One Piece: Shanks vs Kid lives up to expectations

One Piece Episode 1112 features the first proper glimpses of Shanks’ power, and the anime lives up to our lofty expectations.

The Egghead Arc of One Piece is by far the most shocking arc of the series so far. The New World is in chaos, with several influential figures losing their titles or getting defeated in battles. Eustass Kid is one such example.

Kid made a name for himself before the Sabaody Archipelago Arc and became one of the Worst Generation Pirates. His reputation improved after the Wano Country Saga, where he helped take down two Yonkos alongside Luffy and Law, earning Kid a bounty of three billion berries.

Unfortunately, soon after this, Kid and his crew made the silly decision to challenge Shanks for a second time and lost again. This completely removes them from the story and establishes Shanks’ status cannot be defined by a simple title of “Yonko.” He’s leagues above any pirate we’ve seen so far.

One Piece Shanks vs Kid is a cinematic experience

Crunchyroll

Despite being a weekly anime, One Piece often delivers top-tier animation. Whenever there’s a hype chapter, Toei usually goes all out while making the corresponding episode. Wataru Matsumi did the storyboard and direction of Episode 1112. 

He also directed the epic battle between Luffy and Lucci, which is still among one of the fan-favorite episodes. Additionally, He Ziwei and Tu Yong-Ce are the animation directors.

Popular animators such as Vincent Chansard and Akihiro Ota also worked on the episode. Every scene is well-polished, and it has about four minutes of extended action where we see the terrified citizens running toward Shanks, which wasn’t drawn in the manga.

Shanks showing no mercy to his enemies and proudly standing as the victor is perfectly depicted as he slowly walks towards the crew and takes the copies of Road Poneglyphs from them. To finish it off, Vincent Chansard animates the scene with Dory and Brogy launching a final humiliating attack on the Kid Pirates.

The impact frames, shading, and even the sound effects were incredibly well done, and the studio clearly shows the months of effort they put into this one episode.

One Piece Episode 1112 doesn’t extend the fight

Eiichiro Oda/Toei Animation

One of the biggest concerns was Toei extending the fight. The anime has incredibly slow pacing, with most episodes adapting one chapter each. We often get extended fights in the series, just like how Toei added anime-only scenes in Zoro vs S-Hawk.

However, Shanks’ first glimpse of power is his most important scene so far. Before this, fans were only told how strong he was, but they didn’t get to see it. Even his previous fights were off-screen. Hence, Shanks’ ‘Divine Departure’ proves he scales as one of the most powerful characters in One Piece.

He obliterates Kid and Killer with one attack while Dory and Brogy deal with the entire crew. If the fight had been extended, it would scale Kid higher than he is while downplaying Shanks’ legendary feat.

There’s one anime-only detail, as Shanks’ Divine Departure takes on the form of a griffon, which is visually striking and also amplifies the effect of the scene. The anime perfectly captures Kid’s strong points as well as hypes up Shanks as one of the most powerful characters in the verse.

After all, the only reason Shanks used a powerful attack was because he knew Kid had the potential to destroy his entire ship and his crew members. Furthermore, his main concern was not to turn Elbaf into a battlefield and keep damage minimal.

For more Straw Hats shenanigans, check out our ranking of the strongest Straw Hats. We also have guides on the One Piece Chapter 1121 release date and possible spoilers, and the manga confirming Imu’s gender.