One Piece 869 Review: Go Go Power Rangers

One Piece, Chapter 869: Under Siege

So the cover page moves to Bartolomeo this time around, which is nice, so we'll just be having alternating stories for the rest of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, then. 

So in this chapter most of the Luffy-Capone alliance enter Capone's gigantic Big Father castle form, which Capone explicitly says is part of his body. Meanwhile, Big Mom's soldiers, especially the main fighters -- Katakuri, Smoothie, Daifuku, Oven, Perospero -- strike a badass pose. Also Katakuri has a badass trident, although he attacks by throwing mochi bullets. The weak trio (with Carrot substituting Usopp) get captured by Smoothie, Daifuku and Oven at this point. Oh, and poor, long-suffering Brulee gets rescued by Katakuri.

And as Perospero's firing squad attempt to shoot the Germa 66 dead (seriously, though, are the Germa and Perospero just standing there all this while?) the Germa go through a Sailor Moon/Power Rangers transformation sequence, and while I still can't tell Sanji's brothers apart both hairdo-wise and power-wise, Reiju and, I'm loath to say it, Judge both look particularly awesome.

There's this one Big Mom crewmember with a burning hair and a covered-up lower face with fire manipulating abilities who I don't think we've ever seen before? Whatever the case he's useless.

The Germa 66 are faster than Perospero's ability (though the dude's admittedly a little shit) and just slam onto the Big Mom higher-ups, not defeating them but hitting them hard enough to force them to release the Straw Hats they captured. I'm... I'm not sure what Yonji's Winch Green does? Niji's Dengeki Blue is obviously lightning and Reiju's Poison Pink is obviously poison, and Ichiji's Sparking Red is like either explosions or a JoJo ora ora barrage, but I'm genuinely not sure what Yonji's doing in that scene. Also since Judge is shit he doesn't get to hit anyone. Fuckin' Judge, man.

Sanji catches Nami and we get a brief 'aah' reaction shot from Pudding.

There's also a weird subplot about this dude with a cigar, one of the guests, trying to steal the Tamatebako, only for yet another Big Mom scream to knock both him and the Tamatebako flying.

But the Germa retreat into the castle, and the castle doesn't do so well. It can shoot cannons, but Perospero blocks it with a candy wall, then Katakuri blows the cannons up with his mochi, and Perospero locks the castle's legs with candy. And none of the Big Mom officers really seem to be injured, even Smoothie just smoothies out the poison from her own body. And then Capone gets absolutely fucked and starts bleeding on the ground because outside Big Mom has regained her composure and is absolutely ripping apart Capone's castle body. So yeah, they didn't even manage to take out a single one of Big Mom's officers and they are well and truly fucked. Germa's entrance was epic but ultimately not game-changing, and I genuinely don't see how even with the big hitters standing alongside Luffy that they can do anything against, shit, Katakuri and Smoothie, let alone Big Mom.