One Piece 890 Review: Praise Brook

One Piece, Chapter 890: Big Mom on Deck

So this chapter is a pretty great one! It focuses on Big Mom's assault on the Thousand Sunny, and while Big Mom doesn't find the cake, she's in full 'you're hiding it!' mentality even though everyone tells her otherwise. Which, I suppose, makes sense for what we know of Big Mom. Her monster-crone design really works, too, by the way. She does still remember her promise to kill Perospero if it turns out to be a lie, and she starts tearing up the Sunny. The ship's pretty battered but it's still holding, it seems.

And both Jinbe and Brook are easily the MVP of the fight, aren't they? Jinbe blocks Big Mom's gigantic flaming Cognac sword swing with a haki-imbued arm he calls 'Shark Skin', and yes, he does get knocked off the ship but the fact that he manages to take the hit without being killed or knocked out is pretty badass in and of itself. We get a cool bit of Chopper using Guard Point to block Big Mom's arm slam, then Jinbe using water manipulation to douse out the fires... and then proceed to use the 'Ougi' of Fishman Karate, a move he calls Vagabond Drill that sends shockwaves through Big Mom's stomach and actually causes him to fall off the boat, and I'm 90% sure this  is the worst that a Straw Hat has came to actually damaging Big Mom.

Big Mom is still weakened by saltwater and it comes to Prometheus and Zeus to zip around and save her, and we get a pretty awesome two-page spread of Big Mom extending Napoleon to slice the ship in half. Nami tries to 'seduce' Zeus again, but he refuses to and seemingly electrocutes Nami into a cartoon skeleton... except it's apparently just Brook. Who's immune to lightning. These sort of 'EEEEEH' gags never end up working for me most of the time, but this is one that made me laugh out loud. 

Brook dicks around for a bit, exchanging taunts with Big Mom... and then suddenly drops his catchphrase: "may I see your panties?" which gets another round of EEEEEEH from characters and readers alike... and then before we know it, Brook's already mid-air behind Big Mom, slamming his blade into its scabbard... and he's apparently already cut Big Mom's footing, slicing Zeus cleanly in half.

I've always, always enjoyed Brook's "you are already dead" samurai iai cuts, but god damn if this isn't badass. And it's foreshadowed and makes sense, too, since Brook knows he can't conceivably cut Big Mom, so he goes for the one thing he can cut -- Big Mom's soul familiars. 

And then Nami unleashes little charge balls to fuck up Zeus's own electrical field, which causes him to explode and electrocute Big Mom. It's a badass combo between Jinbe, Nami and Brook, and it doesn't undersell Big Mom's badassery, since they make it clear that it's a delaying tactic at best. Brook even captures little tiny Zeus and hands him over to Nami, who pulls off a 'you are my servant' gag. And the chase is still on, but by god this is a pretty badass chapter and how 'plot progression filler' should really be handled. Definitely a great chapter to close off 2017's One Piece with.