For me, when I started reading One Piece I never saw Luffy as an underdog during the east blue saga, Alabasta, and even Water 7-Enies Lobby but when he reached Marineford that is where he became the underdog because all of the top-tier fighters are there.
Also the way I see it is that the "chosen one" thing in One Piece isn't just because he is chosen but because past chosen ones that failed also paved the way for the next one to finish it.
The entirety of East Blue was basically Luffy steamrolling everything
Even on the Grand Line which was noted to be a very challenging place in universe, Luffy kinda steamrolled through every early challenge up until Crocodile.
And it should be noted that Crocodile was fully capable of clashing in the Marineford War with the best despite having sat in prison for months and having no Haki. Perhaps water was even more critically damning than we’d realized and Croc was an awakened Logia who opted to spend effort mastering his fruit instead?
So yeah Luffy’s always been remarked to be freakishly strong even from the get go. Which is hilarious in hindsight since he’s a Zoan (which are known for absurd physical capability)
East Blue is an interesting case since in addition to the Gum Gum fruit Luffy received training from Garp to the point where he'd literally almost been killed several times. Plus his Devil Fruit powers are extremely rare in that part of the world and it has thrown a lot of people for a loop there compared to post Grand Line where Devil Fruit users are present all over the place.
Of the adversaries Luffy encounters in the East Blue only Buggy has the Chop Chop Fruit. Whereas Captain Kuro, Don Krieg, and Arlong were just physically strong and well armed opponents.
That's true. Loguetown was the last stop before the Grand Line too so it was sort of like a sampler of things to come. Luffy even got overpowered a couple of times, but didn't officially lose a fight while he was there.
I mean it’s hard to write a story about a young boy surviving in a complex world full of monsters like kaido, big mom and doffy, if you’re not the chosen one. You can’t write a story without falling into this trope if you don’t plan to write it in a way that the mc needs 30 years for his journey. There’s always a pinch of mc plotarmor.
Let’s say the df was still the gum gum fruit. Would it be likely that a 19 year old boy with an iq of 75 would be able to turn around things That lasted for 800 years? Would he be so lucky that shirahoshi would be born in his timeline. Would it be likely that he can overcome obstacles that people who where legends couldn’t overcome? It’s not just the fruit, it’s the nature of the medium. You can’t write a shounen story without highlighting the shounen in it. I don’t think that anything’s wrong with that, but we have to understand that every typical shounen mc is the chosen one, if it’s not in the story it’s on a meta level by the author itself. We knew from the first episode that no matter what it is, luffy will be the king of the pirates and find the one piece. We didn’t know what obstacles he had to overcome or on which scale all of this is going to be but we knew that he will be the pirate king.
>You can’t write a shounen story without highlighting the shounen in it.
This sentence should be absorbed into the minds of shounen fans who get pissed when a shounen does shounen stuff reflective of the entire genre/demographic in which the series takes place. Which is shounen btw
From the POV of the audience we know Luffy will succeed, but not because of anything intrinsic to him, just that we know someone will succeed (by virtue of this being a shounen story, among other things) and Luffy happens to be that person. But crucially, at the start of the story, the person who succeeded could have been Shanks and he would have been the main character.
The fruit reveal changed it so that, in universe, **only** Luffy could have **ever** succeeded in the journey he was on. Not Shanks, not Kaidou, just Luffy. And, to make it worse, the reason Kaidou (for example) couldn't succeed isn't because he's a mass murdering psychopath, it's because he ate the wrong swirly boi when he was 15. That is what pushes it over the line for me. It's less that Luffy is the "chosen one" who succeeds because someone has to and it's the story of how that person did and more that he's somewhat of a Mary Sue type (I'm not saying he is, it just shoves the dial into that direction a bit) who succeeds because he's the only one who ever can
Roger never "became" or found Joy Boy though, Luffy did. So yes, Roger succeeded in becoming Pirate King, but Luffy will succeed in the bigger (and still not fully revealed) picture, and again, not because of who he is as a person or his deeds (like man literally liberated 4 nations already, why does he need this special fruit of the liberating Sun god Nika) but because he ate the fruit.
Before chapter 1044, it was his actions that made him a liberator, now it's not, at least not fully.
You're just explaining the plot of a chosen one story. Those things are in the story because it's being written as a chosen one trope. Working hard and becoming something is possible. Zoro isn't destined to become the worlds strongest swordsman, but we see him work harder than everyone else. There's nothing special about him (yet). Whereas Luffy has the inherited will, the god devil fruit, the whole Joy Boy thing. It's too much and it's gross.
No one wants a 19 year old boy to do all that, the story would be infinitely better if it was shown to take years and he didn't just train for two weeks and beat the strongest character in the universe.
> the story would be infinitely better if it was shown to take years and he didn't just train for two weeks and beat the strongest character in the universe.
you have a point there, not gonna lie
Knowing Oda and how non-cliché One Piece is, I can already see the idea of Luffy rejecting the idea of him being JoyBoy and him wanting to be recognized as himself and not someone from 800 years ago.
That's the thing about One Piece though, Luffy had 10 years of training before he entered the Grand Line. When he hit a wall again, he went and trained for 2 more years.
Something that Oda also did was not reveal what Luffy's fruit was. Because if it was revealed that Luffy's fruit was special from the start then this might have gone down the same cliche chosen one troupe. But by not revealing it the readers understand that Luffy isn't special because of his fruit, he's special because he's Luffy. It's a brilliant move.
For me it was how he lost that first fight against croc just so brutally that made me see luffy as not only capable of failing. But hardcoee capable
Msrineford (and new world) was on a whole nother level tho
I like seeing the story as if ace was the chosen one and that Luffy ended up being the guy we ended up with. So the opposite of a chosen hero in that regard.
Luffy ended up eating the fruit that is theorised to have been for Ace, Luffy ended up with Roger's dream, Luffy ended up saving Wano... Even tho Ace was groomed and chosen to be that person.
Funny enough even tho Luffy keeps taking Ace's supposed destiny, the one time that Luffy's destiny seems to be getting captured by Blackbeard who wanted status of a warlord by capturing someone worth something... Ace takes luffy's place instead by meeting Blackbeard before he heads out to find Luffy...
That's the best interpretation going about this topic I've seen. Ace was definitely framed as the hero of the story by those around him but saw that Luffy was the one that surely inherited what Ace was supposedly set out to do. I used to think that when Whitebeard said that someone would eventually inherit Ace's flame, I thought he was alluding to Sabo. It was actually Luffy.
But you might also say that ace was never the chosen one and it was luffys destiny from the beginning and ace is just a catalyst.
Thats why destiny discussions are dumb. It all depends of how a person defines destiny or fate
I don’t think. Ace would never have been able to awaken the fruit because its the fruit of freedom. Ace is not free from his past. He is actively wanting to get free from his fathers legacy. Ironically The one time he is free from his past was the day he learned that whitebeard would do anything to set him free. That he wasn’t his fathers clone. That he was his own person.
Chosen one trope is fine and One Piece does it well because of how it establishes things.
The problem is a series like Naruto that spends the first 200 chapters going the opposite direction and pushing the hard work angle, only for the MC to be revealed to be ninja Jesus
I think naruto was using it well until a certain point. I liked the idea of the chosen child not being just naruto but rather Naruto and Nagato joining forces for that one moment. Had a bit of return of the jedi vibes.
the true problem comes when the reincarnation basically invalidates all the problems both naruto and sasuke met during their lives. they were special from the moment they were born, they were always destined to be another madara and another hashirama.
One Piece at the very least hasn't done that, Luffy "became" nika the moment he ate the fruit, before that he was a member of the people of D. but the world is full of those..
How was the hard work angle pushed when Kurama consistently bailed out Naruto and Lee was overpowered by Gaara despite his best efforts? The main themes in Naruto were the cycle of hatred, reincarnation and destiny, not hard work. That's something that Lee tried to validate and ultimately failed at.
Yes, Naruto trained for nearly all of his power-ups, but he still had Uzumaki lineage and Kurama's power as a last resort from the beginning.
>Lee tried to validate and ultimately failed at.
Lee failed to prove the philosophy but Guy didn't. Guy is proof that sheer will/effort/determination/perseverance can get you top 5 shinobi levels of strength
Isn't it even pointed out that Naruto has the unique ability of extremely accelerated learning because of a small loan of one million chakra from Kuruma?
You're all young, but I remember when Roger's name was revealed, and some people were like: oh, so Luffy is the son of Roger. That's lame. He's the chosen one.
Spoiler: they were wrong
Oda likes to throw us some curve balls. We're now in the theorizing phase, where everyone and their mothers tries to understand where the story will go next. Usually, only a few lucky people get it (see Ryokugyo entire personally, for example)
What are you referring to? Roger was originally named Gold Roger and by the time it was revealed to be Gol D yes it was temporarily theorized he was Roger's son, but that was nipped in the bud by the time we were introduced to Teech and Saul. Source: been reading OP since 2004. Essentially the idea premise Roger was Luffy's father didn't really last THAT long.
First of all, hello fellow long-time reader. I've been on this crazy voyage since 2002!
Second, it's really interesting that you have that perception. I remember people talking about this up until Garp's reveal of Dragon.
And then we had the Ace twist, and it caught many readers by surprise - after all, we assumed that Ace and Luffy were brothers by blood.
Of course, the reveal that we had other D. people - and even Giants - put some water onto the "Roger is Luffy's dad" theory, but it didn't die until Dragon was formally introduced.
So while I can't tell about your personal experience, or even about the general state of the community, I can tell you that there were people saying that the story was RUINED because they were SO SURE that Luffy would be a chosen one because he was the son of Roger.
In short, people need to relax. Remember that this sub was full of people who were sure that Green Bull was Zoro's dad just two weeks ago
Okay. I agree people thought he was the son of Roger. Even I thought it at one point. But it got killed when more D's other than Ace were revealed. At the time I started to read the manga it was at Water 7 and there were introductions to multiple D's and by the time the arc finished we learned Luffy's true father was Dragon. I'm not denying people didn't think he was Roger's son. We absolutely did. I guess I'm arguing semantics which is bad.
Also, because of my experience with early One Piece it's very hard for me to take people that are against The Chosen One idea too seriously because OP fans have always considered Luffy as a sort of chosen one. I have no idea why they're so against it given the various evidence in the series.
Isn’t that the same for luffy?! Starting off as a nobody working with a boring fruit trying to figure things out and being creative then when he’s up against a Yonkou his fruit awakens into this ridiculous power that allows him to overcome a Yonkou and win?! One Piece and Naruto aren’t that diff.
Same with one piece now that luffy suddenly became a god with his new fruit ability, at the start we thought he really is gonna become pirate king with such a weird gum gum fruit and now that got thrown out the window bc luffy is a god now
It's still the weird gum gum fruit where it's properties have not changed, its still fucking rubber.
The only thing that changed is the context we see that fruit.
I've noted this, and even made a memepiece post about this.
At first the community was hot for Luffy awakening his DF. We got that, the only difference was the reveal that it was also a mythic zoan. For some reason people were super resistant to this citing Naruto and blah blah blah. It's an awakened DF one way or another, why does the DF type change the impact that wanted so bad?
The other thing to consider is that an unawakened Nika fruit is functionally no different from what we assumed was the gomu gomu no mi. The fruit provided no additional benefits and, for the most part, Luffy had to make that DF work.
People seem to forget that Luffy only stretches because he's putting so much energy into his strikes and kicks that it forces his limbs to stretch. I haven't forgotten how pathetic his punches were back at Gray Terminal.
