'One Piece' Preview Bodes Ominously For One Straw Hat Ally

One Piece has reached a turning point of the Whole Cake Island arc as Luffy and the others have made their way to the Thousand Sunny, but the preview for the series' next episode doesn't bode well for one of the newest additions: Pedro.

The next episode preview features a look back on Pedro's past while making sure to keep fans on their toes with some very ominous imagery.

Episode 849 of One Piece is titled "Before the Dawn! Pedro, the Captain of the Guardians" and the preview for it teases more of a look into Pedro's past than before. All fans have seen until now is his unfortunate run in with Big Mom and her Wheel of Death, which ultimately took 30 years from his life and stole the entire life of his friend.

But Pedro's past not only is revealed to have ties to the previous Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, but it seems Pedro fights on because of this influence. Carrying on the last wishes of Roger, Pedro apparently makes the "bet of a lifetime" in order to buy Luffy and the other Straw Hats some time against Persopero, Katakuri, and the quickly approaching Big Mom.

This doesn't seem to go so well, unfortunately, as accompanying shots in the trailer see Pedro struggling against Perospero's candy making power. Fans saw a demonstration of this power against Chopper and Brook, with their candy coating killing them after three minutes' time.

But Pedro seems to be taking this attack more directly, with Perospero standing over him and pouring the candy in. Hopefully, Pedro can outlast these admittedly loud death flags in the preview.

If you're interested in the series, One Piece's is currently in the middle of the "Whole Cake Island" arc and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation. Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has 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 over 430 million copies sold. Eiichiro Oda revealed some news about One Piece's future in a recent interview as well.

Stating that he was about 80% done with the manga at this point with the Wano arc, fans are worried that the series may be coming to an end sooner than they thought. But it wouldn't be wrong to infer that the ending will most likely still be years away given how much of the world there still is to explore.