Sunday, 20 December 2015

One Piece 810 Review: Curly Hat Pirates

One Piece, Chapter 810: The Curly Hat Pirates Arrive
 

Can I just say how ridiculously funny the ‘Curly Hat Pirates’ are? It’s definitely my go-to name for the group consisting of Nami, Sanji, Chopper and Brook now, and a far funnier name than just calling them Team Sanji or Team Nami. The cover page mini-arc shows the staff of Baratie looking at Sanji’s wanted poster, and Zeff seems to look all serious and shit. Maybe he knows something about the ‘only alive’ thing? Also apparently they built a big building based on Sanji’s sketchy face from the previous wanted poster, which is funny.

This chapter continues the flashback and while no real important revelations are shown and we get more explanation about the events that went down during Jack’s attack, it’s still a pretty solid if uneventful chapter. Also, it shows us Jack in his full, human form – nope, definitely not Axe-Hand Morgan like some people thought it would be. Jack is huge, gigantic and has giant mammoth horns not only from his helmet but sprouting down from his shoulders. How does the dude even dress? Jack’s also gigantic. No idea if he’s an actual giant due to the sheer variance in size for humans in One Piece, but he is big. Jack fights with a sickle, and according to Nekomamushi he ate the Ancient version of the Zou Zou no Mi, which is basically what everyone thought.

We get to see a bit of Nekomamushi talking to Bepo, and apparently Bepo and the rest of the Heart Pirates fought alongside the Minks. Good on you guys!

Apparently the battle raged on for five days and nights with Inuarashi and Nekomamushi subbing in for each other every time their shift went on, which is awesome for all three involved – it shows that Jack’s one billion beli bounty isn’t just for laughs, but by the fact that Inuarashi and Nekomamushi were able to hold the line for five days and keep it at a stalemate while the other Minks able to hold their own against an ever-advancing army of fresh Jack troops is good showing for them.

And, well, present-day Inuarashi goes on and says what’s really scary about Jack – for all his strength and power, he’s a glorified Kaidou errand boy.

And then, well, apparently Jack just got pissed – we don’t know if he was actually endangered by the battle, but the way Inuarashi and Wanda talked about it, Jack didn’t really seem bothered at all. As the Minks all lie dying and poisoned by Caesar’s gas, Jack’s men just went around and repeated a question that they knew the answer to – where are the Wano country warriors – and stabbed and crucified the wounded Mink men when they inevitably can’t produce an answer. What dicks! Apparently the strongest are spared and crucified, while a lot of their other warriors were slain.

We really haven’t gotten such torture and death in One Piece, and really the only people who dies has been parents or parental figures way back in the past – people who die in the present day can be counted on one hand: Ace, Whitebeard, Monet and Vergo. One Piece never really had villains torture and massacre civilians – they’ve usually been implied with burning houses and wounded people and whatever, but never really explicitly stated.

Also, the reason why the Minks consider the Straw Hat crew to be their saviours? The only reason Jack’s crew left the island is because Luffy beat the shit out of Doflamingo and Jack got pissed off and went to attack the navy. And apparently got killed (a.k.a. not at all) by Fujitora and Sengoku. So that was one of the reasons why the Straw Hats were held with such reverence in Zou.

We get a short flashback to when the Curly-Hat Pirates arrive to Zou, too, and we finally see that scene with Sheepshead in full clarity. They see Sheepshead chasing a squirrel with the utterly morbidly hilarious line of ‘all I want is to crucify and chill!’ Brook uses his awesome iai-sword freezing skills, Soul Parade: Eisbahn, to delay Sheepshead, which presumably led to when he and Sanji battled the dude in that one chapter. It’s always cool to see Brook actually fight – he’s always really been kinda left out of the thick of things despite technically being a pretty awesome swordsman in his own right, just not as good as
Zoro. The Curly Hats arrive at the city seeing all the tortured people and the poison gas, and the last chapter shows that, well, Jack chopped off Inuarashi’s leg (cleverly in the present-day scenes anything from the waist down is covered with a blanket) and Nekomamushi’s arm.


It’s a decent chapter. Nothing really spectacular, as it’s still in full recap mode, but still an enjoyable one. Lots of nice little scenes. I’m not quite sure how important the two dukes will be since they’re, well, crippled at the moment, but hey.

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