- [Narrator] Devil fruits are certainly
one of the greatest mysteries in the series.
And as much as this video is going to attempt to,
there are some things in this world that simply are
not possible to explain.
Much like that force,
it is just now suddenly compelling you
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with that promise of sweet, sweet One Piece content
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No one knows how it's there or why it exists,
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Hello and welcome to The Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece
and today it's time to talk about fruit.
What is it and where does it come from?
Well according to Wikipedia in botany,
fruit is a seed bearing structure in flowering plants,
which doesn't actually correspond to the common term fruit,
but to make things even more complicated,
I want to discuss what happens when fruit becomes quite
possibly literally cursed
providing its consumers with great power at a tasty price.
Devil fruits I suppose we'll call them
which form a core aspect of appeal in regards to One Piece,
a series that you may have heard of.
And one of the more enduring mysteries of said series
is that as much as we continue to learn
about how devil fruits function
and their various classifications,
there is still one incredibly huge question
hanging in the air,
which is where did devil fruits come from?
Now, it's easy to forget in this day and age
because devil fruit powers have become fairly commonplace
in One Piece which does make sense
because we keep delving into
more and more powerful areas of the world.
But I want to start by mentioning that
at the dawn of One Piece,
these items were almost legendary in nature,
so much so that a very early trend of the series
was the base civilians were seeing
Luffy's rubber abilities
and becoming simply aghast at the very idea
that devil fruit powers did indeed exist.
It was like seeing a leprechaun or Loch Ness monster,
or even me stepping foot outside of my house,
no one knew it was possible, but here it is.
And maybe that's just an East Blue thing,
but it's kind of weird in retrospect,
because these fruit powers are not exactly a secret
given that they are commonplace amongst the Marines
and the abilities of top tier pirates
tend to be quite well known.
And while this may have been the first of such an occasion,
the Marines were even bold enough
to broadcast the Paramount War,
which proudly displayed an incredible pool
of devil fruit abilities all over the planet.
With that said an early explanation of devil fruits
was delivered to us in chapter 19
through the vehicle of Flashback Shanks, who said,
"They say the devil fruit was enhanced by Sea Devils,
"whoever eats it gets amazing powers
"but the sea turns against them."
Which very specifically was in reference to
the Bara Bara no Mi
which buggy would then go on to eat,
accidentally and hilariously I might add.
But this explanation presents the prevailing thought
for those individuals who are not
keen explorers of the one piece world.
It's a simple human thing of,
"Well I'm not personally capable
"of logically explaining this,
"so it must be sorcery,"
mindset.
However, I can't exactly blame them for this
because even after having experienced
well over a hundred of these fruit things,
I can't logically explain why they exist.
I mean, we know how they function
via the lineage factor insight,
but how devil fruits came to be in the first place?
Well I guess we essentially
have three options in this regard.
Firstly devil fruits are a naturally occurring item
which spawned from the majesty of nature and evolution.
Secondly, devil fruits was specifically engineered
by intelligent life forms on this planet.
And I really don't want to use the word human
because it could have been a whole number
of different species in this series,
and finally the devil fruits are a supernatural existence
that were conjured by beings beyond our comprehension
like the aforementioned Sea Devil,
and there's pretty strong evidence
to support at least two of those three ideas,
although certainly not enough to give us a concrete path
to go down.
But devil fruits do exist
and they had to come into being somehow.
So let's go down this rabbit hole.
And the first of these ideas is probably admittedly
the least exciting one
which is that devil fruits are a 100% natural result
of a developing world
with the idea being that I suppose
there is some kind of rare tree thing out there,
likely within the Grand Line,
where this incredible creation organically grew,
and we do know of some fairly legendary trees in One Piece
such as the Treasure Tree Adam or Sunlight Tree Eve,
but since Adam wood is a sold commodity
and the location of Eve is fairly obvious
given that we've seen its roots
providing light to Fish-Man Island,
it's probably unlikely to be either of those,
but we will touch again on these trees later.
And I suppose you also maybe have
a piece of supporting evidence for organic growth,
given that smile fruits need to be produced
by cultivating them on various bushes and things.
