One Piece 804 Review: DEATH! Really.

One Piece, Chapter 804: Adventure in the Country on the Back of an Elephant

It's a bit of a fun, light-hearted chapter with your general dose of One Piece wackiness. There were some scenes that didn't really work well -- like Kin'emon and Kanjurou just not having the time to dodge the falling monkey-ninja because they're like playing peek-a-boo randomly. That joke fell flat on its face. But the synchronized head-tilt, Robin's fun morbid thoughts, and absolutely everything about the poor sad-faced dragon (dubbed 'Ryunosuke' here) painting and how pathetic it looks, and how the scene seems to be treated as some kind of heroic, tearjerking last stand as it tries its best for all of one page to bring the Straw Hat Crew to the top of Zou, all the while Robin cheering him on and doing some really fun stuff like gasping and thinking how it's adorable it is.

Then it fades back into a painting and Robin actually freaking sheds some tears as we get his image set against a sunset. It's told with small panels so while it feels like it took some time (and probably would take some time in the anime) it doesn't feel protracted and long like that a similar joke told by Bleach or Fairy Tail would be.

And Law and Zoro just doesn't give a fuck and walks away all heartlessly, while Robin is planting flowers on Ryunosuke's grave. :(

Death! Who expected death this early on in this arc? Man, One Piece is entering dark times and shit.

Also, there's Raidou the ninja, who's apparently the thing that fell down from the top of the elephant. And also, a monkey. And he hit Kanjurou and Kin'emon and knocked them both down but they're apparently fine because they can shout at Luffy and the others. I don't particularly care about Kin'emon and everything around Wano country and all that jazz. I felt he had way overstayed his welcome for someone that's so one-dimensional, and while I don't hate him, I'm indifferent to him at best and annoyed by him at worst.

Zou itself is your general crazy anime country with whale-shaped trees and whatnot, but there are signs of battle -- we saw Team 'Human Eyebrow' (ha, good one, Zoro) fight Kaidou's people here, so no wonder. But as the Straw Hats explore the deserted town, they get attacked by Carrot, this little girl with bunny ears and bunny claw-glove things, who goes straight for Zoro. She avoids Zoro's slash and can hit hard enough to not get her hand sliced up by Zoro's blade... and quite possibly have lightning powers as well?

Carrot notes how the 'lesser Mink' has walked straight through the gates and probably took out Bariete. But before the fight with Zoro can get violent, Carrot gets interrupted by a familiar boob -- er, clothes. Well, she's dressed in Nami's clothes -- the bikini top and the black pants, but she's this weird fox or dog-person. She comes in riding this gigantic boar thing and tells Carrot that they need to deal with intruders in the whale forest. Her hair does sorta kinda look like Nami's but I don't think she's Nami -- or maybe Nami got a Zoan devil fruit? I dunno. The fact that she doesn't recognize Luffy and the others makes me think it's not Nami, since even if she's changed I would think that she would still behave like Nami, and we just got an arc where people were transformed and lose their memories, so I don't think we'll get a rehash of it again so soon.

We'll see. Do like the chapter, but I don't think it's anything particularly special.