Yeah, this was almost exactly one for one, even down to the Cover story, really was expecting some kind of unique cover it's so strange that he opted to adopt the cover story page as well. That did kind of set me up to expect it to be the original chapter with re-drawn, which was really all this was.
The new drawings are great though, and there were some better craft applications here, the panel where Mihawk stabs Zoro and his coat floats onto the next page was a really cool shot that helps emphases the gap between them, Mihawk's speed and strength superiority to Zoro.
Another thing Boichi did for a lot of the action scenes, was add sort of cinematic bars to the pages. It's something that can definitely add a lot to action sequences, Samurai Jack is proof of that, but I don't think they work here. Like, he's definitely trying to evoke that same sensation I feel, the two samurai's about to draw in a duel in a western standoff type of vibe because otherwise those lines are pointless, but I don't think he implemented them very effectively here. For starters, they're too small so they hardly add any visual flare, and more importantly, they stretch across both pages from top to bottom, so they're not highlighting any individual moments. Like in Samurai Jack, the reason those boxed in panel shots are so effective is because they're chosen to highlight specific moments in the fight. It's designed to make the specific actions stand out. When you just border the entire page, none of the panels stand out because of it. So rather than highlighting stand-out moments, it just kind of feels like a background detail. Like when you play older games on a collection like Mega Man Legacy or the SNES Classic, those black bars don't feel like part of the action, they just feel like a different wallpaper. That was really disappointing.
Otherwise it's still fine. The art itself is great, Zoro's tearful I won't lose again promise to Luffy especially was good. |