But other than the fact that
devil fruits resemble organic matter,
I actually don't think there's a great argument to be made
that they were just naturally spawned
via the marvel of nature.
I mean the One Piece world is full of
some pretty fantastic natural phenomena,
which is consistently on display within The Grand Line
in terms of weather and stuff,
but also the incredible wide array of life forms
that one can discover in this world.
With that said, devil fruit seem to exist
on an entirely different plane
and certainly veer into the idea of intervention,
whether that be manmade or supernatural.
And we'll go into the form of first
because yeah, a lot of devil fruits do make sense,
with the whole nature argument
like Logia types specifically,
which quite literally embody a facet of the natural world.
However, there are a whole host of devil fruits
with curiously specialized powers,
like say Baby 5's Buki Buki no Mi
which allows her to transform into seemingly any weapon
she so chooses, which can range from a simple sword
to complex machinery like a Gatling gun
or even a functioning missile.
And another similar illustration would be
Scratchman Apoo's devil fruit,
which basically allows him to do the same thing as Baby 5
just with musical instruments instead.
These are abilities granted by devil fruit
that selectively focus on the developments and progress
of intelligent life
and lends a whole ton of credence to the claim
that however they came about,
these fruits were indeed manmade.
Although to be fair,
the true extent of these peculiar abilities is unknown
and I have made the argument before
that it could be based entirely on
the knowledge and psychology of the fruit wielders.
For example, if you gave the Buki Buki no Mi
to a member of a fairly undeveloped part of the world,
would they instantly have access to things like missiles
and Gatling guns,
or would they only be able to turn into weapons
that they are aware of
like clubs and spears and maybe big, heavy rocks.
Although if that is indeed the case
then it complicates matters yet again,
by asking the question of how one embodies the general
concept of weaponry into a fruit
rather than pre-programming select options.
Although that secondary factor is also bizarre to linger on,
so we won't.
But really the greatest piece of evidence
for man made fruits
is that we have actual examples
of them existing in this world,
because both the SMILE fruits
as well as Dr. Vegapunk's artificial fruit
are indeed a thing,
although neither of those brands
were considered a success really,
the SMILE fruits for obvious reasons
given the abomination that they are
and the abysmal success rate upon consumption,
and Vegapunk allegedly believes
that his fruit was a failure,
although at the moment,
we're not quite sure exactly why that is,
but it does go on to show that creating devil fruits
is not a complete impossibility,
although it does raise a bit of a red flag
when someone like Dr. Vegapunk,
who is said to be roughly 500 years into the future in terms
of his knowledge and advancements
cannot successfully reproduce them.
That's quite problematic because
for the manmade theory to work,
it would mean that someone would have had to
exist in the past
with a mind and resources that could surpass that
of even Vegapunk, which seems like a bit of a tall order,
especially given that such a character
would have had to exist hundreds of years ago,
maybe even thousands,
like say void century days, or even before then.
We really could be looking at thousands of years ago
at something deeply rooted in perhaps say, I don't know,
an ancient kingdom.
And it's very hard to pinpoint anything along those lines at
this stage,
however, due to one key character introduced in Wano,
we do know for a fact that devil fruits existed
during the void century
because Lady Toki had eaten the Toki Toki no Mi.
So we do know that they must have been in this world
for at least 800 years or so,
although I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean
every individual devil fruit is that old.
It could be a situation where new devil fruits
were gradually developed
over the course of various centuries,
especially if a civilization made the same breakthrough
that Vegapunk and Judge did
by discovering that all important lineage factor
in living beings,
the knowledge of which could simply have been lost
during the black hole that is the void century,
but even the concept of
devil fruits being completely manmade
does run into a lot of fascinating issues.
I mean, firstly, if they were all artificial,
then why does only one of each power exist?
Like why weren't super powerful fruits
like the Magu Magu no Mi just mass produced
or even more handy utility-based things
like the Hana Hana.
I mean an entire civilization of beings
who could just sprout extra hands at will could do wonders.
