Oda said that the reason for the rubber fruit is because he wanted Luffy to have a "funny" power, wich allowed for creative use, and the god power is that dialed up to 11. He isn't actually a god, in the same way that the ex admiral sengoku isn't literally Buddha.
@@YourBlackLocal Nika is a warrior who freed the slaves that was titled "sun god" because of his representation of freedom not an actual god but a mythical creature.
yeah, look at all the other "gods" in the series so far - Gan Fall, Enel, the Celestial Dragons, Doffy... none of these are actual _deities_ in the traditional sense. and the Elders don't say the fruit has "godlike power" or anything, just that it "carries the name of a god" so, my gut feeling on it is it's something more like "Nika had this fruit and was the Joy Boy from the void century, and through his exploits he began to be worshipped as a god of Sun and Liberation by the people he freed"
@@TyandOnGoing Yes, but if JoyBoy is literally something that aides you after you died at what point do you not consider that some form of Diety. We seem to forget Zunisha could literally feel JoyBoy re-enter the world. Again we don’t know enough to say either way. But there very clearly is something more than JoyBoy just being a name given to a guy from the past who helped people.
I think it's important that the fandom shouldn't seek instant gratification in One Piece. Many details takes months and years to setup and execute. So anybody reading this, don't jump the gun or count your chickens before they hatch. Luffy's had this power for a chapter now and you need to be patient. Trust that Oda knows what he is doing. He's earned that much at least, if not more.
Totally agree! I really didn’t love Sanji’s Germa genes activating but the very next chapter Oda gave us an amazing Sanji character moment with him choosing his heart/humanity over power! In Oda I trust!
I think the main issue for me, is the complete lack of build up for this moment. Nika was mentioned first, what? 50 chapters ago? and now it just ends up being the main characters power. Doesn't feel like a great development, considering how well Oda has handled build up in the past. But we'll see.
@@perunalastu77 the Nika name specifically is a recent drop (and tbh i feel like Oda could have worked that in a bit earlier... at least have a scene where Robin reads a Poneglyph and goes like "there's that 'Nika' name again... hmmm..." but! there's a lot of stuff throughout the series that in retrospect points towards this... best example i've seen are the last 3-4 pages of 297 (where Conis is wondering if gods are real and answer people's wishes, prays to them for salvation, and then we get the iconic "LET THE SUN SHINE" spread)
3:55 This is actually a great point. When the elders said the fruit haven't been awakened for 800 yrs it is implied that there were other ppl who consumed the fruit but end up just being rubber. It is Luffy's traits that succeed the awakening.
i think the thing that makes it work is the "there is no power more ridiculous in the world" panel. they don't say it's the most overpowered/broken ability, just the most ridiculous this lines up perfectly with an SBS from 400ish chapters ago, where Oda was asked why he gave Luffy rubber powers: "It must seem like a mystery when you consider all the other strong and cool abilities. The answer is simple. I have picked the most ridiculous ability. If the protagonist were the typical strong guy, I doubt I could continue on with this for long. No matter how serious the story gets, Luffy is there to stretch and inflate. He always give me a chance to fool around. That's the kind of manga I wanted to write."
Yeah, they already made it quite clear that Whitebeard's (now Blackbeard's) earthquake fruit was the most powerful of all fruits. But that's before they knew about the dark-dark fruit true abilities. So if we are going by fruits alone Blackbeard is easily the most overpowered character by far.
@@wave1090 Yea it's what makes Blackbeard the absolute opposite to Luffy. Blackbeard had everthing planned out including knowing of the "strongest fruit", he specifically looked for the dark dark fruit; Contrast that with Luffy just eating the fruit because he thought it was desert.
@@boxtupos7718 Facts. Funniest part is that boy Luffy was stress eating and just happened to eat the most ridiculous fruit. Which is ridiculously perfect cause you shouldn't stress eat lol
Thank you for reviewing but more importantly thank you for talking about the chapter and not put a spoiler thumbnail like so many people have been doing
Always thought it was interesting that luffy seemed pretty happy and safe in his home village until shanks came and he ate the fruit at which soon after garp decided to take luffy from clearly a safe and loving environment and place him with ace and the bandits. We knew ace was there because his existence was seen as a threat to the world government and he had to be hidden away, but always wondered why luffy too. If it was a case of once he ate the fruit and garp knew what his rubber powers would mean for him and to the world government and so decided to hide luffy away with ace, then it makes alot more sense
@Clarian Robinson Garp could have taken it farther than that. As the Fleet Admiral’s right hand, he could have been blocking info about Luffy’s fruit from reaching the Gorosei.
@@mind7235 Maybe not technically, but come on. They have always been depicted as best buds. In flashbacks they are standing side by side heading into big fights. In chapters where Sengoku was shown reading the newspaper and going crazy because of some new crap Luffy did, Garp is there on Sengoku's couch munching on chips or cookies laughing his ass off. Garp had the kind of access to the Fleet Admiral that any true right hand man was supposed to have, and he could have exploited that access to protect Luffy; just as Judge used his family's noble status and connections to mess with Sanji's bounty poster--I know, the two things are different, but it still shows that the right connections can get a lot of things done, behind the scenes, in the World Government.
I think Tekking said it best. Even if the higher ups knew Luffy had it, he likely wasn't the first person to eat the fruit and even if he was, how likely did they think it was that someone would awaken it to get the god powers? People always underestimating Luffy until they meet him and he kicks their expectations to the curb.
I don't remember if it it was Tekking who brought this point up, but the world government also REALLY wanted to keep this under wraps, to the point where they changed the name of the devil fruit throughout all of history. So another reason they didn't go full force after Luffy from the start was them not wanting to draw attention to the fruit until it looked like he might actually have a chance of awakening it, and Luffy has grown an insane amount in this fight, they might not have thought it was possible before this.
Since there was no info that somebody eat that fruit (to my knowledge) and it was stated that fruit had it own will, and it avoided capture by world government it would perfectly made sense that it's last user was Joy boy himself. If this fruit is somehow connected to destiny and world government history it would be weird if it would just pass through some random dudes, which were not worth even mention till now way Joy boy was. Info about fruits could go trough time, and there is zero info how fruits came to be and how old info about them is. Now we know that 800 years before devil fruits existed and that's all.
@@theone9832 I think it implied the fruit was reborn somewhere else and someone ate it and somehow the people that ate the fruit are not affiliated or gain WG attention. I think thats how the fruit avoiding it, by influencing the environment around it. Its not like the fruit can grow legs and run away or something. It affects Luffy too, because somehow Luffy always get "lucky". I think the fruit real power is to increase your luck (limited to the grasp of WG only).
I don`t think this is a good argument. It doesnt really mater whether it was likely or not for Luffy to awaken the fruit, it`s still a fruit that they have actiavely trying to obtain for 800 years, so why not take the opportunity to get it? It really makes the WG looks incompetent.
@@bbhhii I would push it under destiny type of plot, where seemingly coincidences occurring are bringing reality into some predestined course. By this fruit could found and lost time after time to the point of conveniently getting eaten by true owner Luffy. Kind of similar mechanism like in Berserk Red Behelit found Griffith in moment it was needed. Since we heard of special "D" people and Luffy being one of them, I always thought it was enough destiny foreshadowing for single character. But now Luffy is even more destined to repair world then before it. I'm not saying that Luffy didn't work for it, but every thing about his character is just perfect for his role and it its not a accident at this point. As for world government not really trying to to catch Strawhats before, i do think it is real plot hole that can't explained. Oda probably didn't think early enough to incorporate this idea in to story so far. It is same as why Whitebread didn't check up on his boy Oden for 20 years even when he had nothing better to do?
When Devil Fruit awakening was first shown off, Doflamingo even said “awakenings come with mastery of one’s devil fruit” Luffy got this power up because of the work he put in and the creativity he displayed. If this fruit was given to anyone else, ain’t no way Joyboy would have returned
Hell yeah. One Piece reviews are back in town. Chapter so goofy it made Daniel finally make a video. If you ask me, I do think that it was absolutely earned. I do have some "????" moments about the reveal of the exact nature of the thing. But it is way too hype and fitting for me to complain.
Let Oda cook. We still do not know a thing about how awakening of devil fruit powers even works. Oda will fill in the blanks at some point and we will have the full picture. Oda always does this, so I honestly do not know why some people are jumping the gun again. lol
Holy shit dude! That's legitimately one of my biggest fears, dying before I get to see the end of this amazing work. I'll drink to that friend of yours with my fellow one piece friends, would you mind telling me his name?
As far as how the time passes in the real world of the crew, Luffy was only active for like 2-3 months before the events of Marine Ford. So the nature of the fruit can conceivably have gone under the radar until as late as Water 7 when he was LITERALLY knocking down their door. We do also have to take into consideration that Garp moved him into the mountains to live with Dadan after he ate the fruit so again, less exposure.
Yeah I'm pretty puzzled by the take that the WG didn't move against Luffy. I mean hell, they sent Kuma after him on Thriller Bark and the only reason he lived is that Kuma was actually a member of the revolutionary army.
Yeah, after Eines Lobby the WG has only sent vice Admirals or higer ranked marines after they get notified of Luffy's location. They sent Garp at Water 7, Kuma to assist Gecko Moria, Kizaru after the heavenly dragon punch + Kuma, Luffy is outmatched at Imple down and marineford and is only saved at the last second, he dissapear for 2 years and the WG only truly finds Luffy at Dressrosa after the time skip, at Dressrosa they sent Fujitora with support from a vice Admiral and the former Fleet Admiral, afterwards Luffy goes to war against the Yonko which in a normal situation is a death wish but Luffy makes it out. Afterwards he goes after Kaido and the WG even sacrifice one of their strongest agents to ensure that Kaido wins. I don't think the elder 5 stars are notified of every little new pirate sighting. So I don't see a plothole here really. Not yet anyway
I think Oda is one of the few authors to recognized the power of Looney Toons. Also people seem to forget that on top of worrying about this fruit the World goverment had to be worried about White Beard and Ace as well as restructuring its army after the paramount war, and then on top of that worrying about Black Beard who now had the power to destroy islands and is assumedly more willing to destroy islands compared to white beard. WG had its hands full this report on luffy kept getting backfiled as seemingly bigger shit kept showing up.
Couple with the fact that Luffy was actually helping the Navy a lot of time. So Luffy isn't a top a priority as everything else; In OP timeline, it's only been a couple of months or a year that the Straw Hats are active (Pre time skip).
Hey Daniel, I've just read and caught up to One Piece partly because of your videos and wanted to recommend you the Web serial "Worm". A lot of what was said in the video and comments about tropes and powers resonated with me as relevant for Worm as well. Worm is "realistic" superhero fiction, and the protagonist has the power to control bugs. To me, Worm is "epic superhero story" in a way that tingled the same parts of my brain as One Piece, WoT and other things, just because of the cohesive world and power systems. I highly recommend giving it (and maybe also other web serials) a go.
The plot hole I feel could be explained by the fact that the first half of the journey takes place in the span of *2 MONTHS* And the only people who knew of the nika fruit are the Gorosei. And probably no one ever told them that this kid had the Gomu Gomu Like if you are a high ranking Marine why would you care that this kid has a lame paramecia. Like Buggy. He was put on Level 1 on Impel Down cause no one knew he had a fruit. So yeah the only ones that could´ve given the order to catch him at all costs were the Gorosei and they probably never knew until the Marineford War. After that Luffy disapeared for 2 years and From Punk Hazard to Wano its probably just been like a month. So they hadnt had time to deal with him Who would expect that a 19 yo kid would awaken this fruit after a month of having come back. Gorosei just got their thinkin hats on now that Luffy went to Big Mom´s and now is at Kaido´s
More to your point: Luffy's comeback happened in a very busy time for the World Government with the Levely happening (which probably takes A LOT of time organizing alone, it's an extremely important event AND we know something happened there, although we don't have the details yet). It's no surprise that Luffy was able to get away with so much during Punk Hazard up until now, there was a lot of shit happening in the world at the same time.
In an alternate reality, I don't think Ace would have been able to awake this fruit. As you said, Luffy was the guy with enough tenacity and imagination to do so.
Ace was sadly a deeply broken guy with some self-destructive tendencies. He could have had quite a lot of tenaciousness and imagination, but he couln't posess that one-way mind that makes a person into a force of nature and strives to overcome even death.
