Chapter Discussion 1044: All Problems with the Devil Fruit that got its name changed

[BlackLegFring]

I'll keep this brief for those who don't want to read an essay and will expand on points if needed. Keep in mind that some of the points are obviously personal as well, and further explanation may change some even though I doubt that. Also, right off the bat I want to make it clear this isn't a place to complain "this has ruined One Piece", "it's the end of days", etc. We are all here because OP is still a damn good series and one bad development doesn't change that.

1. It's lazy. Oda couldn't fit the abilities with an existing mythical figure so he created an in-verse Sun God to explain it away so he wouldn't be restricted in doing what he wanted regardless of consistency.

2. It changes one of the best aspects for Luffy. He's gone from using one of the most despised and mundane abilities to the utmost against opponents with superior abilities to secretly having one of the rarest and most special abilities all along but just being unable to use it due to random restrictions that are inconsistent compared to other abilities. None of his rivals or opponents had the names of their fruits changed, even Blackbeard's that supposedly the most "evil" fruit in history.

3. It indicates incredible incompetence on the part of the WG as well. Sure we'll have to wait for some sort of attempt to explain it, but the very fact that it's implied the Gorosei don't know is a big problem in and of itself. You can't seriously handle a problem without even knowing what it is. Having the fruit guarded in the first place also implies that they did know.

4. The seemingly random restrictions placed on the fruit don't make much sense. The fruit is even more special because apparently you can't even do the basic Zoan transformation into your creature that every other Zoan fruit allows unless you specifically awaken it. I've already seen a lot of attempts to excuse this away (like needing haki despite no other fruit having such a random requirement) and none of them really work.

5. There's the meta implication that the race for the One Piece has just been a fool's errand if you didn't eat the right fruit because you couldn't even use it anyway. Roger wanted to meet Joyboy, but to become Joyboy you had to eat Joyboy's fruit.

As it stands, I can't think of any development that has been anywhere close to being as problematic as this one.

 

[cleanmrpostman]

Another (and imo one of the biggest) with this is the sheer number of times Luffy was given an exception where any other character, good or evil, has to follow what used to be a logical structure. There's a victory box announcing the winner, the loser does not get to inexplicably get back up fresh and stronger than ever to comeback... unless you're Luffy. Your devil fruit is set and doesn't get to change name, type, or ability in a sudden overhaul.. unless you're Luffy. Being the pirate king and the freest man is earned not given... unless you're Luffy.
Say he's the mc all you want but Oda should have been able to get Luffy to his destination without all the God-level shit. You're right it's just lazy.

 

[BlackLegFring]

Another (and imo one of the biggest) with this is the sheer number of times Luffy was given an exception where any other character, good or evil, has to follow what used to be a logical structure. There's a victory box announcing the winner, the loser does not get to inexplicably get back up fresh and stronger than ever to comeback... unless you're Luffy. Your devil fruit is set and doesn't get to change name, type, or ability in a sudden overhaul.. unless you're Luffy. Being the pirate king and the freest man is earned not given... unless you're Luffy.
Say he's the mc all you want but Oda should have been able to get Luffy to his destination without all the God-level shit. You're right it's just lazy.

Agree with the victory box for Kaido. It just looks empty and pointless now which raises the question of why even bother include it in the first place.

 

[sanjikun]

Oda is turning OP into a poor man's Naruto.

First all of this destiny shit.

Then the "but wait. There's more" tropes. Nothing is good enough as it seems on the surface. There always has to be some hidden shit.

 

[Night Flight]

I'm slowly warming up to the concept of the fruit, but I actually agree with all of your points. The WG issue is the most glaring one, and it's the one most people have been pointing out (including me), but you also mention a few others that I hadn't really thought of. Creating an in-universe god does seem like the "easy way out", especially since Oda can just give Luffy any new ability and then retroactively add some lore that justifies it, something like "oh yeah, Nika also had a magical spear that he was able to generate from thin air, it's a known part of the legends, you see!". Maybe if we had gotten more information about Nika and the legends associated with him long before this reveal, things would be different, but well, we didn't.

I'm starting to think that a lot of these issues I'm feeling could have been avoided with more set-up. Maybe Oda could have introduced a "made-up" Mythical Zoan before this Nika reveal; that could have warmed us up to the idea of Mythical Zoans not based on real life mythology. Maybe give Yamato a fruit that is meant to be Wano's protector animal but isn't based on real Japanese mythology, I don't know.

And most importantly, like I mentioned above, he could have started setting up the concept of Nika wayyy before the Who's Who fight (which has the clumsiest exposition out of any OP fight by far, and feels massively shoehorned and out-of-place.) I know that Skypiea is technically set-up, but I'm talking about the post-timeskip.