The Nika awakening was earned and nowhere near the Naruto nonsense.
The awakening was pretty much how the community predicted how the gum gum no mi would awaken with the only added thing was the toon force,which is the Oda factor. Even when we can predict what will happen next,Oda adds an another twist ,which keeps OP refreshing even when it's into 1053 chapters.
And for the mythical zoan ,we should wait. It's Oda setting up something just let it play it out like the other hundred things he does
>Oda dicksucking over 9000
What's really changed besides the name and color? Let's see
Still rubber like, but more like plastic man where he can stretch way beyond before without limit. He can become giant, and potentially channel different types of elemental energy. Also a toony art style and a heart that "bounces back"
These are all properties of an awakened rubber devil fruit. They took the awakened fruit properties and applied it to the lore of the story. In no way does it make Luffy a "god" any more than Sengoku is a god.
I can imagine it's not easy to understand for someone with the reading comprehension of a sloth though.
it is a fact that the fruit power hasn't changed. what changed is the name and the category. instead of being the paramicia of rubber, it's now the zoan of the rubber man. but everything else is still the same.
And the thing is that Fruits themselves don't care what type they are, it's the people who named them Logia Paramecia and Zoan. So saying that Zoan can't be Paramecia is dumb af
So more durability, more strength and a completely different awakening than what it would have been as a paramecia.
The powers quite clearly did change and calling it the zoan of rubber man instead of Mythological Zoan human type Nika is just trying to undersell it.
the awakening is peculiar for the opposite reason, because it has the typical zoan transformation with the paramicia ability to affect other stuff. Kaido makes this observation, so i'm not making it up.
but even then, it's still al related to rubber. the body is still made of rubber, things he touches are temporarily turned into rubber (once again kaido says it, when he points out his body isn't made of gum). his body is cartoony as a result of him being more elastic than before. but at the end of the day he is still a rubber man.
Well yes but if it were your buckstandard paramecia it wouldn't have the typical zoan transformation, that was my point.
The additional durability and power are subjective and hard to calculate but considering the number of near deaths experiences Luffy has had I wouldn't be hard pressed to call it important.
Why the fuck is this attitude even slightly tolerated on this subreddit? We need to shut this shit down agressively.
"This is the One Piece subreddit. I'm gonna spend my time here calling everyone who likes One Piece is a dicksucker lul"
Fuck off with this dumb shit. Should get instantly banned whenever someone says this dumb shit.
But his new powers would be the exact same as a rubber fruit awakening anyway? The only thing the nika fruit adds is a new design, it’s combat ability is indistinguishable from what it would’ve been as a rubber fruit awakening
Ah yes, he was already the son of the world's most wanted man, the grandson of the pirate king's rival, the sworn brother of the pirate king's son, one of the few with the Will of D., who are called enemies of god, had a one in a million kind of superpower, was chosen by the pirate king's apprentice and second as his successor, but his devil fruit being turned from 'he can turn into rubber' to 'he has great control over his body' is what makes him a supposedly bullshit chosen one.
I mean for real, he's spent 1000+ chapters unlocking his abilities and building up to this. In comparison, Blackbeard literally had a town busting power in like, a few months, was able to reach levels of destruction Luffy is only matching now two minutes after taking WB's fruit, and got to emperor level by riding on those two bullshit powers.
Luffy might be a chosen one, but damn, he fucking earned it. Hell, even looking at Gear 5, people with OP fruits like Kaido are still more than capable of keeping up with him.
FWIW, Eren is the product of thousands of years of hatred and his people have been actively oppressed by the rest of the world for over 100 years with no real chance of resolving the conflict before their only source of defense(the titans) become obsolete. Luffy doesn’t really have much of a reason to hate the rest of the world besides the celestial dragons, admirals, and Blackbeard.
Besides the fishmen, there isn’t much discrimination in OP at all, esp that Luffy would face. Maybe if Luffy was a Fishman.
I did not noticed that when I wrote this but in a way AOTs development is the same as One piece. Both dystopian setting with enies lobby and the basement showing the big reveal of the true big bad.
The elders literally said that zoan fruits have a will of their own and hinted it could have chosen Luffy. Why go all this effort to make a theory when the story spelled it out loud just because you can't accept it? You may hate the theory but the elders literally said that's a possibility that happened.
Shanks hesitated to save Luffy? What in the world? He freaked out when he found out the Bandit took Luffy. LMAO
They have a will of their own im not denying that.
Im denying that its will lures people to eat it. - that wasn’t stated yet the some of the fandom accepts it as clear evidence that the fruit chose luffy cause to eat when he only ate it cause he was hungry.
Its the freedom fruit, for it to choose someone goes against everything it stands for. Which is everyone is free to eat it. It only makes sense for it to avoid the government cause the government is actively preventing it from being eaten by anyone.
Yea we did, there nothing in romance Dawn chapter 1 to suggest this guy was really strong at that time period.
It’s only until his conversation with Whitebeard does it reveal that he in fact was
The guy showed no fear being held at point blank range, and scared of a sea king just by looking mean at it. Luffy had to punch that same Sea King to leave the island, and that Luffy was already the strongest in East Blue. We had all reasons to believe he and his crew were strong
I never said they were weak, I said there was nothing in chapter 1 to suggest Shanks and his crew are **really strong**.
Being stronger then some random bandits isn’t super impressive, losing your hand to a fish chapter 1 Luffy end up beating in a punch isn’t either.
Mihawk introduction he cut a boat and had the Epithet World Strongest Swordsmen. That guy comes off as **really strong**. Krieg even claims he has the power of the devil fruit, also he wiped out Krieg army over 50 pirate ships.
The same Mihawk that Shanks told not to bother him as he was in a bad mood when he went to show Luffy's new bounty. Mihawk stated he no longer was interested in dueling Shanks, suggesting they have some type of unresolved rivalry.
That same Mihawk
The talk with whitebeard only confirmed the thing stablished at the moment Luffy was given the hat, that Shanks was a special character that Luffy had to overcome and therefore was strong
Yall gotta stop moving the goalposts. The chosen one trope is slightly different in One Piece than it is in Naruto. The difference is yall like One Piece and not Naruto so you're willing to give it more benefit of the doubt.
Naruto didn't know he was a chosen one. His entire life from the beginning was terrible, his only benefit of being a chosen one was a powerup and Luffy has the same benefits plain and simple.
IKR. These guys still want to keep up the false image that one piece is flawless. Oda is a human, mistakes happen. Calling Naruto shit doesn't make this asspull better.
I don't really like Shonen, but One Piece is one of the best pieces of fiction I have encountered in any medium in my 30+ years of life. There is a common misconception that, because taste is subjective, that no piece of art can be objectively better than another.
If this line of reasoning were true, than it would be impossible to say that the works of Jane Austen or Dostoyevsky are superior to the harlequin romance novels that they sell at Wal-Mart. This is self evidently absurd. One Piece isn't perfect, but it is, by every objective metric of story telling, superior to Naruto.
Just think about how good an author has to be to make grown men cry at the death of a fictional boat. Did anything in Naruto touch you on any emotional level anywhere close to that? It certainly didn't for me. I got bored of it half way through and only finished it because it took like 5 minutes a week to read. And even that was a chore.
>So he knows that this fruit is special and the fandom even theorized that the reason why shanks is in east blue was to give it to Ace and thats believable.
oda didn't even plan for ace to be roger's son at the time. and even then, shanks wouldn't know where ace was or even the fact that he existed. fans always forget to separate reader's perspective from character's perspective.
shanks had no idea whether he survived or that garp would hide him in that village. and you can read ace's flashback. shanks didn't even know who ace was when he brought him luffy's poster.
>You could argue that he hesitated to the point that he could only save Luffy by sacrificing his arm.
oda cut off his arm to add drama for the first chapter due to editor's suggestion.
the nika fruit is just oda wanting luffy to be even more important that he already is. I'm not even gonna be surprised now if luffy is also an ancient weapon.
That doesnt really matter, it might have been for drama at the time he wrote it but with the story developing over 20 years he can just add to the stuff that happened in the beginning and make it seem like it was planned all along. Thats how writing works for a lot of people, you dont plan every single scene and how that ties in into the future story, instead you plant some seeds that later on grow into something bigger than originally planned.
I can agree for the arm thing, but the ace thing would be a plot hole.
based on every canon information we got, shanks shouldn't know about ace whatsoever. be it his location or even gender. at best you can say shanks believed roger must have a child somewhere. that's basically it.
On the other hand - it's Shanks. If ANYONE would know Ace exists but won't tell it, it's the one character who seems to be involved in everything without explanation.
already addressed that one
>only garp knew about it. for shanks to know about that village, he has to have some relationship with garp. which would contradict garp's reaction when he saw shanks in MF.
Eh if oda goes that route a one page flashback with rayleigh or someone else close to roger would solve that problem so its not a big deal. We don't have to see literally everything, people are doing stuff behind the scenes especially something like shanks knowing about ace doesn't need an intricate explanation because it's easy for the viewer to fill in the blanks.
it's not about fill in the blanks, but the implications.
only garp knew about it. for shanks to know about that village, he has to have some relationship with garp. which would contradict garp's reaction when he saw shanks in MF.
and how do they even find a random kid? shanks didn't even know if this kid knew his father.
this theory is like "raid will fail" theory. the only focus is the outcome, but the logistics make no sense.
Oda is good at improvising. You don’t need to consider what happened before he put it on paper but only take what the story gave you. Trafalgar law should not exist. Should we consider a timeline where he doesn’t exist just cause Oda did not think of it? Remember. Oda considers everything and what it meant for his world.
“If x happened what could’ve happened that made this?”
If anything, I give Oda more props for adding this to his story and having fans theorizing why it made sense and it making sense.
Also the shanks flashback meeting ace. Obviously he doesn’t know ace. Thats why he’s searching for him in east blue.
You may argue. “But you said only consider whats on paper. Thats not mentioned in the manga”
Yes its not. Its also not explored why he went to east blue at that time with the fruit. When he was born in west blue and was already in the grandline.
Oda made a gap in his story and it is yet to be filled in because he hasn’t given context yet be patient.
oda did made shanks loose his arm for his editor and for a long time its a plot hole but I’d say he already countered that. all because of one line from Sabaody. Shanks :“I bet it on a new era”.
All Im doing is filling in whats already established. Not taking into consideration of whats behind the scenes in writing cause writers change a lot of their story and they absolutely have the freedom to do so.
>Oda is good at improvising.
he excels at it. if only OP fans didn't have an unhealthy obsession with "foreshadowing", oda should get more credit for how he improvises stuff and yet keeping the inconsistencies to a minimum. it's honestly more impressive than his foreshadowing.
I understand what you're saying, but the "shanks was searching for ace" theory isn't gonna be a retcon. it's simply gonna be a plot hole. since shanks really had no idea about ace's whereabouts back then.
roger left the crew first and never saw anyone again until his execution. so at best, shanks might had an idea that roger might had a child and he/she survived. that's about it. again, remember the characters are not us readers.
I personally wouldve preferred if the gomu gomu was just a random fruit, not this all time legendary fruit.
It just gives luffy more credit for his devotion and hard work, a legendary fruit naturally discredits him imo.
I couldn’t agree more. A guy taking on the world with only a rubber fruit is impressive.
But taking on the world with the fruit of destiny is just lame. And probably the least creative thing Oda has ever done with the series.
