One Piece 835 Review: Soul Society

One Piece, Chapter 835: The Nation of Souls

Is One Piece ribbing Bleach with the whole 'nation of souls' thing? Like, Soul Society? Doubtful, really, but I find it really strange that the chapter about a nation of souls came out at the same week that Bleach is supposed to end. But hey.

Anyway, this chapter of One Piece is really introdumpy, but it reveals Big Mom's power at last, and it isn't some 'eat everything' Devil Fruit that a lot of people theorized when she first showed up in the manga, but rather the Soul Soul Fruit, which allows Big Mom to manifest these blob creatures that are apparently fragmentations of her soul, who then go around once every six months and asks everyone who lives in Big Mom's territory 'Leave or life?' upon which they then take a small portion of the person's soul if they choose 'life'... which allows Big Mom to use as she pleases. It's like a tax that takes out one-sixth of their lifespan, so they pay 2 months for every year they live in Big Mom's territory. That is why the plants and food and clouds and shit can talk and dance, they're brought to life by Big Mom stealing other people's souls... these dang warlocks! Big Mom's Soul Soul Fruit only allows the soul fragments to go and bring inanimate objects or animals to life, and that includes the crocodile and the rabbit knight we saw earlier in the Forest of Seducing. Who isn't someone who ate the Rabbit Rabbit Fruit or whatever. Also these soul-creation things are called 'Homies'. Just because.

It's kind of similar to Gekko Moriah's Kage Kage Fruit because of all the creation of disposable troops by stealing something from other people, but Moriah's fruit requires him to steal the Shadow and then put it into a corpse, and even then the shadow retains some of the ego from the original owner of the shadow, whereas Big Mom's Homies seem to be just... well, just things that run around and talk and dance and get eaten. 

Luffy meets up with the real Nami in front of Applejuice Giant (not really a giant, as this chapter shows) and we get a nice little flashback of Nami freeing herself from Brulee -- who ate the Mirror Mirror Fruit -- by whacking her with her clima tact. Carrot tries to do battle with Brulee, but she summons a mirror and after showing off your expected mirror-reflects-all-attacks skill, Brulee captures Carrot in the mirror itself. Y'know, like Alice Through the Looking-Glass? Chopper transforms into his monster point to fight off the swarm of Homies that assault them, allowing Nami to get away and regroup with Luffy.

Brulee monologues some information about Big Mom, telling Chopper (and us) that Big Mom is collecting all sorts of exotic beasts (what is it with the obsession of beasts between Kaidou and Big Mom?) and, of course, she's already aware of everything that the Straw Hats are doing throughout these past few chapters, and Big Mom's order was to toy around with the Straw Hats but not allow them to meet Sanji.

Applejuice Giant-dude was apparently a former husband of Big Mom, but before he can tell us more about his life story, the tenth son, Charlotte Cracker, who is this deformed gladiator-style dude, pulls Applejuice out and reveals that he's not a giant, he just has superdeformed features. Though he's still honestly quite big compared to Luffy and Nami. Applejuice is apparently the father of Chiffon (Capone's new wife) and... Lola.

Which, of course, is absolutely obvious the moment Chiffon was revealed to be affiliated with the Big Mom pirates, and has been a theory running rampant for like nearly five years now. It's nice to have some closure on that end, at least. Now whether this information will even affect Big Mom's stance on the Straw Hats at all beyond maybe 'yeah, you helped Lola, bugger off and be free' which they won't take because they will want Sanji and Jinbei to leave with them. 

I dunno. It's a slower chapter and very introdumpy, but it's still a decent read.