Shoujo Sect (少女セクト) is an 18+ shoujo ai series. And by 18+, I mean it’s a hentai. But, I actually didn’t know it was a hentai when I added the manga to my list. I thought it was simply erotica, like Citrus.
You can imagine my surprise when, very quickly, I discovered my mistake. However, the Shoujo Sect manga is very short — only 16 chapters. So, I figured I’d continue reading it and then watch the anime adaptation, as well. That’s right, today’s review is a double feature.
Since the manga is short, the anime is too. It’s a three-episode OVA called Shoujo Sect: Innocent Lovers. Why did they add a subtitle onto the OVA? I’m not sure. I guess it’s to make it easier to differentiate between the anime and manga when searching online.
Shinobu Handa and Kirin Suwabe
Anyway, let’s get into the main premise of the series. There are girls at an all-girls school. And, guess what? All the girls at this all-girls school are gay — even the one teacher who makes an appearance. What a great and original idea.
Okay, so as I said, I first read the manga version of the series. It was pretty decent. The sex scenes are good, which as you might expect, is important for a series like this. But, I found it pretty hard to keep track of the characters. I still don’t know who the dark-haired girl on the cover of Volume 1 is supposed to be.
The anime fixed this issue with the manga. It was way easier to understand who was who when everything was in color. And, I’d say that the sex scenes are even better in the anime. You know, because the anime adds movement and sound into the mix.
There’s a bit more to this yuri series than “girls being girls.” It also has quite a bit of drama and a shockingly complex web of interpersonal relationships. This web has two centers: Momoko Naitou and Shinobu Handa. They’re the ones who everyone else is connected to.
Alright, let’s begin untangling the web. Shinobu and Momoko were childhood friends. Now that they’re in high school, Shinobu has a crush on Momoko. However, Momoko doesn’t remember Shinobu from their childhood. This is the start of the drama.
To make up for the lack of affection she’s receiving from Momoko, Shinobu starts her own harem. You know, as you do. The first girl in Shinobu’s harem is Kirin Suwabe, a dark-skinned girl who offers to be Shinobu’s maid. Then, Shinobu and Kirin bring Maya Enjouji into the fold, creating a three-way relationship.
Momoko Naitou and Hayato Kyouko kissing
Momoko’s side of the web is a bit more monogamous. But, it’s also the side that’s more taboo. Momoko is in a relationship with her teacher, Hayato Kyouko. That’s a spicy relationship right there, but it’s not all. Momoko’s friend, Chizuru Komai, has a crush on her older sister, Shigure. And, thanks to Momoko, the two of them get together.
There are some other minor characters whose names I don’t remember, as well. For example, I think there’s a pair of twins who have something going on with Maya. But, those are all the main characters.
With that said, there’s one more character I need to mention. Sayuri Ookami is a third-year student who I only think comes into the series toward the end. She wants to make Shinobu hers — she doesn’t want to join Shinobu’s harem. And, she’s the reason why the two sides of the web come back together.
There was one thing that the manga did infinitely better than the anime. But, before I get to it, I need to do a little build-up.
If Momoko is in a relationship with Hayato, how does she reconnect with Shinobu? Well, after Momoko and Hayato spend a night together, Hayato coughs up blood, collapses, and is out of the picture. She doesn’t die. However, she’s no longer around and that leaves Momoko all alone.
It’s around this time that Momoko begins to remember who Shinobu is.
Now, let’s bring Sayuri, the upperclassman, into the story. Sayuri traps Shinobu in a room and sexually assaults her. Momoko discovers this happening and saves Shinobu by sending Sayuri away. And then, it happens. Momoko snaps — and this is the single best scene of the entire series (in the manga).
Momoko Naitou hitting Sayuri Ookami with a fire extinguisher
After catching Sayuri assaulting Shinobu, Momoko couldn’t let Sayuri walk away. She grabs a fire extinguisher and uses it to bash Sayuri in the head, in a scene I never saw coming. I guess Momoko had a lot of pent-up anger after losing her older lover and seeing her childhood friend hurt.
