Notes

OP chapter 878 discussion

What a great chapter ...
The absence of the mini-story is not felt at all; Also the color spread is awesome. And the plot of this chapter is incredible. Maybe it was the break or maybe that the previous chapters are a little down the line with the standards that OP has always offered us, but reading this chapter has impressed me a lot .

In fact, this week I felt a sort of return to the origins; let me be clear that some flaws are still there, like BigMom being set aside which for me still remains difficult to handle, a chance of survival for Pedro who is likely to become our Pell 2.0; but overall, i feel the same atmospfere like back in the day: the journey of Roger and his ideals once again presented in a beautiful flashback, the crew who together tries to get out to this mess, the captain who finally puts in play all he's got and the final boss outlined.
In short, this arc is coming to an end.

PEDRO AND ROGER's journey

The scene opens with the explosion that had left us in suspense for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, Oda still does not reveal the news we are waiting for, whether or not Pedro has survived. Actually he tries to convince us of the opposite, the fact that in the distance you only see Perospero all banged up, which tells us that he's the only survivor ... scene that launches Carrot into a desperate attack.
However, I would not be so sure; Pell reappears in the last chapters of the Alabasta saga, when the crew already departed, this to create a surprise effect on readers.
Hopefully Oda will not play such a card again.
Hopefully he's dead. This would be the best choice I would want and more realistic because, by doing so, it would give a greater weight to Pedro's bet on the strawhats ... sacrifice himself to allow Roger's will to survive.
Nothing less than the bet made by Shanks in the first chapter of the manga, with the only difference here that its not an arm the price to pay.
There is no person who, having met Roger, does not see in luffy his ideals and his will ... and this is one of the reasons that surely prompted Mihawk to pronounce those words at Marineford about the real danger of this young man.
Those who have faith in the message left by the late King of Pirates can not fail to get involved once they become acquainted with this pirate; Raftel must be reached, One Piece must be discovered and those ideals spoken by the dying Whitebeard must be revived....... fame has nothing to do with it.
And Roger's dream is most likely to be carried on by the man himself, Monkey D. Luffy.
The brief flashback we are presented here once again is very significant. You see Roger, now aware of his precarious state of health, to encourage a young Pedro on Zou.
I must admit that this scene almost seemed to me, over 800+ chapters, the same as Shanks scene with luffy in Romance Dawn; the oldest pirate who encourages the young man to keep alive his desire to go out on the sea but at the same time to wait for the right age and maturity, the caress on the head that almost invokes Shanks's gesture when he entrusts the straw hat. In short, the feels are real, especially if you think that the two scenes are also related to the above mentioned motives.
Moving on, to clarify when Roger came to Zou is not clear, but given the elements we have available, I believe its after landing on the last GrandLine island; Once aware of the existence of the Poneglyphs and the Kouzuki family, the King of Pirates backtracks those waters in search of his future companions Oden Kouzuki and his body guards, Nekomamushi and Inuarashi (I do not know if they were still around with Newgate or perhaps they had already returned to their islands) and then resumed at the time of his last trip, but not before recruiting Crocus at Reverse Mountain.
What is significant is seeing how that brief encounter could have influenced the life of this young warrior who grew up waiting to see the dawn of the new era.
The name of his own crew carried that message, and the sacrifice made to BigMom as seen in the flashback in chapter 850 had this purpose: keep the flame lit by Roger alivefor more than 20 years ago. This is what most excited me about this chapter, to see how it does not matter who or what should be involved ... but Roger's will MUST be carried on, he has to survive!
"My friend , I will not die "...
Before addressing the second part of this analysis I wanted to clarify some doubt about the question of Perospero and why the effect of his power has disappeared even though he is still alive; the answer lies in the Dressrosa saga ... after all, to overthrow the power of Sugar it was enough to make her faint. So even if Perospero faints for a split second , his powers are cancelled.

Luffy vs KATAKURI and the escape from WHOLE CAKE ISLAND

There is one thing I'm appreciating for this "second trip" towards the boundaries of the new world, this is surely the Mugiwara's pursuit of situations that, throughout the narrative arc before the Sabaody archipelago, were lived passively as if they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time; while now our Nakama seems to be determined to create the necessary situations for the continuation and completion of the journey. And this resourcefulness is underlined in this chapter: first with Carrot, which is furious and attacks Katakuri (unsuccessfully), then with Luffy. Luffy's gesture might actually seem crazy (and indeed it is), but it is a captain's choice, a choice dictated by the need to act in a certain way: Luffy knows that even if they were released from Big Mom and his fleet by Coup de Burst the biggest problem to be eliminated is Katakuri; luffy knows that he can not fight on the Sunny, as he would risk destroying it; luffy knows that if he wants his companions to run away and does not want to waste Pedro's sacrifice, he must neutralize the most dangerous man in the emperor's crew; Luffy knows that if he wants at least a chance to fight against Kaido he must necessarily be able to defeat the strongest subordinate of a Yonko. And so here is luffy who grabs Katakuri and Brulee, hurls them into Mirror World and, after destroying the mirror (preventing any chance of returning to Sunny), is preparing to fight until the end against the First Sweet Commander, who seems to be quite happy by the idea of ​​fighting with a character like luffy. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew manages to run away from Big Mom, even firing a Coup de Burst in the face of the Empress (hopefully causing some kind of damage), flying, probably in the direction of Chocolat Island, in an attempt to recover Sanji and escape from Totland. Oda is willing to disseminate so many small dots aimed at a single goal: to defeat Big Mom without actually defeating her altogether. Because if you are an empress you can not and must not let a newbie and half of his crew to enter your territory, destroy your Tea Party and the established marriage , destroy your palace, neutralize your powers, steal a copy of the poneglyph's and end up with a cannon shot in the face. There is only one thing missing at the moment: the defeat of the only man who can put an end to the strawhats .
Thanks for reading.