One Piece 771 Review: All this should've happened long ago

One Piece Chapter 771: Sai, the Leader of the Happo Navy

I have a feeling that all of these distracting lesser characters... Machvise, Hajrudin, Sai, Lao G... all of them should've been dealt with before we had the big Doflamingo/Law flashback combo. Because it just kind of ruins the narrative and the massive threat that has been built up. I mean, I get that taking every one of Doflamingo's people out would kind of make it an obvious Doflamingo-will-lose situation, but these minor characters like Machvise and Lao G... does anyone really expect them to do anything? Keeping, like, the Zoro-vs-Pica and Kyros-vs-Diamante stuff for later on, absolutely. And maybe a couple ones here and there. But everybody? And despite the minor Coliseum characters being somewhat interesting, I really thought that they ended up being too distracting.

And indeed, this chapter is basically the same as last chapter, except instead of Machvise we get Lao G as the Donquixote Pirates elite member that hasn't done jack shit and gets taken out, and instead of Hajrudin we get Sai as the Coliseum member that hasn't done jack shit and does something awesome. We even get a bit of something similar as a different Coliseum member (Elizabello here, Orlumbus last chapter) offers their help to Zoro in fighting Pica.

And the chapter opens up with Zoro just avoiding these rock spikes from Pica and Elizabello (who's at least a lot less random and more prominent than Orlumbus) telling Zoro of his abilities and pledging to help. Zoro gets scary and says he wants to deal with Pica all on his own -- and I do want to see that happen more than all these shit going on, and tells Elizabello to save his trump card for later. Zoro also mentions that Pica seems to be aiming for something, but we don't really get much as we cut away to... the others.

Chinjao is fighting Lao G, and Sai is fighting Baby 5 in a fashion, but it then delves into comedy. It's not entirely unfunny, and I did smile at some of them. It's not that it's a bad chapter, it's just placed really oddly in the grand scheme of things. I felt like all this would've worked better if it happened at around the time that Usopp takes out Sugar the second time, where it's both tense and funny at the same time.

Lao G's attacks are apparently all puns on an old man's health problems and it's a bit weird as he goes into combat with 'Lower Back Pain Stance'. And Lao G deals several blows to Don Chinjao and just does his crazy-looking poses and slapping 'G' onto everything he says. Lao G is like the least interesting of the Donquixote family. And then we get into a bit of a comedy routine as Chinjao goes 'I'm against your wedding, Sai!', apparently overhearing how Baby 5 has taken Sai's battle dialogue as a marriage proposal or something.

We get a bit of Sai where he just doesn't care about arranged marriages and whatever it will do to strengthen the Happo Navy and we get a couple of Lao G jokes that fell flat on me. There's a point when he... dies? His spirit goes up into the skies and he just goes back when Baby 5 calls him? That was just weird.

Sai then tells Baby 5 to die or something, and then Baby 5 actually transforms her arm into a revolver and points it at her own head with the most disturbingly cheery expression for someone holding a gun to her head. Sai then tries to stop Baby 5, saying how an easy victory will leave a bad aftertaste, not to mention being disturbing as all kinds of fuck. It's a good thing this is happening in One Piece and not in a more brutal or violent manga. And as Sai apparently goes to try and stop Baby 5, Chinjao gets pissed at Sai for sparing his enemy while Sai tells Chinjao to fuck off becoming a mentor. This part's a bit weird.

But then we get a little flashback of Baby 5, which I thought was well done, where apparently as a child she was abandoned by her mother to freaking die simply because she is 'useless and not needed'. Aww, poor Baby 5. I thought that was short, sweet and well done, and juxtaposed by Baby 5's eerily calm smiling face is just creepy and shows just how fucked up in the head she is. Maybe she's called Baby 5 literally because she's the fifth child?

Chinjao does his Kiryu Kirikugi thing with his head, intending to take out Baby 5 and punish Sai at the same time, but apparently Sai himself can use Busoshoku Haki, and freaking kicks Chinjao in the head, causing that weird-shaped head to get bent. Man, poor Chinjao. And I thought this part was done slightly poorly since we never really saw any kind of friction between Sai and Chinjao, and the scene that immediately succeeds it actually implies that they have a pretty good relationship even if Chinjao is the type of parent/grandparent that likes to get disappointed with their children.

And then Sai just slaps Baby 5 really hard and we get a good panel of his angry face, and tells her to piss off for believing that her life is useless. We get a pretty sad scene of Chinjao's crying face as his awesome drill-skull thing (which I'm going to assume is just bone and doesn't really have his brains or whatever in it) and I really feel bad for the poor dude. And Sai is just 'how the hell did I do this?' Chinjao doesn't seem to be angry, though, but ends up being kind of proud of Sai for being able to obtain this much power, and passes the 'Kiryu Kirikugi' title from his head to Sai's feet. And Chinjao just hands everything over to Sai, from the treasure in the icy continent (which he can open now) and even freedom in marriage. Which is nice and all, but I felt it really should've been done before all the tense Law-Doflamingo-Luffy-Bellamy stuff.

Chinjao then says how his sickness has been acting up and how he's not getting better after fighting Luffy, which kind of explains why he's been kind of shit recently. Then Lao G just zooms in, does the Mark of G thing and blasts Chinjao onto a wall and knocks him out. Man, I really, really feel sorry for Chinjao. Lao G has apparently done some Toriko-level shit and does this 'Battle Preservation Fist' technique that bulks him up until he's a massive muscle-man with an old man's decrepit face. He charges towards Sai, and as he does so he rants about how they'll never hand over someone as convenient as Baby 5 to them, and I thought the two panels where Baby 5 just realizes what's going on and her smiling while crying when she thinks of the word 'convenient' is pretty heartbreaking.

And then Sai suddenly goes... 'if I win, I'll make her my wife', which is a big 'wait what' moment. Since when did Sai like Baby 5? It's just weird. But Baby 5 goes happy and that's kind of nice to see, and Sai unleashes his own Kiryu Kikirugi as Chinjao watches right onto Lao G's head and kind of knocks him through the first Pica statue as he just screams G G G G G like the stupid shit that he is. And then Sai proclaims that he is a 'Don' now.

It's a bit of a weird chapter, with a lot of good moments. The Baby 5 stuff are clearly the highlight of the chapter for me, but on the inverse Lao G is pretty boring and annoying and I'm just happy to see him taken out. Sai's also pretty weird, even if the talk with Chinjao is pretty good and he does some awesome things. Like I said before, it's the positioning and general pacing of the chapter that kind of makes it not as enjoyable as it should've been. I'm going to assume next chapter we'll see some other dude take out Dellinger or Gladius... though Gladius is at least fighting Bartolomeo and Cavendish, which are a lot more interesting than Hajrudin or Sai.