Okay, but how did the anime ruin this iconic scene? I guess the team working on the OVA didn’t think Momoko’s attempted murder of Sayuri was very hot. They wanted their adaptation to be sexy, not crazy. So, instead of using a fire extinguisher, Momoko only punches Sayuri in the face.
Since I watched the anime right after reading the manga, I was looking forward to this scene. The plot of this series isn’t good — as you can likely tell from how I’ve described it in this review. It’s a hentai plot. But, that scene made all the drama worth it.
I ended up giving the Shoujo Sect manga a 6/10 and the anime a 7/10. Despite altering the best scene and making it worse than it was in the manga, the anime is still better (read: hotter). As a whole, though, I enjoyed Shoujo Sect. It’s a nice yuri series.
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Green Green (グリーングリーン) is a rom-com ecchi anime from 2003. And, as expected of a rom-com ecchi anime from 2003, it’s bad. While there are some good things about it, I’m going to recommend you stay away from this one.
But, before I get into the good and bad parts of the series, what’s it about? Green Green is about the all-male Kanenone Academy, located in the mountains of Japan. Okay, so we’re off to a bad start with the whole “all-male” thing. But, don’t worry, there are girls.
You see, Kanenone Academy isn’t going to be all-male for long. There are plans for it to merge with an all-girls school. And before the merger happens, the schools want to do a trial run. So, for a month in the summer, the female students live at Kanenone with the boys.
Yusuke and Futaba participating in a test of courage
Of course, when I say that the girls live with the boys, I mean at the same school. The girls still have their own dorm and bathroom facilities. But, that’s not going to stop a few of the boys from trying to get closer to the girls, both emotionally and physically.
So, what’s good about Green Green? Well, it has female characters. That’s the primary thing I’m looking for in an ecchi series if I’m being honest. Also, some of these girls are pretty cute. And, what’s even better is that it’s an uncensored ecchi anime.
What’s bad about it, then? Naturally, the male characters. But, it’s not as simple as “girl = good and boy = bad.” I’m going to dedicate an entire section later on in the review to why the male characters ruin the series. However, the tl;dr is that they’re ugly and annoying characters.
Chigusa IIno is the best girl of Green Green. She’s the nurse from the all-girls school and came to Kanenone Academy as their supervisor. That’s really all you need to know about her to understand why she’s the best girl.
Futaba Kutsuki is a close second. She’s the tsundere of the series, which obviously means I like her. I also prefer her body type over Iino-sensei’s. But, Iino-sensei has the whole nurse and teacher thing going for her that Futaba doesn’t.
Sanae Minami comes in third. She’s the smallest of the girls and is the “little sister” type. Sanae is cute and has some good moments. But, she’s not as good as Iino and Futaba.
Reika Morimura is next. The only thing she has going on for her is that she’s attractive. But, that’s all she needs. This is an ecchi anime; it doesn’t have to be that deep.
Reika Morimura
Wakaba Kutsuki, the younger sister of Futaba, is fifth. There’s not much ecchi content surrounding Wakaba. But, I kind of like her because of her weird quirk. She’s always carrying around a cactus named Togemura.
Although it pains me to do this, Midori Chitose is second to last. She’s the female lead of the series, so you might expect her to be higher up. But, she’s annoying and not my type. So, she goes down here.
Oh, and just to be clear, it doesn’t pain me to have to rank Midori so low. It actually pains me to have to rank her so high. I went into this ranking thinking I would be putting her in last place.
The real worst girl of the series, though, is Arisa Haruno. Arisa actually wouldn’t be that bad except she’s always the butt of annoying jokes. And for that, she’s the worst.
Alright, it’s time to explain the reason why Green Green is such a bad ecchi anime. As I mentioned earlier, the main thing I want from an ecchi anime is a lot of female characters. What I don’t want is half the cast to be male.
The more male characters there are, the worse the series is. It’s as simple as that. And this is something most ecchi series understand. Often, we get a single male character and the rest of the cast is female. That’s generally good if your target audience is male.
