Wano anime Zoro vs Wano Manga Zoro

#1
There seems to be a rising concensus about the anime in Wano doing pretty good with Zoro's portrayal and what not and given that Zoro is a fighter, the anime had to step up Zoro's fights to do justice to the man's portrayal.

What this thread is about though is whether this is a problem in and of itself. The two points I will be addressing are:
1. How much does this scene change the canon events of the manga and meaning of the situation?
2. Is this scene better than manga and why is that?

We'll start with this:
Here's a filler scene of Zoro escaping the magistrate court. This scene is great to look at of course but as I watched a couple of reactions to this scene, I realised that a few people were surprised at how seemingly viscous Zoro was being beating up all these fodder. This is where the problem comes in.

The good animation vs the cartoon aesthetic of One piece.
This scene looks like an utter massacre to anime only watchers and here's why. We've seen Zoro face hundreds of guys before with whiskey peak and we've seen him blitz a bunch of fodder a number of times like at the start of drum island. But what makes those sitautions different is the cartoonishness of them. Zoro blitzed ALL of Baroque works and then went on a quirky and mild rampage taking them down. And with Drum island Zoro does his signature Blitz and everyone is down already. This wano scene though has very deliberate shots of Zoro cutting people one by one as they fall down yet once again he could've just speed blitzed them all and ended this in an instant.

In the end, people who don't know this is filler start saying that Zoro is uncharacteristically brutal here yet he's probably taken out more guys than this before but it wasn't depicted so viscerally and the cartoon logic prevents you from registering that you are watching a massacre like in whiskey peak.

On the flip side of this, Zoro's tatsumaki in this scene is better than anything Oda has ever done it. Notice that Zoro jumps into the air, then creates the whirlwind around himself in mid air and then drops forcing the whirlwind DOWNWARDS to obliterate the castle. This is the MOST PHYSICS I have ever seen in anything Zoro has done, manga or anime.

This sort of goes back to Oda and his concept of cartoon reality where Oda doesn't care that much about things having weight in motion as long as they can look cool on a splash page. Of course this is good for comics but looks lazy when put into motion and it doesn't help that Oda doesn't actually care one way or another so people adapting end up not caring either. This new director for the anime though certainly does care particularly with Zoro since he completely blew away Oda even on a creative stand point by changing the very mechanics of this tatsumaki to make it something that would even be better in a splash page than what Oda drew.

On this note we have this little fight where something small happens that I was so surprised had barely ever happened in the manga or anime ever before. The samurai dash was actually animated.

The samurai dash is that very ubiquitous scene where the swordsman dashes past an opponent having dodged their attack and attacked them back almost instaneously. Oda has used this DOZENS of times of course with Zoro and the anime has followed Oda's lead here by never actually showing the dodge and cut part of the samurai dash and only just the start and end of it.

I raked my brain trying to find out whether a scene like this had actually ever been animated in one piece until this random filler fight and I don't think it ever has (correct me if wrong). The closest this came to happening is Zoro ALMOST cutting Charlos at Sabaody but Bonnie stopped him so it was incomplete.

This is such a small detail that it is intentionally ignored by Oda because of reasons I've given above with the splash page stuff that you would almost forget that something actually is supposed to happen right there. I remember seeing this scene and it looked so foreign to me that we actually see what happens here and then I realised that no one ever bothered to show what happens until now. And here once again I give props to the new director for actually Adapting things and not just copying Manga panels and forgetting this is an Anime.


With that I've demonstrated the premise of this argument. We can make arguments over what the anime is doing to change certain canon events and yet it also at times outshines Oda is making things work better as animations than Oda can do in manga. Here's the rest of fights I can find

There's Zoro fighting Sumo wrestlers

There's Zoro vs Hawkins (which has this overlooked application of that GOOD PHYSICS I mentioned before by having the dog being crushed by the weight of Hawkin's attacks)

There's Zoro getting lost because of Random samurai tiger(which plays into the Baboon having a sword at the start of Wano which is a thing that Oda never brings back that animals fight with weapons sometimes in Wano)

And most recently we have Zoro vs mafia in the gambling place
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKnW79A1NQ


Finally what's interesting to me in all these is that Zoro actually uses the old moves he hasn't used in hundreds of chapters, some even since pre time skip, in these fights and this is by far the best thing to me about how they are potraying Zoro in Wano. Not only does Zoro using old moves make it seem like he's actually trying more like when he used the Gorilla flex to make it seem like he was trying more against Hawkins but these old moves remind the viewers that Zoro's fighting style can be very interesting if you go through it in a fight.

This application of Zoro's old moves is what has led me to this conclusion. I think the anime might use Ashura before Oda does in the manga AND THAT'S FINE. Honestly, I really would want to see what this director's take on how Ashura works in motion than even Oda right now. Like even if Oda does use Ashura again before the anime, I'd still prefer waiting for how the anime does it because they've proven with this arc that they clearly have their own vision and can do whatever makes things good in animation and what looks good in animation often makes more sense in reality as opposed to manga.

The other less serious abilities I want the Wano anime to do are:
Three sword style Hyou kin dama

Three sword style Enbima yonezu


Two sword style rashomon


Three sword style Toro Nagashi

And of course one sword style Hiryu Kaen


Which of Zoro's old attacks do you want see the Wano animators animate?
 
