'One Piece' Kills Off A Major Straw Hat Ally

One Piece isn't a stranger to death, but fans are rarely if ever ready to say goodbye to their favorite characters. In the past, the fandom has been hit with big losses, and it seems another major death has rocked the One Piece world.

So, you've been warned! There are major spoilers for One Piece episode 849 below!

This weekend, fans were shown a new episode of One Piece, and the update held plenty of angst. With Big Mom trailing the Sanji Retrieval Squad, the Straw Hats find themselves at an impasse when the Thousand Sunny is attacked. Monkey D. Luffy learns Perospero and Katakuri are guarding the ship so the pirates cannot escape, and the former is only taken out when Pedro sacrifices his life to stop him.

Yes, the fan-favorite ally gave his life to take out Perospero, and the Straw Hats were left dismayed by Pedro's sacrifice.

After Perospero anchored the Thousand Sunny with candy, the Straw Hat crew was desperate to escape. Big Mom was bearing down upon them from one side while her fleet came from the ocean. Unable to flee, Pedro engaged Perospero in battle, and the mink was nearly beat. However, the former captain of the Nox Pirates refused to go out so quickly.

With a quick look back on his past, Pedro decides it is his time. He grabs Perospero's foot and reveals the bevy of bombs he's keep in his coat. The mink takes a final drag of his cigarette before using its butt to ignite his fuse, and the ensuing explosion engulfs plenty of land. The suicidal move dislodged the Thousand Sunny from its crystal prison while likely killing Perospero as well, but the cost comes too high for the Straw Hat family to accept. After all, the gang has been allied with Pedro some time now, and his death will weigh heavily on the team as well as Carrot.

Do you think Pedro's sacrifice was the only option left to the group? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It's been a critical and commercial success worldwide, with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with 430 million copies sold.