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

God Ward

Back When They Called Us Devils
#43
Oda could have just kept all the abilities that the awakening entails, but just scrap the name changing. It's just in poor taste at this stage in the game, and the attempt to link it to the dance in Skypiea is such a stretch (lol) when you consider that everyone else was dancing around the fire, not just Luffy.
 
#46
for foreshadowing about sun god i think sun god in skypiea arc different from sun god nika ,remember the sun god accept Human Sacrifice that,s 100% not nika ,nika bring freedom and laugh to people.
but i agree with you said about oda lack of "development" about nika it,s like nika just barely introduced in this arc but i gonna wait next chapter , hope oda will give more explanation about devil fruit especially zoan
are all zoan have souls insinde of it? are all DF or just zoan choose it,s owner?
and about WG incompetent ... we see that Gorosei not immortal they just think the fruit not awakened in 800 years , they think it,s just a myth maybe they never think that nika will awaken? or not suspicious about gomu gomu fruit? maybe there is other gomu gomu original fruit ? we don,t know for sure .... really need more explanation
 
#47
1. Is just an excuse for not liking the Nika PU imo. I don’t think Oda defied any logic pertaining to mythical zoans by creating his own in-verse mythical being. In the first place mythical zoans are just that, ‘mythical’. They are beings that are born outta people’s imagination, and don’t exist on the plane of reality in the first place. With Mythical Zoans, Oda isn’t really confined to a fixed set of options like he is with the Logia (which are naturally occurring elements), regular zoans (animals that exist in reality), or even the Paramecia.

2. I can understand.
One of the strongest appeals of Luffy as a character was that his rubber fruit made him an underdog against all the major antagonists he’s faced in the series so far, which made him very appealing as an MC but with this Nika development it feels like that appeal is gone so I get why folks might be disappointed in it but coz Nika looks overpowered now, it doesn’t necessarily mean that underdog theme cannot continue going forward into his remaining fights in the series. Blackbeard for instance is even more ridiculous than Luffy just as he is atm & if the theme of him acquiring the strongest DFs in each category continues, chances are that he acquires a zoan fruit even more overpowered than Nika. Then there is potentially IM for instance, who is quite literally depicted as god in the OP verse.

Lastly, when I first read the spoilers, one of my immediate criticisms of this whole Nika ting was that Oda is literally contradicting what he said in SBS when he said he wanted to create a weak MC with a ridiculous fruit & let’s be honest, Oda is not really the most consistent with his writing and statements, which, is actually one of my biggest criticisms of his writing but on reading the chapter, through those panels I got the feeling that Nika is exactly the kinda ridiculous MC that Oda has wanted to draw all along as such it’s still consistent with the ‘ridiculous theme’ Oda always had in mind for Luffy. That said, fact that Nika is so overpowered contradicts Oda’s words about him not wanting to write an overpowered MC, there’s no denying that. However, at this point in the series, given Luffy’s current opponent & the kinda challenges that still await him in the future, it isn’t really that much of a game breaker for me personally.

3. Not really. Right now, it’s literally the WG vs Plot lol. They literally even stated that they’ve tried to acquire the gomu gomu for 800 years but shit has been ghosting them 😂. Moreover, you say the Gorosei are incompetent bcoz they can’t truly handle a problem if they don’t kno what it is but I don’t think that is fair criticism. I mean it’s not like this mystery surrounding the gomu gomu can simply be solved by looking it up or sumin. Right now, they are well aware of how dangerous that ability potentially is & it’s precisely bcoz of that that they are willing to risk war with Kaido as opposed to the alternative. Hell they even sacrificed one of their best agents & quite literally succeeded in killing Luffy but plot was like ‘fck that!’ :catsweat:. You can criticize the Gorosei for not actively going after Luffy with the intention of ending him all this time & also not taking him seriously enough but not the fact that they kno so little about the gomu gomu fruit imo.
Fact that they are wary of it doesn’t necessarily mean they know everything there is to kno about that fruit. You can be wary of something without knowing what exactly it is.

4. The Rubber form we’ve seen up till this point pre-transformation is quite literally his base though? You seem to be assuming that Luffy’s current Nika transformation is his base zoan transformation. Luffy’s fruit didn’t just suddenly become a zoan, it’s always been a zoan. Moreover, I get the feeling that u’re using what we kno about animal zoan type transformations to rationalize Nika when it’s fundamentally different from them. Luffy’s transformation should be more akin to Sengoku’s than it is Kaido or Marco for example & we’ve only really seen 2 forms of Segoku, which are his base & his Buddha form. Nika is consistent with this. Also, with regards to why only the Nika fruit has to be awakened to allow the user to transform, that could be explained by the geneolgy of the gomu gomu fruit. Hell it might even be sumin as simple as the human type mythical zoans requiring awakenings to enable them to transform.

All that said if there is one ting I personally really dislike about this Nika fruit awakening, it’s that it doesn’t really help explain the concept of awakening and it honestly feels like Oda just randomly gives characters awakening without there being any properly established rules with regards to how to attain it. I mean based off Luffy’s case u have to die once to awaken your fruit which doesn’t make any sense. Plus, it’s very unlikely that all the other awakened users in the series had to die to do so.

5. Completely agree with the premise of this. With all this Joyboy nonsense & him seemingly being unable to die etc. it feels like Luffy is destined to be the PK so yh it does appear to be a fool’s errand for the others.