 

[Weeman]

I don't really agree with your first two points.

1. One Piece doesn't exactly have much of a mythology, the fruit could have just as easily been called model: Joy Boy or model: Uranus or whatever and it wouldn't change a thing. We need the full story to understand the lore so i don't see how it would be "lazy".

2. I never understood the idea that Luffy was some kind of underdog making the best out of a bad fruit. Some antagonists have underestimated the fruit because of how silly it is but have then immediately been proven wrong by Luffy's punch, but the fruit itself has never been seen as useless outside of like, Ace as a child.
It's always been about how Luffy has brought the potential out of the fruit thanks to his imagination, and if anything this new power is only amplifying that.

Everything else though i agree, specially with the WG looking so incompetent in retrospect.
They would've found out about Luffy's powers from as early as Arlong Park or Enies Lobby at the latest, so if the fruit is something they fear this much then Luffy would've been brought down ages ago.

 

[BerserkerLord3000]

Sometimes I'm not a fan of Oda's FS. Mention something way back in skypea then 600+ chapters later remind us. The problem is too much breadcrums to make 20% bread and that bread has even more crums. Now what crazy twist he's gonna do with shanks? The guy we saw like 5 times in 2-3 panels? He's Cryboy of the moon?
This is why I love the bioshock 1 twist. You get multiple hints.

 

[Xlaw]

I think need to wait for more explanation.
I feel that origin of DF will connect many dots

 

[Tripod]

Yikes, you're not wrong I don't think
Awaiting more clarification tho

 

[kom5]

The most annoying thing is the looney toons appearance
It's boring and not funny

 

[BlackLegFring]

I'm slowly warming up to the concept of the fruit, but I actually agree with all of your points. The WG issue is the most glaring one, and it's the one most people have been pointing out (including me), but you also mention a few others that I hadn't really thought of. Creating an in-universe god does seem like the "easy way out", especially since Oda can just give Luffy any new ability and then retroactively add some lore that justifies it, something like "oh yeah, Nika also had a magical spear that he was able to generate from thin air, it's a known part of the legends, you see!". Maybe if we had gotten more information about Nika and the legends associated with him long before this reveal, things would be different, but well, we didn't.

I'm starting to think that a lot of these issues I'm feeling could have been avoided with more set-up. Maybe Oda could have introduced a "made-up" Mythical Zoan before this Nika reveal; that could have warmed us up to the idea of Mythical Zoans not based on real life mythology. Maybe give Yamato a fruit that is meant to be Wano's protector animal but isn't based on real Japanese mythology, I don't know.

And most importantly, like I mentioned above, he could have started setting up the concept of Nika wayyy before the Who's Who fight (which has the clumsiest exposition out of any OP fight by far, and feels massively shoehorned and out-of-place.) I know that Skypiea is technically set-up, but I'm talking about the post-timeskip.

It's especially glaring because Oda is usually very good at setting things up well.

Something Like Kuma showing up to separate the Strawhats at Sabaody could appear very cheap if it weren't set up with him disappearing Perona in Thriller Bark. He just happened to have an ability that was perfect for such a situation, but it wasn't dropped last minute. Or Mr. 3 being able to replicate keys which was perfect for freeing Ace.

I don't think the Skypiea example even works because there's simply no connection between a Sun God accepting sacrifices and rubber. A good reveal is one that should look even more solid in retrospect rather than being very questionable.

 

[M944]

Started from point 5
You can't transform into your "creature"
Fruit name = Human Human no mi Model Nika
Luffy = Human
How is he supposed to transform into an human
Buddha have an official representation (as far as we know Nika is just an human)

 

[BlackLegFring]

I don't really agree with your first two points.

1. One Piece doesn't exactly have much of a mythology, the fruit could have just as easily been called model: Joy Boy or model: Uranus or whatever and it wouldn't change a thing. We need the full story to understand the lore so i don't see how it would be "lazy".

2. I never understood the idea that Luffy was some kind of underdog making the best out of a bad fruit. Some antagonists have underestimated the fruit because of how silly it is but have then immediately been proven wrong by Luffy's punch, but the fruit itself has never been seen as useless outside of like, Ace as a child.
It's always been about how Luffy has brought the potential out of the fruit thanks to his imagination, and if anything this new power is only amplifying that.

Everything else though i agree, specially with the WG looking so incompetent in retrospect.
They would've found out about Luffy's powers from as early as Arlong Park or Enies Lobby at the latest, so if the fruit is something they fear this much then Luffy would've been brought down ages ago.