@@AntediluvianRomance Except Ace is suppose to be much more talented than Luffy. He learned how to use armament haki while fighting a vice admiral using it; He figured it out on the fly and overpowered the VA's haki. Shank's also comments on how Ace's conquerer haki is like fire the moment Ace got in the island Shank's was on. Ace already awakened his DF as well, it's why when he was in Drum Island it stopped snowing. But I do agree that he Luffy was the only one who could've awakened it for the simple fact that Ace is willing to simply work for someone else (Whitebeard).
i think your analysis about this topic is pretty spot on, ive been reading for 12+ years now, i had many rereads, and it was coming from all the way. i really like his new power and cannot wait for the next chapters. Glad one of my favorite fantasy youtubers enjoys one piece as much as i do. Also i do think you will find many things in a reread if you ever plan on this, seen all your arc reviews months ago and was always kinda hooked from someone who didnt know what will happen. took me back in time :) much love
One piece theory on the "plot hole" The gorosei have kept knowledge pretty close to the chest and so have the highest members of the marines. (Garps history, Rocks D Xebec, and bounties of the greatest pirates) It's not that out of pocket to assume the gorosei lied about the fruit to everyone under them. Including telling everyone they had the gum gum fruit. If by chance Shanks found out about joyboys fruit and knew it was being transported (pre yonko years) he likely stole it to share with Ace, his late captains son. Sadly some our kid ate it, luffy. He had to bet on luffy who no one likely knew met with. He then would go on to collect other dangerous fruits and knowledge before telling the gorosei he actually had the hito hito no mi model Nika in his possession. This of course leads to his bounty increase and his title as yonko. This explains... - Luffy not being taken seriously. - Shanks stealing the fruit. - Shanks random power jump after meeting luffy. - Luffy knowing nothing about the fruits true name. - Gorosei and Emu sudden interest in luffy AFTER Shanks visited.
Thats a very good idea an i agree to most of it. But after what Whos Whos knew about the stolen fruit, they should have known too. There are two options. 1. Whos who lied to the goverment and said he just lost it. 2. What is more likely. They didnt excactly know it was the model Nika or about uts rubber ability after Shanks told them.
@@181Scott181 Govt knew these things... 1. The fruit was on the boat. 2. Red haired stole the fruit. That's all they know.... They don't know his connection with luffy and since then only once has shanks been in the same vicinity. (Marineford) All the govt knows is that this guy stole their devil fruit. The only way they'd know more is if mihawk said something. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
On the dresden files area, one of my predictions is the reason harry just had the weird effect that normally comes to wizards when their children is because he hasn't actually come into his power yet, what he has so far is a smidgen that people would normally display before being identified as magical, only his is so large it looks normal and like what he should have at hid age.
I really like the fact that it took 800 years for someone to actually awaken the gomu gomu fruit. It tells you that there have been users of the fruit in the past but that they've never been able to awaken it before, but Luffy earns the ability to through all of his actions shown to you throughout the series. Another thought i had is that while Gear 5 may refer to his Sun God Nika transformation, his actual awakening may refer to the panel in which he rips the ground off the floor and "rubberfys" it in which to repel Kaidos breath attack. Similar to how Doflamingos awakening turned his surroundings into string.
Did anyone awaken any devil fruit before the last five years? Oda just coming up with an idea and injecting it into the series doesn’t mean nobodies ever done it. Ace with haki etc
@@ChichiNaka There were awakened devil fruit users in impel down in case you've been blind all this while. And the Gorosei literally said no one has ever done it. No one has awakened Luffy's fruit in 800 years. Those were their words. Sorry but... Do you need a lesson on how to read? And we actually do have vivid examples of Haki from early on on the series so I have no idea what you're talking about
@@Problemsolver434 It's fun to the pretend, this whole community is a big cope the past week of OH MY GOD THIS HAS ALL BEEN FORESHADOWED SINCE FRAME 1 CHAPTER 1
@@ChichiNaka there is difference between injecting plot holes and big redcons and planing it for over 300 chapters There is also difference between foreshadowing from chapter 1 and planning it for 300 chapters . As if there is no in between for you. I dont hate to retaliate when you are outnumbered already. But you really do need help with reading . Because last person said this to you , already explained it and you just read what you wanted to read
I love the direction Oda went in. I had always been dissatisfied with the way Gear 3rd worked. I always thought "how can he just blow air into his bones" to make them big like that? well it makes sense now, he imagined it, and thus it became something he could do.
Yeah, when we're so deep into a story, we forget how constant concepts (time, geography, etc...) we're used to meshing our experiences with the world of the story and we forget that the story world has different rules to ours. The entire time span of the story is literally quite small compared to our experience of a 25 year. So, yeah that would explain how the five elder stars wouldn't have put too much effort into searching for luffy
They get acknowledged by the government in Arlong Park, that until Sabaody and Marineford is like... 5, 6 months? Then they dissapear for 2 years (four times the amount they were active lol) and come back out of nowhere
This chapter made me laugh out loud. Nika's power reaching beyond the page. 😃 Also, Luffy is no more a god than Sengoku is (Buddha fruit). BTW, it's implied many people have had the Gomu-Gomu fruit, but nobody's managed to awaken it for centuries. And it seems to me like the gorosei only recently discovered that the Gomu fruit is actually the Nika fruit.
@@3rdgar It means Luffy also makes us the readers, laugh. As in the Nika fruit not only brings smiles to people in the one piece world (inside the pages) but also makes us smile in the real world (beyond the pages).
Daniel, I just want to say I appreciate that your title and thumbnail shows no spoilers whatsoever. I feel bad for any anime-only people (such as my brother) who end up getting spoiled because of random instagram or youtube posts that show up with the spoilers in the thumbnail and title.
I’m really happy that you’re on that side of the argument Daniel. Iv watched a very good portion of the anime probably around 8 or so times and Iv been reading the manga weekly for about 6-7 years. so I’m very familiar with the series. One piece is my favorite thing in this world. But even if the government did go after him, it’s like you said The straw hat pirates movements have been very sporadic. It only took them maybe a half of a year to get to the red line and then the 2 year time skip where everyone was gone and many people thought the Straw Hats had disappeared or dead. The whole Dressrosa arc took place in the course of a single day! So yeah
Hey Daniel, I really liked this little chill discussion video on the topic, would love to see more of these in the future whenever big events happen in One Piece :) Also would really like to see a review/discussion on Wano Act 2/3, we never got those! But a whole review of Wano once it's over would be really cool too 😄 (that'd prob have to be pretty long though lol, though I'm cool with that)
I think you are exactly right. So many people are overlooking the fact that this fruit has been around for at the very least 800 years and Luffy is only the second person to awaken it. The way I see it is that the Gum Gum fruit has both an extremely low floor and and extremely high ceiling in terms of power.
"It adds a plot hole with how the military wasn't hunting for him" That can be said of a lot. There's a lot of technical ploy holes just based on "why don't the Marines go after this person or that person harder". Robin has a paltry bounty compared to what she should have. Plus, Luffy's Devil Fruit is the one they forgot the true name of, most assuredly, so they likely didn't remember how important it was
Couldn't have asked for anything more than this vid man you were spot on all the way through. I've thought about it all far too much and I'm 99% sure Oda could EASILY explain the World Government's supposed "lack" of aggression toward Luffy. Also that bit about Shanks wanting to take the Fruit to Ace is WOOOOOOOOOOAH
People forget that Akainu was obsessed on Killing Luffy at Marineford. Actually few months ago one of the reactors actually complained that why Akainu was putting so much effort on trying to kill Luffy instead of fighting Blackbeard in Marineford
Akainu def doesn't know about the Nika fruit tho. And the story is pointing to Akainu having some history with Dragon, as he always called Luffy son of Dragon. Even Ace he called Fire Fist or Ace during MF.
@@DremoraMaster Almirants definetly didn't know shit about the fruit, it hasn't awoken in 800 years, only the King/Gorosei and Garp/Shanks(explained by Roger?) must have known about it. Kizaru and Aokiji meet Luffy and his crew and they treat them as the threat level that their bounties represented, nothing more. Also during MF they hunt Luffy because he is the son of Dragon the nº1 enemy of the WG and the Marines, not because of anything related to his fruit or powers. Probably not even Sengoku knew about this.
I still think that's Akainu's sins of the father bullshit. "He's the son of the most wanted criminal ergo he must be a threat!" Though not wrong in this specific context.
I like the hints leading up to this that gave me a rush from the story itself. Like Chopper having the regular human human fruit has different forms and Zoan users usually have multiple forms. We just didn't know gear 2-4 was the same thing and after the time skip having gear 4 with multiple forms should have ringed some big alarms before to this development.
The powers that luffy has are still what everybody was expecting for his awakening, its not that big of a change, and even if the WG knew that Luffy had the special fruit they knew that as long as he didnt awaken there were fine. In fact at the beggining of the arc they were more focused on getting Robin because of that. They didnt wanted Kaido to get Robin, but when Luffy became a real threat to kaido they change their target
@@That_One_Guy-. between something that is a myth and failed to achieve for 800 year and it might or might not be an actual threat or something thats in present reality and nearly succeed once and a more immedieate threat to them. If I were them its obvious which I would choose, even they themselves were questioning if their focus was right.
@@That_One_Guy-. he was on the sea for maybe three months pre time skip they didn’t know luffy had the gomu gomu no mi till probably enies lobby garp was sent to deal with him he then went to thriller bark and they gave kuma the task of killing him after thiller bark was sabaody and kizaru showed up then he disappeared and showed up on impel down then appeared at the paramount war where he was constantly saved by super powerful pirates and then he disappeared for two years he went to fishman island and punk hazard two places that are basically off the map for the WG and then dressrosa happened in a day and fujitora let them leave then zou which is a moving elephant and then wholecake island which is big moms main base of operations then wano kaidos main base and they sent a CP0 assassin straight at luffy
@@That_One_Guy-. They literally sent the Navy's hero Garp to apprehend Luffy at Water 7. Sent Kuma to assist Geko Moria in Thriller Bark. Dressrosa has a Warlord of the Sea and Admiral against Luffy's crew; Even sent in the ex Fleet Admiral. Most likely they wanted to keep it under wraps; And they also probably thought Luffy wouldn't awaken the fruit, as it's been literal hundreds of years (What chances are there that it awakens now?).
@@That_One_Guy-. after 800 years of trying they probably take it as a side quest, after all it's been 800 years without anyone awaken the fruit. The chances od Luffy beating Kaido and BM were very low and neither of them could eat the fruit so worst case scenario Luffy dies, the fruit gets reincarnated somewhere else, and someone has to start the whole process again.
Yay Daniel's back with OP content! And thanks to your channel I picked up Mistborn and I'm loving it (SPOiLERS: except for the Elend ending of book 2 that was whacky).
One important thing is that the Gorosei mention that Zoan fruits have a "mind" of their own and it seems that the fruit basically "ran" from them every generation for those whole 800 years. So it's like the fruit made itself "seem tastier" to Luffy eat it, like the fruit chose Luffy since Zoans supposedly have a mind of their own, and IF Shanks knew about it then he made a bet on Luffy based more on not only his will that reminded Roger but on the fruit "choosing" him so he decided to bet on Luffy based on these facts mainly I believe, giving up his arm and his hat to him Edit: And about the fact of the Gorosei fucking up not hunting Luffy straight at the beginning, yeah, but they managed to hunt all the generations for 800 years, I imagine you kinda end up getting too comfortable at some point like "nah nobody's gonna really awaken this shit I guess", and like you said, Luffy basically speedran the Grandline lol Edit 2: The Government also had to be aware of Blackbeard who has the Gura Gura no Mi and basically can destroy the world with Earthquakes, Seaquakes and whatnot, and also Kaido raising a fucking army of zoans to march towards Marineford just to die epicly, they had some other issues lol, it's not a good timeline for the world government. So what the Gorosei said about the "Cleansing" during Reverie strikes me as something like the Lost Century, my guess is that the Gorosei have each some kind of fruit or power that they sort of can bring a Doomsday/Ice Age and clean the whole population and starts from zero, which I think it was what happened during the lost centuries.
What I love so much about the idea of JoyBoy as the Warrior of Liberation is the idea that laughter is the mark of freedom. It's only when people are free from oppression that they can laugh whole-heartedly and celebrate their joy, and we've seen this at the end of just about every arc, that when Luffy frees the people from their fear and suffering, they can start to laugh again. Oda's always taken special consideration to show those end of arc parties with luffy on the tables, chopsticks up his nose, making everyone laugh. And for me it makes the plight of Ebisu town all the more heartbreaking, that even in the throes of despair the people are only capable of expressing joy. if laughter is the mark of freedom, robbing people of their ability to express any other emotions is the ultimate form of oppression. "Look at how happy my people are! Even the worst among them can do nothing by smile and laugh all day!"
On the "WG should have been chasing him earlier" note: the first hint we get about the true nature of Luffy's fruit is in chapter 1037. It doesn't name the fruit or its user, but the hint is dropped about a Devil Fruit which was uniquely given its own name in order to hide it's real name. The Five Elders themselves are split about how seriously to take the threat, with the older Gorbachev-looking dude dismissing it as a legend even for them, and that it hasn't awakened in centuries. When they eventually do take action and pass down the order to kill Luffy, there are still doubts within their ranks after the deed is done about whether it was actually worth it to sacrifice one of their top field agents and enrage Kaido, with the Rabbi-looking dude assuring the rest that taking the chance was worth it. In other words, the Five Elder Stars themselves see the threat of Joyboy as an obscure and pseudo-mythical possibility, and they only move against it when it become clear that the current user of the fruit, Monkey D. Luffy, is on that top level of the One Piece's world's strength rankings, and might possibly succeed in Awakening the fruit. They'd still rather secure the fruit if possible, as evidenced by the backstory of Who's Who, but the shroud of absolute secrecy they keep around the matters of the Void Century means that any overt attempts they make to capture the fruit or eliminate its user would draw far more attention to it than desirable. They erased its true name and gave it a new one to obscure its importance, so taking actions that would imply or confirm to astute onlookers that it *was* important would be counterproductive. Not even the assassin they sent after Luffy (or his handler) knew why it was important that Luffy die. So, it makes sense that they would let the fruit's users, when they surface, to die in the natural course of things and release the fruit back into the world (where they might make a grab at it) than put in a lot of effort that would make people ask a lot of questions. Their ideal scenario is to quietly secure the fruit, uneaten, and no doubt lock it away in an Indiana Jones vault somewhere and throw away the key. As for Shanks knowing, I'm sorta on the fence, his visit to the Five Elder Stars at the Levely ... raises questions to say the least. I think the "he was going to give the Fruit to Ace" theory is ... somewhat sound, but I'm not fully sold on it either.
