One Piece, Chapter 809: Master Nekomamushi
Apparently there's a new film, One Piece: Gold, coming up next year. We continue the flashback from last chapter, actually showing the fight between Jack's crew and the Mink tribe, and it's apparently not as one-sided as it originally implied. I'm honestly not sure what the point is showing how these characters we have never known before tries to fight Jack and fail and stuff like that instead of, y'know, showing our present-day heroes encountering Jack. It's not boring, it's just a strange storytelling decision is all.
Inuarashi notes how he used to sail the seas with Nekomamushi and met Shanks before, but falls asleep soon afterwards. Adding to the general bizarreness of the Mink tribe, their kingdom is watched by two dukes, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, and their title of the duke of day and the duke of night are apparently literal, because they split the day in half because they dislike each other so much and will fall asleep when it's the other dude's time to rule. Yeah, One Piece, when I think you couldn't possibly out-weird your previous arc... what a fucking weird system. It's obvious the two have some kind of a generic anime rival thing going on where they both respect each other but can't stand each other at all.
Sicillian, who is totally not Absalom, notes how Inuarashi's subjects who live in the city generally follow their ruler's sleeping habits, before dozing off himself. Then we cut off entirely to the flashback, picking off where we left off. The Mink's Musketeer Squad, which includes Carrot, Wanda, a freaking Puss in Boots, the Chapati Lola lookalike and Pandaman's bigger, fatter and angrier cousin. They all can use electricity. Apparently the Gifters all have black horns jutting out of their heads, and we see one who transforms his hand into a wolf's head and attacks Wanda... but gets electrified by Sicillian, who is part of the Three Inuarashi Musketeers with a zebra and a wolf. So, uh, the gorilla and the bull from before are part of a different trio then?
Presumably the wolf-arm dude is of the same ilk as Sheepshead, so maybe artificial Zoan fruits only allows you to transform pars of your body into parts of the animal's body?
Inuarashi himself appears to confront Jack, drops his sword and is all like a good leader and shit, requesting that Jack cease the destruction and they'll help him look for this Raidou character. Jack's all like "hell no" but Inuarashi's awesome enough to hold back Jack's giant mammoth trunk with a single hand. Sheepshead and the other men are running exposition, which is hilariously lampshaded by a single line of dialogue of Jack amidst his men talking about his one billion beli bounty... which is kind of quite a lot. Okay, very much a lot.
Jack, however, gives no shits and just wants to destroy things, and we see a short montage of the Mink lightning swordsmen fighting Jack's army of gifters. It reaches 6 pm, and Inuarashi departs and gives Jack a warning that he's not the only stubborn idiot in the planet... and in comes Nekomamushi, a gigantic Chesire cat beast with a gigantic lion's mane and a pipe, leading an army of his 'Guardians'. Nekomamushi, despite how Inuarashi paints him as a jackass, wants to protect the Zou kingdom as well and charges straight into battle, flipping Jack's mammoth form down onto the ground. Kitty cat's strong. We see Jack transforming into his human form, though we don't see much of it.
I do agree with the random fellow who asks Inuarashi why they don't just fight alongside Nekomamushi's forces to boost their forces and bring Jack down in one fall swoop, but he gives some reason about how it's tradition and it'll help them to conserve their strength. I don't buy that it works, but hey at least the writing acknowledges a stupid tactical decision.
Overall it's more of a slightly awkward introduction to the strange system of this particular island, and while I would honestly preferred a mix of new and established characters to interact (maybe show what Beppo is doing?) it's still nice to see the lore of this particular arc being built. I'm not sure how big a role Inuarashi and Nekomamushi will play in this arc, but hey.
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