EPT[Manga] One Piece - Page 1604
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This is a thread that is dedicated to discussing One Piece. Do not read this thread if you are not currently caught up as there are spoilers in here. If an episode or a chapter has already been officially released, then it is not necessary to post using spoilers. If you have knowledge on a chapter that has not been officially released yet, do NOT post it in this thread. Ignoring this public note will result in a mod action. | ||
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herMan
Japan2053 Posts
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lestye
United States4163 Posts
Breaking rules has to be done carefully, it has to be done with purpose, and it has to fit. If Luffy had spent the manga turning Rubber Mode on and off then maybe it'd make some sense as a transformation and he could technically be seen to fit into the Zoan catergory, but hes been pure rubber the entire time, no instinct for transformation, awakens counter to previously awakened Zoan awakenings, its just not set up whatsoever for Luffy to be a Zoan, and no set up means bad pay off. I don't think Blackbeard is that different. We know this is an accepted rule, though I don't think we've seen anyone die on panel eating a second fruit, nor have we seen anyone actually die from drowning. But still, it was an accepted rule in this world. Well thats what I mean, the Zoan category is something completely made up by the denizens of this world. We know the World Govt is capable of controlling information. The entire paramecia category is completely nonsensical and unscientific. I think I could suspend disbelief because either because of a failure of science or incomplete science. The taxonomy and categorization is not very rigid like what we saw with Katakuri. I don't buy that the ability to your devil fruit off/on is this rule set in stone. Maybe this specific fruit has a stronger will of its own compared to other fruits/zoans because of inherited will. Maybe it has to do with the "devils" and whether or not they're awake or dormant or whatever. Maybe we'll get some revelations that make this an easier pill to swallow. The rules we have are reasonable deductions. They're not laws of the universe. If new evidence comes out, you have to rework the taxonomy to make it fit or give it its own category. When I went to school there 5 kingdoms in taxonomy, now there are 6-7. It wasn't too long ago fungi were considered plants. Maybe Oda could have done a better job at setting it up, but I think "they broke a taxonomical rule! awful writing!" is weaker. I think I would have preferred the monkey king zoan twist. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
One Piece isn't science, fiction and media are about audience perceptions, rules are shown to us to establish them, we experience them through their depiction either via showing how it works or by not showing it. The rules of the One Piece world are the rules we are shown, and told, and experience. Can you name a single Zoan fruit that has had any of the characteristics that Luffy's has? Light googling shows there have been 36 Zoan fruits, https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Zoan#Canon 36 instances of a category of Devil Fruit that all share core characteristics that define them as within the Zoan category. And then we have one instance that shares absolutely none of those core characteristics and it just so happens to be used to create a "Gotcha!" moment. Its not just the denizens who are meant to accept the Devil Fruit categories, we, as viewers, are shown this information because we're supposed to tacitly accept that these are the rules by which Zoan Devil Fruits operate. Its the definition of an ass pull, all "pay off" no setup. Media is made for an audience, you lead audiences with the things you show and don't show, if you want to create a gotcha twist moment then you have to set it up or its doesn't work. 20 years to set up Luffy as potentially having a Zoan fruit, 20 years of Zoan fruits being seen in action, having their mechanics seen and explained, 20 years to create plausible deniability that Luffy may have a Zoan, but we didnt get that plausible deniability, we didnt get that setup. Oda didn't set it up though, nothing about Luffy's fruit could have been reasonably interpreted by a viewer as being that of a Zoan fruit. Its just not good storytelling, If you're reading a Sherlock Holmes book and it ends by Yogg-Sathoth erupting from Sherlock Holmes' ears and devouring Watson that should cause cognitive dissonance because Sherlock Holmes books arent set in a world of Lovecraftian magic, it would be unreasonable to assume someone reading a Sherlock Holmes book would have any expectation about Lovecraftian horrors, and it would be unreasonable to add them to a Sherlock Holmes book without significant setup. Its just a matter of bad craftsmanship and One Piece is the series I expect craftsmanship out of. What this chapter put out there is Bleach quality, that'd be fine if this was Bleach but One Piece ain't supposed to be Bleach. | ||