My wild guess is that Roger ate or at least knew about the power of the Gomu Gomu because of his special sense/haki and explained it to Shanks and maybe Garp before his death. Even if he could not awaken it he would have known about Joy Boy and his powers due the poneglyphs.
The gorosei specifically said the fruit and its rubber-like attributes were unknown to them until recently. They had no idea the fruit was out there still, therefore they never put two and two together.
Luffy literally speed runned the story up until Marineford. East Blue took 1 Month tops in his time and he completely stomped any other pirate gang in there. I feel like his fruit plays a role in his outrightly high evaluation. If they put a too high bounty on him, some ppl might have gotten suspicious.
Nah. I don't the Gomu/Nika fruit is all that special until it awakens. And even then, the WG seems more scared of it's symbolic weight as power of liberation than it's actual power. Because while the word "Ridiculous" can mean "extremely broken or OP" in english, in Japanese, it's pretty much exclusively used to refer to things as hilarious, wacky or foolish. But yeah. I think East Blue and Paradise were a speed run because Luffy is super strong. Not because his fruit is.
Dresden being more than meets the eye has been set up very distinctly over the last several books, hell the whole starborn thing still has a lot of question marks around it. One of my favourite things about Butcher is that his novels (at least the Dresden Files) reward rereading since he sets up things so far in advance, offhand comments and random events take on whole new meaning.
The fact that one person (among many, many, MANY powerful pirates out there) has escaped the attention of the world government for about 2 years seems... pretty realistic to me? Even with all the power the World Government has, cracks will always appear. Luffy is just one person who has been active as a pirate only for a few months, and disappeared for two years after an event that drastically changed the world. There's nothing strange in thinking they just... didn't know. If only the Elders know about the gomu gomu no mi, it's even more plausible that they didn't find out about Luffy before now. Why would they deal with a newcomer pirate when they already have a whole other branch of the government taking care of those sorts of things? More to the point, they MIGHT know about Luffy thanks to events like the Enies Lobby arc or his connections to other important figures (such as Ace and Dragon), but that doesn't mean they know specifically what his power and fruit is. There are other fruits that have similar effects to the gomu gomu no mi, as we've seen before, and why would the top heads of the government know exactly how the fights Luffy was involved in developed? I think they, at most, know a list of his achievements/crimes and that's about it. If his nickname given by the marines had been something like "rubber man", they surely would've noticed before... but that isn't the case, so I think it's pretty expected that they didn't know about Luffy. Yeah, to anyone dealing directly with pirates, this stuff was probably a pretty known fact already... but expecting the Elders to know this much about a more or less random pirate in a sea of powerful figures is a bit of a stretch to me (ha!). And given how secretive they are with ANYTHING related to the void century, I really don't expect anyone outside the top heads of the Government to know a single thing about the gomu gomu no mi. Lastly... the World Government is an entity that has maintained its power for over 800 years. I think not knowing about one single person, or thinking that if someone appears with Joyboy's power they have the resources to deal with them before they become too dangerous... it's pretty understandable to me. They messed up BADLY, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't seem like a plot hole to me. It's a pretty realistic mistake for such a huge organization to make, and also a sign that they're getting close to their downfall.
Something this video made me realise was that Luffy is the only character (except maybe Kaido with the koi fish stuff) that we've seen to earn godly power rather than eat a naturally OP fruit.
Also there is still room for even more growth and power. With the doflamingo arc we know fruits can go through an awakening which seems quite different from what has gone on in this chapter were it feels more like the fruit showing its true self. On top of this Haoushoku haki still doesn't seem like it has been full developed and shown off in its entirety.
My theory is that the Gorosei themselves had no knowledge of the fruits power before and when they talk about the 'world government' they are talking about Im.
Really? I theorize that Imu knows the Fruit exactly, cause I feel that he is connected to JoyBoy, we know at least one Person gained immortality, so its not farfetched to assume the One sitting on the lonely Throne is the Immortal one, the Gorosei probably played the Role of the Guardians of Imu over the past 800 years (there obv has been multiple Goroseis, cause they prob ain't immortal). They may not knew the full Potential of the Fruit like Imu, but they knew at least the Fruits properties and that it is one of the biggest threats to Imu if awakened. I don't know I got the hunch of Imu being connected to JoyBoy from the last panel, when we see Luffys Eyes, it felt so intentional to show especially after Luffy hid them throughout the whole chapter when depicted in closer range. They look smh way to similar to Imu's eye, with Umi being Sea, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a "God" Fruit as well.
My counter to the supposed plot hole is simple. To start with "The marines haven't hunted him" So a 1.5 billion bounty, countless run ins with the marines and face offs with the admirals somehow equals not being after him? They've actually been after him to a heavy extent ever since he first got his bounty after beating Arlong and more so when he beat Crocodile and really stepped into the awareness of the marines. What they haven't done is do anything that would raise suspicion which makes complete sense. The true identity of the fruit is a secret. They specifically buried the truth because they don't want anyone to know. On top of this it's stated in 1037 that the fruit itself hasn't awakened in centuries which implies others have had it in that time it just has never awakened and the users have been killed or died before getting that far. So why exactly would the elders be expected to do anything out of the ordinary? Until the fruit actually awakens it's abilities are just that of a fairly standard devil fruit, not even that overpowered of one. So in their mind the person who has eaten it at that point is unlikely to awaken it and can be left to be handled by the marines, admirals and stronger pirates. So pair that with the fact that it's a secret and they don't want to raise suspicions (and by that same nature can't give a particular reason to the marines even if they wanted to because the reason itself is classified) the most reasonable thing to do is, just let things take their course. Let those standard three forces do their thing and most likely kill the user in a way that nobody would bat an eye at. That is literally their plan all the way up to Wano where their expectation is that Kaido will kill Luffy for them. they then step in when suddenly Luffy starts to turn the fight around. At that point the idea that Luffy might win makes it a more dangerous situation. On air, land, or sea always bet on Kaido. That's exactly what they were doing. They saw no reason to expect that Kaido wouldn't just grind Luffy into a paste and it would be over with, but if Luffy wins then he is someone even Kaido couldn't beat at which point they don't really have a solid plan to counter that which is why they have their agent step in when the result becomes more uncertain. Even if it weren't a matter of the fruit awakening right then and there someone of that caliber would potentially have all the time in the world to do so because what else could stand against them if not Kaido. Basically before now they didn't think they needed to do anything special because nature would take it's course and they are only stepping in now because suddenly nature isn't as reliable as they had expected. I'll also add that I don't see too much issue with the lack of major foreshadowing given the circumstances. The only people in the story likely to know the truth are the Elders and possibly Shanks. And none of them have any major motivation to spill the beans. And the whole idea is that the fruit remains mostly rubber based until it awakens so there wouldn't be likely be any hint there. As such the only real reasonable hints to give are the potential ones we've gotten with various bits of word play from Oda, the occasional reference to a sun god or worship related to the Sun paired with the existance of mythical devil fruits, and I'd also add certain moves like gear third which already stretch (sorry couldn't resist) the concept of how rubber works in a fairly cartoonish direction. I actually have more issue with the fact that Who's Who got kind of awkwardly used as a lore dump in the middle of a fight. The timing doesn't bother me so much there as just how clunky it was to do it that way though I'm hoping Oda will build more off of that to add a bit more value than just dropping info on Nika. And I also would argue that it's okay to have some twists come out of left field. Foreshadowing will often improve it but isn't always mandatory as long as again the twist makes sense in the context of the story. It's only really bad when the twist contradicts hard indisputable aspects of the story which in this case it doesn't as Oda has lined it up well either due to planning ahead or careful writing to fit it in.
I agree with almost everything. But I disagree with the idea that he was hunted to a 'heavy extent' since Arlong. Think about who exactly posted that first bounty: A corrupt Marine Captain who only posted that bounty out of petty revenge. It's unlikely that somebody like him is going to give a complete detailed description of Luffy's power. Heck, to the majority of the Marines, Luffy was just another upcoming rookie and was from the East Blue no less (Which is regarded as the weakest of all the Blues). There was no need for the Marines or the higher-ups to really worry about him. I think it was really when he defeated Crocodile that the WG really started paying close attention to Luffy. They gave him a major jump in a bounty, despite disclosing publicly that *Smoker was the one who defeated Crocodile.* What a really odd way to spin the story. Gives him a bounty that surpasses Crocodile's original bounty but then says that 'he really didn't beat Crocodile." I think the moment the WG really got a good display of Luffy's power, was at Marineford. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that along with displaying his Conqueror's Haki, the Admirals might have thought that he would have awakened his Devil Fruit right then and there. This is why, out of all the big names there, outside of Ace and WB, Luffy was the one they wanted to kill the most. Why else does Sengoku transform immediately to his Buddha form to crush Luffy? Why else would he use his rare mythical Zoan on a pirate that doesn't even have haki mastery yet? He knew right then and there what his fruit was. All of the Admirals did.
@@Cklert I don't think the bounty raise after Alabasta was that weird. They gave him a bounty befitting his threat level but covered up the actual events. There's no required correlation between those two aspects. Even if they are covering it up that bounty raise is still required because they know the reality and that Luffy is as such a threat that needs that level of bounty. Cover up or not they can't not raise his bounty like that. It's highly unlikely that any of the admirals or even Sengoku knew the truth of Luffy's fruit. Not all of the elders even seem to have been entirely aware given that one of them is explaining it to the others. This is pretty much one of the highest level secrets within the WG and likely as such is extremely limited to the most need to know characters likely meaning Im and the Elders alone. Also in regard to Marineford they really weren't trying particularly hard to kill Luffy for most of that war. They targeted him when confronted with him (and Akainu targeted him alongside Ace) but overall they actually put very little particular focus on him beyond natural reaction to Luffy's own advances. As to Sengoku he likely just used his power as a last stand. He doesn't have any reason to hold back in trying to prevent anyone from reaching that final platform. He is literally the final line of defense in trying to keep them from saving Ace. As such I'm pretty sure that anyone who made it that far would have faced similar treatment.
@@Cklert He didn't get a major attention from the WG after Alabasta, remeber that the country is one of the few that refused to join the rest fo the "novelty" in Mariejoise, so they were quite ignored to the point that a pirate (Crocodile) could overthrow the goberment. They raised his bounty to acknowledge the future problems that the pirate Smoker reported could cause but there's no mention that it gets to the Gorosei all the details of every single 100M pirate (which there are plenty in each region). Since then the marine has been following his trail closely (Smoker) and Garp has covered him a lot (specially after Enies Lobby) and remember that Garp is considered on par or even more than an almirant in terms of power (he refused to rank up several times). So realistically only after Enies Lobby he has been known by the WG, and it was partially due to Nico Robin being part of his crew. Since then they've thrown high caliber agents against him: - Garp after Eines Lobby - Moria + Kuma at Thriller Bark (this one was specially OP at that time) - Kizaru at Sabondy (they get saved by Kuma and Raileigh) Then the mugiwaras split and the WG and the marine lose their trail - 3 almirants + others in Marine Ford, and probably not even the almirants knew about this fruit (the fruit hasn't awoken in centuries) Timeskip Luffy is thought dead. -And after the timeskip they have only been thrown top ranks, and also they have been moving in territories from other Yonkou where the Marine could have a hard time entering without causing a major conflict with the main fleet of one of the Yonkou.
@@CeliriaRose Forgive me for the confusion, I don't mean that they already knew the fruit he had right at Alabasta. More so, he took down such a big name that the WG was going to look into him closely. In comparison to the East Blue, where he was essentially just an upstart pirate-like everyone else and they received info from a spiteful source. Regardless I still find that the WG denouncing that he defeated Crocodile while simultaneously increasing his bounty way past Crocodile's quite contradictory to their agenda, threat level or not. It has nothing to do with his fruit, but more so how fickle the WG is. They want to deny him, but then raise his bounty way past the guy that was apprehended? A little odd. It's like having their cake and eating it too. I disagree however that Sengoku didn't at least know. Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral responds directly to the 5 Elders. He's on a level that almost no one gets. But I will concede that the Admirals likely didn't know. I can't say I also agree with the transformation statement. You don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The final line of defense or not, it's odd that you would whip out your most powerful transformation for a rookie who's clearly running on fumes.
