One Piece, Chapter 811: Roko
I tried doing a Magi review but my computer ate it and I'm not feeling like writing it up again, so, uh, it'll be delayed for a bit. Nothing particularly review-worthy in that chapter -- some really great and heavy stuff about how the world works with economy and military stuff that really works well when you read it, but difficult to review without transcribing the whole thing.
Ahem. One Piece! The last chapter of the year.
We're still in the flashback, and this chapter is, I think, the least interesting of the flashbacks in Zou, since we don't get any real revelations about the culture or the events during Jack's attack or whatever -- we just see the Team Curly Hat (that's so fun to write) react to the poison gas attack and eventually cure it and earn the respect of the Mink people. It honestly could've been done in two or three pages, if you're being economical, but we did get a couple of heartwarming-slash-tearjerker scenes out of it.
Caesar Clown notes that the gas's name is Koro and laughs a bit about how it's his own creation and shit (Chopper beats him up) and apparently if the antidote isn't administered within 48 hours, it's impossible to treat. I do love how Caesar keeps getting gang-pressed into servitude. We get to see the timeline of Sanji and Brook's fight against Sheepshead in clarity (apparently Kaidou's men just left), we get a short argument from Caesar about how the Mink people hates humans, we see Wanda attacking Nami in desperation and she's just ready to blow everyone up with a bomb and her crying face is heartwrenching. We get Chopper giving a big speech about saving everyone, and we get a montage of that. We get to see them reunite with Bepo! Bepo is love.
It went down a bit too long than what I preferred and some of the scenes could've replaced some of the other less-interesting scenes from the earlier chapters, but hey, it's effective.
In the present day Luffy wants to punch Kaidou. Yeah, you do that, Luffy. Wanda also affirms that she, like the readers, don't believe that Jack is dead. Wanda and Carrot apparently Ruler's Birds, some of the few Minks that is free to go back and forth between the ruling times of Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, and they head off because Chopper wants to be a doctor and inspect Nekomamushi. There's a bit of an ominous line about how they're lucky that the full moon is hidden by the clouds.
Zoro points out that Sanji and Caesar "Gasbrain" Clown haven't disappeared from the flashback story. Also Momonosuke, but I guess Zoro has as much respect for the little brat as I do. Momo is in a room and I completely forgot about it nevermind. Brook and Nami say that despite the contents of Sanji's letter, Sanji might not be able to return to them. Um. Maybe tell this part of the story when it's relevant right after the Nami-crying cliffhanger? Jeez. But it's nice that Sanji's disappearance is relevant to the story and is treated with slightly more urgency than it did before.
We only get a bit of a glimpse of what happened because the page count is unfriendly towards us, but Brook notes that they made a grave error -- that due to all the shouting when they escaped from Big Mom, their forces caught wind of their destination. And considering how Pekoms is a Mink, something that fans, including myself, have guessed ever since the Mink tribe's existence is confirmed, Big Mom's ship arrives at Zou, led by Pekoms.
So maybe Sanji decides to infiltrate Big Mom's ship from the inside? It's likely that Big Mom took Mr. Plot Device, Caesar Clown, but what about Sanji? And even if Big Mom wanted Sanji for... whatever reason, there's nothing to really correlate with the 'ALIVE ONLY' poster because that's issued by the government. Next year's apparently going to be the Year of the Sanji, so, yeah, we're probably going to get a fair bit of backstory and development to the dude, making up for how he's basically nonexistent in the story for the past year.
Also, I cannot stress how awesome Pekoms' status as a Mink and the foreshadowing of a separate race of animal-men exists out there. Not only is the 'Mink' race already foreshadowed as far back as Shabaody, but we've always assumed that talking animals are people who ate a Devil Fruit. Like, I've always assumed Bepo was someone who ate a Bear Bear Fruit, or maybe a bear who ate another variant of the Human Human Fruit like Chopper did. So when Pekoms, Mr. Lion Man, reveals that he has the Devil Fruit powers of a turtle... meaning his lion attributes isn't because of a Devil Fruit... that honestly is a clever piece of foreshadowing and considering the existence of the Fishmen I'm quite impressed indeed.
Ahem. Looking forward to more Curly Hair adventures in 2016!
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