This week’s chapter brought us a glimpse of what’s happening around the world, a tease on what’s happening at Baltimore and showed us what Luffy and the group are up to.

 

CHAPTER 823 – A WORLD ABUZZ

 THE REVERIE

 

We start the chapter where we left off, with Vivi heading to the reverie. This was quite a pleasant start as we got to see some old faces from the Alabasta arc. We had Kohza, Chaka, Pell and Ingram all present. Where Ingram was constantly fretting over the princess, trying to make sure she neither hurts herself nor lets her pirate affiliation be known, Pell was quite pleased to allow Vivi her freedom. Vivi herself rejected any potential marriage that might be on the rocks. Could she link up with the Strawhats again?

Hina, the kick-ass former marine captain is accompanying the Nefertari family to the reverie and I say former as she has now risen up to the rank of Rear Admiral. We haven’t seen much of her at all in the show and they’ve given her Jango and Fullbody so I’m expecting something a lot more from Hina in the future. I like her character from the little we’ve been provided with.

The scene where Ingram tells Vivi to be careful up on the mast of the ship was quite comical as he mentions getting carried off by a gigantic bird and this is a direct reference to the scene where Luffy met this exact fate, although I cannot recall when exactly this happened. Feel free to remind me.

 

NICO ROBIN IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Now this caught me by surprise. I mean it’s not exactly surprising if you think about it logically but I just didn’t expect to Robin’s name show up all of a sudden. It makes sense as Vivi’s father, the King of Alabasta still has the incident involving Crocodile fresh in his head and the discovery of the poneglyph is what has him intrigued. Just what kind of information were his ancestors hiding and what does it all mean?

You see the poneglyphs will now become a major point in the story now that their origin has been revealed along with the purpose to which they were made. Nico Robin may still be the only person who has access to that information and thus becomes all the more vital in regards to overall plotline. Was it coincidence or fate that she teamed up with the Strawhats?

 

THE REVERIE

Apparently the Reverie takes place every 4 years and we have 50 different countries that take part in the meeting. We have King Riku who will be attending with Rebecca, ‘King Punch’ from the Providence shall also be going. Dalton and the crazy doctor lady from Chopper’s Island were shown as was Wapol who has a new country to rule now.

The Fishmen were having trouble deciding who will attend with Shirahoshi not being too keen. Imagine if the people of the reverie learnt of her being one of the 3 deadly powers?

Sao Chinjao was mentioned but apparently he can’t make but a fresh new face with old ties was reintroduced. King Stelly, the step-brother of Sabo. This will make it a whole lot more interesting.

I also feel Sanji’s father was shown in the process of revealing a few new faces we hadn’t seen before in regards to the Kings that will be attending the Reverie.

DRAGON VS BLACKBEARD

Just when we thought we would finally have a chance to see Dragon and Revolutionaries in action as well as what the new Blackbeard Pirates look like, we were given the disappointing news of Baltimore having been discovered and its destruction. Can you imagine how the Marines felt? After all these years, finally we have discovered the base of the Revolutionaries, only for someone to have destroyed it before we got there. I guess it makes their job a little easier considering they know the Revolutionaries will be laying a little low for now if they haven’t already been defeated.

I don’t think Blackbeard actually defeated Dragon. That would be so anticlimactic. I reckon Dragon realised the threat as soon as it arrived and had a backup plan in place to escape. As revolutionaries, their vision and plan to change the world is greater than any battle, even if it were against the marines themselves. The idea is to liberate the world from the government. Taking down the pawns that they put forth would only result in more pawns rising in their place. Not a risk Dragon would be willing to take.

BUNNY BUSINESS

So Carrot decided to sneak up on board. I read a lot of theories in regards to this. A lot of people predicted Carrot would tag along for the journey and I’ll be honest, I couldn’t see any real reason why this would happen but I guess some people know Oda and One Piece better than I do.

I could cry in the corner for a while but I’ve already done that accepted the fact and moved on. They have a time-machine and I don’t, hence why they know.

So Carrot bought some carrot based food products on board for her provisions and Luffy being the idiot he is decided to eat her carrot. Bad move! The rabbit mink dived straight for Luffy’s throat with tremendous strength and vigour and only upon Nami’s advice to pat her head was Luffy able to calm her down.

MINK MADNESS

It seems that all these minks have a special quirk that helps them calm down after they go into rage mode and in this rage mode they are extremely strong. A lot stronger than you would first think. For example Rory and Blackback were out of control in their attack on Luffy when the Strawhat Captain first arrived at the whale forest. Jean Bart and Bepo were hopeless in their attempts to stop them and it was only the arrival of Wanda that calmed them down.

Do you remember how she did so; with a red cloth and a banana. How peculiar right? And here we had Carrot needing a pat on the head to get her out of her fix. This gets me thinking and it was pointed out by someone on reddit. They mentioned something about Pekoms having a temperament only Pedro knows how to handle. What if Pekoms also has one of these hyper modes that is super dangerous and Pedro is required to keep him in check should that happen. That would make a lot of sense in terms of plot. I wonder when we will see it take place?

 

 

 

CHAPTER RATING: 8/10

A good solid chapter with a lot of old faces combined with a fresh set of new information. I liked the comedy, the content and I noticed Luffy for once used actual sailing terms as he called for ‘starboard’. Recently read a book where there pirates and sailing involved and I happened to learn some of these technical terms used when sailing the seas. Also Luffy claiming he’s going to cook. Hilarious!