@@francesccampos1343 Really, the Straw Hats would have been dead/captured ever since Enies Lobby happened if not for Luffy's connections with Dragon and Roger. So I have no real problem with the whole "why didn't the WG focus on Luffy?" Because they totally did. There's no way they would've been able to take on Kuma, let alone Kuma and Moria at the same time.
Just wanted to share something I've been considering for a while: I've come to think of the name/will of D. as something akin to ta'veren in WOT. I'm still reading The Shadow Rising (book 4) so I don't know if there'll be more to the concept of ta'veren than what I already know, but it's an analogy I can't let go of.
I, personally, think that the reason the WG didn’t spend its resources on Luffy was because they didn’t believe that he could actually awaken it. As we’ve recently seen they were mega shocked with the awakening.
I think a bit the same. But when you think more and more deep into the series is kind of weird, because Luffy come from a family of legends, Garp "the hero of the navy", "he can fought against Roger", Garp and Roger defeat Rocks who was a truly and a deep problem to the world government, Dragon that in words of the navy "World's most heinous criminal". And pre-timeskip I can see a WG that not truly care about Luffy, but after MarineFord he in some way became one of the main attentions in a war of top tier fighters, he shows conquerors haki, got Whitebeard's attention and was a person that shouldn't escape alive from the war. And yeah after the war was thought dead. But at least, for me post-timeskip maybe there's a reason more "plausible" for that or... maybe I'm overthinking that xD but I think if looks like a very "obviously" and serious plothole is probably something Oda had thinked
I don't think anyone but the King + Gorosei and probably Garp+Shanks knew about this fruit real awakened power. It has been stated that the fruit hasn't awakened in centuries so the normal version of the Gomu Gomu could have been seen used by other weaker users who didn't manage to get the full potential. The WG wouldn't have known about Luffy before the Enies Lobby incident, and for the most part due to the connection with Nico Robin, before Enies Lobby Luffy had a bounty of 100M i don't think the Gorosei get notified about every pirate that gets 100M, they are nobodies and Garp would cover Luffy for obvious reasons. After Enies Lobby the WG has only throw top ranks after the Mugiwaras time and time again, and we have to consider that Luffy is not the only threat in the world (Dragon and the 4 Yonkou) and he moves in the Yonkou's territories where the Marine could have trouble to chase them for risking a major conflict with one of the Yonkou's main fleet.
1 thing that kind of just made me think a little in this video, immediately after Luffy ate the fruit and Shanks took off, Garp showed up and took Luffy to the bandits to be raised by Dadan.. almost as if Garp was trying to hide him away from the world just like he did with Ace as he was the son of Roger. Is it possible that Garp may have known something as well about the power?? Maybe its reaching but like, we don't really know much on Garps motivations on anything in the series.
The fact is, if you can't awaken the "gomu gomu" fruit, it is one of if not the most difficult power to use and basically one of the most useless fruit out there, because you don't have the full control of your rubbery body. It took luffy like 10 years of training to perfect the gomu gomu no pistol, a f***ing punch, years to achieve that. And this is probably the reason why it took more than 2 years for the Navy to give the order to eliminate luffy, cause having the gum gum fruit means nothing until you get close to awaken it, and what happened before wano that would make the gorosei believe luffy could be the one to awaken it? Luffy allegedly defeated big mom.(not in a direct confrontation but that's what got out in the news) Being almost yonko level, going to wano and fight kaido, and not instantly losing but basically going head to head, one on one with the strongest beast in the world.... Well that is what convinced them he could actually awaken it if they wouldn't do something about it. Before that, awaken it was almost like a legend, basically impossible.
If I were World Government, I would nip it in the bud. Find the person long before they come close to awakening, kill them and stash the fruit somewhere in their deepest dungeons. Preferrably not where wall-slicing prisoners are kept.
My guess on the bleeps, possible spoiler though I haven't finished the series... Rand and The Wheel of Time. It sounded like you said "The" right when the bleep came on.
I do love that what happens was essentially the equivalent of someone handing luffy the worlds most powerful gun, but since he didn’t know what it actually was he was walking around pistol whipping everything. And he got so good at pistol whipping that he could go toe to toe with the strongest people in the world. And only after he had worked himself to that point did someone bother to tell him what his gun actually did!
5:16 This is my main gripe with the whole discussion. How do have you the read 1443 chapters prior to this and not see how Luffy is obiviously meant to become something great. It's gets mentioned so often and when the reveal is there, all of the sudden people are surprised by it?
Also, the question I'm looking forward to having answered is: did Shanks know. Ironically though, Ace could never have awakened the Nika fruit. Only Luffy's stubbornness about how the world is 'supposed to work' could awaken the Nika fruit.
Oars is the first joy boy if you look around the series you can see that the whole world worshiped oars especially in skypiea and wano , in skypiea they have oars shaped statues and the “gearth” statue is also oars and in wano almost everyone has an oni mask . And everytime we saw and oars in the series they had some resemblance of Luffy , oars jr had a straw hat and oars from thriller bark had luffys shadow
I totally agree with the comparison to Trogdor! He also had that "God mode unlocked" moment then was all Zen and one with the world. And when that happened, none of the stakes were cheapened, if anything they got higher because there was further for him to fall.
although i'm not particularly a huge fan of "evil shanks" theories, i have seen it going around that it is possible that shanks told the government and confirmed that it was luffy who had the fruit during the reverie when he came "to talk about a certain pirate" and that's why now is when they're actually talking about it more/going after him not 100% of an airtight explanation, but that could cover a lot of it, like the elders saying that the fruit was basically just a legend even to them up until recently
Chapter 1044 really spiked my adrenalin. Redefinition of said power for me was bonkers and awesome at the same time. It also open a door to reexamine many other already established characters powers, which could lead to other power upgrades that we wouldn't think were possible. That was relly cool suprise from Odas part. Althou from first mention of Joyboy I knew that it was gooing to be him. I just didn't know what this would actually entail.
'Look out for rubber powers' But the fruit was in East Blue in a backwater town. And the rubber fruit didn't appear until after a lot of years. The interest has waned
I think it's also a matter of the government wanting to save face. The secret of the fruit previously known as gomu gomu is exactly that: a secret. If they sudently dropped a figurative nuke on a random pirate for no reason other than him having a low tier fruit, people would grow suspicious. Weighing that against the low chance of awakening is why the gorusei never went after luffy more than they would go after normal pirates
Perfect points on this upgrade making sense and not being this, whatever it is people are upset about. e On the him being hunted more, one of the key things people are forgetting is the whole point of what the Government is trying to do is to keep this fruit secret, they renamed it to make it seem like this sub-par nothing fruit no one would want, and have been keeping the fact they want it so much as top secret as possible. To the point not even all of the Gorosei apparently knew the full story given the info dump we are getting is from those that did know explaining it to the ones who didn't. The earliest anyone (read the Gorosei) who would know what Luffy being a stretchy boi meant would have heard of him was after Alabaster, when his bounty jumped up to 100 mil. Again, it's something people keep overlooking, the Gorosei do not want to draw attention to this or make people wonder why they are going so hard after this rookie, so anything they do is going to be low key or through easily deniable means. Then, like you said, Luffy's movements were very hard to predict. But, there was one time when the Gorosei knew exactly where Luffy was and had an asset in place that could deal with him. Thriller Bark, when Kuma reported in that Luffy was there and had just defeated Moria, and the Gorosei pretty much immediately ordered him to kill Luffy and any witnesses. So yeah, they knew about him, but like Tekking brought up, Luffy doesn't seem to be the first person to eat this fruit in the last 800 years, and none of them ever awakened it, so while taking him out was on their to do list, it would not be a very high priority just a "if the chance comes to do this discretely, take it" item. Until Wano and Luffy had progressed to the point that it seemed he might actually manage to Awaken the fruit, at which point it became "Kill him now however you possibly can!"
There are 2 lines the Elder Stars said that completely explain why they didn't 'hunt' for eighter the fruit or the user. First: They renamed the fruit years ago, so it would seem like some mid tier power where the user would use it just as a rubber power (stretching, bouncing jumping etc.) and didn't think much more of it. Second: the fruit hasn't awakened in 800 years, wich implies there have been quite a few people in that history that just used this fruit just as a rubber fruit. Soo actually hunting down users for this seemingly insignificant fruit over and over again through history, every time it resurfaces, would only give attention to this specific fruit, and people might think something else was actually going on with it and that's exactly what the World Government didn't want to happen, they wanted to keep this power on the down low, couse of the potential it possibly holds. So the reason why they hunt for it now is couse of Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island, this formally just a rookie pirate, now toppled a very strong power and partner of Kaido, and (as far as the WG knows) purposely destroyed Big Moms castle. (thank you Big News Morgan) on top of that he transformed into a weird form (gear 4) wich shouldn't be possible with his power being just rubber. And here the fear of a possible awakening started to creep into the upper echelon of the WG. Hence Imu with the wanted poster of Luffy at Reverie, and gave the order to start hunting. (Don't forget, trying to find a single wooden ship on a giant sea even with our radar technology is extremely difficult, think how difficult it would be in those times) Don't for get between Dressrosa and Wano even if it is like 7 years for us only a couple of weeks passed in the One Piece world. And from return to Sabaodi till now maybe a couple of months. At least this is my theory and for me it makes complete sense why Luffy wasn't hunted down from the start. What I do wonder is, wether Rayleigh knew it, since he was there when they found the One Piece and if so why he didn't tell Luffy
There could potentially actually be a gum gum fruit. There could be a Duval situation where the government had been chasing the wrong guy. It could have even been Shanks since he took it from whos-who. We still know so little its hard to have a opinion without more pieces. But so far. Its cool as hell.
People also forget that Luffy's location wasn't known to the World Government for majority of the story. Luffy was just a minor pirate until he defeated Crocodile in Alabasta. Then from WG's perspective he disappeared since he was on Skypiea, then he turns up again wrecks Enies Lobby and disappears again to the Florian Triangle, and since Kuma covers for Luffy, he doesn't appear on WG's radar until he attacks a Celestial Dragon. And after events of Saboady/Impel Down/Marineford, he disappeared again for 2 years and since spend his time outside of WG's territory (Four Emperor's and Doflamingo's domains).
Oda said that the reason for the rubber fruit is because he wanted Luffy to have a "funny" power, wich allowed for creative use, and the god power is that dialed up to 11. He isn't actually a god, in the same way that the ex admiral sengoku isn't literally Buddha.
But he literally could be a reincarnation of a God in this world.
@@YourBlackLocal Nika is a warrior who freed the slaves that was titled "sun god" because of his representation of freedom not an actual god but a mythical creature.
yeah, look at all the other "gods" in the series so far - Gan Fall, Enel, the Celestial Dragons, Doffy... none of these are actual _deities_ in the traditional sense. and the Elders don't say the fruit has "godlike power" or anything, just that it "carries the name of a god"
so, my gut feeling on it is it's something more like "Nika had this fruit and was the Joy Boy from the void century, and through his exploits he began to be worshipped as a god of Sun and Liberation by the people he freed"
@@TyandOnGoing Yes, but if JoyBoy is literally something that aides you after you died at what point do you not consider that some form of Diety.
We seem to forget Zunisha could literally feel JoyBoy re-enter the world.
Again we don’t know enough to say either way. But there very clearly is something more than JoyBoy just being a name given to a guy from the past who helped people.
We don’t know that the elders said that zoan fruits have a mind if their own so it’s possible that the fruit contains the spirit of the God
I think it's important that the fandom shouldn't seek instant gratification in One Piece. Many details takes months and years to setup and execute. So anybody reading this, don't jump the gun or count your chickens before they hatch. Luffy's had this power for a chapter now and you need to be patient. Trust that Oda knows what he is doing. He's earned that much at least, if not more.
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Totally agree! I really didn’t love Sanji’s Germa genes activating but the very next chapter Oda gave us an amazing Sanji character moment with him choosing his heart/humanity over power! In Oda I trust!
I think the main issue for me, is the complete lack of build up for this moment. Nika was mentioned first, what? 50 chapters ago? and now it just ends up being the main characters power. Doesn't feel like a great development, considering how well Oda has handled build up in the past. But we'll see.
@@perunalastu77 the Nika name specifically is a recent drop (and tbh i feel like Oda could have worked that in a bit earlier... at least have a scene where Robin reads a Poneglyph and goes like "there's that 'Nika' name again... hmmm..."
but! there's a lot of stuff throughout the series that in retrospect points towards this... best example i've seen are the last 3-4 pages of 297 (where Conis is wondering if gods are real and answer people's wishes, prays to them for salvation, and then we get the iconic "LET THE SUN SHINE" spread)
@@perunalastu77 i am pretty sure that The Sun God was mentioned in sky Island arc.