But, here’s the thing. Not only did Green Green add in more male characters, but they added the worst male characters. These guys are ugly to look at. And they’re the most annoying people possible. Every time they’re on screen, they sap away my enjoyment.
Tenjin eating rice over a sleeping Sanae
Yusuke Takasaki is the protagonist, so he’s fine. The problem characters are Hikaru Ichiban-Boshi, Tadatomo Ijuuin, and Taizo Tenjin. Of these three, Ichiban-Boshi is probably the best. He’s the most normal and has a crush on Futaba. But, he also religiously reads books on how to pick up women.
Ijuuin is the second-best, or second-worst, however you want to look at it. He has a lot of bad qualities. He’s overweight, likes girls’ chests to be as big as possible, and uses his own body as an example. He does have one redeeming quality, though: He’s a based Iino-sensei enjoyer.
Tenjin is the worst character, with no redeeming qualities. He’s very into imouto-type girls, which I would normally commend as an imouto anime fan. But, he takes it in a very weird direction. He has a strange obsession with eating rice in front of girls and roleplaying that they’re his sister. Is that funny?
Conclusion
Overall, Green Green is a 2/10. Some of the things the male characters did were funny. Like when they drank the bath water after the girls were in it. That’s just classic. But, for the most part, they ruined the series. The only reason it’s not a 1/10 is because there are hot, uncensored girls.
If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. I might review the Green Green OVA episode if this review is popular enough. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.
Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. I’d also like to thank Key Mochi for supporting at the Senpai tier. And I’d like to thank Rob and Pepe for supporting at the Kouhai tier. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.
Kino’s Journey (Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World / キノの旅 -the Beautiful World-) is an adventure anime. It follows a girl named Kino as she travels from country to country. But, Kino isn’t alone on her travels. She’s accompanied by her trusty motorrad (motorcycle) Hermes.
There are quite a few Kino’s Journey anime. This review is only covering the original series from 2003. In 2017, there was a remake of the original series. But, that’s not the one I watched. Roman, one of my Heika-tier Patrons, chose the original Kino’s Journey for me to review this month.
Now, even if you haven’t watched it, you’re likely at least familiar with the name Kino’s Journey. It’s beloved by almost everyone who watches it. So, what makes this series so special? For me, and I assume for most others, it’s the various places Kino visits.
Kino
As a rule, Kino only spends 3 days in each country she visits. Well, except for when she breaks that rule, which she seemingly does on a whim. But, she has an important reason for following this rule — she wants to be able to visit as many countries as possible.
You see, in Kino’s world, countries are small and very unique. Each country is the size of a city and has some quality that sets it apart from every other country. For example, there’s a land of books, a land of adults, and even a land of visible pain.
And from each country she visits, Kino learns a valuable lesson about humanity. To illustrate this, let’s look at Episode 1, “Land of Visible Pain.” In this country, everyone can read each other’s minds. And this ability led to everyone isolating themselves. They thought reading minds would bring them together. Instead, it pushed them apart.
There are only 2 main characters in Kino’s Journey. These are Kino (duh) and Hermes. Starting off with Kino, we don’t actually know that much about her. We know she’s a girl, but we don’t know her age. And we know she became a traveler after fleeing her own country.
To explain any more about Kino, we need to enter the spoiler zone. So, let’s do just that. The episode titled “Land of Adults” is where we get most of Kino’s backstory from. She grew up in a land with a sharp divide between children and adults.
In this land, on a child’s 12th birthday, they’re given a lobotomy that turns them into an “adult.” Thanks to this procedure, they can now become productive members of society. What does that mean? They can go to work, even if they hate their job, with a smile on their face.
Kino and Hermes
The thing is, Kino didn’t want to be lobotomized. And for suggesting something so blasphemous, her parents decided to kill her. Luckily, a traveler named Kino gave his life to protect her. This is where Kino’s name comes from. She took this traveler’s name and fled the country, never to return.