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Zooper31
United States5710 Posts
As for Oda. I don't think he ass pulled this or came up with this recently. I think he's always known what Luffy's fruit really was and just hadn't done a good enough job to hint at anything special. I think in part because of how good the OP community is as theorizing. If he gave us any kind of clue we would've figured it out years ago and ruined the surprise. It was either Oda had to completely twist the story with no fore warning or let us figure it out way too soon and ruin the end. | ||
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lestye
United States4163 Posts
Can you name a single Zoan fruit that has had any of the characteristics that Luffy's has? Light googling shows there have been 36 Zoan fruits, One Piece isn't science, fiction and media are about audience perceptions, rules are shown to us to establish them, we experience them through their depiction either via showing how it works or by not showing it. The rules of the One Piece world are the rules we are shown, and told, and experience. Can you show me a Paramecia fruit that works the same way Katakuri's does? He has his own special category. If you can buy that why can't you buy Luffy's has something special? That's why I brought up the flawed taxonomical arguments. Those rules aren't written in stone. And we see Oda subverting those rules all the time. There's still tons of mysteries with devil fruit which surprise the viewers/readers. For a lot of the mechanics that are shown, there's still a ton WE DON'T KNOW. Like we know fruits have will, which is probably how Lassoo/ Funkfreed work. We don't know the extent of that. We don't know a lot about awakenings. Maybe this all payoff for what we first know about devil fruit that they are "incarnations of the sea devil". | ||
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
Maybe there is a mystic magic special special Mythical Mythical Zoan fruit category, but we havent seen it, we havent been told about it, we havent gotten anything that indicates that Zoan fruits can basically be Paramecia fruits in functionality. This isnt about the physics of the One Piece world, this is about story telling, sure Oda can invent whatever he wants, he can make Zoro into an Okama that gets into a relationship with Sanji and that'd be the reality of One Piece's world but it'd also be idiotic nonsense that would have no place in a One Piece that was half-decent. Authorial godhood does not override fundamental story telling functions like setup-and-payoff. The fact we're even arguing about what this could possibly be payoff for indicates there wasnt proper setup. Usopp's lies coming true is setup and pay off, thats the kind of thing that One Piece has done well, the fact that its either not done or dont so poorly as to be unrecognizable as setup and payoff is shocking. If this was good setup and payoff the payoff would alert us to and draw our minds back to what was done to set it up. Instead its just... were grasping at straws trying to justify why this thing happened. When youre constructing things like this you cant just... do whatever you want, these things have developed structures, they have rules, reasons you do things, people have been conditioned to understand and recognize patterns and the like. When you break those rules you have to do it with consideration, when you dont you get this situation where nothing in the manga shows any signs that this reveal was coming. Its confusing, its unsatisfying, its just bad writing. Oda can and should do better. | ||
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Zooper31
United States5710 Posts
We have 3 Human-Human fruits that we know off, and 2 of them are mythical. Chopper is the only non-Mythical one and was originally an animal to begin with so all his forms are animal/human hybrids. Mythical Human-Humans typically follow the rules of whatever they are. Sengoku ate the Daibutsu which lets him transform into a Golden Buddha and all his abilities. His base form is that of just a normal human, an un-enlightened Buddha. Nika's base form is already made of rubber and is unique in that way. With awakening he gains ALL the powers of Nika and is basically just Toon World from Yugioh. It does beg the question of if Sengoku's Buddha form is his awakening and if so, before he awakened it, did he just think his fruit did nothing at all since he was just a normal guy still with no powers? Similiar to how Brook's didn't do anything until he died. | ||
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Hyperbola
United States2538 Posts