3:55 This is actually a great point. When the elders said the fruit haven't been awakened for 800 yrs it is implied that there were other ppl who consumed the fruit but end up just being rubber. It is Luffy's traits that succeed the awakening.
i think the thing that makes it work is the "there is no power more ridiculous in the world" panel. they don't say it's the most overpowered/broken ability, just the most ridiculous
this lines up perfectly with an SBS from 400ish chapters ago, where Oda was asked why he gave Luffy rubber powers:
"It must seem like a mystery when you consider all the other strong and cool abilities. The answer is simple. I have picked the most ridiculous ability. If the protagonist were the typical strong guy, I doubt I could continue on with this for long. No matter how serious the story gets, Luffy is there to stretch and inflate. He always give me a chance to fool around. That's the kind of manga I wanted to write."
Yeah, they already made it quite clear that Whitebeard's (now Blackbeard's) earthquake fruit was the most powerful of all fruits. But that's before they knew about the dark-dark fruit true abilities. So if we are going by fruits alone Blackbeard is easily the most overpowered character by far.
@@wave1090 Yea it's what makes Blackbeard the absolute opposite to Luffy.
Blackbeard had everthing planned out including knowing of the "strongest fruit", he specifically looked for the dark dark fruit; Contrast that with Luffy just eating the fruit because he thought it was desert.
@@boxtupos7718 Facts. Funniest part is that boy Luffy was stress eating and just happened to eat the most ridiculous fruit. Which is ridiculously perfect cause you shouldn't stress eat lol
Thank you for reviewing but more importantly thank you for talking about the chapter and not put a spoiler thumbnail like so many people have been doing
Always thought it was interesting that luffy seemed pretty happy and safe in his home village until shanks came and he ate the fruit at which soon after garp decided to take luffy from clearly a safe and loving environment and place him with ace and the bandits. We knew ace was there because his existence was seen as a threat to the world government and he had to be hidden away, but always wondered why luffy too. If it was a case of once he ate the fruit and garp knew what his rubber powers would mean for him and to the world government and so decided to hide luffy away with ace, then it makes alot more sense
Really like the theory. Only concern is that luffy himself was the son of " The most heinous criminal"
@@mind7235 that is true but it was also true before shanks visit and luffys consumption of the fruit
@Clarian Robinson Garp could have taken it farther than that. As the Fleet Admiral’s right hand, he could have been blocking info about Luffy’s fruit from reaching the Gorosei.
@@kylewood2715 Garp was not sengoku's Right hand man.
@@mind7235 Maybe not technically, but come on. They have always been depicted as best buds. In flashbacks they are standing side by side heading into big fights. In chapters where Sengoku was shown reading the newspaper and going crazy because of some new crap Luffy did, Garp is there on Sengoku's couch munching on chips or cookies laughing his ass off. Garp had the kind of access to the Fleet Admiral that any true right hand man was supposed to have, and he could have exploited that access to protect Luffy; just as Judge used his family's noble status and connections to mess with Sanji's bounty poster--I know, the two things are different, but it still shows that the right connections can get a lot of things done, behind the scenes, in the World Government.
I think Tekking said it best. Even if the higher ups knew Luffy had it, he likely wasn't the first person to eat the fruit and even if he was, how likely did they think it was that someone would awaken it to get the god powers? People always underestimating Luffy until they meet him and he kicks their expectations to the curb.
I don't remember if it it was Tekking who brought this point up, but the world government also REALLY wanted to keep this under wraps, to the point where they changed the name of the devil fruit throughout all of history. So another reason they didn't go full force after Luffy from the start was them not wanting to draw attention to the fruit until it looked like he might actually have a chance of awakening it, and Luffy has grown an insane amount in this fight, they might not have thought it was possible before this.
Since there was no info that somebody eat that fruit (to my knowledge) and it was stated that fruit had it own will, and it avoided capture by world government it would perfectly made sense that it's last user was Joy boy himself. If this fruit is somehow connected to destiny and world government history it would be weird if it would just pass through some random dudes, which were not worth even mention till now way Joy boy was. Info about fruits could go trough time, and there is zero info how fruits came to be and how old info about them is. Now we know that 800 years before devil fruits existed and that's all.
@@theone9832 I think it implied the fruit was reborn somewhere else and someone ate it and somehow the people that ate the fruit are not affiliated or gain WG attention. I think thats how the fruit avoiding it, by influencing the environment around it. Its not like the fruit can grow legs and run away or something. It affects Luffy too, because somehow Luffy always get "lucky". I think the fruit real power is to increase your luck (limited to the grasp of WG only).
I don`t think this is a good argument. It doesnt really mater whether it was likely or not for Luffy to awaken the fruit, it`s still a fruit that they have actiavely trying to obtain for 800 years, so why not take the opportunity to get it? It really makes the WG looks incompetent.
@@bbhhii I would push it under destiny type of plot, where seemingly coincidences occurring are bringing reality into some predestined course. By this fruit could found and lost time after time to the point of conveniently getting eaten by true owner Luffy. Kind of similar mechanism like in Berserk Red Behelit found Griffith in moment it was needed. Since we heard of special "D" people and Luffy being one of them, I always thought it was enough destiny foreshadowing for single character. But now Luffy is even more destined to repair world then before it. I'm not saying that Luffy didn't work for it, but every thing about his character is just perfect for his role and it its not a accident at this point. As for world government not really trying to to catch Strawhats before, i do think it is real plot hole that can't explained. Oda probably didn't think early enough to incorporate this idea in to story so far. It is same as why Whitebread didn't check up on his boy Oden for 20 years even when he had nothing better to do?
When Devil Fruit awakening was first shown off, Doflamingo even said “awakenings come with mastery of one’s devil fruit”
Luffy got this power up because of the work he put in and the creativity he displayed. If this fruit was given to anyone else, ain’t no way Joyboy would have returned
Luffy trained his devil fruit for more than 10 years! I would say 12, but most of the timeskip was focused on learning haki I assume.
@@marxist-leninist-protagonist He did also develop Gear 4th during the time skip, though, and it relies both on his devil fruit powers and on Haki
Hell yeah. One Piece reviews are back in town. Chapter so goofy it made Daniel finally make a video. If you ask me, I do think that it was absolutely earned. I do have some "????" moments about the reveal of the exact nature of the thing. But it is way too hype and fitting for me to complain.
Let Oda cook. We still do not know a thing about how awakening of devil fruit powers even works. Oda will fill in the blanks at some point and we will have the full picture. Oda always does this, so I honestly do not know why some people are jumping the gun again. lol
I wish my friend who passed away last year could see how awesome Luffy is now, it's sad but joy full to me, thanks Oda
Here's to the fans that never made it to the end
Holy shit dude! That's legitimately one of my biggest fears, dying before I get to see the end of this amazing work.
I'll drink to that friend of yours with my fellow one piece friends, would you mind telling me his name?
@@SchrollShepard name was Kieran, hope he's still reading it wherever he is
As far as how the time passes in the real world of the crew, Luffy was only active for like 2-3 months before the events of Marine Ford. So the nature of the fruit can conceivably have gone under the radar until as late as Water 7 when he was LITERALLY knocking down their door. We do also have to take into consideration that Garp moved him into the mountains to live with Dadan after he ate the fruit so again, less exposure.
Yeah I'm pretty puzzled by the take that the WG didn't move against Luffy. I mean hell, they sent Kuma after him on Thriller Bark and the only reason he lived is that Kuma was actually a member of the revolutionary army.
Yeah, after Eines Lobby the WG has only sent vice Admirals or higer ranked marines after they get notified of Luffy's location. They sent Garp at Water 7, Kuma to assist Gecko Moria, Kizaru after the heavenly dragon punch + Kuma, Luffy is outmatched at Imple down and marineford and is only saved at the last second, he dissapear for 2 years and the WG only truly finds Luffy at Dressrosa after the time skip, at Dressrosa they sent Fujitora with support from a vice Admiral and the former Fleet Admiral, afterwards Luffy goes to war against the Yonko which in a normal situation is a death wish but Luffy makes it out. Afterwards he goes after Kaido and the WG even sacrifice one of their strongest agents to ensure that Kaido wins.
I don't think the elder 5 stars are notified of every little new pirate sighting. So I don't see a plothole here really. Not yet anyway
Also, Luffy was suspected to be dead during the timeskip, hence why the fake strawhats thought they could get away with stealing their identities.
Up.
Fuck, Garp knew... of course he knew. Had not thought of that.
0:48 Well, as long as we're discussing spoilers for chapter 144, how do you feel about Hiruluk willingly eating Chopper's poisonous mushroom?
I think Oda is one of the few authors to recognized the power of Looney Toons. Also people seem to forget that on top of worrying about this fruit the World goverment had to be worried about White Beard and Ace as well as restructuring its army after the paramount war, and then on top of that worrying about Black Beard who now had the power to destroy islands and is assumedly more willing to destroy islands compared to white beard. WG had its hands full this report on luffy kept getting backfiled as seemingly bigger shit kept showing up.
Yeah, I think the same, but still, there is a lot that has to be answered, we just have to be patient.
Couple with the fact that Luffy was actually helping the Navy a lot of time.
So Luffy isn't a top a priority as everything else; In OP timeline, it's only been a couple of months or a year that the Straw Hats are active (Pre time skip).
Hey Daniel, I've just read and caught up to One Piece partly because of your videos and wanted to recommend you the Web serial "Worm". A lot of what was said in the video and comments about tropes and powers resonated with me as relevant for Worm as well. Worm is "realistic" superhero fiction, and the protagonist has the power to control bugs. To me, Worm is "epic superhero story" in a way that tingled the same parts of my brain as One Piece, WoT and other things, just because of the cohesive world and power systems. I highly recommend giving it (and maybe also other web serials) a go.
The plot hole I feel could be explained by the fact that the first half of the journey takes place in the span of *2 MONTHS*
And the only people who knew of the nika fruit are the Gorosei. And probably no one ever told them that this kid had the Gomu Gomu
Like if you are a high ranking Marine why would you care that this kid has a lame paramecia. Like Buggy. He was put on Level 1 on Impel Down cause no one knew he had a fruit.
So yeah the only ones that could´ve given the order to catch him at all costs were the Gorosei and they probably never knew until the Marineford War.
After that Luffy disapeared for 2 years and From Punk Hazard to Wano its probably just been like a month. So they hadnt had time to deal with him
Who would expect that a 19 yo kid would awaken this fruit after a month of having come back.
Gorosei just got their thinkin hats on now that Luffy went to Big Mom´s and now is at Kaido´s
More to your point: Luffy's comeback happened in a very busy time for the World Government with the Levely happening (which probably takes A LOT of time organizing alone, it's an extremely important event AND we know something happened there, although we don't have the details yet). It's no surprise that Luffy was able to get away with so much during Punk Hazard up until now, there was a lot of shit happening in the world at the same time.
In an alternate reality, I don't think Ace would have been able to awake this fruit.
As you said, Luffy was the guy with enough tenacity and imagination to do so.
Ace was sadly a deeply broken guy with some self-destructive tendencies. He could have had quite a lot of tenaciousness and imagination, but he couln't posess that one-way mind that makes a person into a force of nature and strives to overcome even death.
@@AntediluvianRomance Except Ace is suppose to be much more talented than Luffy.
He learned how to use armament haki while fighting a vice admiral using it; He figured it out on the fly and overpowered the VA's haki.
Shank's also comments on how Ace's conquerer haki is like fire the moment Ace got in the island Shank's was on.
Ace already awakened his DF as well, it's why when he was in Drum Island it stopped snowing.
But I do agree that he Luffy was the only one who could've awakened it for the simple fact that Ace is willing to simply work for someone else (Whitebeard).
i think your analysis about this topic is pretty spot on, ive been reading for 12+ years now, i had many rereads, and it was coming from all the way. i really like his new power and cannot wait for the next chapters. Glad one of my favorite fantasy youtubers enjoys one piece as much as i do. Also i do think you will find many things in a reread if you ever plan on this, seen all your arc reviews months ago and was always kinda hooked from someone who didnt know what will happen. took me back in time :) much love
One piece theory on the "plot hole"
The gorosei have kept knowledge pretty close to the chest and so have the highest members of the marines. (Garps history, Rocks D Xebec, and bounties of the greatest pirates)
It's not that out of pocket to assume the gorosei lied about the fruit to everyone under them. Including telling everyone they had the gum gum fruit.
If by chance Shanks found out about joyboys fruit and knew it was being transported (pre yonko years) he likely stole it to share with Ace, his late captains son.
Sadly some our kid ate it, luffy.
He had to bet on luffy who no one likely knew met with.
He then would go on to collect other dangerous fruits and knowledge before telling the gorosei he actually had the hito hito no mi model Nika in his possession. This of course leads to his bounty increase and his title as yonko.
This explains...
- Luffy not being taken seriously.
- Shanks stealing the fruit.
- Shanks random power jump after meeting luffy.
- Luffy knowing nothing about the fruits true name.
- Gorosei and Emu sudden interest in luffy AFTER Shanks visited.
Thats a very good idea an i agree to most of it.
But after what Whos Whos knew about the stolen fruit, they should have known too. There are two options.
1. Whos who lied to the goverment and said he just lost it.
2. What is more likely. They didnt excactly know it was the model Nika or about uts rubber ability after Shanks told them.
@@181Scott181
Govt knew these things...