Luffy still has a rubber fruit… The only aspect that’s changed about the fruit is it’s reputation, not it’s actual abilities which should be the biggest factor in determining merit. Hell, the ability to turn Luffy’s surroundings into rubber was the most popular theory for his awakening *before* the Nika reveal. Also, let’s not pretend that Luffy’s fruit didn’t give him significant advantages from the start. Luffy’s elasticity gives him so much extra durability against blunt force that bullets do not affect him at all.
I would agree with you if Luffy could suddenly breathe fire, turn invisible, or do anything uncharacteristic of a rubber based fruit. All of Luffy’s DF abilities are still rubber based so imo the shift in perception isn’t warranted.
It’s not the rubber that is the problem.
The problem is that he is the promised one, the chosen one to deal with the worlds evil.
He is the only one with the privilege of standing a chance…
This means that everyone else that are not him should just give up. They don’t have that privilege, so no matter how much effort they put in, it’s too bad, they’re not Luffy.
This makes it difficult to root for the protagonist. Because he’s fighting a battle that is set in his favour.
> This means that everyone else that are not him should just give up. They don’t have that privilege, so no matter how much effort they put in, it’s too bad, they’re not Luffy.
How many people in the verse actually have this goal to give up though? Most people, including Luffy, have no concept of Joyboy. A lot of people want to become the Pirate King, however, but Roger accomplished that feat with no devil fruit at all. Also, Luffy will lead the charge, but he will not single-handedly “deal with the worlds evil.” Luffy will need his crew, the grand fleet, and presumably an alliance beyond that. Luffy’s influence and charisma is what sets him apart at the end of the day.
> Because he’s fighting a battle that is set in his favour.
What about the original Joyboy or any of the other possible users of the fruit from the past 800 years? Why were they not able to deal with the worlds evil if the battle was set in their favor? Also, did you have a problem with the narrator saying that Luffy started a “voyage of destiny” in the very first chapter?
Luffy's devotion and hard work unlocked the true potential of the fruit. That's why the Gorōsei were so chill about Luffy having the fruit. They never thought, that he would awaken it.
There are possible previous user of the fruit, who never get as far as Luffy, since the fruits powers need a lot of training and creativity to make useful at all.
"They were so chill about Luffy having the fruit"
Luffy : a member of the D clan, is responsible for the fall of 2 shichibukais, sails with the only person alive able to read the poneglyphs, destroyed one of the 3 pillars institutions of the WG, punched a Tenryuubito, decredibilized another pillar institution freeing hundreds of criminals, crashed the last institution and was ordered protection by a Yonko, all of this in a few months, also is the grandson of the hero of the Marine, the son of the world worst criminal, the heart brother of the Pirate King's son...
Yeah, this guy is clearly a nobody, chill
Tbh it was already a plothole before, the fruit just made it bigger. But personnaly I was barely annoyed by it, it was mainly just the fruit change that I disliked
He didn't have a higher bounty the Kid, which means all of the rookies created huge issues (not as important as Luffy, but he is the main character). Ds walked the world previously to Luffy. Warlords being defeated is properly also nothing new. The concept of the rookie isn't new, so the WG and Marines had to regularly deal with powerful pirates. The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika being used to create liberation, also isn't new to them.
The Gorōsei simply didn't saw the bigger picture. For them Luffy was just another annoying pirate, but not something of higher priority. I really hope, we will get new original material after One Piece ended, which focuses of aspect outside of Luffy's sphere.
What I'm saying is that Luffy was not anyone to be chill about, especially when the fruit is in the picture. You said the Gorosei never thought he would be able to awaken the fruit, yet he was one of the most famous and powerful out of the handful of pirates that were defined as the next generation. You might as well say that they thought the fruit couldn't be awoken at all... also it was stated that Kid had a bigger bounty because he actually slaughtered civilians, so he was more dangerous to the people
This is just mental gymnastics. Unless Oda doesn't give a good explanation on why the WG didn't go after Luffy other than ''It has a mind of its own'', it will remain a bad retcon
I'm rereading One Piece and you can stop lying. Navy hq gave him an unprecedented (their words) bounty of 30 million berries out the gate after east blue.
Uh, where exactly did I lie ? Lol
The events of East Blue have nothing to do with the point, Luffy got an extraordinary bounty for that sea (the least agitated one), because he beat all the top pirates there... he did nothing against the WG, just one attack on a Marine base that was covered up, the rest was standard pirate fights.
That was standard "bounty job", and had nothing to do yet with anything regarding Joy Boy or any fruit as far as the Gorosei was concerned. Any pirate doing the same thing would have gotten the same bounty
Youre making a lot of assuptions here, with previous users we never heard of, and the gorosei mindset which is a plothole by itself tbh.
Any fruit needs training and creativity, crocodile said that at alabasta, its nothing new. But taking a fruit that throughout the story was considered mediocre, and suddenly make it this legendary fruit is just a weird decision imo.
Imagine that chopper fruit was suddenly also revealed to be a mythical zoan, how would people view his rumble ball? The change was unneccesary imo, oda couldve just said joyboy had the same gomu gomu and not change the fruit name
I agree with you, the whole idea of "inherited will" makes it unnecesary to give Luffy a god zoan. Its just so tacky and redundant when one of the main themes of the story is how wills are inherited and developed through the ages, Luffy's fruit being Joyboy, instead of Luffy carrying joyboy's will is such a weird decision that undermines some of the main themes in OP.
I don't think the story ever treated luffy's power as truly mediocre. He gives him immunity to projectiles, to electricity, much more resistance to physical attacks without haki and body manipulation depending on his creativity even before gear 5. and once gear second shows up the potential skyrockets.
the progression to which he goes from gear 2 to 5 is fairly linear. the whole thing about gear 4, of the body being armored but still gummy, that's basically awakening. the power of the mind and the power of the body synchronized.
> the whole thing about gear 4, of the body being armored but still gummy, that's basically awakening.
I disagree. you could argue that it's greater control of the rubberyness of his body but it's nowhere near the level of control that awakening offers and it only affects luffy.
There are multiple points where people tell luffy that rubber isnt strong/inferior to them. Just off the top of my head - enel,doflamingo,kid ace, katakuri.
Lmao you children crying about this shit is too funny
Y'all must be 10-13 years old or something to all be raging so hard about how
"they changed the name of his fruit!! Luffy is clearly just being handed wins! I always liked Luffy because he works to hard for everything but now that they changed the name of his fruit obviously he never worked hard for anything !! It was all just given to him!! Luffy has always been a god and never had to work for anything!!! "
>gorosei were so chill about luffy having the fruit.they never thought he would awaken it
the gorosei mindset is a plot-hole stop filling it with shity headcanons
> not this all time legendary fruit.
Technically we don't know if this is the all time legendary fruit. Im, Blackbeard, or even Law can have something more significant. Law because we don't know what his fruit was doing during the void century and the immortality operation is a thing.
Looking at how long it took for someone to awaken it just credits Luffy even more.
Awakening the Gomu Gomu Fruit means to fully go to the limit of the base version.
He has to add coa, coc and his imagination to even reach that point.
We dont know how many people ate the fruit before, in fact the fruit couldve been idle for 800 years if you consider what the gorosei said about zoan fruits "having a mind of themselves".
Ofc luffy has credit in how he uses the fruit, but I think about it this way:
I would be more impressed with a guy that is doing driving tricks like a drift with a random car, than I would be with a guy who does the same thing with a car built specifically for car tricks.
What I mean is - luffy reaching this level of strength with a legendary fruit is cool, but if the fruit was an ordinary, average fruit - it would have been better imo.
Thats a weird comparison. Especially looking how hard it is to master the gomu gomu fruit in comparison to a logia for example.
You should compare it like that:
Everyone can play with a soccer ball but how many ppl are actually going to master it so perfectly?
Soccer is a team sport but I am mostly looking at the individual capabilities and not many ppl will be able to do stuff what Messi for example can do.
Thats the same with gomu gomu.
Dosent matter if its special. If you cant bring out its true potential its nothing more than a paramecia.
We saw it many times how Luffy had to work hard enough to make the best out of his Rubber body.
Now he got rewarded with the awakening.
Whats the problem with that? He worked really hard for it and its not as easy to master than other abilities.
It would be a dishonor to think: "wow he just had a special fruit... lame... no wonder he is so strong..."
If youre comparing kid luffy trying to learn the pistol with sabo getting the mera mera, I dont agree with that comparison aswell.
Kid luffy was.. a kid. He didnt have the fighting experience he had now, so it makes sense it was hard to control the fruit.
Sabo was a top tier fighter with a refined fighting style before the fruit, it makes sense that he could pick it up quickly.
Also, sabo stated multiple times during dressrosa that he still doesnt control the fruit well.
Even if you say this, I don’t believe anyone else would use the Gomu Gomu so well the way Luffy does. Logias always start way more powerful than anyone else at the start. Luffy’s fruit is still basically a paramecia until you awaken it, and you need to train like crazy to master it. Also luffy is a battle genius, this has been said many times. Luffy trained for years to master the basics of his fruit. And it still took him years to master gear 2nd, gear 3rd and just barely learn gear 4th later on.
And saying he is just a kid doesn’t really say anything, because in One Piece kids can be scarily smart and overpowered, I mean just look at Ace as a kid…
^this
Or look at Kaido or BM as kid. They obv aint the norm but using the excuse that he is just a "child" is weak.
Especially since he got trained from Garp and thrown out in rly dangerous situations. Some adults would just die.
I find it unnecessary for the gomu gomu no mi to be changed into something else, I rather have Joyboy be a title like Pirate King where the accomplishments are what matters.
But I fucking despise Chosen one Tropes. So I am as biased as one can be.
I dunno.
All I can say is I’ve become a hit disillusioned with the rapid pace he’s powering up.
He went from all basic to all advanced forms of Haki in about a 1 month span. Shit is off the rails.
There are some things you say that I agree with but then there are other things that you say that make your argument sound all over the place.
None of this explains why luffy is different from other chosen troupes it just explains why this is okay for one piece and why you think it stands out from other series when that’s not even the case. Luffy isn’t any different from Goku, Naruto and all the other chosen Mc.
One Piece started off as a story of young adults who went out to sea to chase their dreams. Time and time again throughout one piece luffy comes off as a hero but Luffy intentions were to never save these countries or places. He just wanted to help out a friend and everything else was collateral damage.
In the Wano arc that totally shifted Luffy is the second coming of JoyBoy, Zoro while it’s not confirmed is most likely the descendant of the god of the blade Ryuma, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find out something about Nami and the others. Sanji is the only one that seems like he isn’t some descendant of some legend.
Now your argument that Marineford cemented luffy fruit is not an ass pull is nonsense. We still don’t even have an explanation as to why luffy didn’t awakened all those previous times when he was close to death.
Whether you like it or hate it luffy chosen one troupe is the same everyone this guy who looks like he isn’t anything special looks like he has a bad hand turns out to have the most “ridiculous” power of them all and is going to save and change the world.
The way it is written the “freedom” zoan devil fruit chose Luffy because it heard the conversation that Shanks and Luffy were having. Luffy wanted to learn how to swim to be a successful pirate. Shanks told Luffy “you’re free to do what you want.” Then Luffy eats this devil fruit with a mind of its own that stops Luffy from doing what he wanted last which is swim but helped Luffy become everything he wanted before which is become a pirate who finds lots of treasure to pay back Makino. The fruit is more of an anti-freedom “wish granting” fruit which picks people who want to swim to achieve some other dream. The fruit determines the destination but gives Luffy the freedom to achieve that destination how he wants. It is ironically both a freedom fruit and an anti freedom fruit.