Now, onto Hermes. Hermes is a motorrad, which is a talking motorcycle. Yes, Hermes can talk. And I actually wasn’t sure if Hermes was really talking for the majority of the series. I kept expecting a twist like that Hermes talking was all in Kino’s mind.
But, no. Hermes really can talk. And, it was Kino (the original Kino), who gave Hermes to Kino (our Kino). Kino restored Hermes from scraps he found in the land of adults. And he gave Hermes to the child Kino when it became clear she would be killed if she stayed.
Most of the Kino’s Journey episodes were good. They had interesting developments that I didn’t see coming. But, that isn’t the case for every episode. And this is what I think is the biggest issue with the series. Some episodes were too predictable.
One such episode was “A Tale of Mechanical Dolls.” While there were some twists at the end I wasn’t expecting, the main twist of the episode wasn’t special. And it’s not like you have to be a genius to figure it out immediately. I’m going to spoil this episode, so you’d better prepare yourself.
This episode was about a family with a mechanical doll as a maid. But, right from the start, it’s obvious that the roles are actually reversed. The maid is very much human. And it’s the family who are actually mechanical dolls.
Kino pointing a persuader
As I mentioned, this “twist” isn’t hidden. And the actual twists of the episode come at the end when we find out why the maid believed she was a mechanical doll. That, and when the family jumps off a cliff after losing their purpose in “life.” But, those twists were inconsequential.
They didn’t really add much to the story of the episode. So, I would have rather the main portion of the episode have a bit more going on in it. And, that’s how I felt about a few of the other episodes, as well. There were 2 episodes dedicated to a tournament in a colosseum that had me feeling this way, too.
I get that every episode can’t be a “certified banger,” as the kids would say. But, considering how good some of the episodes were, it was a bit disappointing to see some of the others. My favorite episode was the railway one, though.
Conclusion
Overall, Kino’s Journey is a 7/10 from me. It’s a solid anime and I enjoyed watching it. But, I also don’t feel like it lived up to the hype. And I wasn’t a fan of Hermes as a character, which may be shocking to real Kino fans. I don’t know if they like Hermes, but I could see it.
If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.
Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.
Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ) is the third anime movie directed by Satoshi Kon. The DoubleSama Discord server watched the movie as part of our Satoshi Kon movie month, which is now over. But, if you want to participate in future group watches, we’re doing one on the last Friday of every month.
As with the other Satoshi Kon movies, I knew nothing about Tokyo Godfathers going into it. So, I was pretty surprised to find out that it’s a Christmas movie. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m not really a fan of Christmas movies as a genre.
But, I’ll still admit that Tokyo Godfathers is a good movie. My biggest complaint is probably that it’s different than Satoshi Kon’s other films. The other three blend reality and fantasy in various ways that I enjoyed. This one doesn’t do that, which can leave it feeling a bit plain by comparison.
Gin, Miyuki, Hana, and baby Kiyoko
The movie follows two homeless adults and a runaway teen who find an abandoned baby on Christmas Eve. At first, the trio isn’t quite sure what to do with the baby, named Kiyoko. Gin thinks they should turn her over to the police. But, Hana believes they should raise her themselves.
In the end, they decide to locate the baby’s parents and confront them. They want to know why the parents abandoned their child rather than put her up for adoption. Though, I do think that handing the baby over to the police immediately would have been for the best.
That wouldn’t make for a very good movie, though. So, instead, our homeless trio sets out on an adventure full of Christmas miracles. And by Christmas miracles, obviously, I mean action sequences and surprising twists. It’s still a Kon movie, after all.
Main Characters
Tokyo Godfathers might have my favorite cast of Kon’s movies. I don’t know; I like the cast of Paprika a lot too. Gin, Hana, and Miyuki are definitely good characters, though. They have good chemistry with each other and each get their own development arcs in the movie.
Gin is the oldest of the trio and seems to be the one who has lived on the streets for the longest. He’s an alcoholic, transphobic, jerk. But, despite that, he does care about Hana, Miyuki, and Kiyoko.
