Urashima's action against the group of sumos felt slow, jittery, and a bit cheap. And this is the sort of thing I was talking about before when I mentioned the anime going off book, because it can often result in scenes like this, which are less than optimally directed and animated. And what's worse is that we have a direct comparison for good sumo action in the episode, which highlights how underwhelming this segment was. The Zoro fight I mentioned earlier was one example, but Urashima's lunch for Kiku is another. Everything about this moment, except the time it took to conclude was pretty perfect. The shot was well composed, Urashima felt large, intimidating, and most importantly, he felt powerful. Which you know, even though he's been thrashing dude after dude in this episode was not something I had felt until this moment because of how haphazardly it was all constructed. And Luffy's episode ending rescue clash with Urashima was great as well, just once again, lingered on for an awefully long time. It was kind of like a more acceptable version of the Batman Zoro clash, consisting of a wide shot and a couple of rounds of close ups. I don't know, I just don't think that these power moments should be lingered on like this, because after a while you lose that initial oomph of impact, and you're just kind of waiting for the next thing to happen. Something I did really appreciate though was the elevation of the sumo announcer character, who I think is only featured in one panel tucked away in a corner in the manga, but I enjoyed his presence and the energy his voice actor gave, which was very necessary for the Phyllisene, in particular that he was involved in. I also liked that they made him blonde because he reminds me of the announcer for the World Martial Arts Tournament in Dragon Ball. But as for something I really did not appreciate, it was the recap in the beginning. So I warned against this last week when the recap was 90 seconds and I said it would not be surprising if you know, things slowly crept up to two minutes in the future. But it turns out that creep was not as slow as I predicted, and this week we had a whopping two minutes and 18 seconds of recap. And that is just, it's far too much. The recap was longer than the opening, and when you put them together, that's almost five minutes of your episode just gone into nothingness. But with everything said and done, I very much preferred this week's episode to last week. It was much more enjoyable to watch, and some of that maybe because Tama wasn't involved, so when there was Phyllis, it was based on an event somewhat more exciting than watching a child cry and fear for her life. I will say that I really do like Tama as she is presented in the anime thus far, much more than the manga actually, but this kid is like a Phyllis magnet. But that pretty much does it for episode 902. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. 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However, in order to maintain the element of surprise, Batman made Kaido the face of his global operation. So in conclusion, so long as Batman is alive, nobody else has any hope of becoming the pirate king, unless of course we're talking about one Osumo extraordinaire, Urashima, who according to this episode has apparently consumed the Gouragurinomi and is now Batman's closest rival. Seriously though, what was that? He looked exactly like he was conjuring the Gouragurinomi. The sound effect and everything was even there. Why are you toying with me like this anime?