Btw, FYI I’m very far from what you’d consider an Oda wanker/defender and most people that have seen me talk on Oda in general should should know this. There’s parts of his writing style that I absolutely despise but with regards to this Nika transformation in particular, I think it’s pretty creative & creativity is coincidentally one of the very few or maybe even the only aspect aspects of Oda’s writing that I actually rate :catsweat:
 
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#49
The most glaring thing is why the wg is coy with shanks when he was the one stealing the fruit.

Everything else will be resolved after more exposition.
Regarding meta implication, cry me a river dude
 

Rej

Holy Simp
#51
That’s frankly just plain silly. Sun Wukong can stretch his staff doesn’t magically translate to his body being rubber. By that reasoning, since Chopper can extend his horns then you could just write him to have eaten a fruit based on Sun Wukong but change it to the fictional deity Peepee poopoo who’s a river goddess that has the main trait of being a humanoid reindeer.

I don’t see anything beautiful about that. Neither should Sun Wukong’s popularity in comparison to Buddha even matter. Like wth?
Originality doesn’t mean anything if it’s inconsistent with what you’ve already presented in your story. That’s something any writer can do to get themselves out of a corner because existing material is too hard for them to work with. And no Nika has not been foreshadowed all through post-time skip in the slightest…not to mention that still leaves the entire first half of the story with nothing.[/TD]
You don't understand One Piece then and how Oda transforms available lore into his own original lore. You should stop discuss that point if you don't want to understand it.
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It's the One Piece verison of Jesus
Yeah that seems to be Luffy with his potentially 12 Nakamas if I get the numbers right xD I am still looking for the biblical Moses in One Piece who splitts the ocean, but can't find anyone befitting that role.
 
B

Ballel

#52
When did I say it was an achievement? It’s just consistent with what has already been presented, showing that you respect your own rules and can work within their limitations.
Having to create your own imaginary deity is bad because it means you couldn’t be creative enough with existing ones and took the easy way out of making it literally anything you want. Like rubber being the main trait of a deity associated with the sun.
:seriously:
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That’s frankly just plain silly. Sun Wukong can stretch his staff doesn’t magically translate to his body being rubber. By that reasoning, since Chopper can extend his horns then you could just write him to have eaten a fruit based on Sun Wukong but change it to the fictional deity Peepee poopoo who’s a river goddess that has the main trait of being a humanoid reindeer.

I don’t see anything beautiful about that. Neither should Sun Wukong’s popularity in comparison to Buddha even matter. Like wth?
Originality doesn’t mean anything if it’s inconsistent with what you’ve already presented in your story. That’s something any writer can do to get themselves out of a corner because existing material is too hard for them to work with. And no Nika has not been foreshadowed all through post-time skip in the slightest…not to mention that still leaves the entire first half of the story with nothing.

You don't understand One Piece then and how Oda transforms available lore into his own original lore. You should stop discuss that point if you don't want to understand it.
Deities in traditional mythologies/religions represent something.
Mythology is a good source for history actually. It can't show us what factually happened but it can tell us how people felt about it. And this is something artifacts and bones can't tell us.
Gods stand for forces and processes that have a meaning to people's societies and cultures.

What's wrong about Oda creating a new god that represents the joy that silly cartoons can give us?
 
#53
You don't understand One Piece then and how Oda transforms available lore into his own original lore. You should stop discuss that point if you don't want to understand it.
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Yeah that seems to be Luffy with his potentially 12 Nakamas if I get the numbers right xD I am still looking for the biblical Moses in One Piece who splitts the ocean, but can't find anyone befitting that role.
That’s just a terrible excuse. “You don’t understand One Piece.”
What about One Piece necessitates the creation of completely fictional gods to justify a devil fruit power?
You are basically advocating for accepting whatever you are fed without thinking about it.
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Deities in traditional mythologies/religions represent something.
Mythology is a good source for history actually. It can't show us what factually happened but it can tell us how people felt about it. And this is something artifacts and bones can't tell us.
Gods stand for forces and processes that have a meaning to people's societies and cultures.

What's wrong about Oda creating a new god that represents the joy that silly cartoons can give us?
What’s wrong about it is that there is no precedent for it in the story, and it has been used as a means to avoid the pesky limits imposed by having to work with real mythological creatures.

It’s a lazy means to justify any ability you give a character in retrospect because you could always just say “this deity I made up had it.”

The twist couldn’t work without it otherwise. Just apply it to any other fruit and it becomes evident: “This straw users abilities are actually based on a Metal God whose main attribute is being made of straw.”
 
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Rej

Holy Simp
#54
That’s just a terrible excuse. “You don’t understand One Piece.”
What about One Piece necessitates the creation of completely fictional gods to justify a devil fruit power?
You are basically advocating for accepting whatever you are fed without thinking about it.
If you say so little man

 
#55
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.
I agree with everything. It would have been better if the name remains gomu gomu and not related to joyboy at all, even if the power still be the same as we saw in 1044, since the power itself and fighting style fits Luffy very well (just remove the drum voice or whatever it is called).
The fact that the name has to be changed, ruined alot of narrative in my opinion.
 
#56
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.
Very, very spot on. :cheers:

Here's to Gomu Gomu no Mi:



:mrgo:
 
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