One Piece 933 Review: Samurai's Mercy

One Piece, Chapter 933: A Samurai's Mercy

Let's get the negativity out of the way first, because Big Mom is still amnesiac, and apparently became buddies with Chopper off-screen. And it's... it's not entirely out of character for Big Mom to behave like this -- specifically, she regresses back to her child mentality back in her backstory flashbacks. I kinda-sorta see what they are going for with Big Mom, how she's going to maybe kinda-sorta learn about actual morality from the Straw Hats while being amnesiac, something that she never managed to do under Mother Caramel's bad parenting, but they way that this is going on is just poorly-conceived and so far honestly just seems to exist to shoehorn in Big Mom as a huge wrench in the Wano-kuni arc. I still hold onto my opinion that even if Big Mom's seeming future heel-face-turn is going to be a plot point I like a lot, this whole sequence is pretty shit. 

The rest of the chapter, though, continues the conflict going on in the Shogun's castle, and it's pretty fun. We get the confirmation of Orochi's fruit (it's a mythical version of the Snake-Snake Fruit... orochis are snakes, not dragons, despite what 90% of the manga community wants to believe). It is interesting to note that Orochi doesn't seem to have full control of all his heads, with them rampaging and biting people who aren't Komurasaki. Not sure if this inability to control his heads is just a side-effect of his Devil Fruit power, or if he is just that much of a quirky bastard. 

We get an interesting bit that the Onibawanshu ninjas don't actually give a shit what the shogun does, because in their mind, the shogun can do whatever he damn well pleases. A bunch of the ninjas (Daikoku, Fujin, Raijin, Hanzo) all get name-dropped and, as expected, they all borrow names from Japanese gods. Robin's cover is all but blown, but we get an unexpectedly fun bit with Brook rising up from the grave and pretending to be the legendary well ghost or some shit, scaring two of the ninjas that are riding Whiscashes away. 

Also interestingly is everyone's reaction to seeing ghostly Brook and Robin's Mille Fleur attacks -- I had completely forgotten that Wano-kuni is a land who has had no exposure to Devil Fruits, and everyone freaks out that this is the work of an army of ghosts. 

Speaking of covers being blown, Hanzo, one of the ninjas, discover Nami and Shinobu on top of the rafters, and we learn that Shinobu is apparently known as the 'man killer' and used to be very bewitching... but then she basically attacks Hanzo with a ball-buster attack. It's... it's a sequence of fun, weird comedy and I'm honestly not sure what Shinobu's deal is. Is she truly beautiful and a seductress when she was younger? Or is Hanzo's assessment that the 'man killer' epithet came from her attacking men's balls? I dunno. Whatever the case, Nami and Shinobu bring the ceiling falling down onto Orochi's head.

This leads to Komurasaki being freed from Orochi's grasp... and then Kyoshiro slashes Komurasaki in the chest. It's... it's a bit weird, because the previous chapters have sort of been building Kyoshiro to be something a bit more than just a gangster with a pompadour, and I'm not sure if he's gunning for Orochi's position, or one of the Scabbard Samurai or whatever, but he does ask Komurasaki if she is 'prepared' before slashing her. I'm pretty sure that narrative-wise this isn't the end of Komurasaki at all, but it is interesting -- are there Devil Fruits involved? Some fancy way for Kyoshiro to slash at a person to seemingly cause them to appear dead?

Also, interestingly, Kyoshiro seems to discover one of Kin'emon's calling cards for other allies of the Kozuki clan. Considering how enigmatic Kyoshiro is as a character, I'm honestly curious to see where he's going to go from here. It's pretty great what you can do with some focus for a couple of chapters, huh? I don't think I ever gave two shits about Kyoshiro, Komurasaki and Orochi until last week. Now I'm curious how they relate to the bigger backstory of the Kozuki clan and its many, many retainers. I don't think it'll happen for some time, though, because this segment of the chapter ends with Nami unleashing motherfucking ZEUS on the castle. It's awesome.

It does bring to question why Zeus seem unchanged. I mean, he doesn't seem to have lost his memory, so is the amnesia just limited to Big Mom? But then if that's the case, isn't Napoleon the hat with Big Mom? You'd think Napoleon would have something to say about her being buddy-buddy with the Straw Hats. I dunno. Overall, I do like the whole Wano-kuni storyline a fair bit more now... just not the Big Mom amnesia.