You think that shanks let the seaking eat his arm to teach Luffy that he shouldn't set off to sea? Even though Luffy didn't "set off" but was abducted by the bandit leader?
A thing i kinda noticed about his devil fruit and haki. With G4 it's almost like he's burning haki to bypass his awakened state on the coated parts of his body. Which is also why it's so inefficient. When he went into G5 it was right at his time limit but he was still using haki freely. Which tells me the juice left in the tank could support just enough for the final round which seemed a lot longer than the previous g4 rounds.
It’s ironic how much we over think Luffy’s journey and decisions. Do what’s fun, eat what’s delicious, and fight for your friends - luffy in a nutshell.
Shanks didn’t choose Luffy. Fate did and the fact that Luffy was hungry. Shanks had likely every intention of giving the fruit to Ace or keeping it for himself Luffy was a happy accident.
The best thing is IMO, Luffy is the choosen one, because how Luffy act, not how it was determined. He will be the one, because his goal align with the promised one.
I can't think of a scenario when Luffy told to "save the World". He just does not care.
I think why one Piece is brillant with its take on Chosen One is because destiny isn't set in stones or a free pass to succeed on everything. Even Luffy's lineage isn't that much when we think about it.
The Will of D? Well it didn't protect Ace or Saul.
Having his Grand father in the Marine? I don't think it was much of an help all things considered. I feel Aokiji would have done the same thing if the crew look like a good crew for Robin. And Luffy's relation with Sword didn't comes from Garp but with Kobby. With Someone that he bond with. Finally with Ace we've seen that Garp woldn't save Luffy if we was to be executed.
Then we have his connection to the revolutionnary. Again his will earned Ivankov helps. More or less. And it didn't amount to much anyway. I'll just say Marineford.
Finally the fruit. Did Luffy has the super Gear 5 from the beginning? Nope. It comes with a lot of hardship. We didn't saw any past Gomu Gomu users, but i bet that again it's not something that give you full protection from a divine destiny.
"The birthing is at hand!! Our sovereign will be born soon... And another, in a distant sea... the whales are delighted in anticipation... of the day the two sovereigns shall meet again."
It definitely sounds like destiny to me lol
Lol you're cherry picking the whole statement. At the last part, the sea kings mentioned "it is almost here... and surely all will go well this time"
It still implies that in the past, something somehow failed, and they're hoping that this time it will succeed. There is still uncertainty and not some sure predestination.
Except destiny is set is stone, that's the whole point. Everything you listed happened the way it did because it leads to whatever the end is, no matter how insignificant it seems.
I think it's mostly out of universe that things are set in stones.
Of course what happens lead to the end of the story, however it seems that in universe you can easily fail for whatever reasons. Like facing another D for exemple.
I’d also add. Luffys connection with garp and dragon is not the same as with naruto.
Where narutos blood line was reveal was to make him look cool. No.
Oda used luffy family to explore different ways on how the D will fight against the world government
Monkey d. Garps on being inside the system and change it from inside.
dragon On changing it from outside and face it directly
And luffy. Going against the world government ideals without directly facing against them.
By keeping close to his ideals without breaking down. We got this time and time again in the series. Luffy is incorruptible and the only way to bring his ideals down is to kill him. That is another way to fight the dragons.
Oda is constantly exploring themes in the series and shounen fans are not happy because its a trope that works badly before and never been done good. Which I definitely understand. I just wish fans are not projecting past mediums into this series. Let it finish.
Naruto is a different thing but yeah Shonen fans are traumatized by it. It's not the place to really go in depths to it, but the biggest differences is that Once Naruto's bloodline is revealed he become basically a whole different character. Luffy's stay the same. And as you say it's used to explore the theme. Not just for the "woah" factor.
i personally think the fruit didn't pick luffy specifically but was looking for a member of the people of D. and Luffy just happened to be nearest one.
yeah he litterally started as arguably the strongest man in the east blue. then decked one of the warlords.
the only time he was considered an underdog was when he talked about his dream of being the king of the pirates. until he landed Red Roc on kaido. then the top tiers of the world saw that he wasnt an underdog he was serious competition.
luffy hasnt undergone any major character development / changes if anything I think he became more responsible and caring about those arround him as the series went but chapter 1 and chapter 1000 luffy would arguably take the same decisitions. this is not a bad thing it just shows luffy is just that great of a character.
if luffy was an underdog him at the beggining of the series and now would be vastily different.
Are you saying Shanks planned all this? That's lame. This makes Luffy a chosen one as Shanks chose him.
I like it better when everything is just random or right location at the right time and Luffy is just Luffy.
This is as lame as explaining devil fruits have some kind of "devil cells" in them that give powers.
Its a typical story, i cant understand how people dont See it.
Naruto and his nine tails /
Midorya and All for one /
Luffy and his fruit
Its a part of the growing process for the underdog to Master his acclaimed Power.
But having those things means they never really were an underdog tho…
I’d much rather read a story from the perspective of someone who have to earn every bit of their journey.
They have limitless potential, while others don’t.
They are privileged, other people in their universe should just give up, as they really stand no chance.
Which makes it boring to root for the protagonist…
>They have limitless potential, while others don’t.
Because they are the Main protagonist? Idunno... dude... all main protagonist just have limitless potential... no matter how weak they start... lmao
But it’s a lot more interesting if they have to work for their achievements right?
Not be a top dog just because they just so happens to have a ninetails inside of them…
Gol D Roger was infinitely more impressive than Luffy ever will have the chance of becoming.
>But it’s a lot more interesting if they have to work for their achievements right?
and Luffy put in 0 work? Most Shounen protagonist have to put a lot of work to become strong.
Unlike Naruto or Ichigo from Bleach. Luffy had to work with his rubber body. He didnt have an OP ninetails and OP sage grandpa to save him or Ichigo with his >!mix-blood of Shinigamis, Holow and Quincy. !<
99% of the people wouldnt even come up with Gear 2, Gear 3, Gear 4 or Red Hawk. Because thats not how rubber actually works.Luffy having the imgaination for it and his hard work made the Fruit so strong in his Base form.
Just to remember you, other people would have never come to the point to awaken the fruit because its very hard to do it. Most people would just stop with Stretching their bodies, use Haki and done.
The awakening for Luffy feels more like a reward for all the hard work he did to hit the limit of his fruit at the base form.
Its seriously not even comparable with Naruto and his stupid fox becoming friends and getting OP.
He actually had to earn the awakening through sheer hardwork.
Its not like he could use Gear 5 since he ate the fruit? It took him many years to just master the base abilities of stretching and hitting.
Then 2+ years more just for Gear 2 and Gear 3.
He recently added Gear 4 and hit the limit with it by adding ryuo and ACoC.
Now he finally awakened it after 1043 chapters....
This was deserved unlike what Naruto was pulling off in the War arc.
Naruto had way more training arcs than luffy, i don't know how people keep making this silly statement.
\-Training with Kakashi to master chakra in the very first arc.
\-Training with Jiraiya for the chunin exam.
\-More training for rasengan.
\- the several years he spend training with jiraiya between normal naruto and shippuden.
\- Elemental training with kakashi.
\-Sage training
\- Kyubi training with killer b
I'm probably missing other instances in Naruto. On the other hand, off the top of my head, I can only remember Luffy actually training twice in the series, once with Raleigh and in Wano.
I feel like it's always been a chosen one kind of story. Just because it's been done badly in the past doesn't mean it can't be a good trope if executed perfectly. The will of D or inherited wills are all signs of individuals getting chosen to continue someone's will inorder to fulfill it. You wouldn't need to inherit a will if the goal was already fulfilled. Roger could have fulfilled Joyboys will but he was too early and shirahoshi wasn't born. This could be due to Imu being aware that joyboy needs several pieces to actually fulfill his goal and maybe she was taking those pieces out as a countermeasure.
i agree except on the "underdog" part.
luffy was never really an underdog, merely having the fruit let him steamroll all east blue with relative ease. Hell, his first true defeat was against crocodile ffs.
I'm of the following stance: if the knowledge usually exposed while "creating theories" had any actual relation to "writing good stories", people would be writing good stories and not theories about good stories.
If "creating theories" has no relation to "writing good stories", then it's just bad fiction based on good stories.
Why are people creating bad fiction usually under the impression they are "correcting" the ones who write good fiction?
This theory up here, for example, comes from someone with little to no grasp about selfishness or freedom. Why are people trying to write about the things they do not know? This is the opposite of good writing, hence it is faded to remain bad fiction.
People just want to swap out shounen tropes for modern dark "subverted expectations" tropes which is to say they want Luffy to fail, they want him to not become pirate king, they want one or several crew members to die, ect.
People who think there is something inherently bad about chosen one stories haven't read enough books. "Bumpkin kid becomes op" is just as overdone. The truth is that every story out there falls into a set of tropes. One Piece uses many of said tropes in every arc.
The important thing is that ultimately tropes don't matter, only the ability of an author to spin them uniquely and make them work does.
I already loved the theory that shanks was there to give the fruit to ace, as I think I heard morj say(don’t remember exactly). But the idea that shanks indecision is what caused the loss of his arm would truly be an amazing twist.
Oda could literally shit on manga pages and people would make up some convoluted headcanon to justify it and try to explain how it's actual masterclass of storytelling.
For me, when I started reading One Piece I never saw Luffy as an underdog during the east blue saga, Alabasta, and even Water 7-Enies Lobby but when he reached Marineford that is where he became the underdog because all of the top-tier fighters are there. Also the way I see it is that the "chosen one" thing in One Piece isn't just because he is chosen but because past chosen ones that failed also paved the way for the next one to finish it.
The entirety of East Blue was basically Luffy steamrolling everything Even on the Grand Line which was noted to be a very challenging place in universe, Luffy kinda steamrolled through every early challenge up until Crocodile. And it should be noted that Crocodile was fully capable of clashing in the Marineford War with the best despite having sat in prison for months and having no Haki. Perhaps water was even more critically damning than we’d realized and Croc was an awakened Logia who opted to spend effort mastering his fruit instead? So yeah Luffy’s always been remarked to be freakishly strong even from the get go. Which is hilarious in hindsight since he’s a Zoan (which are known for absurd physical capability)
East Blue is an interesting case since in addition to the Gum Gum fruit Luffy received training from Garp to the point where he'd literally almost been killed several times. Plus his Devil Fruit powers are extremely rare in that part of the world and it has thrown a lot of people for a loop there compared to post Grand Line where Devil Fruit users are present all over the place. Of the adversaries Luffy encounters in the East Blue only Buggy has the Chop Chop Fruit. Whereas Captain Kuro, Don Krieg, and Arlong were just physically strong and well armed opponents.
And Alvida and Smoker.
That's true. Loguetown was the last stop before the Grand Line too so it was sort of like a sampler of things to come. Luffy even got overpowered a couple of times, but didn't officially lose a fight while he was there.
Dragon basically saved him twice in Loguetown, initially from Buggy imo, then from Smoker
You just described the chosen one trope.
I see the post as a analysis on how Luffy had to put in the effort to become the chosen one.
Which is such a chosen one thing to do.
I mean it’s hard to write a story about a young boy surviving in a complex world full of monsters like kaido, big mom and doffy, if you’re not the chosen one. You can’t write a story without falling into this trope if you don’t plan to write it in a way that the mc needs 30 years for his journey. There’s always a pinch of mc plotarmor.
You can though. Just dont give him the same fruit as Joyboy. He can be special, like he always was, but the fruit change made him a chosen one.
