One Piece 712: a bit of a slow chapter, and Sanji’s side story was same-old-same-old, but the snippets at the end presage some exciting things – Luffy in the ring and Doflamingo on the scene. Bring on 713 please!

Naruto 636 was fairly infuriating, in fact. The half-decent cliffhanger last week? On page one Kishimoto goes ‘Oh, it was only an illusion’. The rest of the chapter is spent with cheesy flashbacks getting back to the exact same point, only with Kakashi in a much better position, and then back at the main action we move to a new power that suggests the whole battle with Kakashi was strategically a very dumb move from the antagonists’ point of view. Another bad chapter. 

Naruto 635: In a week without new One Piece, it seems Naruto was able to have a few extra pages, and benefited from a little extra meat. Despite lame attempts to inject some humour and the awkwardness of translating anything about wind into English, the Orochimaru section was a little on the daring side for Naruto and pretty compelling, the scenes with Team 7 were at least spectacular, the other kages got a brief moment of looking very impressive – and a single page cliffhanger in Kakashi’s story is perhaps bringing the inevitable, but it’s nonetheless fascinating to see unfolding. 

One Piece 711 got exciting again - Law's fallen into a trap, that awesome old blind marine is making his move with Doflamingo also inbound, and most of the remainder of the crew have gotten involved with these cute, extremely gullible little Lilliputian-types. Shame there's another break next week. 

Naruto 634 managed to pick up, too, with the summons actually making for some well-drawn action sequences for the first time in a while. Plus I am curious to see what the former leading adversary brings to the fold - this is where we see whether or not he's really to be redeemed!

Naruto 633: If I’d given it some thought, I’m sure I would have seen this little reveal coming, as it makes logical sense, but eh. The chapter by and large was pretty dull – a succession of characters who once seemed so likeable and are now so peripheral showing off dumb and half-baked new powers. Chouji grew really big and was used as a yo-yo. Uh huh. 

One Piece 710 was a bit of a set-up chapter, with some kinda unimpressive stuff about monster fish to liven the pace. It was overall not a very entertaining chapter, but we’ll finally see those little thieves and what Law is plotting.