One Piece 857 Review: A Deal You Can't Refuse

One Piece, Chapter 857: Rook

That was... unexpected. A good half of the chapter is just the Straw Hats playing catch-up, with the only real notable scene being Nami stabbing Sanji with her speech bubble. Also the running joke that they're counting Brulee and train-dude in their headcount... which, please, don't make this a Fairy-Tail-style Stockholm syndrome. 

But Jinbe gives us this long, long backstory about Capone Bege, about how West Blue is ruled over by a pirate-styled version of the plot of Godfather five great mafia families. And Capone, of course, really likes to chop the heads off animals. And I bet put those horse heads in the beds of film producers to get his child a lead acting role, eh? Capone also has a fetish for taking that same horse-beheading approach when facing against opponents, gunning for the heads of the underworld bosses, leaving their crews intact. Also, Capone doesn't really give a shit about power or territory, apparently, just killing family heads and stealing money and items. Michael Corleone he ain't.

In the New World, though, he ended up pissing a fuckton of people and only managed to survive by becoming an underling of Big Mom, flourishing under her command until he obtained the rank of 'Rook'. So yeah, more chess euphemisms. Jinbe also reveals the fact that Capone intends to gun for Big Mom's head in the middle of all this Tea Party Red Wedding thing, making him as wild a card as the Straw Hats. 

We get a brief confirmation about the (honestly lacking) Pekoms 'mystery', that this was the plot he stumbled upon, and Capone was doing his own thing and Pekoms is still technically super-loyal to Big Mom. Also Bobbins apparently got killed. Or, um, really, really hurt. Or maybe killed. 

Jinbe wants to join forces with Luffy and basically proposes the idea (the others are kind of opposed to it). Luffy's pissed at Capone, but when Jinbe proposes the idea, Luffy is surprisingly receptive, going 'yeah, you're on to something here!' and decides to meet up with Capone right away. Capone's not opposed to an alliance, it seems, from the end of the chapter, but he's definitely going to kill Luffy if he pisses him off. Which is by the par, really. I don't... really see Capone much as an ally the way Trafalgar Law was in the past arc (man I miss Law) mostly because Capone is honestly one of the least-interesting of the Supernovas beyond the chance of me making Godfather jokes every now and then, but hey, he's at least got enough story presence in this arc. Really wished we saw more of him instead of having him disappear for the last, like, ten or fifteen chapters or so, though.