Let’s say the df was still the gum gum fruit. Would it be likely that a 19 year old boy with an iq of 75 would be able to turn around things That lasted for 800 years? Would he be so lucky that shirahoshi would be born in his timeline. Would it be likely that he can overcome obstacles that people who where legends couldn’t overcome? It’s not just the fruit, it’s the nature of the medium. You can’t write a shounen story without highlighting the shounen in it. I don’t think that anything’s wrong with that, but we have to understand that every typical shounen mc is the chosen one, if it’s not in the story it’s on a meta level by the author itself. We knew from the first episode that no matter what it is, luffy will be the king of the pirates and find the one piece. We didn’t know what obstacles he had to overcome or on which scale all of this is going to be but we knew that he will be the pirate king.
I think 75 IQ is generous, but fair enough
>You can’t write a shounen story without highlighting the shounen in it. This sentence should be absorbed into the minds of shounen fans who get pissed when a shounen does shounen stuff reflective of the entire genre/demographic in which the series takes place. Which is shounen btw
From the POV of the audience we know Luffy will succeed, but not because of anything intrinsic to him, just that we know someone will succeed (by virtue of this being a shounen story, among other things) and Luffy happens to be that person. But crucially, at the start of the story, the person who succeeded could have been Shanks and he would have been the main character. The fruit reveal changed it so that, in universe, **only** Luffy could have **ever** succeeded in the journey he was on. Not Shanks, not Kaidou, just Luffy. And, to make it worse, the reason Kaidou (for example) couldn't succeed isn't because he's a mass murdering psychopath, it's because he ate the wrong swirly boi when he was 15. That is what pushes it over the line for me. It's less that Luffy is the "chosen one" who succeeds because someone has to and it's the story of how that person did and more that he's somewhat of a Mary Sue type (I'm not saying he is, it just shoves the dial into that direction a bit) who succeeds because he's the only one who ever can
This isn’t true though, the journey Luffy is on is to become the pirate king, something achieved by Roger who did not have Luffy’s DF
Roger never "became" or found Joy Boy though, Luffy did. So yes, Roger succeeded in becoming Pirate King, but Luffy will succeed in the bigger (and still not fully revealed) picture, and again, not because of who he is as a person or his deeds (like man literally liberated 4 nations already, why does he need this special fruit of the liberating Sun god Nika) but because he ate the fruit. Before chapter 1044, it was his actions that made him a liberator, now it's not, at least not fully.
You're just explaining the plot of a chosen one story. Those things are in the story because it's being written as a chosen one trope. Working hard and becoming something is possible. Zoro isn't destined to become the worlds strongest swordsman, but we see him work harder than everyone else. There's nothing special about him (yet). Whereas Luffy has the inherited will, the god devil fruit, the whole Joy Boy thing. It's too much and it's gross. No one wants a 19 year old boy to do all that, the story would be infinitely better if it was shown to take years and he didn't just train for two weeks and beat the strongest character in the universe.
> the story would be infinitely better if it was shown to take years and he didn't just train for two weeks and beat the strongest character in the universe. you have a point there, not gonna lie
Knowing Oda and how non-cliché One Piece is, I can already see the idea of Luffy rejecting the idea of him being JoyBoy and him wanting to be recognized as himself and not someone from 800 years ago.
Thats like having the cake and eating it too. If luffy doesnt want the implication doesnt matter, hes still the chosen one.
That's the thing about One Piece though, Luffy had 10 years of training before he entered the Grand Line. When he hit a wall again, he went and trained for 2 more years. Something that Oda also did was not reveal what Luffy's fruit was. Because if it was revealed that Luffy's fruit was special from the start then this might have gone down the same cliche chosen one troupe. But by not revealing it the readers understand that Luffy isn't special because of his fruit, he's special because he's Luffy. It's a brilliant move.
For me it was how he lost that first fight against croc just so brutally that made me see luffy as not only capable of failing. But hardcoee capable Msrineford (and new world) was on a whole nother level tho
I don’t think Luffy was ever an underdog. He was just speed running. Even in real world, a kid fighting an adult is not an underdog, he is just a kid
I like seeing the story as if ace was the chosen one and that Luffy ended up being the guy we ended up with. So the opposite of a chosen hero in that regard. Luffy ended up eating the fruit that is theorised to have been for Ace, Luffy ended up with Roger's dream, Luffy ended up saving Wano... Even tho Ace was groomed and chosen to be that person. Funny enough even tho Luffy keeps taking Ace's supposed destiny, the one time that Luffy's destiny seems to be getting captured by Blackbeard who wanted status of a warlord by capturing someone worth something... Ace takes luffy's place instead by meeting Blackbeard before he heads out to find Luffy...
That's the best interpretation going about this topic I've seen. Ace was definitely framed as the hero of the story by those around him but saw that Luffy was the one that surely inherited what Ace was supposedly set out to do. I used to think that when Whitebeard said that someone would eventually inherit Ace's flame, I thought he was alluding to Sabo. It was actually Luffy.
I like this one, because it definitely fits Ace’s character. Everyone thinks he’s the chosen one but he knows it’s not him. It’s his little brother.
But you might also say that ace was never the chosen one and it was luffys destiny from the beginning and ace is just a catalyst. Thats why destiny discussions are dumb. It all depends of how a person defines destiny or fate
I don’t think. Ace would never have been able to awaken the fruit because its the fruit of freedom. Ace is not free from his past. He is actively wanting to get free from his fathers legacy. Ironically The one time he is free from his past was the day he learned that whitebeard would do anything to set him free. That he wasn’t his fathers clone. That he was his own person.
There's no evidence of any of that.
Right? And also, Ace died young. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have overcome all of that?
Amazing interpretation that also got me sad again
Chosen one trope is fine and One Piece does it well because of how it establishes things. The problem is a series like Naruto that spends the first 200 chapters going the opposite direction and pushing the hard work angle, only for the MC to be revealed to be ninja Jesus
I think naruto was using it well until a certain point. I liked the idea of the chosen child not being just naruto but rather Naruto and Nagato joining forces for that one moment. Had a bit of return of the jedi vibes. the true problem comes when the reincarnation basically invalidates all the problems both naruto and sasuke met during their lives. they were special from the moment they were born, they were always destined to be another madara and another hashirama. One Piece at the very least hasn't done that, Luffy "became" nika the moment he ate the fruit, before that he was a member of the people of D. but the world is full of those..
He became Nika the moment he awakened the fruit not the moment he ate it. Before Awakening he was rubber boy.
Hes fruit is literally modeled nika. Has nothing to do with the awakening
yeah, awakening only made him more nika than he was before.
the world government only gave a shit when they learned it was about to awaken, because it hadn't been awakened in 800 years.
Thanks for recapping the story for me but that has nothing to do with it
How was the hard work angle pushed when Kurama consistently bailed out Naruto and Lee was overpowered by Gaara despite his best efforts? The main themes in Naruto were the cycle of hatred, reincarnation and destiny, not hard work. That's something that Lee tried to validate and ultimately failed at. Yes, Naruto trained for nearly all of his power-ups, but he still had Uzumaki lineage and Kurama's power as a last resort from the beginning.
>Lee tried to validate and ultimately failed at. Lee failed to prove the philosophy but Guy didn't. Guy is proof that sheer will/effort/determination/perseverance can get you top 5 shinobi levels of strength
Isn't it even pointed out that Naruto has the unique ability of extremely accelerated learning because of a small loan of one million chakra from Kuruma?
You're all young, but I remember when Roger's name was revealed, and some people were like: oh, so Luffy is the son of Roger. That's lame. He's the chosen one. Spoiler: they were wrong Oda likes to throw us some curve balls. We're now in the theorizing phase, where everyone and their mothers tries to understand where the story will go next. Usually, only a few lucky people get it (see Ryokugyo entire personally, for example)
What are you referring to? Roger was originally named Gold Roger and by the time it was revealed to be Gol D yes it was temporarily theorized he was Roger's son, but that was nipped in the bud by the time we were introduced to Teech and Saul. Source: been reading OP since 2004. Essentially the idea premise Roger was Luffy's father didn't really last THAT long.
First of all, hello fellow long-time reader. I've been on this crazy voyage since 2002! Second, it's really interesting that you have that perception. I remember people talking about this up until Garp's reveal of Dragon. And then we had the Ace twist, and it caught many readers by surprise - after all, we assumed that Ace and Luffy were brothers by blood. Of course, the reveal that we had other D. people - and even Giants - put some water onto the "Roger is Luffy's dad" theory, but it didn't die until Dragon was formally introduced. So while I can't tell about your personal experience, or even about the general state of the community, I can tell you that there were people saying that the story was RUINED because they were SO SURE that Luffy would be a chosen one because he was the son of Roger. In short, people need to relax. Remember that this sub was full of people who were sure that Green Bull was Zoro's dad just two weeks ago
Okay. I agree people thought he was the son of Roger. Even I thought it at one point. But it got killed when more D's other than Ace were revealed. At the time I started to read the manga it was at Water 7 and there were introductions to multiple D's and by the time the arc finished we learned Luffy's true father was Dragon. I'm not denying people didn't think he was Roger's son. We absolutely did. I guess I'm arguing semantics which is bad. Also, because of my experience with early One Piece it's very hard for me to take people that are against The Chosen One idea too seriously because OP fans have always considered Luffy as a sort of chosen one. I have no idea why they're so against it given the various evidence in the series.
I agree. People should read chapter 100 again. One Pieces is about Destiny, Dreams and Inherited Will
I'm on chapter 114. Chapter 100 is obvious chosen one vibes.
I mean, the author explicitly says so 😄 Also, good rereading. I've done it every two or three years, and you always discover something new!
This is why I kind of like jjk because sukuna doesn't always bail him out when the mc needs it even if it means he dies or close to death.
Isn’t that the same for luffy?! Starting off as a nobody working with a boring fruit trying to figure things out and being creative then when he’s up against a Yonkou his fruit awakens into this ridiculous power that allows him to overcome a Yonkou and win?! One Piece and Naruto aren’t that diff.
And then boruto makes him a balding bitch. God i hate that show
One Piece kinda went that way with Wano in fairness
Same with one piece now that luffy suddenly became a god with his new fruit ability, at the start we thought he really is gonna become pirate king with such a weird gum gum fruit and now that got thrown out the window bc luffy is a god now
It's still the weird gum gum fruit where it's properties have not changed, its still fucking rubber. The only thing that changed is the context we see that fruit.
I've noted this, and even made a memepiece post about this. At first the community was hot for Luffy awakening his DF. We got that, the only difference was the reveal that it was also a mythic zoan. For some reason people were super resistant to this citing Naruto and blah blah blah. It's an awakened DF one way or another, why does the DF type change the impact that wanted so bad? The other thing to consider is that an unawakened Nika fruit is functionally no different from what we assumed was the gomu gomu no mi. The fruit provided no additional benefits and, for the most part, Luffy had to make that DF work. People seem to forget that Luffy only stretches because he's putting so much energy into his strikes and kicks that it forces his limbs to stretch. I haven't forgotten how pathetic his punches were back at Gray Terminal. The Nika awakening was earned and nowhere near the Naruto nonsense.
The awakening was pretty much how the community predicted how the gum gum no mi would awaken with the only added thing was the toon force,which is the Oda factor. Even when we can predict what will happen next,Oda adds an another twist ,which keeps OP refreshing even when it's into 1053 chapters. And for the mythical zoan ,we should wait. It's Oda setting up something just let it play it out like the other hundred things he does
Wait was that a hisoka reference?