1. I don't really get your first point response. One Piece not really having unique in-verse mythology is part of the problem because it leaves far too much room to make up anything you want to explain abilities that would otherwise be incongruent.
Model: Joyboy would just be the same lazy solution as Nika. Model: Uranus wouldn't work because Uranus isn't a god that could turn into rubber. That's why it's lazy because if Oda had to use an actual mythological figure he would be stumped. The ones that could work just don't fit Luffy's abilities as they've been shown....so he would either have to stick with the gum gum and be creative or go with a random Sun God who's defining trait is somehow rubber.

2. Luffy's abilities have just never really been treated as a big deal. He's been called a mere Paramecia in comparison to logias, been told his fruit is outright inferior like with Katakuri, and you already mentioned Ace etc. His opponents' abilities certainly don't get such a treatment.
This development on the other hand makes it one of the rarest fruits and even more special in many ways on top of that. It apparently has extra restrictions that others don't seem to have for no reason, and it's so fearful to the WG that they changed the name completely, over those of any of his opponents.
The optics are bad because it now seems that Luffy is apparently not the combat genius elevating a generic, mundane ability but one who has to struggle extra hard to do the basic things other users can do. He apparently can't go into his full Zoan form without awakening or for such a long time couldn't figure out all the unique uses of his fruit. Others could figure out how to use their abilities without even knowing what devil fruits are, some with incredibly esoteric uses as well that you can't really figure from just the name....but Luffy couldn't.

It's so odd because if it's not an inconsistency it only makes the fruit more special when no other Zoan seems to go as far as awakening just to transform into their creature. No other one needs haki for partial transformations or have any sort of drawbacks to do so naturally.

So basically it looks like either Luffy has had such a special fruit that has so many odd and random restrictions over every other one, or he's actually been stunted all this time and not the master he seemed to be.

Post automatically merged: Mar 25, 2022

Started from point 5
You can't transform into your "creature"
Fruit name = Human Human no mi Model Nika
Luffy = Human
How is he supposed to transform into an human
Buddha have an official representation (as far as we know Nika is just an human)

What makes you think that Nika is just a human? The image we are given of him has his hair on fire with different clothing.
The only other example of a mythical human fruit we have is Sengoku who when changing to Buddha also changes hair and clothing. The same goes for all other mythical zoans.
Luffy couldn't even do that without awakening.

That's also incredibly convenient if the mythical figure that Oda created for this was one that was completely indistinguishable from how Kid Luffy looked.

 

[Kiiro]

1.- How can you call it lazy, when Nika and Joy Boy has been hinted many years ago? Maybe the introduction aint the best, but it was all planned to be this way.

This means, that Joy Boy had the same fruit that Luffy has, and thanks to his accomplishments, the fruit was recognized as Godly, not because it comes from a God, but because the previous user made great feats with it.

And it is stupid to call it lazy when there has bee dozens of threads explaining how will Luffy's devil fruit awakening look like, saying that he can control enviroment and enhacing his rubber properties just any other paramecia which is now confirmed to do so, so there is no contradiction lol.

It just changed from paramecia to Zoan, just like Katakuri was firstly said to be logia but it is just a special paramecia lol.

2.- It doesnt change any aspect, it is just awaken, an increase of Power is expected lol, Luffy already was giving a tough fight to Kaido and he still wasnt on his level, not with his DF awaken, it is logical he can fight much greater. Physical strength was not a problem before.

3.- Well the WG is stupid for sure, but the fruit was stolen from a future Emperor... the name was changed to keep it as secret. Pursuing it as crazy will increase suspicion. The is the same as the Red Rocks which contains the void century, they cant handle the world as the please.

4.- Oda already said that if a Human ate a human DF, they will just be more human lol. What do we expect? Chopper became human without losing his deer properties, so Luffy just became.... Human lol. It is just a Zoan with rubber properties, just as Sengoku who has some weird properties or this fox who has also some weird properties.

It aint that bad, lets see how it develops.

 

[BlackLegFring]

1.- How can you call it lazy, when Nika and Joy Boy has been hinted many years ago? Maybe the introduction aint the best, but it was all planned to be this way.

This means, that Joy Boy had the same fruit that Luffy has, and thanks to his accomplishments, the fruit was recognized as Godly, not because it comes from a God, but because the previous user made great feats with it.

And it is stupid to call it lazy when there has bee dozens of threads explaining how will Luffy's devil fruit awakening look like, saying that he can control enviroment and enhacing his rubber properties just any other paramecia which is now confirmed to do so, so there is no contradiction lol.

It just changed from paramecia to Zoan, just like Katakuri was firstly said to be logia but it is just a special paramecia lol.

