One Piece, Chpater 877: Not Sweet
I've written this up, kinda sorta, while waiting for my plane. So while most of the other posts that you'll see this month have been pre-written reviews, sometimes I'll pop up with a couple of up-to-date manga reviews. Not that One Piece chapter 877 is particularly up to date, mind you -- it's last week's chapter, but since we don't have a chapter this week, well, here goes.
Cover story's continuing with the Sai side of the storyline, where apparently Sai's already bethroted to this very... manly... lady. It's going to probably cause some brouhaha considering Sai and Baby Five got themselves lumped together, but hey, wouldn't you pick Baby Five over this dude in drag?
Regardless, the chapter's yet another one that seems a little bit of "more of the same" with Big Mom chasing the others, though at least this time around we get some progression. Perospero's basically taken out Chopper and Brook by locking them in place and suffocating them with candy. (I'm not sure if Brook will actually be taken out if he gets covered by candy -- I mean, he doesn't have to breathe).
Meanwhile, team Luffy gets chased by Big Mom straight to the coast and it's honestly starting to grate. I did love how Katakuri basically tells all the troops to fuck back off to the Mirror World because Luffy can take them all out with Conqueror's Haki, literally leaving only the big players -- Big Mom, Perospero and Katakuri. Perospero takes the lead as the main villain this chapter, unnleashing a gigantic iron maiden made up of candy that Luffy Red Hawks and melts, and we get this absolutely awesome punch-meets-punch that Katakuri and Luffy has as their respective stretchy punches slam into each other. Carrot makes note that their powers are very similar, further emphasized with panels of how their arms 'lock' back into position after stretching. A lot of people have basically guessed that Katakuri's going to be the 'final' enemy that Luffy is going to have to beat for the arc, and while I'd have liked a lot more buildup on Katakuri as a character, at least he has cool powers and a cool design.
Pedro (who has been kind of ignored for the past few chapters) gets a bit more scene this time around and talks to Carrot about how Luffy's crew are the ones that the Kouzuki Clan have been waiting for to lead the world to its new dawn. Nami and Jinbe, meanwhile, prepare to Coup d'Burst out of the place, while other commmanders of Big Mom like Mont D'or and Amande are surrounding them with warships.
And then the Coup d'Burst gets disabled by Perospero, who surrounds the entire ship with candy. It's a bit of a darkest hour thing (one in a series of multiple ones) with them being trapped between Big Mom, the warships and Katakuri fighting Luffy. And then Pedro drags Perospero off the boat, noting that with Perospero's defeat all the candy stuff holding the Sunny, Chopper and Brook in place will be destroyed. Pedro then lights up his dynamite belt and blows himself and Perospero up. And it's.. .a cool enough death scene? I just kind of wish that it stuck. One Piece's biggest problem is that death tends to not stick for good guys outside the Marineford arc, and as badass as this sacrifice scene is, I really feel that if Pedro comes back just like Pell did way back in the Alabasta arc or Mr. 2 did in the Impel Down arc (another black mark in One Piece's books) it'd be a bit of a silly scene where they built up Pedro's borderline-suicidal character throughout the Zou and Whole Cake Island arcs for nothing. I wouldn't mind a final Pedro sendoff chapter or something to close out his characterization as a whole, but I really hope Pedro's death sticks. We'll see.
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