1. The fruit was on the boat.
2. Red haired stole the fruit.
That's all they know....
They don't know his connection with luffy and since then only once has shanks been in the same vicinity. (Marineford)
All the govt knows is that this guy stole their devil fruit. The only way they'd know more is if mihawk said something.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
On the dresden files area, one of my predictions is the reason harry just had the weird effect that normally comes to wizards when their children is because he hasn't actually come into his power yet, what he has so far is a smidgen that people would normally display before being identified as magical, only his is so large it looks normal and like what he should have at hid age.
Wow. That makes sense. Some growing pains before a big power upgrade
Thanks you for reviewing this topic daniel. Your insight is very refreshing to this debate and theory crafting within the fandom.
I really like the fact that it took 800 years for someone to actually awaken the gomu gomu fruit. It tells you that there have been users of the fruit in the past but that they've never been able to awaken it before, but Luffy earns the ability to through all of his actions shown to you throughout the series.
Another thought i had is that while Gear 5 may refer to his Sun God Nika transformation, his actual awakening may refer to the panel in which he rips the ground off the floor and "rubberfys" it in which to repel Kaidos breath attack. Similar to how Doflamingos awakening turned his surroundings into string.
Did anyone awaken any devil fruit before the last five years? Oda just coming up with an idea and injecting it into the series doesn’t mean nobodies ever done it.
Ace with haki etc
@@ChichiNaka There were awakened devil fruit users in impel down in case you've been blind all this while.
And the Gorosei literally said no one has ever done it. No one has awakened Luffy's fruit in 800 years. Those were their words. Sorry but... Do you need a lesson on how to read?
And we actually do have vivid examples of Haki from early on on the series so I have no idea what you're talking about
@@Problemsolver434 It's fun to the pretend, this whole community is a big cope the past week of OH MY GOD THIS HAS ALL BEEN FORESHADOWED SINCE FRAME 1 CHAPTER 1
@@ChichiNaka there is difference between injecting plot holes and big redcons and planing it for over 300 chapters
There is also difference between foreshadowing from chapter 1 and planning it for 300 chapters .
As if there is no in between for you.
I dont hate to retaliate when you are outnumbered already. But you really do need help with reading . Because last person said this to you , already explained it and you just read what you wanted to read
@@waifuhunter9709 its all good babe
I love the direction Oda went in. I had always been dissatisfied with the way Gear 3rd worked. I always thought "how can he just blow air into his bones" to make them big like that? well it makes sense now, he imagined it, and thus it became something he could do.
I always just thought it was whacky One Piece powers you have to suspend your disbelief for. lol
Yeah for the longest time the simple explanation is it's One Piece, like Doffy turning buildings into strings.
You've got a girl who can paint symbols on the ground that affect your mood and it's not even a DF. This is OP, best not to ask too many questions lol
Also Gear 2nd. I always thought of how can a rubberman pump his own blood. This chapter explains it all.
Man is literally tom and jerry lmao
I'm so happy you are going to continue the one piece reviews 😊
Yeah, when we're so deep into a story, we forget how constant concepts (time, geography, etc...) we're used to meshing our experiences with the world of the story and we forget that the story world has different rules to ours. The entire time span of the story is literally quite small compared to our experience of a 25 year. So, yeah that would explain how the five elder stars wouldn't have put too much effort into searching for luffy
Yeah the SH has only been active for like 3 months
They get acknowledged by the government in Arlong Park, that until Sabaody and Marineford is like... 5, 6 months?
Then they dissapear for 2 years (four times the amount they were active lol) and come back out of nowhere
This chapter made me laugh out loud. Nika's power reaching beyond the page. 😃
Also, Luffy is no more a god than Sengoku is (Buddha fruit).
BTW, it's implied many people have had the Gomu-Gomu fruit, but nobody's managed to awaken it for centuries. And it seems to me like the gorosei only recently discovered that the Gomu fruit is actually the Nika fruit.
I wonder if there is a normal gum-gum fruit that isn't a nika fruit
I've hear this a couple of times. What do you mean by "power reaching beyond the page". I feel like I missed something
@@3rdgar Well, Nika is someone who brings smile and laughter. If you laughed while reading the chapter he broke the 4th wall basically. :)
@@barryallen2240 The Elders say that the Gum-Gum fruit is also known as the Nika fruit. Ie. it's the same fruit.
@@3rdgar It means Luffy also makes us the readers, laugh. As in the Nika fruit not only brings smiles to people in the one piece world (inside the pages) but also makes us smile in the real world (beyond the pages).
Like you I also don't like some of the tropes involved, but it was do well executed that I just had a blast.
Daniel, I just want to say I appreciate that your title and thumbnail shows no spoilers whatsoever. I feel bad for any anime-only people (such as my brother) who end up getting spoiled because of random instagram or youtube posts that show up with the spoilers in the thumbnail and title.
So glad you’re back to making one piece content!
Wow so glad Daniel is still doing One Piece my hear and soul is happy again!
I’m really happy that you’re on that side of the argument Daniel. Iv watched a very good portion of the anime probably around 8 or so times and Iv been reading the manga weekly for about 6-7 years. so I’m very familiar with the series. One piece is my favorite thing in this world. But even if the government did go after him, it’s like you said The straw hat pirates movements have been very sporadic. It only took them maybe a half of a year to get to the red line and then the 2 year time skip where everyone was gone and many people thought the Straw Hats had disappeared or dead. The whole Dressrosa arc took place in the course of a single day! So yeah
Thanks Daniel I've been waiting for more of your thoughts!!! See ya in the next one!
Hey Daniel, I really liked this little chill discussion video on the topic, would love to see more of these in the future whenever big events happen in One Piece :)
Also would really like to see a review/discussion on Wano Act 2/3, we never got those! But a whole review of Wano once it's over would be really cool too 😄 (that'd prob have to be pretty long though lol, though I'm cool with that)
I thought you took a break from OP, but nice to see that you caught up with the most recent chapter
I think you are exactly right. So many people are overlooking the fact that this fruit has been around for at the very least 800 years and Luffy is only the second person to awaken it. The way I see it is that the Gum Gum fruit has both an extremely low floor and and extremely high ceiling in terms of power.
Thank you for making a video on 1044 that doesn't spoil it in the thumbnail or title.
"It adds a plot hole with how the military wasn't hunting for him"
That can be said of a lot. There's a lot of technical ploy holes just based on "why don't the Marines go after this person or that person harder". Robin has a paltry bounty compared to what she should have. Plus, Luffy's Devil Fruit is the one they forgot the true name of, most assuredly, so they likely didn't remember how important it was
I love your fresh view on all this and your straight up logic about the government stuff! Makes a long time One Piece fan very happy!
To anyone wondering about his lip:
He tried to kiss a lizard in Mexico. It bit him
Couldn't have asked for anything more than this vid man you were spot on all the way through. I've thought about it all far too much and I'm 99% sure Oda could EASILY explain the World Government's supposed "lack" of aggression toward Luffy. Also that bit about Shanks wanting to take the Fruit to Ace is WOOOOOOOOOOAH
Wpuld love to see you examine the live-action castings
People forget that Akainu was obsessed on Killing Luffy at Marineford. Actually few months ago one of the reactors actually complained that why Akainu was putting so much effort on trying to kill Luffy instead of fighting Blackbeard in Marineford
Akainu def doesn't know about the Nika fruit tho. And the story is pointing to Akainu having some history with Dragon, as he always called Luffy son of Dragon. Even Ace he called Fire Fist or Ace during MF.
Not just Akainu, since at the end Aokiji and Kizaru also focused on Luffy instead of the commanders, Blackbeard or his crew.
@@DremoraMaster Almirants definetly didn't know shit about the fruit, it hasn't awoken in 800 years, only the King/Gorosei and Garp/Shanks(explained by Roger?) must have known about it.
Kizaru and Aokiji meet Luffy and his crew and they treat them as the threat level that their bounties represented, nothing more. Also during MF they hunt Luffy because he is the son of Dragon the nº1 enemy of the WG and the Marines, not because of anything related to his fruit or powers. Probably not even Sengoku knew about this.
I still think that's Akainu's sins of the father bullshit. "He's the son of the most wanted criminal ergo he must be a threat!"
Though not wrong in this specific context.
I like the hints leading up to this that gave me a rush from the story itself. Like Chopper having the regular human human fruit has different forms and Zoan users usually have multiple forms. We just didn't know gear 2-4 was the same thing and after the time skip having gear 4 with multiple forms should have ringed some big alarms before to this development.
The powers that luffy has are still what everybody was expecting for his awakening, its not that big of a change, and even if the WG knew that Luffy had the special fruit they knew that as long as he didnt awaken there were fine. In fact at the beggining of the arc they were more focused on getting Robin because of that. They didnt wanted Kaido to get Robin, but when Luffy became a real threat to kaido they change their target
Except they said they were actively trying to obtain the fruit for 800 years, so if that was the case, why didnt they when they learned Luffy had it?
@@That_One_Guy-. between something that is a myth and failed to achieve for 800 year and it might or might not be an actual threat or something thats in present reality and nearly succeed once and a more immedieate threat to them.
If I were them its obvious which I would choose, even they themselves were questioning if their focus was right.
@@That_One_Guy-. he was on the sea for maybe three months pre time skip they didn’t know luffy had the gomu gomu no mi till probably enies lobby garp was sent to deal with him he then went to thriller bark and they gave kuma the task of killing him after thiller bark was sabaody and kizaru showed up then he disappeared and showed up on impel down then appeared at the paramount war where he was constantly saved by super powerful pirates and then he disappeared for two years he went to fishman island and punk hazard two places that are basically off the map for the WG and then dressrosa happened in a day and fujitora let them leave then zou which is a moving elephant and then wholecake island which is big moms main base of operations then wano kaidos main base and they sent a CP0 assassin straight at luffy
@@That_One_Guy-. They literally sent the Navy's hero Garp to apprehend Luffy at Water 7.
Sent Kuma to assist Geko Moria in Thriller Bark.
Dressrosa has a Warlord of the Sea and Admiral against Luffy's crew; Even sent in the ex Fleet Admiral.
Most likely they wanted to keep it under wraps; And they also probably thought Luffy wouldn't awaken the fruit, as it's been literal hundreds of years (What chances are there that it awakens now?).
@@That_One_Guy-. after 800 years of trying they probably take it as a side quest, after all it's been 800 years without anyone awaken the fruit. The chances od Luffy beating Kaido and BM were very low and neither of them could eat the fruit so worst case scenario Luffy dies, the fruit gets reincarnated somewhere else, and someone has to start the whole process again.
Love your One Piece discussions. Just for this video, the background music was very loud and distracting for me personally.
Usually your one piece vids are kinda 50/50 for me. But this was pretty well done. Solid points made
Yay Daniel's back with OP content! And thanks to your channel I picked up Mistborn and I'm loving it (SPOiLERS: except for the Elend ending of book 2 that was whacky).
One important thing is that the Gorosei mention that Zoan fruits have a "mind" of their own and it seems that the fruit basically "ran" from them every generation for those whole 800 years.
So it's like the fruit made itself "seem tastier" to Luffy eat it, like the fruit chose Luffy since Zoans supposedly have a mind of their own, and IF Shanks knew about it then he made a bet on Luffy based more on not only his will that reminded Roger but on the fruit "choosing" him so he decided to bet on Luffy based on these facts mainly I believe, giving up his arm and his hat to him
Edit: And about the fact of the Gorosei fucking up not hunting Luffy straight at the beginning, yeah, but they managed to hunt all the generations for 800 years, I imagine you kinda end up getting too comfortable at some point like "nah nobody's gonna really awaken this shit I guess", and like you said, Luffy basically speedran the Grandline lol
Edit 2: The Government also had to be aware of Blackbeard who has the Gura Gura no Mi and basically can destroy the world with Earthquakes, Seaquakes and whatnot, and also Kaido raising a fucking army of zoans to march towards Marineford just to die epicly, they had some other issues lol, it's not a good timeline for the world government.
So what the Gorosei said about the "Cleansing" during Reverie strikes me as something like the Lost Century, my guess is that the Gorosei have each some kind of fruit or power that they sort of can bring a Doomsday/Ice Age and clean the whole population and starts from zero, which I think it was what happened during the lost centuries.
What I love so much about the idea of JoyBoy as the Warrior of Liberation is the idea that laughter is the mark of freedom. It's only when people are free from oppression that they can laugh whole-heartedly and celebrate their joy, and we've seen this at the end of just about every arc, that when Luffy frees the people from their fear and suffering, they can start to laugh again. Oda's always taken special consideration to show those end of arc parties with luffy on the tables, chopsticks up his nose, making everyone laugh. And for me it makes the plight of Ebisu town all the more heartbreaking, that even in the throes of despair the people are only capable of expressing joy. if laughter is the mark of freedom, robbing people of their ability to express any other emotions is the ultimate form of oppression. "Look at how happy my people are! Even the worst among them can do nothing by smile and laugh all day!"