I think I like Gin more than Hana, but less than Miyuki. Gin’s character arc is my favorite of the three. He goes from being a drunk to an action movie hero. And while that may seem like a big jump, it fits into who he is pretty well.
Gin, Miyuki, Hana, and baby Kiyoko at a fancy party
Hana is a trans woman, so I’m going to be using feminine pronouns for her. While she’s my least favorite of the three, she’s also the most fun character. She’s the one who’s the most expressive and emotional. And it’s her emotions that lead to a lot of the events the trio gets caught up in.
For example, if it wasn’t for Hana, none of the events of the movie would happen. She’s the one who doesn’t want to turn Kiyoko over to the police. And she’s also the one who decides that they’re going to find Kiyoko’s parents.
Miyuki is my favorite character simply because I like the way she’s written. She’s a teenage runaway. And she acts like every indifferent teenager who’s ever existed. She’s not some starry-eyed kid. She’s moody, easily annoyed, and rebellious.
It doesn’t matter if something is best for her. If an adult says it, she doesn’t listen.
A Series of Unfortunate Christmas Miracles
There are a lot of “Christmas miracles” in Tokyo Godfathers. But, they all start out as unfortunate situations. And that’s something I like about this movie. Everything that happens turns a bad event into a positive experience.
To illustrate this, I’ll be spoiling parts of the movie. This is your warning.
So, one of my favorite examples of this happening is when Hana has to go to the hospital. We find out Hana is sickly, which isn’t good. And to pay for the stay, Gin has to give up the money he saved up to send to his estranged daughter.
This is one of the lowest points in the movie. But, it all turns around when it’s revealed that Gin’s daughter works at the hospital as a nurse. The two of them are reunited, and we learn that Gin’s daughter’s name is also Kiyoko.
Miyuki, Hana, Gin, and baby Kiyoko toward the end of their adventure
Of course, there were also a bunch of wacky situations that fit into this trend, as well. Who can forget when Miyuki and Kiyoko get taken hostage by an assassin? But, again, this turns out to be for the best in the end.
The assassin takes Miyuki and Kiyoko to his family’s home, where Kiyoko gets fed by a woman with a baby of her own. Before this happened, it was unclear where Kiyoko’s next meal was coming from. Earlier in the movie, Miyuki spilled all the baby formula the trio had.
Look, I’m usually not a fan of anime in which everything ends on a positive. The whole “happily ever after” ending isn’t very interesting, to me. But, Tokyo Godfathers did it well. There’s an equal amount of hardships and positive outcomes. And the characters are likable, so you want them to succeed.
Conclusion
Tokyo Godfathers is a 7/10. It’s a good movie, but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as Perfect Blue or Paprika. And even though I gave it the same rating as Millennium Actress, I like this one more.
If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server to discuss anime with other members of the community.
Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.
Sky Island is the third arc of the One Piece anime, the first and second being East Blue and Alabasta respectively. The Sky Island arc covers episodes 136 – 206, which means it’s the longest of the arcs up to this point in the series. It’s also the best arc so far, but we’ll get into that later.
Before we get to the main portion of the arc in which the Straw Hat crew actually go to the sky islands, we first have a small arc involving a mysterious rainbow mist. The rainbow mist is a phenomenon that appears only around a specific island in the grand line.
What makes the rainbow mist so unique, however, isn’t actually the fact that it’s rainbow. Instead, it works as a portal which can send entire ships to a region of the sea known as Ape’s Concert. And no, I have no idea why it’s named that, there are no apes nor concerts there.
This region of the sea is known as a ship graveyard because once a ship enters Ape’s Concert, it will likely never return. The region is also an endless loop so going too far in one direction will simply make you end up exactly where you started. Further, time seems to stand still in this region of the sea.
Now that I’ve vaguely covered that mini arc, it’s time to get to the real sky island arc. You see, there’s an island known as Jaya which has a legend about an island in the sky somewhere in the nearby sea, however, this island has never been confirmed.
As it turns out, there are actually multiple islands in the sky and they’re collectively known as Skypiea. The two primary sky islands this arc will focus on are Angel Island and Upper Yard, also known as Shandora by the natives.