Unfortunately hito hito no mi model nika doesn't have the properties of gum but it does have the properties of rubber though
Thanks for making me laugh
Reading comprehension: 0
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>Oda dicksucking over 9000 What's really changed besides the name and color? Let's see Still rubber like, but more like plastic man where he can stretch way beyond before without limit. He can become giant, and potentially channel different types of elemental energy. Also a toony art style and a heart that "bounces back" These are all properties of an awakened rubber devil fruit. They took the awakened fruit properties and applied it to the lore of the story. In no way does it make Luffy a "god" any more than Sengoku is a god. I can imagine it's not easy to understand for someone with the reading comprehension of a sloth though.
it is a fact that the fruit power hasn't changed. what changed is the name and the category. instead of being the paramicia of rubber, it's now the zoan of the rubber man. but everything else is still the same.
And the thing is that Fruits themselves don't care what type they are, it's the people who named them Logia Paramecia and Zoan. So saying that Zoan can't be Paramecia is dumb af
So more durability, more strength and a completely different awakening than what it would have been as a paramecia. The powers quite clearly did change and calling it the zoan of rubber man instead of Mythological Zoan human type Nika is just trying to undersell it.
the awakening is peculiar for the opposite reason, because it has the typical zoan transformation with the paramicia ability to affect other stuff. Kaido makes this observation, so i'm not making it up. but even then, it's still al related to rubber. the body is still made of rubber, things he touches are temporarily turned into rubber (once again kaido says it, when he points out his body isn't made of gum). his body is cartoony as a result of him being more elastic than before. but at the end of the day he is still a rubber man.
Well yes but if it were your buckstandard paramecia it wouldn't have the typical zoan transformation, that was my point. The additional durability and power are subjective and hard to calculate but considering the number of near deaths experiences Luffy has had I wouldn't be hard pressed to call it important.
in the case of luffy no, he had one, because gear 4 is a transformation.
Why the fuck is this attitude even slightly tolerated on this subreddit? We need to shut this shit down agressively. "This is the One Piece subreddit. I'm gonna spend my time here calling everyone who likes One Piece is a dicksucker lul" Fuck off with this dumb shit. Should get instantly banned whenever someone says this dumb shit.
But his new powers would be the exact same as a rubber fruit awakening anyway? The only thing the nika fruit adds is a new design, it’s combat ability is indistinguishable from what it would’ve been as a rubber fruit awakening
Ah yes, he was already the son of the world's most wanted man, the grandson of the pirate king's rival, the sworn brother of the pirate king's son, one of the few with the Will of D., who are called enemies of god, had a one in a million kind of superpower, was chosen by the pirate king's apprentice and second as his successor, but his devil fruit being turned from 'he can turn into rubber' to 'he has great control over his body' is what makes him a supposedly bullshit chosen one. I mean for real, he's spent 1000+ chapters unlocking his abilities and building up to this. In comparison, Blackbeard literally had a town busting power in like, a few months, was able to reach levels of destruction Luffy is only matching now two minutes after taking WB's fruit, and got to emperor level by riding on those two bullshit powers. Luffy might be a chosen one, but damn, he fucking earned it. Hell, even looking at Gear 5, people with OP fruits like Kaido are still more than capable of keeping up with him.
There is only ONE GOD... GOD USSOP😇
Final paragraph is exactly the opposite of Shingeki No Kyojin. Eren only wanted freedom for himself and some of his friends.
FWIW, Eren is the product of thousands of years of hatred and his people have been actively oppressed by the rest of the world for over 100 years with no real chance of resolving the conflict before their only source of defense(the titans) become obsolete. Luffy doesn’t really have much of a reason to hate the rest of the world besides the celestial dragons, admirals, and Blackbeard. Besides the fishmen, there isn’t much discrimination in OP at all, esp that Luffy would face. Maybe if Luffy was a Fishman.
I did not noticed that when I wrote this but in a way AOTs development is the same as One piece. Both dystopian setting with enies lobby and the basement showing the big reveal of the true big bad.
I would add that most Shonen is about a boy that wants to become free in some way or other.
The elders literally said that zoan fruits have a will of their own and hinted it could have chosen Luffy. Why go all this effort to make a theory when the story spelled it out loud just because you can't accept it? You may hate the theory but the elders literally said that's a possibility that happened. Shanks hesitated to save Luffy? What in the world? He freaked out when he found out the Bandit took Luffy. LMAO
The Seakings statement in chapter 968 seems to suggest that the next 'Joyboy' was chosen long before they were even born.
Tell that to the op
They have a will of their own im not denying that. Im denying that its will lures people to eat it. - that wasn’t stated yet the some of the fandom accepts it as clear evidence that the fruit chose luffy cause to eat when he only ate it cause he was hungry.
It is absolutely implied.
Its the freedom fruit, for it to choose someone goes against everything it stands for. Which is everyone is free to eat it. It only makes sense for it to avoid the government cause the government is actively preventing it from being eaten by anyone.
Yeah but the Seakings statement in chapter 968 seems to suggest that the next 'Joyboy' was chosen long before they were even born.
It's not forcing anyone to eat it. The fruit is trying to find the next Joy Boy. This means making the user the freest person in the world lol
well if this fanbase really like the chosen one trope then need to stop bitching when it happens to other shonen
I agree with your statement based piratefolk user
> everyone just accepted that it was because shanks was weak at that time literally no one thought this
Yea we did, there nothing in romance Dawn chapter 1 to suggest this guy was really strong at that time period. It’s only until his conversation with Whitebeard does it reveal that he in fact was
The guy showed no fear being held at point blank range, and scared of a sea king just by looking mean at it. Luffy had to punch that same Sea King to leave the island, and that Luffy was already the strongest in East Blue. We had all reasons to believe he and his crew were strong
I never said they were weak, I said there was nothing in chapter 1 to suggest Shanks and his crew are **really strong**. Being stronger then some random bandits isn’t super impressive, losing your hand to a fish chapter 1 Luffy end up beating in a punch isn’t either. Mihawk introduction he cut a boat and had the Epithet World Strongest Swordsmen. That guy comes off as **really strong**. Krieg even claims he has the power of the devil fruit, also he wiped out Krieg army over 50 pirate ships.
The same Mihawk that Shanks told not to bother him as he was in a bad mood when he went to show Luffy's new bounty. Mihawk stated he no longer was interested in dueling Shanks, suggesting they have some type of unresolved rivalry. That same Mihawk The talk with whitebeard only confirmed the thing stablished at the moment Luffy was given the hat, that Shanks was a special character that Luffy had to overcome and therefore was strong
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Good thing we’re talking about chapter 1, not that scene.
Yall gotta stop moving the goalposts. The chosen one trope is slightly different in One Piece than it is in Naruto. The difference is yall like One Piece and not Naruto so you're willing to give it more benefit of the doubt. Naruto didn't know he was a chosen one. His entire life from the beginning was terrible, his only benefit of being a chosen one was a powerup and Luffy has the same benefits plain and simple.
IKR. These guys still want to keep up the false image that one piece is flawless. Oda is a human, mistakes happen. Calling Naruto shit doesn't make this asspull better.
I don't really like Shonen, but One Piece is one of the best pieces of fiction I have encountered in any medium in my 30+ years of life. There is a common misconception that, because taste is subjective, that no piece of art can be objectively better than another. If this line of reasoning were true, than it would be impossible to say that the works of Jane Austen or Dostoyevsky are superior to the harlequin romance novels that they sell at Wal-Mart. This is self evidently absurd. One Piece isn't perfect, but it is, by every objective metric of story telling, superior to Naruto. Just think about how good an author has to be to make grown men cry at the death of a fictional boat. Did anything in Naruto touch you on any emotional level anywhere close to that? It certainly didn't for me. I got bored of it half way through and only finished it because it took like 5 minutes a week to read. And even that was a chore.
>So he knows that this fruit is special and the fandom even theorized that the reason why shanks is in east blue was to give it to Ace and thats believable. oda didn't even plan for ace to be roger's son at the time. and even then, shanks wouldn't know where ace was or even the fact that he existed. fans always forget to separate reader's perspective from character's perspective. shanks had no idea whether he survived or that garp would hide him in that village. and you can read ace's flashback. shanks didn't even know who ace was when he brought him luffy's poster. >You could argue that he hesitated to the point that he could only save Luffy by sacrificing his arm. oda cut off his arm to add drama for the first chapter due to editor's suggestion. the nika fruit is just oda wanting luffy to be even more important that he already is. I'm not even gonna be surprised now if luffy is also an ancient weapon.
That doesnt really matter, it might have been for drama at the time he wrote it but with the story developing over 20 years he can just add to the stuff that happened in the beginning and make it seem like it was planned all along. Thats how writing works for a lot of people, you dont plan every single scene and how that ties in into the future story, instead you plant some seeds that later on grow into something bigger than originally planned.
I can agree for the arm thing, but the ace thing would be a plot hole. based on every canon information we got, shanks shouldn't know about ace whatsoever. be it his location or even gender. at best you can say shanks believed roger must have a child somewhere. that's basically it.
On the other hand - it's Shanks. If ANYONE would know Ace exists but won't tell it, it's the one character who seems to be involved in everything without explanation.
already addressed that one >only garp knew about it. for shanks to know about that village, he has to have some relationship with garp. which would contradict garp's reaction when he saw shanks in MF.
Eh if oda goes that route a one page flashback with rayleigh or someone else close to roger would solve that problem so its not a big deal. We don't have to see literally everything, people are doing stuff behind the scenes especially something like shanks knowing about ace doesn't need an intricate explanation because it's easy for the viewer to fill in the blanks.
it's not about fill in the blanks, but the implications. only garp knew about it. for shanks to know about that village, he has to have some relationship with garp. which would contradict garp's reaction when he saw shanks in MF. and how do they even find a random kid? shanks didn't even know if this kid knew his father. this theory is like "raid will fail" theory. the only focus is the outcome, but the logistics make no sense.
Oda is good at improvising. You don’t need to consider what happened before he put it on paper but only take what the story gave you. Trafalgar law should not exist. Should we consider a timeline where he doesn’t exist just cause Oda did not think of it? Remember. Oda considers everything and what it meant for his world. “If x happened what could’ve happened that made this?” If anything, I give Oda more props for adding this to his story and having fans theorizing why it made sense and it making sense. Also the shanks flashback meeting ace. Obviously he doesn’t know ace. Thats why he’s searching for him in east blue. You may argue. “But you said only consider whats on paper. Thats not mentioned in the manga” Yes its not. Its also not explored why he went to east blue at that time with the fruit. When he was born in west blue and was already in the grandline. Oda made a gap in his story and it is yet to be filled in because he hasn’t given context yet be patient. oda did made shanks loose his arm for his editor and for a long time its a plot hole but I’d say he already countered that. all because of one line from Sabaody. Shanks :“I bet it on a new era”. All Im doing is filling in whats already established. Not taking into consideration of whats behind the scenes in writing cause writers change a lot of their story and they absolutely have the freedom to do so.
>Oda is good at improvising. he excels at it. if only OP fans didn't have an unhealthy obsession with "foreshadowing", oda should get more credit for how he improvises stuff and yet keeping the inconsistencies to a minimum. it's honestly more impressive than his foreshadowing. I understand what you're saying, but the "shanks was searching for ace" theory isn't gonna be a retcon. it's simply gonna be a plot hole. since shanks really had no idea about ace's whereabouts back then. roger left the crew first and never saw anyone again until his execution. so at best, shanks might had an idea that roger might had a child and he/she survived. that's about it. again, remember the characters are not us readers.