On March 26 2022 04:42 lestye wrote: I don't think Blackbeard is that different. We know this is an accepted rule, though I don't think we've seen anyone die on panel eating a second fruit, nor have we seen anyone actually die from drowning. But still, it was an accepted rule in this world. Well thats what I mean, the Zoan category is something completely made up by the denizens of this world. We know the World Govt is capable of controlling information. The entire paramecia category is completely nonsensical and unscientific. I think I could suspend disbelief because either because of a failure of science or incomplete science. The taxonomy and categorization is not very rigid like what we saw with Katakuri. I don't buy that the ability to your devil fruit off/on is this rule set in stone. Maybe this specific fruit has a stronger will of its own compared to other fruits/zoans because of inherited will. Maybe it has to do with the "devils" and whether or not they're awake or dormant or whatever. Maybe we'll get some revelations that make this an easier pill to swallow. The rules we have are reasonable deductions. They're not laws of the universe. If new evidence comes out, you have to rework the taxonomy to make it fit or give it its own category. When I went to school there 5 kingdoms in taxonomy, now there are 6-7. It wasn't too long ago fungi were considered plants. Maybe Oda could have done a better job at setting it up, but I think "they broke a taxonomical rule! awful writing!" is weaker. I think I would have preferred the monkey king zoan twist. The Gorosei imply that taxonomies are pretty rigid, since they say Zoan fruits have a mind of their own. This means that certain fruits have a "will" and they are known as Zoans. Furthermore, logias are fruits which transform you into some kind of natural element. The reason Katakuri isn't a logia is because Mochi is a manmade substance, as opposed to ice, fire, and electricity. These are pretty rigid categories and therefore you can't just start blurring the lines when you want. Now you could say that Luffy's fruit is a zoan that acts like a paramecia in the same way that katakuri's fruit is a paramecia that acts like a logia, but honestly it's still pretty bad writing, because the two are completely different. Katakuri's fruit merely adopts the characteristics of another type, while Luffy's fruit breaks all categories. Luffy is a Zoan without any transformations (break one) and with a permanent rubber body effect that's always active (break two) until he awakens his fruit and transforms only once into his new "animal" form seemingly without loss of mental abilities (break three) and gains completely new set of paramecia powers that have nothing to do with rubber (break four). This is why this is such a jarring change, it feels like Oda just threw all his rules out the window just so that he could have an epic reveal. Very similar to what GOT did towards the end of the show where it just threw all of its established rules out and focused on creating "shocking" moments. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
On March 25 2022 22:49 Zambrah wrote: Hes a Monkey though, hes literally the relative of their MOST DANGEROUS MAN as well as THEIR MOST HALLOWED HERO, there is literally no reason for the government to not have been on Luffy immediately given his lineage and the fact he got his hands on the most dangerous fruit around. The World Government is staggeringly incompetent to have let Luffy get to where he is given who he is and what he had. Staggeringly incompetent. Let alone the vile asininity of completing butchering established fruit categories by having a Zoan with no transformations and an always-on-body-altering effect. God help me, thinking about this chapter just makes me completely flabbergasted and amazed at the decision making. Oda, I thought you were better than this. I think it is silly to assume you fully understand the whole picture and that everything is plainly obvious. We still have zero idea what a devil fruit actually is or what it means for a zoan to have a will of its own. It doesn't make sense to make the declarations you are making here. We know the "gomu" was kept locked away once upon a time, but we also know the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Nika until recently. They say the fruit was only a legend to them. If it was only a legend to them but the "gomu" was in custody earlier, they could not have thought it was the same fruit. The more likely scenario is that the WG believed the gomu and the Nika were 2 separate fruits, similar to how Marco and Sabo have incredibly similar powers but Marco has all sorts of other capabilities. Seeing someone use fire does not mean they have Marco's fruit. It could still be the Mera. The only other m-zoan hito we know of is Sengoku's. He transforms into a giant golden Buddha, which could mean his is also awakened. I think Joyboy had