To get to these islands, Luffy and his crew need to ride a giant underwater explosion up into the clouds, because how else are you supposed to get there? Once there, they land on Angel Island where they discover the inhabitants have wings like angels and are led by a man who calls himself god Eneru.
Eneru
Essentially, god is the title of the leader of the Skypieans, and he resides on Upper Yard because it’s considered to be holy ground. Why is Upper Yard considered holy? Well, all of the other sky islands are made out of a special type of cloud, Upper Yard, however, is an earthen island from the Blue Sea down below.
I should mention here that the Blue Sea refers to the sea of the Earth, while the sky islands have what’s known as the White White Sea. This sea is made out of a special kind of cloud as well, but one that’s different from the kind that makes up the sky islands.
So anyway, Upper Yard is a regular island, but then how did it end up in the sky? Remember that giant underwater explosion I mentioned earlier? Upper Yard used to be the other half of the island known as Jaya until it was blown into the sky by one of these explosions.
Once, in the sky, Upper Yard, previously half of Jaya, was taken over by god and the skypians. The natives of Upper Yard lived in a city known as Shandora and refer to themselves as Shandorans. The Shandorans were kicked off Upper Yard, and have been fighting to get it back for the past 400 years.
So, some stuff happens and eventually Luffy defeats the god Eneru, as expected, and both the Skypieans and Shandorans begin a truce. God Eneru had to be defeated because he was actually a tyrant by the way. I’ll talk more about him in the character section, but he was going to destroy Skypiea for some reason.
After the events of the main Sky Island arc conclude, the Straw Hat crew plummet back down to the Blue Sea and land inside an impenetrable Navy fortress known as G8. Out of the entire Sky Island arc, this mini arc at the end was actually my favorite.
The Straw Hat crew must figure out a way to escape from the Navy fortress while also holding onto the gold they “stole” from Skypiea. Out of everything that’s happened in the series so far, this is the most pirate-like arc there is, and it’s only around 10 episodes long.
Characters
As usual, there are a large number of new characters introduced in the Sky Island arc, but today I’ll just be focusing on the four I think are the most important, Robin, Conis, Eneru, and Wyper. The first of the four, Robin Nico, was actually in the Alabasta arc, but I saved her for this post instead.
You may remember Robin as the right-hand woman of the antagonist of the Alabasta arc, Crocodile. At the very end of the arc, Robin decided to join the Straw Hat crew because she figured it might be interesting, and since Luffy saved her from being killed in the end.
Robin is an archaeologist who’s searching for giant stone tablets known as poneglyphs. The poneglyphs supposedly tell the lost history of the world and are spread throughout the Grand Line. All of the different poneglyphs are needed to uncover the lost history.
She also has devil fruit powers, making her the third Straw Hat crew member to have them, Luffy and Chopper being the other two. I don’t remember the name of the devil fruit she ate, but she’s able to create seemingly infinite body parts appear out of anywhere and anything.
Honestly, her power is pretty broken considering there doesn’t seem to be any limit. She could even incapacitate an entire army by herself if she wanted to.
Conis is the Skypiean who the Straw Hat crew meet when they first land on Angel Island. She lives there with her father and is the first friend the crew makes in this new region. However, she and her father betray the crew and hand them over to god Eneru out of fear for their own lives.
Much like Vivi from Alabasta, I’m glad Conis didn’t end up joining the Straw Hat crew in the end because there’s really nothing special about her other than the fact that she has wings (which don’t seem to be used for flight by the way).
Speaking of joining the Straw Hat crew, because Robin technically joined the crew in the Alabasta arc, there are no new Straw Hat members introduced in the Sky Island arc. I kind of assumed we’d be getting a new member in each arc, so maybe Robin does count as this arc’s member.
Robin
Eneru is the primary antagonist of the Sky Island arc. He comes from a different sky island which he completely destroyed when he left and made his way to Angel Island and Upper Yard. It’s still kind of unclear to me why he wants to destroy all of the sky islands in the first place, though.