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KiriNigiri

The Road To Harmony
#4
Finally what's interesting to me in all these is that Zoro actually uses the old moves he hasn't used in hundreds of chapters, some even since pre time skip, in these fights and this is by far the best thing to me about how they are potraying Zoro in Wano. Not only does Zoro using old moves make it seem like he's actually trying more like when he used the Gorilla flex to make it seem like he was trying more against Hawkins but these old moves remind the viewers that Zoro's fighting style can be very interesting if you go through it in a fight.
This is very much due to Oda steering away from fights, from his admittance. Zoro has a ton of techniques that were used once and never brought back. It's something that has always annoyed me.

I agree, the anime has so far done a pretty consistent job with Zoro. The fact he flexes more of his techniques makes it feel like he's more engaged in the battles he's participating in. Even if the intents might be different from what Oda tried to convey. For example, Zoro vs Hawkins in the manga seemed less like a struggle for Zoro compared to the anime. But how much of that was due to Oda wanting to end the fight fast and how much of it was Oda implying Zoro is that much stronger than Hawkins? That ambiguity isn't as noticeable in the anime which presented Hawkins as more of a worthy foe for Zoro.
 
#8
That ambiguity isn't as noticeable in the anime which presented Hawkins as more of a worthy foe for Zoro.
But ambiguity is Oda's bread and butter. outside of Oda maybe rushing things or Oda having less of a focus on fights these days, he's always been about ambiguity like from the very start

Like he feates a situation like Luffy vs Zoro in whiskey peak and it ends with a gag. Then Luffy stomps Enel but apparently Enel would've had a 500 million bounty in blue sea. Then the entire concept of bounties is made ambiguous when strengh is involved because of misinformation being a thing, then the World's strongest man himself says "you can't be the strongest forever". The legendary Marine Garp says his canon throwing skills are about half as good as they were before but then you wonder when exactly was canon throwing like an actual form of combat Garp used to use for it to matter


These things pile on and on when it comes to actual power scaling that at this point, people willingly ignore that Oda doesn't have an actual answer for all these and just make up an asnwer themselves. This is like Death of the author on a fandom wide level

Though with actual fighting styles Oda is usually more consitent wit what exactly people can do and how they do it, except with Zoro be because the very nature of sword fighting can create a number of loopholes for Oda to exploit in order to not explain what's happening. Like Ashura. Besides what Ashura actually is, what exactly does it do though? Like what mechanically happening when Zoro uses it. Like Zoro has about four of said nine swords literally facing away from the opponent he's fighting so what's the actual affective ness of this ability in clear combat. See this is the type of question Oda chooses to not answer regarding like almost half of the shit oro just pulls out of thin air like suddenly he can use Scythes as effectively as a sword because Zoro was maser scythe man too all along?

You know what, I'm just happy that the WANO anime at least is trying to make these things LOOK good because I accepted along log time ago that this is just along gimmick with Zoro, unexplained abilities as long along they look cool.
 
#10
Wano anime has been so good to everyone so far EXCEPT Nami. Her scenes have so much lazy studio work. But other character so far are getting nice work. Zoro is no different, him and luffy are getting excellent portrayel in anime

I am hoping that in the next 2-3 episode, those 4 highlights get good art and animation:
1- Sanji vs Page 1
2- King coming in and disposing of Big Mom Ship
3- Nami using Zeus in attacking Orochi and co
 
#11
anime scenes do not and will never CHANGE anything about the canon material unless Oda specifically states that they do.

there is never anything "better" in the anime then it is in the manga. its just different.
I sometimes hate the difference in depiction from both sources as people tend to remember the animated scenes when thinking about events.
lets say, the anime shows something happening fast when in the mange there is no way of telling how fast an event happened.
this sort of stuff affects peoples opinion. it even forms an opinion. almost predetermines it for some. subconsciously or consciously.

I only really saw these effects after I stopped watching the anime for a long time.
it was very apparent that I interpreted events very differently than the anime team did.
 
#12
there is never anything "better" in the anime then it is in the manga
Now I can argue that anime can make things better than manga

Like outside of just fights, are you saying moving pictures with voice acting and music and sound effects are literally incapable of enhancing scenes compared to manga? Or are you saying that specifically Oda is such a god of Manga and the anime team are so cap that the anime can never do are my thing better than Oda?
 
#14
Now I can argue that anime can make things better than manga
you could and end up being factually wrong anyways. I will not hold you back though.

anime and manga are 2 different mediums. the anime may embellish events or fill in blanks. that still does not make it better.
it makes it different from the original work.

The only better can be found in personal taste
the truth.

Both versions depict the same stuff
provably false.
 
#17
you could and end up being factually wrong anyways. I will not hold you back though.

anime and mange are 2 different mediums. the anime may embellish events or fill in blanks. that still does not make it better.
it makes it different from the original work.


the truth.


provably false.
Hahaha... So if we get like 10 people and present them with the walk to arlong park scene in both anime and manga and ALL of them say the anime did it better, your conclusion will be "Nah, these guys don't know what they are talking about"

And when we increase the sample size to 100 then 1000 then 100000 and it's more or less the same result, you will be still FACTUALLY CORRECT because you said so I guess.

Hehehe sure
 
#18
how does the anime do something "better" that ACTUALLY NEVER EVEN EXISTED?!?!?

you know. this is exactly what I meant when I said that the anime can drastically change how people view scenes or give them false ideas.

EDIT: I do not mean to sound condescending. sorry if I did. you are still one of my favorite posters on this board @ImmaIvanoM
 
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#19
I think it's great I'm a strong believer that the anime is there to give us some more insight that the manga could not give us due to the pages number and the autos that has to focus on the main thing.
I really enjoyed the things I saw on youtube with zoro and I'll start watiching the anime just for wano when the all out war will start in the manga
 
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