the gomu power and had this power before devil fruits were a thing, similar to how Toki is said to have a power but never a fruit. Wano has various terms for power users which appear to be from a time pre-fruits. I think its that at one point, certain entities were able to have their wills/souls preserved through devil fruits and Nika was among them. So Nika and his power, the gomu power, ended up being a bit of a package deal. Pre-awakening (expression of fruit will), Luffy just had the power of Nika, the gomu power. After awakening, he gained more of the other attributes of Nika, similar to how Sengoku transforms into a Buddha, which I think is also awakened. Right now it is looking like Nika was a Lunarian who had the gomu power in a time prior to devil fruit creation. That would explain why Luffy has slowly been gaining fire abilities and why awakening turned his hair into what appears to be an ever-burning state. When Lunarians get emotional, their fires get more intense. It could be that Luffy's calm but determined passion for this fight ignited his hair rather than King's big rage fit causing a huge explosion. Until we know what a devil fruit is, what it means for a fruit to have a will of its own, and how hito m-zoans function, I think your perspective that Oda suddenly shit the bed is not reasonable. I think we have a great deal of evidence so far in favor of the idea that awakening is a result of the will of a fruit awakening. If it turns out devil fruits are essentially taking the soul/will of someone/thing in the past and putting it in a fruit, it would also explain why the Impel Down guards ended up being dumb brutes. By awakening their fruits before they could fully contain/wield them, the animal will became a much bigger part of who they are. It could be that zoan awakenings, especially Hito awakenings, work differently. | ||
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romeo560
1 Post
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
I think it is silly to assume you fully understand the whole picture and that everything is plainly obvious. We still have zero idea what a devil fruit actually is or what it means for a zoan to have a will of its own. It doesn't make sense to make the declarations you are making here. I dont need to understand the whole picture, I only need to understand the picture that Oda has presented us with. Ive read the manga, I read it every week, I rewatched from Impel Down onwards a couple of months ago, Im familiar with One Piece and it's presentation. We dont need to know the molecule formula for a devil fruit to understand how its always operated in One Piece. Zoan fruits transform into animals, their users have an innate understanding of how to transform, we've seen this over and over and over. Just like we know that gravity pulls things towards Earth, we see it happen every day, we dont see gravity pull things towards space, we dont need to have a Ph.D to have a basic understanding that gravity pulls things downwards. If gravity suddenly started pulling things towards space youd be rightly confused about why thats happening because youve spent a lifetime observing gravity pull things towards Earth. We know the "gomu" was kept locked away once upon a time, but we also know the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Nika until recently. They say the fruit was only a legend to them. If it was only a legend to them but the "gomu" was in custody earlier, they could not have thought it was the same fruit. Theyre literally the people who are telling us the Gomu Gomu no Mi is the Nika fruit. They very clearly understand that the fruit theyre so afraid of has been going by an incorrect label. Theyre just dumb and incompetent for not catching Luffy despite plenty of indication that hes a dangerous kid from a hyper dangerous lineage potentially empowered by an omega dangerous devil fruit. Its raw unadulterated incompetence on their part. Until we know what a devil fruit is, what it means for a fruit to have a will of its own, and how hito m-zoans function, I think your perspective that Oda suddenly shit the bed is not reasonable. I think we have a great deal of evidence so far in favor of the idea that awakening is a result of the will of a fruit awakening. If it turns out devil fruits are essentially taking the soul/will of someone/thing in the past and putting it in a fruit, it would also explain why the Impel Down guards ended up being dumb brutes. By awakening their fruits before they could fully contain/wield them, the animal will became a much bigger part of who they are. It could be that zoan awakenings, especially Hito awakenings, work differently. The primary classification is Zoan, mythical human is a subtype, and given the other mythical human zoan we've seen I think its fair to assume that mythical human zoans also generally play by zoan rules. Aka they transform, and the user has an innate ability to understand how to transform. Oda has absolutely shat the bed here because he had 20 years of opportunity to provide some plausible deniability for Luffy's fruit to be a Zoan, he could have done so with no meaningful story implications, but he didnt. I cant stress this enough but "payoff and then setup" is not a normal thing, and when it is used its with very explicit and obvious reason, like a movie where it starts off at the ending and you work your way backwards. One Piece is not something like that, Oda is telling a story in a very standard linear fashion which means his payoffs require setup, setup and payoff is key, key, key to satisfying reveals. 