He basically just wants to go live in and rule over the Blue Sea, so I’m not entirely sure what destroying the sky islands has to do with that. Also, at the end of the arc he’s shown flying towards the moon, so I have no real clue as to what his end goal really was.
But, Eneru has a devil fruit power which not only gives him control over lightning, he is lightning. And, as some of you may know, any character who uses lightning-type attacks is almost guaranteed to be one of my favorites solely because of that.
As lightning itself, Eneru is essentially the most powerful being in the world. He’s definitely the strongest character we’ve met so far, and I’m actually going to say that we’ll never see another character over the course of this series who’s truly stronger.
Even the way in which Eneru was “defeated” didn’t really make sense, because he can’t be defeated. He was defeated by being hit by a giant gold ball, but it was already established that he could just turn into electricity and travel through gold so technically he could have just avoided the hit by doing that, but I digress.
As the embodiment of lightning, Eneru can not only use the shocking power of lightning, but also the heat and speed of lightning, making him the most versatile character in the anime. I mentioned that Robin was overpowered, but she can’t even physically touch Eneru.
From the very first time we meet Eneru and his devil fruit power was explained, I already knew how the arc would end. Since Luffy is rubber, he was just going to beat up Eneru anyway. Rubber defeats electricity after all.
However, once Eneru was able to heat up metal and use it to burn Luffy, it really showed just how powerful he is. He was able to use the secondary properties of his devil fruit power to work around his one and only counter, meaning he has no counter.
And, devil fruit power isn’t all Eneru has at his disposal. He’s also in possession of a power known as Mantra which allows him to read bodily movements. By doing this, he’s able to predict the movements of not only the person he’s fighting, but also everyone else all across Skypiea.
So, as I previously stated, Eneru is the strongest character introduced so far, and I really think it’s impossible for a stronger character to ever be introduced later. His defeat itself is a plot hole because there’s literally no way to beat him.
As a final fun fact about Eneru, his title of “god” is kind of a play on words considering the Japanese word for god is “Kami” and “Kaminari” is the Japanese word for thunder (lightning). At one point in his battle against Luffy, Eneru says something along the lines of, “I am lightning” and emphasizes the “Kami” in “Kaminari,” saying that he’s both lightning and god.
There’s your little Japanese lesson for the day.
Now onto the fourth and final character I wanted to mention, Wyper. Wyper is the leader of the Shandoran rebels who have been fighting to regain control of Upper Yard for the past 400 years. While the primary reason for their fighting is to reclaim their homeland, there’s a second, true reason as well.
Somewhere in the ancient ruins of Shandora there’s a giant bell which Wyper wishes to ring in honor of his ancestor’s wish. His ancestor wanted to ring the bell, known as the Fire of Shandora, in order to let his best friend (down below, on Jaya) know that he was in the sky.
Wyper is a secondary antagonist of this arc, but isn’t on the same side as either the Straw Hat pirates or Eneru. Because of this, there are at least three (up to five) different factions fighting against each other throughout the arc which makes for some pretty interesting dynamics.
As someone who doesn’t have devil fruit powers or the power of Mantra, Wyper instead uses sky island technology known as dials. Specifically, he has a lost dial known as a Reject Dial strapped to one of his hands. With this dial he can deal a massive amount of blunt force trauma.
As one final note, I’d like to mention that Wyper and the rest of the Shandorans have wings just like the Skypieans even though they’re originally from the Blue Sea. I though that maybe they developed these wings over the 400 years since their island was blasted into the sky, but this isn’t the case.
In a flashback to when the island of Jaya was whole, the Shandorans living in the Blue Sea still had wings. This seems to simply be an error in the story since at no point were the Shandorans’ wings ever mentioned, and yet I can see no reason for them having them in the first place.
Conclusion
Overall, despite being better than both East Blue and Alabasta, the Sky Island arc of One Piece is still a 6/10 just like Alabasta, albeit a higher 6/10. If the quality of the animation as well as the pacing of the series were improved, then it could easily have been a 7.
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