Quote Originally Posted by arondruiz View Post
It's mostly the people who take the manga way too seriously that hate the episode. The other people who hated the episode are the art-freaks, but I don't know why. Who cares if the action scenes have sketchy art? The talking scenes in the episode (where art actually does matter) had some of the best art this series has ever had, while the action scenes had some of the best animation this series has ever had.

I'd say this episode easily had the highest budget of any episode that the big 3 Shounen have put out to date (OP/Bleach/Naruto)
For the records, I hated this episode. The only portion of the manga I've read is the very first book (a gift from a friend). And I'm not much of an art critic - I've never once complained about or been bothered by an episode's animation. The fact of the matter is that even if this animation was a brilliant leap forward, its clear a large portion of the viewer base disliked it. Which means it was a mistake. Its one thing for fans to get upset over something that happens in a story, or over manga vs anime (since they have to add material to animate and no one will like it all) but to put out an episode like this that bothers so many fans purely due to the way they animated it is a mistake on the studio's part, plan and simple.