One Piece has uncovered all sorts of Devil Fruits since its start, but fans know they are not all made the same. Characters like Monkey D. Luffy and Blackbeard has gotten some top-tier fruits, but others haven’t been so lucky. And according to the most recent chapter of One Piece, it seems the most dangerous fruit of all isn’t even one the public can find naturally.
Videos by ComicBook.com
No, those fruits are none other than the SMILEs, and it turns out they are being used to torture hundreds.
Recently, One Piece put up a new chapter, and it was there fans learned all about the SMILE fruit. The artificial fruits have been around for some time as they give those who eat them special animal-centric powers. Back in the day, Doflamingo peddled these fruits before the Straw Hats shut him down, but their mission came too late to save the people of Ebisu.
After the village’s people are seen laughing hysterically at the death of a close ally, the Straw Hats are horrified by their reaction. It is then another explains why the people can only laugh, and it is because of the SMILE fruit.
“The smiles that the people of Ebisu wear are actually masks. Marks that they can never remove for their rest of their lives!!”
As it turns out, the artificial fruits do not have a high success rate. Only one out of every 10 works to give someone powers while the rest give a terrifying gift. They prevent those who eat them from expressing sorrow, and Orochi chose to silence the wails of the poor by tricking them into eating the defunct SMILE fruits. Now, the people of Ebisu can only laugh in the face of tragedy, and that is why those who live in the town are always smiling; they are not truly happy, but instead showing their grief in the only way they can after being experimented upon.
So, are you horrified by this fruits’ side effects? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!
Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.