20 years of content that could have provided set up for this and there was none. No indication Luffy's fruit wasnt very snugly and cozily fit into the Paramecia category, thats why when its revealed whoops its a Zoan its bad. If gravity is going to pull things towards space you better make sure the audience knows theres a big gravity reversal machine nearby, because otherwise its just dumb and confusing. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
There are just so many odd things all going on at once that I have a hard time concluding "I guess Oda is just a terrible writer who forgot how devil fruits work". From the logic you are putting forth, it would require Oda to have completely forgotten everything we have been shown so far. I don't buy it. I think it will end up making sense and be cohesive. This certainly isn't the only time we've been left thinking "wait what". | ||
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
My issue isn’t having to do a wait what, it’s doing a wait what and finding that all of the clues that should make a wait what moment end up with an Ooooooh! moment aren’t there and instead there’s just a bunch of rules that this specific instance of a Zoan fruit decides to disobey for no good reason. If he was going to be a Zoan there should have been plausible deniability so that Luffys fruit could fit into the Zoan category, it’s not hard to have done, but instead his fruit is just totally contrary to the mountain of screen time Zoans have had and what that’s taught us about them. This is about world building and storytelling to an audience and this Nika fruit shit fails to do the things that make for good world building and storytelling. Post hoc justification and trying to fit puzzle pieces in to try and make it make sense are marks of incoherent storytelling. It’s bad craftsmanship, bad artistry, it’s something that Oda should know better than to do. The Game of Thrones comparison Hyperbola brought up is very apt, imo. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Archeon
3253 Posts
On March 26 2022 08:45 Hyperbola wrote: The Gorosei imply that taxonomies are pretty rigid, since they say Zoan fruits have a mind of their own. This means that certain fruits have a "will" and they are known as Zoans. Furthermore, logias are fruits which transform you into some kind of natural element. The reason Katakuri isn't a logia is because Mochi is a manmade substance, as opposed to ice, fire, and electricity. These are pretty rigid categories and therefore you can't just start blurring the lines when you want. Now you could say that Luffy's fruit is a zoan that acts like a paramecia in the same way that katakuri's fruit is a paramecia that acts like a logia, but honestly it's still pretty bad writing, because the two are completely different. Katakuri's fruit merely adopts the characteristics of another type, while Luffy's fruit breaks all categories. Luffy is a Zoan without any transformations (break one) and with a permanent rubber body effect that's always active (break two) until he awakens his fruit and transforms only once into his new "animal" form seemingly without loss of mental abilities (break three) and gains completely new set of paramecia powers that have nothing to do with rubber (break four). This is why this is such a jarring change, it feels like Oda just threw all his rules out the window just so that he could have an epic reveal. Very similar to what GOT did towards the end of the show where it just threw all of its established rules out and focused on creating "shocking" moments. I mean I agree with the fundamental summary of good vs bad writing, but it's heavily suggested that his gears are Zoan transformations and the loss of mental abilities isn't really a thing in any animal mythical animal form, is it? Neither Kaido nor Yamato seem to get dumber when they transform. The big two things for me is the always in effect part as well as the thing where rubber doesn't really have anything to do with comic powers. Like obviously you can apply a meta rule and say that basically anything goes since OP is a comic, but that'd basically just abolish all rules for the MC. And yes, there are comics where people pump up their hands or stretch their limbs, but f.e. Enel couldn't zap Luffy at all and that isn't really how lightning operates, not even in cartoon. Also I fundamentally agree, there are very few instances where the MC getting some kind of background that makes him a hero of prophecy is well executed and Luffy already had a stacked family, he didn't need a mythical fruit that abolishes any idea of our protagonist actually being strong out of his own drive. Like with Naruto this imo undermines a theme for imo little gain. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
