User blog comment:Ghmorello/Chapter 889: Prepare To Abandon 2017/@comment-24850639-20171227201428

My Carrot hype is on standby still. I understand her strategy to destroy the ship helms to clear a path for the Sunny and not get dragged into any serious combat, but I'm still frustrated that we have a lack of true power scaling for Carrot. I stated this last week as well, but I was hoping to get some kind of clash between Carrot and one of the other named Big Mom Pirates. Not a serious 1v1 obviously due to the circumstances, but just something that shows us where Carrot is truly at in terms of strength. Even if it is the fodder of a Yonko, it's still fodder - a bunch of no-name characters who really serve no other purpose to the arc but getting jobbed. She instead used Daifuku's destructive power against him and his fleet, letting him absolutely tear his own ships apart. It was cool to see that Daifuku's genie does indeed have it's own personality and strength, so I'm hoping that's not the last we see of him. To be honest though, it looks like he won't be relevant again for quite some time this arc, if ever again.

I extend my disdain to the Sanji portion of this chapter. At this point Oda is just recycling the Pudding gags, I would hope that she had more interesting dialogue as they talk about things like Big Mom's past and other members of the crew. At least the gags were more interesting when she had the split personality, watching her fangirl chapter after chapter has gotten old now. I'm so over these pseudo-epic moments of Sanji reaffirming his intent as a chef......WE DON'T GIVE A DAMN. We didn't fall in love with Sanji because he's a cook that happens to kick some ass here and there, we fell in love with Sanji because he's a guy who kicks some major ass, and just happens to be a cook. I understand being a chef is his job and the specific reason he was sought out for the crew, but Sanji's exploits as a member of the monster trio have long outshined that. We've been lead to believe that he and Zoro are the strongest members of the crew behind Luffy, and most people also are inclined to believe that Jinbe joining the crew won't change that. However, what has Sanji done since the timeskip to hold that position? Baking a cake damn sure doesn't fit the bill. People aren't upset that Sanji is cooking for Big Mom, a lot of people expected it before we even knew the Whole Cake Island arc was gonna happen. People are upset because Sanji still hasn't redeemed himself combat-wise, which people were hoping that an arc focused on SANJI would give us. Until then, you can miss me with the cooking exploits.

As far as Big Mom goes, I wonder what Jinbe is planning. Abandoning ship couldn't seem like a more horrible option, but trying to fight her head on doesn't seem to be as well. Though to be fair, Brook seemed to do quite a fine job, and now has help. At this point though, I just want to see Luffy vs. Katakuri make meaningful progress in the next few weeks.