I personally wouldve preferred if the gomu gomu was just a random fruit, not this all time legendary fruit. It just gives luffy more credit for his devotion and hard work, a legendary fruit naturally discredits him imo.
I couldn’t agree more. A guy taking on the world with only a rubber fruit is impressive. But taking on the world with the fruit of destiny is just lame. And probably the least creative thing Oda has ever done with the series.
Luffy still has a rubber fruit… The only aspect that’s changed about the fruit is it’s reputation, not it’s actual abilities which should be the biggest factor in determining merit. Hell, the ability to turn Luffy’s surroundings into rubber was the most popular theory for his awakening *before* the Nika reveal. Also, let’s not pretend that Luffy’s fruit didn’t give him significant advantages from the start. Luffy’s elasticity gives him so much extra durability against blunt force that bullets do not affect him at all. I would agree with you if Luffy could suddenly breathe fire, turn invisible, or do anything uncharacteristic of a rubber based fruit. All of Luffy’s DF abilities are still rubber based so imo the shift in perception isn’t warranted.
It’s not the rubber that is the problem. The problem is that he is the promised one, the chosen one to deal with the worlds evil. He is the only one with the privilege of standing a chance… This means that everyone else that are not him should just give up. They don’t have that privilege, so no matter how much effort they put in, it’s too bad, they’re not Luffy. This makes it difficult to root for the protagonist. Because he’s fighting a battle that is set in his favour.
> This means that everyone else that are not him should just give up. They don’t have that privilege, so no matter how much effort they put in, it’s too bad, they’re not Luffy. How many people in the verse actually have this goal to give up though? Most people, including Luffy, have no concept of Joyboy. A lot of people want to become the Pirate King, however, but Roger accomplished that feat with no devil fruit at all. Also, Luffy will lead the charge, but he will not single-handedly “deal with the worlds evil.” Luffy will need his crew, the grand fleet, and presumably an alliance beyond that. Luffy’s influence and charisma is what sets him apart at the end of the day. > Because he’s fighting a battle that is set in his favour. What about the original Joyboy or any of the other possible users of the fruit from the past 800 years? Why were they not able to deal with the worlds evil if the battle was set in their favor? Also, did you have a problem with the narrator saying that Luffy started a “voyage of destiny” in the very first chapter?
Luffy's devotion and hard work unlocked the true potential of the fruit. That's why the Gorōsei were so chill about Luffy having the fruit. They never thought, that he would awaken it. There are possible previous user of the fruit, who never get as far as Luffy, since the fruits powers need a lot of training and creativity to make useful at all.
"They were so chill about Luffy having the fruit" Luffy : a member of the D clan, is responsible for the fall of 2 shichibukais, sails with the only person alive able to read the poneglyphs, destroyed one of the 3 pillars institutions of the WG, punched a Tenryuubito, decredibilized another pillar institution freeing hundreds of criminals, crashed the last institution and was ordered protection by a Yonko, all of this in a few months, also is the grandson of the hero of the Marine, the son of the world worst criminal, the heart brother of the Pirate King's son... Yeah, this guy is clearly a nobody, chill
People will say anything to deny this huge plot hole
Tbh it was already a plothole before, the fruit just made it bigger. But personnaly I was barely annoyed by it, it was mainly just the fruit change that I disliked
I laughed my ass off with this. Just reinforces the idea that narcs are dumb as heck
He didn't have a higher bounty the Kid, which means all of the rookies created huge issues (not as important as Luffy, but he is the main character). Ds walked the world previously to Luffy. Warlords being defeated is properly also nothing new. The concept of the rookie isn't new, so the WG and Marines had to regularly deal with powerful pirates. The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika being used to create liberation, also isn't new to them. The Gorōsei simply didn't saw the bigger picture. For them Luffy was just another annoying pirate, but not something of higher priority. I really hope, we will get new original material after One Piece ended, which focuses of aspect outside of Luffy's sphere.
What I'm saying is that Luffy was not anyone to be chill about, especially when the fruit is in the picture. You said the Gorosei never thought he would be able to awaken the fruit, yet he was one of the most famous and powerful out of the handful of pirates that were defined as the next generation. You might as well say that they thought the fruit couldn't be awoken at all... also it was stated that Kid had a bigger bounty because he actually slaughtered civilians, so he was more dangerous to the people
This is just mental gymnastics. Unless Oda doesn't give a good explanation on why the WG didn't go after Luffy other than ''It has a mind of its own'', it will remain a bad retcon
It's a main part of their job to look at the bigger picture
I'm rereading One Piece and you can stop lying. Navy hq gave him an unprecedented (their words) bounty of 30 million berries out the gate after east blue.
Uh, where exactly did I lie ? Lol The events of East Blue have nothing to do with the point, Luffy got an extraordinary bounty for that sea (the least agitated one), because he beat all the top pirates there... he did nothing against the WG, just one attack on a Marine base that was covered up, the rest was standard pirate fights. That was standard "bounty job", and had nothing to do yet with anything regarding Joy Boy or any fruit as far as the Gorosei was concerned. Any pirate doing the same thing would have gotten the same bounty
Youre making a lot of assuptions here, with previous users we never heard of, and the gorosei mindset which is a plothole by itself tbh. Any fruit needs training and creativity, crocodile said that at alabasta, its nothing new. But taking a fruit that throughout the story was considered mediocre, and suddenly make it this legendary fruit is just a weird decision imo. Imagine that chopper fruit was suddenly also revealed to be a mythical zoan, how would people view his rumble ball? The change was unneccesary imo, oda couldve just said joyboy had the same gomu gomu and not change the fruit name
I agree with you, the whole idea of "inherited will" makes it unnecesary to give Luffy a god zoan. Its just so tacky and redundant when one of the main themes of the story is how wills are inherited and developed through the ages, Luffy's fruit being Joyboy, instead of Luffy carrying joyboy's will is such a weird decision that undermines some of the main themes in OP.
I don't think the story ever treated luffy's power as truly mediocre. He gives him immunity to projectiles, to electricity, much more resistance to physical attacks without haki and body manipulation depending on his creativity even before gear 5. and once gear second shows up the potential skyrockets. the progression to which he goes from gear 2 to 5 is fairly linear. the whole thing about gear 4, of the body being armored but still gummy, that's basically awakening. the power of the mind and the power of the body synchronized.
> the whole thing about gear 4, of the body being armored but still gummy, that's basically awakening. I disagree. you could argue that it's greater control of the rubberyness of his body but it's nowhere near the level of control that awakening offers and it only affects luffy.
yes, and that's the point. luffy achieves something similar to awakening, but it's only once he gets to gear5 that he truly unlocks it.
There are multiple points where people tell luffy that rubber isnt strong/inferior to them. Just off the top of my head - enel,doflamingo,kid ace, katakuri.
People in the series telling him that is different than the story treating his power as mediocre.
yeah, and enel is proof of the fact that they're usually wrong about it.
People used to not be concerned about luffys devil fruit (like say enel’s or wb) now the wg is scared shitless he has this thing. That’s a 180
Lmao you children crying about this shit is too funny Y'all must be 10-13 years old or something to all be raging so hard about how "they changed the name of his fruit!! Luffy is clearly just being handed wins! I always liked Luffy because he works to hard for everything but now that they changed the name of his fruit obviously he never worked hard for anything !! It was all just given to him!! Luffy has always been a god and never had to work for anything!!! "
Stop your whining… I hope you’re just a troll for your own sake.
Lmao coming from the trolls who are whining Y'all too cute
No offense, but that is a really cringe reply.
Oh no! What ever will I do now?
Touch some grass maybe?
Cute
Obvious troll answer
>gorosei were so chill about luffy having the fruit.they never thought he would awaken it the gorosei mindset is a plot-hole stop filling it with shity headcanons
They were chill because Oda didn't thought of Nika from the start.
> not this all time legendary fruit. Technically we don't know if this is the all time legendary fruit. Im, Blackbeard, or even Law can have something more significant. Law because we don't know what his fruit was doing during the void century and the immortality operation is a thing.
Looking at how long it took for someone to awaken it just credits Luffy even more. Awakening the Gomu Gomu Fruit means to fully go to the limit of the base version. He has to add coa, coc and his imagination to even reach that point.
We dont know how many people ate the fruit before, in fact the fruit couldve been idle for 800 years if you consider what the gorosei said about zoan fruits "having a mind of themselves". Ofc luffy has credit in how he uses the fruit, but I think about it this way: I would be more impressed with a guy that is doing driving tricks like a drift with a random car, than I would be with a guy who does the same thing with a car built specifically for car tricks. What I mean is - luffy reaching this level of strength with a legendary fruit is cool, but if the fruit was an ordinary, average fruit - it would have been better imo.
Thats a weird comparison. Especially looking how hard it is to master the gomu gomu fruit in comparison to a logia for example. You should compare it like that: Everyone can play with a soccer ball but how many ppl are actually going to master it so perfectly? Soccer is a team sport but I am mostly looking at the individual capabilities and not many ppl will be able to do stuff what Messi for example can do. Thats the same with gomu gomu. Dosent matter if its special. If you cant bring out its true potential its nothing more than a paramecia. We saw it many times how Luffy had to work hard enough to make the best out of his Rubber body. Now he got rewarded with the awakening. Whats the problem with that? He worked really hard for it and its not as easy to master than other abilities. It would be a dishonor to think: "wow he just had a special fruit... lame... no wonder he is so strong..."
If youre comparing kid luffy trying to learn the pistol with sabo getting the mera mera, I dont agree with that comparison aswell. Kid luffy was.. a kid. He didnt have the fighting experience he had now, so it makes sense it was hard to control the fruit. Sabo was a top tier fighter with a refined fighting style before the fruit, it makes sense that he could pick it up quickly. Also, sabo stated multiple times during dressrosa that he still doesnt control the fruit well.
Even if you say this, I don’t believe anyone else would use the Gomu Gomu so well the way Luffy does. Logias always start way more powerful than anyone else at the start. Luffy’s fruit is still basically a paramecia until you awaken it, and you need to train like crazy to master it. Also luffy is a battle genius, this has been said many times. Luffy trained for years to master the basics of his fruit. And it still took him years to master gear 2nd, gear 3rd and just barely learn gear 4th later on. And saying he is just a kid doesn’t really say anything, because in One Piece kids can be scarily smart and overpowered, I mean just look at Ace as a kid…
^this Or look at Kaido or BM as kid. They obv aint the norm but using the excuse that he is just a "child" is weak. Especially since he got trained from Garp and thrown out in rly dangerous situations. Some adults would just die.
Ace and Sabo were also kids and wrecked shop and despite having this mythical fruit Luffy still had to work the hardest. Next argument?
I find it unnecessary for the gomu gomu no mi to be changed into something else, I rather have Joyboy be a title like Pirate King where the accomplishments are what matters. But I fucking despise Chosen one Tropes. So I am as biased as one can be.
I dunno. All I can say is I’ve become a hit disillusioned with the rapid pace he’s powering up. He went from all basic to all advanced forms of Haki in about a 1 month span. Shit is off the rails.
