Zou is upon us. Oda’s worldbuilding and eye for detail are at full display here. We have already met several characters from Zou throughout our story, most noteworthy of them are Bepo, who is Law’s crewmate and Pekoms, who works for Big Mom. We get to see both of them again in this arc so rejoice if you like minks.
Luffy, Zoro, Franky, Usopp and Robin have joined up with the rest of the Straw Hats with one notable exception. It seems like Sanji is no longer present on Zou. We learn what happened to Zou as the Straw Hats learn it. First, the island was beset upon by Jack the Drought, one of Kaido’s three headliners. Jack is there to search for a ninja by the name of Raizou, but the people of Zou are adamant that Raizou isn’t on their island. Speaking of the people of Zou, their culture and rulership is quite interesting. For starters, they’re divided into two groups when it comes to their warriors. There’s those that walk around during the day, led by Duke Dogstorm (Inuarashi). Then there are those that keep an eye on the island during the night, led by Cat Viper (Nekomamushi). These two were once good friends who traveled alongside Shanks, but now they can’t stand each other. What’s worse, both of them had their bodies heavily mutilated by Jack, losing a leg and an arm respectively. Despite all of this pain and suffering, no one admitted to knowing where Raizou was. Eventually Jack had to leave the island behind to go and intercept Doflamingo, which means that Luffy was the one who ended up saving the minks from destruction.
Let’s go back to earlier, when I mentioned that Sanji wasn’t here. It turns out that Pekoms followed the Straw Hats to Zou after he realized that this is where they were going. He brought Capone Bege along with him, one of the members of the worst generation alongside Luffy, Zoro and Law. After seeing how the crew managed to save his family and friends, Pekoms says he can’t go through with what he wanted to do here and lets the Straw Hats go. Bege thinks very differently about this and shoots Pekoms in the back before kidnapping the Straw Hats into his own body. His castle powers allow him to store an entire army in his body which has to be one of the coolest and most convenient powers in the series. He can even turn himself into a tank. But putting aside how cool Bege is, he now has the Straw Hats hostage and we soon learn why Sanji’s wanted poster says ‘only alive’. Sanji has called himself prince as a joke several times throughout the series and we know that he’s originally from the north blue before he found himself in the clutches of Zeff and eventually at Baratie. But he’s never shared any of his past from before he got to that point. We find out now that he’s a member of the Vinsmoke family. And his father has decided to marry him to one of Big Mom’s daughters. We also find out that the Vinsmoke family are a dangerous group of people who have an evil army called Germa 66. No nazi references here folks. Either way, Bege convinces Sanji that he has no choice but to come with them and after sending Nami, Chopper and Brook to safety, he leaves with Bege. That means Big Mom also got her hands on Caesar which I’m sure the scientist isn’t particularly happy about.
After some partying at Zou and the trio of Robin, Franky and Brook playing the responsible adults but forgetting that those of us in our 30s go to bed earlier than those darn kids, we see that Kin’emon and Kanjuurou finally make their way up the mountain and arrive. This stirs the island since there’s a rumor going around that the minks hate samurai. That’s to be expected when Jack just raided their entire kingdom while looking for them. But the hatred for samurai is nothing more than a misunderstanding as Nekomamushi and Inuarashi soon show their respect and friendship for the two samurai, who they’ve been waiting for. It turns out that Zou and the Kozuki family have been allied for a very long time, and the minks really were guarding a ninja without telling Jack. What a bunch of legends. We get to learn more about them next week, but for now I hope you enjoyed this post and as usual, thank you for reading!
Opal Kaharis 