2.- It doesnt change any aspect, it is just awaken, an increase of Power is expected lol, Luffy already was giving a tough fight to Kaido and he still wasnt on his level, not with his DF awaken, it is logical he can fight much greater. Physical strength was not a problem before.

3.- Well the WG is stupid for sure, but the fruit was stolen from a future Emperor... the name was changed to keep it as secret. Pursuing it as crazy will increase suspicion. The is the same as the Red Rocks which contains the void century, they cant handle the world as the please.

4.- Oda already said that if a Human ate a human DF, they will just be more human lol. What do we expect? Chopper became human without losing his deer properties, so Luffy just became.... Human lol. It is just a Zoan with rubber properties, just as Sengoku who has some weird properties or this fox who has also some weird properties.

It aint that bad, lets see how it develops.

1. Nika was only introduced midway through the Raid on Onigashima, not many years ago. Joyboy was also not introduced as a myth but an actual person from the past. It's lazy because there's no definition at all of what abilities Nika has, so the author can make it anything he wants to justify any ability he gives the user.
No existing mythical sun gods were made of rubber, so Oda had to create one just to fit the change. That's laziness because he didn't want to have to work with the restrictions that every other single mythical zoan user has to work with. The laziness doesn't come from the abilities of the fruit, so I don't know why you thought that.

Besides that, he also gave the awakening abilities that couldn't be explained with rubber alone as well. Katakuri is not comparable at all because it was still mochi. The classification changed only because of the definition of logias needing to be natural elements. The element of rubber is very different from a Sun God that has properties of rubber as one of his abilities.


2. Yes it does. It's no longer a generic fruit from the most common class, it is a fruit from the rarest class and feared by the WG so much that they changed its name....then it also has special restrictions on top of all that in comparison to other fruits. It's now the single most special fruit in the series.
The issue is that the core of the awakening is something that still works fine if it were just plain old gum gum, but the change now alters the very status of the fruit itself unnecessarily.

3. Suspicion is a very small price to pay for dealing with the greatest possible threat to your organization, so that excuse doesn't really work. They had ample time to do so without raising undue suspicion either, and they can always just lie and come up with fitting propaganda anyway. There's several excuses they could use to target the son of the Worst Criminal in history.
Rocks only proves the point because he caused so much trouble even without the special fruit of Joyboy....so how much more so danger does a D like Luffy that combines aspects of some of the absolute worst individuals in history (including those that defeated Rocks himself: Gol D Roger & Garp) pose? Is that not an individual you wipe out right away before they could even become a problem like Rocks?
You could then do whatever propaganda you want afterwards just like they did with Rocks.

4. You are confusing Chopper's basic human fruit and the human mythical zoans. Those are 2 separate things. Sengoku transforms into a giant golden Buddha with shockwaves after eating a human fruit as well.

It's pretty damn bad at the moment because any explanation has to make someone on some level look incredibly stupid or incompetent, and it introduces a number of inconsistencies into devil fruits as well.

 

[RecoomeBoom]

I mean, rubber is a characteristic of cartoon characters. Ever seen classic cartoons like Popeye and Might Mouse, I think it's logical that Luffy's awakening makes him a cartoon. People have already predicted that awakened Luffy should be able to make his surroundings become rubber.

Yes, agreed #3 is the most glaring plot hole, the god lore behind the fruit makes no sense in regards to wth were the WG doing all this time with that info. But if the name Nika was never attached to it, I thought Luffy's new powers was very well done.

 

[M944]

What makes you think that Nika is just a human? The image we are given of him has his hair on fire with different clothing.
The only other example of a mythical human fruit we have is Sengoku who when changing to Buddha also changes hair and clothing. The same goes for all other mythical zoans.
Luffy couldn't even do that without awakening.

That's also incredibly convenient if the mythical figure that Oda created for this was one that was completely indistinguishable from how Kid Luffy looked.

Fruit us Human Human no mi

If it was not an human how people got the fruit ?

 

[sanjikun]

Worst part is that the first two DFs were Luffy's DF and Buggy's DF. Luffy survived blunt hits. Buggy's survived cuts. They were supposed to go hand in hand.

 

[Finalbeta]

It feels so astonishing and PISsy that the Marines weren't apparently instructed better and not just them

I guess the rest is rather okish given it at least can make much more sense although I would have preferred this PU came along later on in the series

 

[TEACH D TEACH]

I will just try to justify one thing. People say you have to eat the gom... the hitonika fruit to become Joyboy, but we know from Blackbeard that DF have their will and chose their owner. Luffy did not become Joyboy because he ate the fruit. The fruit chose Luffy because he is Joyboy. I hope that makes sense