One Piece, Chapter 874: King Baum
Great cover page with Luffy and all the non-Straw-Hat-crew winners of the popularity poll. How the hell do Rosiante and Cavendish rank that highly, though, is a bit beyond me. Like, they're cool but I won't put them above Brook and Franky.
Anyway, this chapter... basically shows that the Straw Hats are pretty fucking screwed. Between Big Mom waving the transformed Napoleon (I didn't realize Napoleon transformed into the hilt of a big-ass sword last week) and blowing chunks of the island apart -- poor King Baum has half of him blown off by Big Mom's "Spear of Elbaf" attack -- and Prometheus basically performing a gigantic meteor drop that eventually incinerates poor, long-suffering King Baum, the Straw Hats' survival is honestly a little hard to swallow. I... don't particularly care for King Baum, who I feel is a joke character that outlasted his welcome, and attempts to insert sympathy by having him somehow break free of Big Mom's influence because he has a lover to get back to is... is absolutely weird and I really wouldn't mind if the King Baum aspects of the chapter is replaced with literally anything else.
I did actually like Nami launching black balls (snicker) to distract Zeus, the thunder cloud, who quickly proceeds to nom nom on the smaller lightning clouds and cause Big Mom's attack to miss. Using that to buy time makes sense in my head -- Zeus is, after all, a fragment of the non-insane-version of Big Mom's soul, so it makes perfect sense that food would distract him from the important thing he's doing.
Of course, though, despite attempts from Nami to try and get Zeus to their side, I honestly don't think that would happen? If nothing else because Big Mom is shown to be pretty much able to exert her dominance over the Homies of the Seducing Woods other than King Baum. Like, Zeus is conversing with them civilly, but when Big Mom gets up from the fall he's back to "whoops, mama is angry".
The scene where Prometheus expands and drops down and incinerates King Baum (and a chunk of the mama-loyal tree homies, too) is pretty well done, in my opinion, making the goofy Prometheus look actually terrifying for that panel.
The rest of the chapter cuts away from the Big Mom/Straw Hat stuff, showing that Katakuri, truly, is the boss. I would've burned down the Thousand Sunny altogether if I was in his position, but using Brulee's powers to insert Katakuri himself and a large amount of troops into the Thousand Sunny, just in case they fail... and as another just in case, Mont D'Or is organizing the Big Mom armada and underwater radar sea-slugs, as well as having Brulee stand by with like a couple thousand soldiers (including Perospero and Daifuku) in the Mirror World, ready to be deployed where is necessary.
Meanwhile Pudding catches up to Capone, who's tank-rolling away pretty happily, demanding to talk to Chiffon. Neither Capone nor Chiffon is willing to help out, but then Pudding begs with tears from all three of her eyes that she is asking for her help because otherwise Sanji will be killed. Huh, so she is in love with Sanji after all? Which isn't terribly surprising, considering her conflicted emotion ever since the actual wedding. We'll see how it goes next week.
I thought this chapter could've been done better, with the Straw Hats delaying Big Mom's pursuit with something less silly like King Baum, but on the other hand the only things so far that is able to slow down Big Mom has been, well, Big Mom's forces herself like King Baum's disloyalty and Zeus liking the black balls, and not direct intervention from the actual Straw Hats -- no Gear Fourth or Diable Jambe is going to save them now. This does help to sell the huge threat factor of the Yonko, which I really, really like.
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