In many ways, Charlotte Katakuri is the perfect opponent for Luffy. He's the embodiment of the "everything you can do I can do better" mantra. His mochi powers give him the same malleability as Luffy's rubber, but even more troublesome is his extremely adept Color of Observation that allows him see further into the future than your average Haki user. No matter how hard Luffy tries, Katakuri can dodge his every attack.
Visually, the show is still going strong. It definitely feels like the anime staff wanted to make sure to do the arc's big title fight justice, although Luffy vs. Katakuri will eventually go on for so long that I'm certain we'll see several peaks and valleys in the production values. Spiritually, this fight evokes Luffy vs. Rob Lucci, the only other big villain fight in the series to offer this much blunt physicality. It's just two dudes putting their dukes up and punching each other. (Or at least it will be as soon as it stops being so one-sided.) I was worried a few months back about how the anime might handle the comical size difference between the two fighters, but so far so good. They're currently zipping around like DBZ characters and making good use of the mirror world's three-dimensional space.
Elsewhere, the Sunny crew has gotten some distance between themselves and Big Mom, as they lick their wounds in response to Pedro's sacrifice. This is clearly where the episode is trying to buy time, getting saccharine with repeated footage of Pedro's role in the arc, but it's a good chance to see how the different Straw Hats deal with grief. Brook collapses and blames himself for being too weak, while Jimbei has to play Mr. Pragmatic and remind the others that they can't let their feelings slow them down, because they've still got a long fight ahead of them. And boy, do they! Coming up on their rear is none other than Big Mom herself, now walking on water with the aid of Perospero's candy powers. Even the ocean can't get in Big Mom's way.
We also continue to follow Sanji, Pudding, and Chiffon flying their way to Cacao Island on Pudding's magic carpet, Rabian. Pudding remains conflicted about Sanji, so she's choosing to hide in the carpet's roll, lest the two of them be seen still dressed as a bride and groom. She could fall if she's not careful, but she's willing to risk it. We also briefly see Pound (Lola and Chiffon's dad) for the first time in ages, though he's in a dinky rowboat heading in the opposite direction.
This episode is asking the audience to take a deep breath and pace themselves. It's extremely indulgent on the story's end to constantly be introducing new problems and obstacles, each one practically announcing itself as the real beginning of Whole Cake Island's climax. I really enjoyed this week's episode, since I think it succeeds in priming the viewers for a lot of classic shonen brawling, and the animation looks great in the final stretch, but as usual there's the caveat that this show is asking a lot of its audience. We're over 60 episodes into this arc and only just now beginning a Goku vs. Frieza-length fight. At the very least, this kind of episode makes me excited to see how a "One Piece Kai" might look.
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In many ways, Charlotte Katakuri is the perfect opponent for Luffy. He's the embodiment of the "everything you can do I can do better" mantra. His mochi powers give him the same malleability as Luffy's rubber, but even more troublesome is his extremely adept Color of Observation that allows him see further into the future than your average Haki user. No matter how hard Luffy tries, Katakuri can dodge his every attack.