But this is really where we dive into the realm of
supernatural creation
because there is quite a lot that doesn't add up
such as the whole idea that devil fruits curse their user,
because it's not just a simple endeavor
to manipulate the DNA of a being.
It also comes at a cost,
which is losing the ability to swim in all types of water,
not just sea water.
And maybe that could be quote unquote scientifically covered
by stating something along the lines of,
"Well, the only part of the lineage factor
"that is susceptible to manipulation,
"just so happens to coincide with the part
"that handles the bodily reaction to mass amounts of water
"for reasons."
Which actually, you know, sure, why not?
I'd be willing to accept that
because SMILE fruits do come with this detriment as well.
So we actually do have a manmade example
of this curse in action, I suppose.
What I find much harder to explain though,
is the concept of devil fruit reincarnation.
The idea that after a fruit user passes away,
that ability then quite seemingly super naturally goes onto
house itself in the nearest appropriate fruit
in order to re-spawn into this world.
That is something that currently has nothing even
approaching a sound explanation for,
especially since we haven't seen it exhibited in the
artificial fruits as of yet.
And also I said that we would go back to
the Adam and Eve trees again,
which I can't ignore because the story of Adam and Eve
is pretty well focused on fruit.
Forbidden fruit, that is,
which granted great knowledge at a great cost,
very similar to the general concept of devil fruits
and that forbidden fruit just so happened to be created
by a God like being.
So as much as this may not really seem like
it fits One Piece,
there is something to be said for a deity like individual
to have conjured devil fruits into existence,
because it's easy to forget,
that the supernatural aspect of One Piece
is actually pretty strong as well.
I mean, yes, it's mostly well based in fictional science,
but at the same time,
we do have confirmation of the existence of a soul
thanks to Brook and Big Mom,
so there is certainly some form of afterlife
and thus existence
that does span beyond our basic comprehension.
Plus it is a really fun thing
in the prototypes of One Piece,
being romanced on versions one and two,
there is a distinct magical presence,
specifically in the second
that even features a literal sorcerer
and in both of these incarnations,
Luffy's devil fruit is said to be the product
of a mystical or devilish tree
indicating that there is a fairly powerful sense
of the supernatural at play in this world.
Although that could very much be akin to
how we were introduced to devil fruits in One Piece,
with most characters we encounter
believing that they are supernatural powers
granted by the Sea Devil.
It's pretty hard to say,
although once again,
having at least one character in these prototypes
who was a sorcerer,
does reinforce that idea pretty heavily,
so much so that I have very little doubt in my mind
that in these early super prototype days,
Oda more than likely did plan devil fruits to be explained
by either magic or some other supernatural aspect.
The question then becomes how much of this
actually carried over into One Piece
because Oda then made a decision
to eliminate rural magic from the series,
as well as make the intriguing choice to omit any discussion
regarding a tree the devil fruit spawned from,
so that may very well show the intent to
move into the manmade realm
and to get rid of that mystic quality as an explanation
but still keep it as a question and point of interest
in One Piece.
In the end, I guess
we just don't have anywhere near enough information.
The only thing I feel slightly confident about saying
is that devil fruits are almost certainly not
a natural occurrence.
There are far too many bizarre qualities
and inconsistencies about them
to have just evolved in this world.
However, even then we can never be 100% sure,
but that does leave us with two stronger ideas.
Either they were engineered by
an incredibly advanced society or individual
that history has forgotten
or that there is an even more expansive
and supernatural layer to One Piece
that we have yet to properly explore.
And as for my personal opinion,
I honestly think it would be hard to be satisfied
by either of those explanations
because that's kind of just the conundrum
of creating a great mystery.
The only time a mystery is captivating
is when we don't have the answer to it,
as soon as it's solved, it all of a sudden feels like
something of an underwhelming issue.
Unless of course it comes with a new accompanying question,
which to be fair, Oda tends to be very, very good at.
So look, I do eagerly await the day where we do discover
the conclusive origin of devil fruits,
but in the end, I almost hope
that we never quite fully answer this question.
But what do you guys think?
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