I mean I agree with the fundamental summary of good vs bad writing, but it's heavily suggested that his gears are Zoan transformations and the loss of mental abilities isn't really a thing in any animal mythical animal form, is it? Neither Kaido nor Yamato seem to get dumber when they transform. The guards in Impel Down are awakened Zoan users, theyre our primary barometer for awakened Zoan, basically you get even more animal-power and also seem to lose your human intellect. I can buy that an awakened Human fruit user wouldnt lose their intellect, thats a logical leap I think is potentially fair to make, Id be more inclined to think its correct if the rest of the display of the fruit wasnt so totally incongruous with Zoan fruit. Also, how are his gears heavily implied to be transformations? Gear 2 and Gear 3 hardly seem like transformations at all, Gear 4 is the only one that plausibly seems connected as maybe a transformation and a transition towards Gear 5. The big two things for me is the always in effect part as well as the thing where rubber doesn't really have anything to do with comic powers. Like obviously you can apply a meta rule and say that basically anything goes since OP is a comic, but that'd basically just abolish all rules for the MC. And yes, there are comics where people pump up their hands or stretch their limbs, but f.e. Enel couldn't zap Luffy at all and that isn't really how lightning operates, not even in cartoon. Eh, I kind of accept that being rubbery is a comical effect, though yeah, Im not really sold on it being a perfect fit. It doesnt fit into any sort of progression when it comes to gears, and the more I type this the less I like Toon World from YuGiOh as the fruit's power. And the Enel point in particular, like, theres not really anything Toon World-y about being literally rubber, the bounciness is toonish but the material properties? Mmmmm... | ||
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Hyperbola
United States2538 Posts
Luffy's new fruit is the epitome of this effect though, allowing him to do literally anything as long as it fits the cartoon theme. I'll be interested in seeing how Oda nerfs this power. Like how could anyone do anything to Luffy if he can just Izanagi himself another reality? | ||
Shellshock
United States97276 Posts
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
On March 29 2022 04:34 Hyperbola wrote: Luffy's new fruit is the epitome of this effect though, allowing him to do literally anything as long as it fits the cartoon theme. I'll be interested in seeing how Oda nerfs this power. Like how could anyone do anything to Luffy if he can just Izanagi himself another reality? Maybe this is a really bad example to bring up, but if we are talking about shounen manga where a character fights with basically the power of their imagination, didn't some dude in Bleach have that power, and still get stomped by Kenpachi? On the topic of the big twist, I don't exactly like the idea of the Fruit being Zoan, and pretty much laid out why I didn't like the idea... Those thoughts aren't changed. But I suppose its also true for shounen manga that rules and conventions exist to be broken. Blackbeard being able to do the 'impossible' and have two powers is only shocking because it was thought to be impossible. Rayleigh being able to kick Kizaru, a Logia user, was shocking because it was thought to be impossible to do that to Logia users. And these are hardly the only examples of such things in the story. So I guess... Luffy's fruit being able to defy Zoan conventions is supposed to be viewed the same way. It hardly ruins the story, so I'll give Oda the benefit of the doubt, and will wait to see how he writes it going forward. Its hardly fair to judge the things that happened this past chapter and label everything as a "plot hole" when OP is still clearly an incomplete story, and our questions could very well be answered down the line. Its perfectly understand to not like a development, but not liking a development is different than said development being a plot hole. Hell, we STILL don't have an official answer as to why Blackbeard is able to have two devil fruits, but I don't think that qualifies as a plot hole. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7308 Posts
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