On the "WG should have been chasing him earlier" note: the first hint we get about the true nature of Luffy's fruit is in chapter 1037. It doesn't name the fruit or its user, but the hint is dropped about a Devil Fruit which was uniquely given its own name in order to hide it's real name. The Five Elders themselves are split about how seriously to take the threat, with the older Gorbachev-looking dude dismissing it as a legend even for them, and that it hasn't awakened in centuries. When they eventually do take action and pass down the order to kill Luffy, there are still doubts within their ranks after the deed is done about whether it was actually worth it to sacrifice one of their top field agents and enrage Kaido, with the Rabbi-looking dude assuring the rest that taking the chance was worth it.
In other words, the Five Elder Stars themselves see the threat of Joyboy as an obscure and pseudo-mythical possibility, and they only move against it when it become clear that the current user of the fruit, Monkey D. Luffy, is on that top level of the One Piece's world's strength rankings, and might possibly succeed in Awakening the fruit. They'd still rather secure the fruit if possible, as evidenced by the backstory of Who's Who, but the shroud of absolute secrecy they keep around the matters of the Void Century means that any overt attempts they make to capture the fruit or eliminate its user would draw far more attention to it than desirable. They erased its true name and gave it a new one to obscure its importance, so taking actions that would imply or confirm to astute onlookers that it *was* important would be counterproductive. Not even the assassin they sent after Luffy (or his handler) knew why it was important that Luffy die. So, it makes sense that they would let the fruit's users, when they surface, to die in the natural course of things and release the fruit back into the world (where they might make a grab at it) than put in a lot of effort that would make people ask a lot of questions. Their ideal scenario is to quietly secure the fruit, uneaten, and no doubt lock it away in an Indiana Jones vault somewhere and throw away the key.
As for Shanks knowing, I'm sorta on the fence, his visit to the Five Elder Stars at the Levely ... raises questions to say the least. I think the "he was going to give the Fruit to Ace" theory is ... somewhat sound, but I'm not fully sold on it either.
My wild guess is that Roger ate or at least knew about the power of the Gomu Gomu because of his special sense/haki and explained it to Shanks and maybe Garp before his death. Even if he could not awaken it he would have known about Joy Boy and his powers due the poneglyphs.
One Piece so Hype even Daniel is making chapter reviews now, so awesome
The gorosei specifically said the fruit and its rubber-like attributes were unknown to them until recently. They had no idea the fruit was out there still, therefore they never put two and two together.
Dunno we dont know how it manifested in joyboy. It just says doing hatever you can imagine and h imagined rubber.
Have you read the Cradle series by Will Wight? Lots of anime influence as far as power scaling but in the right way. I'd love to see you review it.
You back with more reviews great
I love how you approach this chapter as a review of literature, instead of explain.
Luffy literally speed runned the story up until Marineford. East Blue took 1 Month tops in his time and he completely stomped any other pirate gang in there. I feel like his fruit plays a role in his outrightly high evaluation.
If they put a too high bounty on him, some ppl might have gotten suspicious.
Nah. I don't the Gomu/Nika fruit is all that special until it awakens. And even then, the WG seems more scared of it's symbolic weight as power of liberation than it's actual power. Because while the word "Ridiculous" can mean "extremely broken or OP" in english, in Japanese, it's pretty much exclusively used to refer to things as hilarious, wacky or foolish.
But yeah. I think East Blue and Paradise were a speed run because Luffy is super strong. Not because his fruit is.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU
Yeeeeeesss finally !!!! Thank you Daniel :D
Dresden being more than meets the eye has been set up very distinctly over the last several books, hell the whole starborn thing still has a lot of question marks around it. One of my favourite things about Butcher is that his novels (at least the Dresden Files) reward rereading since he sets up things so far in advance, offhand comments and random events take on whole new meaning.
Music is too loud in this one Danial. Good job tho on everything else and your perspective on it :D
The fact that one person (among many, many, MANY powerful pirates out there) has escaped the attention of the world government for about 2 years seems... pretty realistic to me? Even with all the power the World Government has, cracks will always appear. Luffy is just one person who has been active as a pirate only for a few months, and disappeared for two years after an event that drastically changed the world. There's nothing strange in thinking they just... didn't know. If only the Elders know about the gomu gomu no mi, it's even more plausible that they didn't find out about Luffy before now. Why would they deal with a newcomer pirate when they already have a whole other branch of the government taking care of those sorts of things?
More to the point, they MIGHT know about Luffy thanks to events like the Enies Lobby arc or his connections to other important figures (such as Ace and Dragon), but that doesn't mean they know specifically what his power and fruit is. There are other fruits that have similar effects to the gomu gomu no mi, as we've seen before, and why would the top heads of the government know exactly how the fights Luffy was involved in developed? I think they, at most, know a list of his achievements/crimes and that's about it. If his nickname given by the marines had been something like "rubber man", they surely would've noticed before... but that isn't the case, so I think it's pretty expected that they didn't know about Luffy. Yeah, to anyone dealing directly with pirates, this stuff was probably a pretty known fact already... but expecting the Elders to know this much about a more or less random pirate in a sea of powerful figures is a bit of a stretch to me (ha!). And given how secretive they are with ANYTHING related to the void century, I really don't expect anyone outside the top heads of the Government to know a single thing about the gomu gomu no mi.
Lastly... the World Government is an entity that has maintained its power for over 800 years. I think not knowing about one single person, or thinking that if someone appears with Joyboy's power they have the resources to deal with them before they become too dangerous... it's pretty understandable to me. They messed up BADLY, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't seem like a plot hole to me. It's a pretty realistic mistake for such a huge organization to make, and also a sign that they're getting close to their downfall.
Hey Daniel,
I am just wondering if you have heard of the "Shadows of the Apt" series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is superb!!!
Something this video made me realise was that Luffy is the only character (except maybe Kaido with the koi fish stuff) that we've seen to earn godly power rather than eat a naturally OP fruit.
Oh there are many examples I guess. Doffy only has strings and makes it look like one of the strongest abilities in the series.
@@mukutta Oh yeah good point, I didn't think of Doffys fruit being a weaker one
Also there is still room for even more growth and power. With the doflamingo arc we know fruits can go through an awakening which seems quite different from what has gone on in this chapter were it feels more like the fruit showing its true self. On top of this Haoushoku haki still doesn't seem like it has been full developed and shown off in its entirety.
My theory is that the Gorosei themselves had no knowledge of the fruits power before and when they talk about the 'world government' they are talking about Im.
Really? I theorize that Imu knows the Fruit exactly, cause I feel that he is connected to JoyBoy, we know at least one Person gained immortality, so its not farfetched to assume the One sitting on the lonely Throne is the Immortal one, the Gorosei probably played the Role of the Guardians of Imu over the past 800 years (there obv has been multiple Goroseis, cause they prob ain't immortal). They may not knew the full Potential of the Fruit like Imu, but they knew at least the Fruits properties and that it is one of the biggest threats to Imu if awakened.
I don't know I got the hunch of Imu being connected to JoyBoy from the last panel, when we see Luffys Eyes, it felt so intentional to show especially after Luffy hid them throughout the whole chapter when depicted in closer range. They look smh way to similar to Imu's eye, with Umi being Sea, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a "God" Fruit as well.
My counter to the supposed plot hole is simple.
To start with "The marines haven't hunted him"
So a 1.5 billion bounty, countless run ins with the marines and face offs with the admirals somehow equals not being after him? They've actually been after him to a heavy extent ever since he first got his bounty after beating Arlong and more so when he beat Crocodile and really stepped into the awareness of the marines.
What they haven't done is do anything that would raise suspicion which makes complete sense. The true identity of the fruit is a secret. They specifically buried the truth because they don't want anyone to know. On top of this it's stated in 1037 that the fruit itself hasn't awakened in centuries which implies others have had it in that time it just has never awakened and the users have been killed or died before getting that far.
So why exactly would the elders be expected to do anything out of the ordinary? Until the fruit actually awakens it's abilities are just that of a fairly standard devil fruit, not even that overpowered of one. So in their mind the person who has eaten it at that point is unlikely to awaken it and can be left to be handled by the marines, admirals and stronger pirates. So pair that with the fact that it's a secret and they don't want to raise suspicions (and by that same nature can't give a particular reason to the marines even if they wanted to because the reason itself is classified) the most reasonable thing to do is, just let things take their course. Let those standard three forces do their thing and most likely kill the user in a way that nobody would bat an eye at. That is literally their plan all the way up to Wano where their expectation is that Kaido will kill Luffy for them. they then step in when suddenly Luffy starts to turn the fight around. At that point the idea that Luffy might win makes it a more dangerous situation. On air, land, or sea always bet on Kaido. That's exactly what they were doing. They saw no reason to expect that Kaido wouldn't just grind Luffy into a paste and it would be over with, but if Luffy wins then he is someone even Kaido couldn't beat at which point they don't really have a solid plan to counter that which is why they have their agent step in when the result becomes more uncertain. Even if it weren't a matter of the fruit awakening right then and there someone of that caliber would potentially have all the time in the world to do so because what else could stand against them if not Kaido. Basically before now they didn't think they needed to do anything special because nature would take it's course and they are only stepping in now because suddenly nature isn't as reliable as they had expected.
I'll also add that I don't see too much issue with the lack of major foreshadowing given the circumstances. The only people in the story likely to know the truth are the Elders and possibly Shanks. And none of them have any major motivation to spill the beans. And the whole idea is that the fruit remains mostly rubber based until it awakens so there wouldn't be likely be any hint there. As such the only real reasonable hints to give are the potential ones we've gotten with various bits of word play from Oda, the occasional reference to a sun god or worship related to the Sun paired with the existance of mythical devil fruits, and I'd also add certain moves like gear third which already stretch (sorry couldn't resist) the concept of how rubber works in a fairly cartoonish direction. I actually have more issue with the fact that Who's Who got kind of awkwardly used as a lore dump in the middle of a fight. The timing doesn't bother me so much there as just how clunky it was to do it that way though I'm hoping Oda will build more off of that to add a bit more value than just dropping info on Nika.
And I also would argue that it's okay to have some twists come out of left field. Foreshadowing will often improve it but isn't always mandatory as long as again the twist makes sense in the context of the story. It's only really bad when the twist contradicts hard indisputable aspects of the story which in this case it doesn't as Oda has lined it up well either due to planning ahead or careful writing to fit it in.
I agree with almost everything. But I disagree with the idea that he was hunted to a 'heavy extent' since Arlong.
Think about who exactly posted that first bounty: A corrupt Marine Captain who only posted that bounty out of petty revenge. It's unlikely that somebody like him is going to give a complete detailed description of Luffy's power. Heck, to the majority of the Marines, Luffy was just another upcoming rookie and was from the East Blue no less (Which is regarded as the weakest of all the Blues). There was no need for the Marines or the higher-ups to really worry about him.
I think it was really when he defeated Crocodile that the WG really started paying close attention to Luffy. They gave him a major jump in a bounty, despite disclosing publicly that *Smoker was the one who defeated Crocodile.* What a really odd way to spin the story. Gives him a bounty that surpasses Crocodile's original bounty but then says that 'he really didn't beat Crocodile."
I think the moment the WG really got a good display of Luffy's power, was at Marineford. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that along with displaying his Conqueror's Haki, the Admirals might have thought that he would have awakened his Devil Fruit right then and there. This is why, out of all the big names there, outside of Ace and WB, Luffy was the one they wanted to kill the most. Why else does Sengoku transform immediately to his Buddha form to crush Luffy? Why else would he use his rare mythical Zoan on a pirate that doesn't even have haki mastery yet? He knew right then and there what his fruit was. All of the Admirals did.
@@Cklert I don't think the bounty raise after Alabasta was that weird. They gave him a bounty befitting his threat level but covered up the actual events. There's no required correlation between those two aspects. Even if they are covering it up that bounty raise is still required because they know the reality and that Luffy is as such a threat that needs that level of bounty. Cover up or not they can't not raise his bounty like that.
It's highly unlikely that any of the admirals or even Sengoku knew the truth of Luffy's fruit. Not all of the elders even seem to have been entirely aware given that one of them is explaining it to the others. This is pretty much one of the highest level secrets within the WG and likely as such is extremely limited to the most need to know characters likely meaning Im and the Elders alone.
Also in regard to Marineford they really weren't trying particularly hard to kill Luffy for most of that war. They targeted him when confronted with him (and Akainu targeted him alongside Ace) but overall they actually put very little particular focus on him beyond natural reaction to Luffy's own advances. As to Sengoku he likely just used his power as a last stand. He doesn't have any reason to hold back in trying to prevent anyone from reaching that final platform. He is literally the final line of defense in trying to keep them from saving Ace. As such I'm pretty sure that anyone who made it that far would have faced similar treatment.
@@Cklert He didn't get a major attention from the WG after Alabasta, remeber that the country is one of the few that refused to join the rest fo the "novelty" in Mariejoise, so they were quite ignored to the point that a pirate (Crocodile) could overthrow the goberment. They raised his bounty to acknowledge the future problems that the pirate Smoker reported could cause but there's no mention that it gets to the Gorosei all the details of every single 100M pirate (which there are plenty in each region).
