One Piece, Chapter 843: Vinsmoke Sanji
This chapter opens with Luffy absolutely annihilating Cracker, sending him flying... all the way back to Whole Cake Island, upon which he lands smack dab in Big Mom's castle, sending the members of Big Mom's family into a frenzy and putting the city on lockdown. We also get the names of the other main commanders of Big Mom's army -- Snack (who was taken out by Urouge prior to everything here), and the two active ones, Lord Katakuri (Potato Starch) and Lord Smoothie. LORD SMOOTHIE! How do you even go through your childhood named "Smoothie"? We don't see any of these powerful dudes, though we do get the names of a bunch of Big Mom's children that we briefly see in previous chapters. We've got this crazy jester-looking dude, Mont Dor the Minister of Cheese. We've got this generic-looking lady with a fur coat and devil horns, Galette the Minister of Butter... and the huge melty dude is Opera, the Minister of Whipped Cream.
Holy shit, and I thought it would be dumb to have an organization all focused on different kinds of sweets. Not if we get things like ministers of whipped cream, that's for sure!
Apparently Big Mom's Vivre Card is so potent that none of the other children are allowed to even carry one, which begs the question to why Chapati Lola has one. Also apparently Big Mom has powerful storm powers, which she used in conjunction with Cracker's fleet to take revenge on Snack's defeat on Urouge's hands. Apparently Big Mom has the powers to control the weather, and her two hands can summon Zeus the thunder cloud and Prometheus the sun.
Now this is a bit strange, since we all know Big Mom has soul-soul powers. Is this just an extension of her soul ability? We did see Big Mom with a (very friendly and not at all demonic) cartoon sun in her first introduction, is that Prometheus, and it's just a particularly powerful Homie? Is she dual-wielding devil fruits like Blackbeard? Is she using some kind of Vinsmoke-style technology? Interesting.
There's a bit of a recap on where Luffy's group has gone off in search of Sanji which is a bit unnecessary, and a bit where Nami is talking to Chopper and Carrot via a mirror where they claim that they are totally fine [insert sounds of violence] despite being chased around by Brulee. Luffy metabolizes all the stupid gigantic balloon fat away, which is great. This middle bit is a bit unnecessary, to be honest, but we do need some filler scenes to allow for the time passing between Luffy's group recovering from fighting Cracker to hunting down the Germa 66 carriage.
And, of course, all three of Sanji's brothers go all lovey-dovey at the mere sight of Nami. Luffy pops up and speaks to Sanji, and we alternate between panels of the threats that Big Mom and the Vinsmoke family makes to the people that Sanji cares about, to Sanji's face while Luffy does a very cheerful recap. This ends with Sanji forcing himself to kick Luffy off the carriage, and do a big "I'm the Prince of the Vinsmoke family, you god damned peasants!" and this goes on for a page, where he pretends to be this high and mighty doucehole, and prepares to fight Luffy. I do hope this isn't an inferior repeat of the Ennies Lobby arc (just mixing together Usopp and Robin's role in that arc) because so far One Piece has been great in homaging the pre-grand-line stories with the post-grand-line stories while still keeping things fresh. And honestly as much as I want Luffy and Sanji fight it all out, I also want these characters to be smart and, like, pass a message to each other or something.
Regardless, though, pretty cool chapter.
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