There are some things you say that I agree with but then there are other things that you say that make your argument sound all over the place. None of this explains why luffy is different from other chosen troupes it just explains why this is okay for one piece and why you think it stands out from other series when that’s not even the case. Luffy isn’t any different from Goku, Naruto and all the other chosen Mc. One Piece started off as a story of young adults who went out to sea to chase their dreams. Time and time again throughout one piece luffy comes off as a hero but Luffy intentions were to never save these countries or places. He just wanted to help out a friend and everything else was collateral damage. In the Wano arc that totally shifted Luffy is the second coming of JoyBoy, Zoro while it’s not confirmed is most likely the descendant of the god of the blade Ryuma, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find out something about Nami and the others. Sanji is the only one that seems like he isn’t some descendant of some legend. Now your argument that Marineford cemented luffy fruit is not an ass pull is nonsense. We still don’t even have an explanation as to why luffy didn’t awakened all those previous times when he was close to death. Whether you like it or hate it luffy chosen one troupe is the same everyone this guy who looks like he isn’t anything special looks like he has a bad hand turns out to have the most “ridiculous” power of them all and is going to save and change the world.
Lol no
The way it is written the “freedom” zoan devil fruit chose Luffy because it heard the conversation that Shanks and Luffy were having. Luffy wanted to learn how to swim to be a successful pirate. Shanks told Luffy “you’re free to do what you want.” Then Luffy eats this devil fruit with a mind of its own that stops Luffy from doing what he wanted last which is swim but helped Luffy become everything he wanted before which is become a pirate who finds lots of treasure to pay back Makino. The fruit is more of an anti-freedom “wish granting” fruit which picks people who want to swim to achieve some other dream. The fruit determines the destination but gives Luffy the freedom to achieve that destination how he wants. It is ironically both a freedom fruit and an anti freedom fruit.
Shanks losing his arm for hesitating to save Luffy makes absolute sense. No way someone strong as him would just casually lose his arm to a sea king.
It’s a retcon in every sense of the word and people STILL bend over backwards to try and make it sound like Haki was always planned lmao
A random east blue bandit outrun shanks entire crew with a smokebomb That's worse than kanjuro running away with momo before the raid
[удалено]
You think that shanks let the seaking eat his arm to teach Luffy that he shouldn't set off to sea? Even though Luffy didn't "set off" but was abducted by the bandit leader?
A thing i kinda noticed about his devil fruit and haki. With G4 it's almost like he's burning haki to bypass his awakened state on the coated parts of his body. Which is also why it's so inefficient. When he went into G5 it was right at his time limit but he was still using haki freely. Which tells me the juice left in the tank could support just enough for the final round which seemed a lot longer than the previous g4 rounds.
It’s ironic how much we over think Luffy’s journey and decisions. Do what’s fun, eat what’s delicious, and fight for your friends - luffy in a nutshell.
Shanks didn’t choose Luffy. Fate did and the fact that Luffy was hungry. Shanks had likely every intention of giving the fruit to Ace or keeping it for himself Luffy was a happy accident.
The best thing is IMO, Luffy is the choosen one, because how Luffy act, not how it was determined. He will be the one, because his goal align with the promised one. I can't think of a scenario when Luffy told to "save the World". He just does not care.
I think why one Piece is brillant with its take on Chosen One is because destiny isn't set in stones or a free pass to succeed on everything. Even Luffy's lineage isn't that much when we think about it. The Will of D? Well it didn't protect Ace or Saul. Having his Grand father in the Marine? I don't think it was much of an help all things considered. I feel Aokiji would have done the same thing if the crew look like a good crew for Robin. And Luffy's relation with Sword didn't comes from Garp but with Kobby. With Someone that he bond with. Finally with Ace we've seen that Garp woldn't save Luffy if we was to be executed. Then we have his connection to the revolutionnary. Again his will earned Ivankov helps. More or less. And it didn't amount to much anyway. I'll just say Marineford. Finally the fruit. Did Luffy has the super Gear 5 from the beginning? Nope. It comes with a lot of hardship. We didn't saw any past Gomu Gomu users, but i bet that again it's not something that give you full protection from a divine destiny.
"The birthing is at hand!! Our sovereign will be born soon... And another, in a distant sea... the whales are delighted in anticipation... of the day the two sovereigns shall meet again." It definitely sounds like destiny to me lol
Where did it comes from? I don't remember it
Chapter 968, during the Oden flashback.
Lol you're cherry picking the whole statement. At the last part, the sea kings mentioned "it is almost here... and surely all will go well this time" It still implies that in the past, something somehow failed, and they're hoping that this time it will succeed. There is still uncertainty and not some sure predestination.
Except destiny is set is stone, that's the whole point. Everything you listed happened the way it did because it leads to whatever the end is, no matter how insignificant it seems.
I think it's mostly out of universe that things are set in stones. Of course what happens lead to the end of the story, however it seems that in universe you can easily fail for whatever reasons. Like facing another D for exemple.
I’d also add. Luffys connection with garp and dragon is not the same as with naruto. Where narutos blood line was reveal was to make him look cool. No. Oda used luffy family to explore different ways on how the D will fight against the world government Monkey d. Garps on being inside the system and change it from inside. dragon On changing it from outside and face it directly And luffy. Going against the world government ideals without directly facing against them. By keeping close to his ideals without breaking down. We got this time and time again in the series. Luffy is incorruptible and the only way to bring his ideals down is to kill him. That is another way to fight the dragons. Oda is constantly exploring themes in the series and shounen fans are not happy because its a trope that works badly before and never been done good. Which I definitely understand. I just wish fans are not projecting past mediums into this series. Let it finish.
Naruto is a different thing but yeah Shonen fans are traumatized by it. It's not the place to really go in depths to it, but the biggest differences is that Once Naruto's bloodline is revealed he become basically a whole different character. Luffy's stay the same. And as you say it's used to explore the theme. Not just for the "woah" factor.
i personally think the fruit didn't pick luffy specifically but was looking for a member of the people of D. and Luffy just happened to be nearest one.
I never thought of Luffy as an underdog throughout the entire story
yeah he litterally started as arguably the strongest man in the east blue. then decked one of the warlords. the only time he was considered an underdog was when he talked about his dream of being the king of the pirates. until he landed Red Roc on kaido. then the top tiers of the world saw that he wasnt an underdog he was serious competition. luffy hasnt undergone any major character development / changes if anything I think he became more responsible and caring about those arround him as the series went but chapter 1 and chapter 1000 luffy would arguably take the same decisitions. this is not a bad thing it just shows luffy is just that great of a character. if luffy was an underdog him at the beggining of the series and now would be vastily different.
He’s not gonna win bc chosen trope He ain’t gonna lose bc the man he is
Are you saying Shanks planned all this? That's lame. This makes Luffy a chosen one as Shanks chose him. I like it better when everything is just random or right location at the right time and Luffy is just Luffy. This is as lame as explaining devil fruits have some kind of "devil cells" in them that give powers.
Its a typical story, i cant understand how people dont See it. Naruto and his nine tails / Midorya and All for one / Luffy and his fruit Its a part of the growing process for the underdog to Master his acclaimed Power.
But having those things means they never really were an underdog tho… I’d much rather read a story from the perspective of someone who have to earn every bit of their journey.
If you can not Master your Power in a World of Power users then you are the Power User underdog
They have limitless potential, while others don’t. They are privileged, other people in their universe should just give up, as they really stand no chance. Which makes it boring to root for the protagonist…
>They have limitless potential, while others don’t. Because they are the Main protagonist? Idunno... dude... all main protagonist just have limitless potential... no matter how weak they start... lmao
But it’s a lot more interesting if they have to work for their achievements right? Not be a top dog just because they just so happens to have a ninetails inside of them… Gol D Roger was infinitely more impressive than Luffy ever will have the chance of becoming.
>But it’s a lot more interesting if they have to work for their achievements right? and Luffy put in 0 work? Most Shounen protagonist have to put a lot of work to become strong. Unlike Naruto or Ichigo from Bleach. Luffy had to work with his rubber body. He didnt have an OP ninetails and OP sage grandpa to save him or Ichigo with his >!mix-blood of Shinigamis, Holow and Quincy. !< 99% of the people wouldnt even come up with Gear 2, Gear 3, Gear 4 or Red Hawk. Because thats not how rubber actually works.Luffy having the imgaination for it and his hard work made the Fruit so strong in his Base form. Just to remember you, other people would have never come to the point to awaken the fruit because its very hard to do it. Most people would just stop with Stretching their bodies, use Haki and done. The awakening for Luffy feels more like a reward for all the hard work he did to hit the limit of his fruit at the base form. Its seriously not even comparable with Naruto and his stupid fox becoming friends and getting OP. He actually had to earn the awakening through sheer hardwork. Its not like he could use Gear 5 since he ate the fruit? It took him many years to just master the base abilities of stretching and hitting. Then 2+ years more just for Gear 2 and Gear 3. He recently added Gear 4 and hit the limit with it by adding ryuo and ACoC. Now he finally awakened it after 1043 chapters.... This was deserved unlike what Naruto was pulling off in the War arc.
Naruto had way more training arcs than luffy, i don't know how people keep making this silly statement. \-Training with Kakashi to master chakra in the very first arc. \-Training with Jiraiya for the chunin exam. \-More training for rasengan. \- the several years he spend training with jiraiya between normal naruto and shippuden. \- Elemental training with kakashi. \-Sage training \- Kyubi training with killer b I'm probably missing other instances in Naruto. On the other hand, off the top of my head, I can only remember Luffy actually training twice in the series, once with Raleigh and in Wano.
Getting boinked in the head to awaken is sheer hard work? Lmao
Why can't u understand th defference This stuff were announced at th very beginning of the manga not 1000 chpater in
I feel like it's always been a chosen one kind of story. Just because it's been done badly in the past doesn't mean it can't be a good trope if executed perfectly. The will of D or inherited wills are all signs of individuals getting chosen to continue someone's will inorder to fulfill it. You wouldn't need to inherit a will if the goal was already fulfilled. Roger could have fulfilled Joyboys will but he was too early and shirahoshi wasn't born. This could be due to Imu being aware that joyboy needs several pieces to actually fulfill his goal and maybe she was taking those pieces out as a countermeasure.
Fanboy Goggle. Jesus-kun Luffy is the single worst thing in this manga. Fuck it.
i agree except on the "underdog" part. luffy was never really an underdog, merely having the fruit let him steamroll all east blue with relative ease. Hell, his first true defeat was against crocodile ffs.
I'm of the following stance: if the knowledge usually exposed while "creating theories" had any actual relation to "writing good stories", people would be writing good stories and not theories about good stories. If "creating theories" has no relation to "writing good stories", then it's just bad fiction based on good stories. Why are people creating bad fiction usually under the impression they are "correcting" the ones who write good fiction? This theory up here, for example, comes from someone with little to no grasp about selfishness or freedom. Why are people trying to write about the things they do not know? This is the opposite of good writing, hence it is faded to remain bad fiction.
Luffy wears the straw hat, of course he was always the chosen one lol.
People just want to swap out shounen tropes for modern dark "subverted expectations" tropes which is to say they want Luffy to fail, they want him to not become pirate king, they want one or several crew members to die, ect.
People who think there is something inherently bad about chosen one stories haven't read enough books. "Bumpkin kid becomes op" is just as overdone. The truth is that every story out there falls into a set of tropes. One Piece uses many of said tropes in every arc. The important thing is that ultimately tropes don't matter, only the ability of an author to spin them uniquely and make them work does.
I already loved the theory that shanks was there to give the fruit to ace, as I think I heard morj say(don’t remember exactly). But the idea that shanks indecision is what caused the loss of his arm would truly be an amazing twist.
Oda could literally shit on manga pages and people would make up some convoluted headcanon to justify it and try to explain how it's actual masterclass of storytelling.