One of the biggest things holding back Carrot’s Straw Hat potential was her inability to fight at full power, but Chapter 1081 has a solution to that.
The following contains spoilers for One Piece Chapter 1081, “Tenth Ship Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates, Kuzan” by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul, and Vanessa Satone, available in English from Viz Media.
A lot of One Piece fans were upset to find out that Carrot wouldn’t be continuing her adventures with the Straw Hat Pirates after the Wano Arc. As divisive as this narrative decision was, there was at least one valid point in favor of it. Unless the Straw Hats were consistently fighting under a full moon, their Mink friend had no way to access the full extent of her powers.
However, this reservation was debunked in Chapter 1081, “Tenth Ship Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates, Kuzan.” It turns out there is a way for Minks to fight at full strength even without a moon, and it was even developed by the Straw Hats’ doctor, Chopper. Suddenly, one of the biggest hurdles to Carrot being a long-term crewmember seems like it never existed to begin with.
Could Carrot Overcome Her Sulong Drawback?
The main thing holding Carrot back was that she could not fight at full power at her discretion. Her ultimate Sulong form was only available once a month by looking at a full moon. This wasn’t a problem on Whole Cake Island or Onigashima, but that largely came down to luck. It would be highly improbable for the rest of the Straw Hats’ major battles to take place during the night of a full moon.
This is where Chapter 1080’s solution becomes important. To escape the Blackbeard Pirates with Trafalgar Law in tow, Bepo, the Heart Pirates’ polar bear Mink, temporarily accessed his Sulong despite the absence of the moon. This was thanks to an experimental drug developed by Chopper that was given to him at an unspecified time. It may seem like a deus ex machina, but if Oda was willing to put it into the story, then it should be accepted as a viable Mink power-up.
The possibility of Carrot working as a long-term Straw Hat becomes all the more believable with the introduction of this drug. Now, instead of only being able to fight at her best when there’s a full moon, she can do so at her own convenience. Of course, she’d probably still have to deal with the taxing drawbacks of becoming Sulong, but it probably wouldn’t be much worse than the effect of Chopper accessing Monster Point.
Given these facts, the Sulong drug unfortunately reads like Oda getting one last laugh over the disappointed Carrot fans — readers who had come to terms with the end of a beloved character’s storyline were forced to realize that, possibly, it wasn’t totally necessary for her journey to end. At the end of the day, however, there will always be the hope that Carrot comes back into the story in one form or another.