Since then the marine has been following his trail closely (Smoker) and Garp has covered him a lot (specially after Enies Lobby) and remember that Garp is considered on par or even more than an almirant in terms of power (he refused to rank up several times).
So realistically only after Enies Lobby he has been known by the WG, and it was partially due to Nico Robin being part of his crew. Since then they've thrown high caliber agents against him:
- Garp after Eines Lobby
- Moria + Kuma at Thriller Bark (this one was specially OP at that time)
- Kizaru at Sabondy (they get saved by Kuma and Raileigh)
Then the mugiwaras split and the WG and the marine lose their trail
- 3 almirants + others in Marine Ford, and probably not even the almirants knew about this fruit (the fruit hasn't awoken in centuries)
Timeskip Luffy is thought dead.
-And after the timeskip they have only been thrown top ranks, and also they have been moving in territories from other Yonkou where the Marine could have a hard time entering without causing a major conflict with the main fleet of one of the Yonkou.
@@CeliriaRose Forgive me for the confusion, I don't mean that they already knew the fruit he had right at Alabasta. More so, he took down such a big name that the WG was going to look into him closely. In comparison to the East Blue, where he was essentially just an upstart pirate-like everyone else and they received info from a spiteful source.
Regardless I still find that the WG denouncing that he defeated Crocodile while simultaneously increasing his bounty way past Crocodile's quite contradictory to their agenda, threat level or not. It has nothing to do with his fruit, but more so how fickle the WG is. They want to deny him, but then raise his bounty way past the guy that was apprehended? A little odd. It's like having their cake and eating it too.
I disagree however that Sengoku didn't at least know. Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral responds directly to the 5 Elders. He's on a level that almost no one gets. But I will concede that the Admirals likely didn't know.
I can't say I also agree with the transformation statement. You don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The final line of defense or not, it's odd that you would whip out your most powerful transformation for a rookie who's clearly running on fumes.
@@francesccampos1343 Really, the Straw Hats would have been dead/captured ever since Enies Lobby happened if not for Luffy's connections with Dragon and Roger. So I have no real problem with the whole "why didn't the WG focus on Luffy?" Because they totally did. There's no way they would've been able to take on Kuma, let alone Kuma and Moria at the same time.
Glad you're back on One Piece.
Just wanted to share something I've been considering for a while: I've come to think of the name/will of D. as something akin to ta'veren in WOT. I'm still reading The Shadow Rising (book 4) so I don't know if there'll be more to the concept of ta'veren than what I already know, but it's an analogy I can't let go of.
I, personally, think that the reason the WG didn’t spend its resources on Luffy was because they didn’t believe that he could actually awaken it. As we’ve recently seen they were mega shocked with the awakening.
I think a bit the same. But when you think more and more deep into the series is kind of weird, because Luffy come from a family of legends, Garp "the hero of the navy", "he can fought against Roger", Garp and Roger defeat Rocks who was a truly and a deep problem to the world government, Dragon that in words of the navy "World's most heinous criminal". And pre-timeskip I can see a WG that not truly care about Luffy, but after MarineFord he in some way became one of the main attentions in a war of top tier fighters, he shows conquerors haki, got Whitebeard's attention and was a person that shouldn't escape alive from the war. And yeah after the war was thought dead. But at least, for me post-timeskip maybe there's a reason more "plausible" for that or... maybe I'm overthinking that xD but I think if looks like a very "obviously" and serious plothole is probably something Oda had thinked
I don't think anyone but the King + Gorosei and probably Garp+Shanks knew about this fruit real awakened power. It has been stated that the fruit hasn't awakened in centuries so the normal version of the Gomu Gomu could have been seen used by other weaker users who didn't manage to get the full potential.
The WG wouldn't have known about Luffy before the Enies Lobby incident, and for the most part due to the connection with Nico Robin, before Enies Lobby Luffy had a bounty of 100M i don't think the Gorosei get notified about every pirate that gets 100M, they are nobodies and Garp would cover Luffy for obvious reasons.
After Enies Lobby the WG has only throw top ranks after the Mugiwaras time and time again, and we have to consider that Luffy is not the only threat in the world (Dragon and the 4 Yonkou) and he moves in the Yonkou's territories where the Marine could have trouble to chase them for risking a major conflict with one of the Yonkou's main fleet.
We missed you Daniel!
btw Daniel - go back and read the last 3-4 pages of chapter 297. it hits _way_ different now
Finally! I've been waiting for this!
great takes brodda
I’m digging the background music
1 thing that kind of just made me think a little in this video, immediately after Luffy ate the fruit and Shanks took off, Garp showed up and took Luffy to the bandits to be raised by Dadan.. almost as if Garp was trying to hide him away from the world just like he did with Ace as he was the son of Roger. Is it possible that Garp may have known something as well about the power?? Maybe its reaching but like, we don't really know much on Garps motivations on anything in the series.
I’m so glad you made this video. As soon as I read the chapter my first thought is Luffy really is a force of nature.
The fact is, if you can't awaken the "gomu gomu" fruit, it is one of if not the most difficult power to use and basically one of the most useless fruit out there, because you don't have the full control of your rubbery body. It took luffy like 10 years of training to perfect the gomu gomu no pistol, a f***ing punch, years to achieve that.
And this is probably the reason why it took more than 2 years for the Navy to give the order to eliminate luffy, cause having the gum gum fruit means nothing until you get close to awaken it, and what happened before wano that would make the gorosei believe luffy could be the one to awaken it?
Luffy allegedly defeated big mom.(not in a direct confrontation but that's what got out in the news)
Being almost yonko level, going to wano and fight kaido, and not instantly losing but basically going head to head, one on one with the strongest beast in the world.... Well that is what convinced them he could actually awaken it if they wouldn't do something about it.
Before that, awaken it was almost like a legend, basically impossible.
If I were World Government, I would nip it in the bud. Find the person long before they come close to awakening, kill them and stash the fruit somewhere in their deepest dungeons. Preferrably not where wall-slicing prisoners are kept.
My guess on the bleeps, possible spoiler though I haven't finished the series... Rand and The Wheel of Time. It sounded like you said "The" right when the bleep came on.
I know this isn't a review but maaan that was your best OP video!
I do love that what happens was essentially the equivalent of someone handing luffy the worlds most powerful gun, but since he didn’t know what it actually was he was walking around pistol whipping everything. And he got so good at pistol whipping that he could go toe to toe with the strongest people in the world. And only after he had worked himself to that point did someone bother to tell him what his gun actually did!
I'm so glad that the power up was GOOFY AF !
5:16 This is my main gripe with the whole discussion. How do have you the read 1443 chapters prior to this and not see how Luffy is obiviously meant to become something great. It's gets mentioned so often and when the reveal is there, all of the sudden people are surprised by it?
I just watched to see the pen tricks. NICE!!!
HES BACKKKKKKK
Also, the question I'm looking forward to having answered is: did Shanks know.
Ironically though, Ace could never have awakened the Nika fruit. Only Luffy's stubbornness about how the world is 'supposed to work' could awaken the Nika fruit.
One piece fans missed you man
Love the content. The music in the background was a little to loud. Can u in the next video turn it down little.
Now that’s how you make a thumbnail, instead of what I have seeing from app community this past two to three weekz
Oars is the first joy boy if you look around the series you can see that the whole world worshiped oars especially in skypiea and wano , in skypiea they have oars shaped statues and the “gearth” statue is also oars and in wano almost everyone has an oni mask . And everytime we saw and oars in the series they had some resemblance of Luffy , oars jr had a straw hat and oars from thriller bark had luffys shadow
I totally agree with the comparison to Trogdor! He also had that "God mode unlocked" moment then was all Zen and one with the world. And when that happened, none of the stakes were cheapened, if anything they got higher because there was further for him to fall.
although i'm not particularly a huge fan of "evil shanks" theories, i have seen it going around that it is possible that shanks told the government and confirmed that it was luffy who had the fruit during the reverie when he came "to talk about a certain pirate" and that's why now is when they're actually talking about it more/going after him
not 100% of an airtight explanation, but that could cover a lot of it, like the elders saying that the fruit was basically just a legend even to them up until recently
Chapter 1044 really spiked my adrenalin. Redefinition of said power for me was bonkers and awesome at the same time. It also open a door to reexamine many other already established characters powers, which could lead to other power upgrades that we wouldn't think were possible. That was relly cool suprise from Odas part. Althou from first mention of Joyboy I knew that it was gooing to be him. I just didn't know what this would actually entail.
'Look out for rubber powers'
But the fruit was in East Blue in a backwater town. And the rubber fruit didn't appear until after a lot of years. The interest has waned
I think it's also a matter of the government wanting to save face. The secret of the fruit previously known as gomu gomu is exactly that: a secret. If they sudently dropped a figurative nuke on a random pirate for no reason other than him having a low tier fruit, people would grow suspicious. Weighing that against the low chance of awakening is why the gorusei never went after luffy more than they would go after normal pirates
Just binged through all these reviews and him calling Luffy a force of nature from the beginning, wow.
Perfect points on this upgrade making sense and not being this, whatever it is people are upset about.
e
On the him being hunted more, one of the key things people are forgetting is the whole point of what the Government is trying to do is to keep this fruit secret, they renamed it to make it seem like this sub-par nothing fruit no one would want, and have been keeping the fact they want it so much as top secret as possible. To the point not even all of the Gorosei apparently knew the full story given the info dump we are getting is from those that did know explaining it to the ones who didn't. The earliest anyone (read the Gorosei) who would know what Luffy being a stretchy boi meant would have heard of him was after Alabaster, when his bounty jumped up to 100 mil. Again, it's something people keep overlooking, the Gorosei do not want to draw attention to this or make people wonder why they are going so hard after this rookie, so anything they do is going to be low key or through easily deniable means.
Then, like you said, Luffy's movements were very hard to predict. But, there was one time when the Gorosei knew exactly where Luffy was and had an asset in place that could deal with him. Thriller Bark, when Kuma reported in that Luffy was there and had just defeated Moria, and the Gorosei pretty much immediately ordered him to kill Luffy and any witnesses.
So yeah, they knew about him, but like Tekking brought up, Luffy doesn't seem to be the first person to eat this fruit in the last 800 years, and none of them ever awakened it, so while taking him out was on their to do list, it would not be a very high priority just a "if the chance comes to do this discretely, take it" item. Until Wano and Luffy had progressed to the point that it seemed he might actually manage to Awaken the fruit, at which point it became "Kill him now however you possibly can!"
OMG Daniel is getting in on the Hype, that in itself is hype
Are you going to upload your review to Wano Act 2 and 3?
There are 2 lines the Elder Stars said that completely explain why they didn't 'hunt' for eighter the fruit or the user.
First: They renamed the fruit years ago, so it would seem like some mid tier power where the user would use it just as a rubber power (stretching, bouncing jumping etc.) and didn't think much more of it.
Second: the fruit hasn't awakened in 800 years, wich implies there have been quite a few people in that history that just used this fruit just as a rubber fruit.
Soo actually hunting down users for this seemingly insignificant fruit over and over again through history, every time it resurfaces, would only give attention to this specific fruit, and people might think something else was actually going on with it and that's exactly what the World Government didn't want to happen, they wanted to keep this power on the down low, couse of the potential it possibly holds.
So the reason why they hunt for it now is couse of Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island, this formally just a rookie pirate, now toppled a very strong power and partner of Kaido, and (as far as the WG knows) purposely destroyed Big Moms castle. (thank you Big News Morgan) on top of that he transformed into a weird form (gear 4) wich shouldn't be possible with his power being just rubber.
And here the fear of a possible awakening started to creep into the upper echelon of the WG. Hence Imu with the wanted poster of Luffy at Reverie, and gave the order to start hunting. (Don't forget, trying to find a single wooden ship on a giant sea even with our radar technology is extremely difficult, think how difficult it would be in those times)
Don't for get between Dressrosa and Wano even if it is like 7 years for us only a couple of weeks passed in the One Piece world. And from return to Sabaodi till now maybe a couple of months.
At least this is my theory and for me it makes complete sense why Luffy wasn't hunted down from the start.
What I do wonder is, wether Rayleigh knew it, since he was there when they found the One Piece and if so why he didn't tell Luffy
There could potentially actually be a gum gum fruit. There could be a Duval situation where the government had been chasing the wrong guy. It could have even been Shanks since he took it from whos-who. We still know so little its hard to have a opinion without more pieces. But so far. Its cool as hell.
People also forget that Luffy's location wasn't known to the World Government for majority of the story. Luffy was just a minor pirate until he defeated Crocodile in Alabasta. Then from WG's perspective he disappeared since he was on Skypiea, then he turns up again wrecks Enies Lobby and disappears again to the Florian Triangle, and since Kuma covers for Luffy, he doesn't appear on WG's radar until he attacks a Celestial Dragon. And after events of Saboady/Impel Down/Marineford, he disappeared again for 2 years and since spend his time outside of WG's territory (Four Emperor's and Doflamingo's domains).
And Fujitora was even ordered to capture Luffy on Dressrosa. (But he let him escape.)