One Piece 893 Review: Manly Match

One Piece, Chapter 893: 36th Daughter of the Charlotte Family, Flampe

I think we're just counting down the time until the big chapter 900 for a proper climax, yeah? Still, at least this chapter offers some character development for Katakuri and a neat little buildup to the rivalry between him and Luffy. It's honestly a situation that's somewhat similar to Hit from Dragon Ball Super where the super-powerful rival antagonist is extremely flat beyond being "cool and strong", but ends up respecting the main character and ending up growing as a character thanks to that. Katakuri's a cool character, but doesn't really have much personality beyond being professional and cool and that weird bit where he pigs out on donuts. 

Here, though? He actually develops a respect for Luffy. It's a well and tried trope of "DO NOT INTERRUPT A BATTLE BETWEEN TWO MEN" deal, but it's executed well... on Katakuri's part, that is. Apparently Flambe's the one that shot Luffy and caused him to easily get hit by Katakuri in the previous chapter, causing a disgusted Katakuri to stab himself in the gut in order to level the playing field, and tell Flambe to get the fuck away.

Of course, I'm not that pleased with the inclusion of Flambe at all. Her character is literally just obnoxious and tailored to fit the plot, making a complete 180 from "Katakuri's #1 Fan Girl" to "fuck you, you suck, I'll spread your face all over Pirate-Instagram" or whatever the fuck that is... yeah. The writing definitely could've been a little better around Flambe's character to make her less of a silly caricature. Also silly is the fact that every single one of the footsoldiers end up just echoing Flambe's mood and mockery despite being, y'know, fodder. I guess she's supposed to show that Katakuri's matured enough to not be bothered by the threats of being exposed, and that he has his head completely in the game, but eh. 

We do get a pretty cool set of attacks from Katakuri, and both he and Luffy unleash Conqueror's Haki which I don't think we know if Katakuri had. Flambe gets knocked out of the story due to this, and we get a pretty cool face off between the two of them, with Katakuri enveloping his fists with some sort of weird bubbles. It's a pretty neat chapter, even if Flambe's a very poorly-written plot device, Katakuri ends up being a whole lot more defined as a character. Good stuff.