Chapter 949: Mummy

[Kaido King of the Beasts]

I didn't intend to reference anything. Just laugh at explosions.

[BattleFranky69]

I did actually mention the pokemon ability in the comment before the one you're replying to. It's one of the reasons I was wondering if contagious mummification was a Japanese thing rather than just an Oda thing, since I'd never really heard of mummies having that specific property in western lore. (it's always more specific target curses in things I've seen)

Like was there a Japanese bit of pop culture that popularised it, or is it a trait that comes from Japan's own Buddhist mummies and their lore, or am I just overthinking it entirely?

Well I've seen things where the mummies would just dry out their victims leaving them a desiccated husk just like the mummy themselves. Like they need it to preserve their own re-animation so they sacrifice others to maintain their own existence. I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer had an episode where an Incan or Aztec mummy girl had to go around doing that. Crocodile even already had that kind of ability, drying people and objects out and turning them to dust.