Summary:
Nami asks Chopper to join the crew, but he says he’s not interested. Kureha tells Nami something about Chopper’s background. After Luffy realizes the abilities that Chopper has, he wants to get him to join the crew.
Nami is surprised because the strange creature she met when she woke up can talk. He looks like he’s worried about her health, but he’s acting scared and awkward. Dr. Kureha calls him Chopper. He informs Nami, whose fever has dropped, that her illness was caused by the bite of a disease-carrying bug and that it would kill her in the next two days. Due to the severity of her illness, Kureha tells Nami that she must stay at least three more days to recover.
Meanwhile, Chopper is taking care of Luffy and Sanji in another room. Then he remembers their arrival at the top of the mountain. Sanji had several injuries and Luffy was wearing his usual clothes, so he was suffering from insufficient heat. As Kureha looked at Nami, Luffy grabbed Kureha’s arm and told her that they were his friends.
While Chopper is lost in this memory, Luffy wakes up, hungry as usual. Seeing that Luffy wants to eat him, Chopper freaks out again. Sanji also begins to wake up, scaring Chopper even more. They both chase after him and stop for a moment when they see Nami. As they continue to pursue Chopper, Nami questions Kureha about him, who tells her that Chopper is “just a reindeer with a blue nose” who ate the Devil Fruit, Hito Hito no Mi, which allowed him to talk and walk like a human. Meanwhile, Chopper transforms into a bigger and more muscular version of himself to break away from his pursuers. Kureha also mentions that she taught Chopper all about medicine.
At the base of the mountain, Wapol and his two followers, Chess and Kuromarimo, are still searching for Luffy to get revenge.
In a village buried by an avalanche, everyone except Zoro digs through the snow in search of Dalton. When they find him, he appears to be dead as he has no pulse. Having lost track of Chopper, Luffy and Sanji are in the same room with Kureha. Luffy asks her to join their crew as they still need a doctor on board. After another attempt to capture Chopper, the two are chased away by Kureha and discover that the castle is full of snow. Chopper stays with Nami, who asks him to be the crew’s doctor. Later, Kureha tells Nami that it won’t be easy to convince him. He explains that Chopper had a rough past because he was born with a blue nose. After eating the devil fruit, he became even more different than the other reindeer. Reindeer and humans alike hated and feared him, so he was left alone.
As Luffy and Sanji are about to close the gate to prevent more snow from entering the castle, Chopper transforms back into his muscular form to stop them. Sanji realizes that there is a bird’s nest that would fall if the gate was closed. They stop without a fight, but they call Chopper a monster because of his abilities and appearance. This causes the reindeer to walk away while being knocked down. Still, Luffy likes Chopper’s weirdness and wants him in his crew.