One Piece 850 Review: To Save One's Family

One Piece, Chapter 850: Ray of Hope

PLOT TWIST WOOP WOOP WOOP

The chapter starts off relatively just like most other One Piece chapters so far. We get a series of pages showing Chopper and Carrot running around various mirrors in Whole Cake Island, apparently able to move around the mirror world but not to navigate properly with Brulee knocked out. Meanwhile, Sanji's all lovey-dovey and making bentos for her beloved Pudding-chan. Meanwhile, Luffy and Nami are struggling, with Luffy being very desperate and very ready to rip out his own hands to get free from the chains. Can he do that, though? I mean, his arms are rubber. The audience is led to think that Pudding is planning to, like, run away on her own or something like that to leave Big Mom or whatever, and Luffy is the kind of person to really go wild to just save anyone he considers a friend.

We then cut away to Pedro fighting against Baron Tamago, with bounties of 382 million and 429 million respectively, which are both very, very respectable, coming just shy of Luffy's own bounty of 500 million, last I remember. Pedro is just using electro powers and just using some weird floating technique, while Tamago is trying his best to pull a Sanji and using kick-based fighting. 

We get brief flashbacks to Pedro's time as a pirate, where he hangs out with... Zepo! Who I assume is Bepo's father or something like that. Interweaved between Pedro and Tamago clashing in the present day is Pedro's brief and fateful encounter with Big Mom and her wheel of fate. Apparently they spun the '100 years of life' punishment, and Zepo gets killed because his remaining 30 years are taken from him. Big Mom is about to take 70 years from Pedro's life, but Pekoms cries and begs for Pedro to be spared, but still wants to take a whole ton of years because Pedro robbed Tamago of an eye. Pedro then rips his own eye out as compensation since he wants to witness the 'dawn of this world', impressing Big Mom enough to let him off the hook with living. Pedro is hardcore!

In the present day Tamago is fully ready for Pedro, though, noting that he wears electric-resistant clothing and has a longer reach than Pedro thanks to his legs. Pedro then gives a bit of a speech about how the Straw Hats saved his hometown, and will be the crux that will cause the world to reach its dawn and surpass all present. It's a bit of an irritating thing, friendship speeches... then Pedro zooms in and bisects Tamago. Like, straight up cuts him into two and apparently he's an egg-man or something, because yolk comes spluttering out of the dude. 

Meanwhile, big revelations are happening! Sanji tries to bring food to Pudding, and then when the big Alice in Wonderland door bars him from entering, Sanji tries to sneak in through the window. And apparently Pudding is talking to... Reiju! And she is the three-eyed girl all the way back from Punk Hazard's brief glimpse of Big Mom, and Pudding is psycho! Pudding straight-up talks shit about Sanji, about how she's one of Big Mom's favourites, how good she is at acting, how she has tricked Sanji and the Straw-Hats with her fake-good-nature, and how only the Big Mom family is aware of her true nature.

No wonder the other Big Mom children allowed Pudding to talk to Luffy and Nami last chapter, which was the one thing I find odd. Apparently, last chapter wasn't the revelation of a reckless plan, but rather villainous gloating, where Pudding reveals that she will shoot Sanji dead in the wedding ceremony, which is the reason Luffy is so fucking furious.

On the other, other hand, playing reverse-devil's advocate or whatever you want to call it, why, if Pudding is actually working for Big Mom, is she blabbing about this to Reiju, Luffy and Nami? Why not just keep mum (heh, mum) until the wedding, then shoot Sanji and be done with it? What's there to gain by telling people? Either she's an ultra-bitch, or she's actually trying to set herself as the fall woman so Sanji will return to the Straw Hats, if you believe that Pudding is actually doing this all for love. 

Reiju is bleeding and held captive by Pudding's jell-o friend, and Pudding notes how their aim is to get their hands on Germa's clone army, as well as all the science they are in possession of. She notes how their big plan is to massacre the entirety of the Vinsmoke family.

Outside her window, Sanji's expression has gone dark, with the titular 'ray of hope', the fictional personality created by Pudding, having been extinguished. Of course, Sanji doesn't really care for his family, barring Reiju, so I don't think Sanji will give two shits if Judge, Ichiji, Niji and Yonji bite the bullet, but his Straw Hat buddies? Or Reiju (how did Pudding catch her anyway?)? Yeah.

Excellent plot twist, and one that's not without foreshadowing either. Really like this chapter. Pedro vs Tamago was badass. The revelation was well done, being a shock yet not being completely un-foreshadowed. Good stuff, all around.