Anime

Pedro Cortes

One Piece Episode 548

Hordy's crew continues to cause chaos on Fishman Island, what with showing off the captured Neptune. Hordy threatens every Fish- and Merman that signed the petition to the World Government and shows off the captured Usopp, Zoro and Brook. Even though Shirahoshi wants to dash right in, Jinbei manages to keep her from jumping right in, surmising that Hordy wants Shirahoshi dead. Not only that, but Jinbei wants a Fishman to deal with it instead of a human in order to prevent any possible backlash. Being a head-strong brute, Luffy wants to jump in right away and beat the crap out of Hordy. Jinbei asks Luffy to chill out, but it seems that the two are going to scrap it out to see whose lead to follow.

Chris Walden

Hunter x Hunter Episode 32

Well, it may have seemed pretty obvious where the fight was heading, but it sure did turn into quite the spectacle. Kastro may have been able to remove both of Hisoka's arms, but that couldn't stop the freaky clown guy from both succeeding and humiliating him in the process. Hisoka's prediction of how the fight ended exactly as he said it would, if we assume that Kastro died at the end of the fight. We haven't seen what happened to the guy, but I think it's safe to say that's how it went. 

The second half of the episode seemed to be a very CSI-like breakdown of Hisoka's fight, and how exactly he managed to win, all while the mysterious Machi sews his arms back on. The last few scenes of the episode raise some important questions as to what Hisoka might be up to, and while I don't have any suspicions about the guy past 'he's a bit crazy', I'm sure we're in for an even crazier ride in the near future. 

[Hunt for this show over at Crunchyroll!]

Josh Tolentino

Naruto Shippuden episode 264

It's double learnin' time with Naruto, as Bee and the Eight-tails give a lecture on how to do the Tailed Beast Bomb, and Kabuto gives a live demo on how to raise ninja undead. The former is boring and far too mathematical, though the latter makes up for it by being kind of gross. 

You know what else is gross? Seeing massive Earth-Element jutsu ejecting a hundred thousand white Zetsus like so much pus from a really bad zit. Can't unsee that image!

[Regret saying that Naruto looks better as an anime on Crunchyroll!]

Manga

Pedro Cortes

One Piece Chapter 668

After hearing which of the Four Emperors Law wants to take down, Luffy decides to make an alliance between the Strawhats and the Heart Pirates. Law restores everybody, though Nami is now stuck in Sanji's body. Oh the irony. Anyway, Law quickly discovers that a partnership with Luffy is an aggravating affair while organizing their attack on Caesar. Law, Luffy and Chopper go out to deal with Caesar and the giant kids. Meanwhile, the Marines find themselves fighting a bunch of prisoners that were thought dead, much to Smoker and Tashigi's surprise. What's a bigger surprise is the giant slime that attacks a couple of people on the fire side of Punk Hazard. That looks like it's going to be a doozy…

Josh Tolentino

Bleach chapter 493

Well, that turned as expected. We all knew almost from the start that this fight was a big goose chase (angel chase?) designed to waste Ichigo's time while the other principals get to fighting in Soul Society. It's also a good opportunity to make the new Quincys' powers look real gnarly. They're, like, cannibals. Well, since the things being eaten and absorbed are technically not human, I guess cannibal is the wrong word.

Still, that's pretty gnarly. This guy's a no-name sub-character, and already he almost matches Aizen's Final Form, "I've Got Another Face Under My Face" visual freakery. Kudos, Kubo!

Naruto chapter 587

The thing you see above is basically the whole of this chapter of Naruto. It's basically Groundhog Day-jutsu, designed as a blocker for the jerks who would abuse Izanagi's Do-Over jutsu shenanigans. For all the fairly coherent demonstration given last chapter you'd think they wouldn't need to do all this diagram nonsense, but there you go: It traps the victim in a time-loop illusion that can only be broken by - get this - 'fessing up and becoming a better person. That or admitting you have an Izanagi Problem and joining Sharingans Anonymous.