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One of the most interesting aspects of author and illustrator Eiichiro Oda’s best-selling One Piece manga stems from the level of care, effort, and intent put into the series’ worldbuilding. Likewise, there are plenty of examples from throughout the series where Oda foreshadows significant events and reveals them, either explicitly or implicitly doing so.
However, there are some events that are seemingly given no major setup, or at least their setup hasn’t become obvious in the wake of said events occurring in One Piece. Furthermore, some of these events, which somewhat clearly have no setup, are already easily identifiable, especially as they relate to the series’ worldbuilding and lore.
With this in mind, it’s not necessarily a stretch to say that Oda lied to readers via these specific events and their apparent (at the time of this article’s writing) lack of foreshadowing. Follow along as this article breaks down every time Oda lied to One Piece readers.
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Oda’s apparent lies to One Piece readers are few and far between, but nevertheless impactful
1) Imu’s existence and the Gorosei’s power
Obviously, the biggest lie that comes to mind is the setup of the Gorosei as the leaders and the absolute top of One Piece’s World Government. While Oda never explicitly says this, it’s most definitely implied via the introduction of the Gorosei, especially given what fans knew of Celestial Dragons at that point in time.
The Celestial Dragons had already been built up as the descendants of the “true leaders” of the series’ contemporary world. The Gorosei were then introduced as unique members of the Celestial Dragon ruling class, residing within Mariejois’ massive palace and seemingly in charge of giving the Marines and Cipher Pol orders.
However, fans never would've guessed that Oda would introduce someone whose power outranks even theirs, which is exactly what happened in One Piece’s Reverie arc. Again, while Oda didn’t explicitly lie to fans here, he did imply the Gorosei to be the peak of World Government authoritative power and, as a result, somewhat lied to fans.
2) One Devil Fruit per person
A more direct lie from Oda to fans in the series was the rule that only one person could have one Devil Fruit power and that they’d die if they tried to obtain a second one. This was first said by Jabra during the Enies Lobby arc, when he explained why he didn’t want to eat one of the Devil Fruits being offered to Kaku and Kalifa.
However, this rule was suddenly and without warning contradicted by Blackbeard, also known as Marshall D. Teech, during One Piece’s Marineford arc. After delivering the final blows to Whitebeard, Blackbeard is somehow able to use his Dark-Dark Fruit to steal the powers of Whitebeard’s Tremor-Tremor Fruit. Furthermore, he was able to do so and survive, still being alive in the contemporary series after over 2 years of in-world time had passed.
While there are theories that explain how this is possible and are based on an earlier setup by Oda, none of these have been proven true at the time of this article’s writing. With a lack of explanatory payoff to this feat from Blackbeard yet to have appeared in the series, this can be grouped in as one of the few (but certainly significant) lies Oda has told to readers.
3) Ohara’s legacy
For a vast majority of One Piece’s length, fans were under the impression that Nico Robin was the only survivor of the Oharan genocide, living or otherwise. This was restated multiple times over by several different characters, including Robin herself and other World Government officials discussing the event in the context of Robin’s survival.
However, the series’ ongoing Egghead Island arc recently revealed that Robin is not the final remnant of Ohara’s legacy, nor even the only survivor from the genocidal attack itself. Both the research books that were thrown into Ohara’s lake and Robin’s friend Jaguar D. Saul were revealed to have survived the attack via a flashback from Dr. Vegapunk.
The reason this is being considered a lie by Oda to One Piece readers is, again, due to the lack of significant setup for these reveals. The biggest piece of evidence is that Robin was able to later survive the same freezing attack that Admiral Aokiji used on Saul during the Oharan genocide. As for the books, they were shown to have been thrown in a nearby lake to the island’s library, but were believed to have been ruined as a result.
4) Pluton’s blueprints
During the aforementioned Enies Lobby arc, fans are introduced to Franky, who comes from a long line of shipwrights who resided on the island of Water 7. Throughout both the Water 7 arc and the Enies Lobby arc, it’s revealed that this line of shipwrights inherited the blueprints for the Ancient Weapon Pluton, with Franky allegedly now in possession of them.
After this is confirmed, Franky burns the blueprints, with several Cipher Pol members claiming that this act eliminated any chance of the battleship returning or reappearing. However, One Piece’s Wano arc reveals this to be the case with no major setup or foreshadowing, seeing Kozuki Sukiyaki reveal that the original Pluton itself is hidden within Wano’s borders.
Again, this is being considered a lie by Oda to readers due to the lack of foreshadowing or setup for Pluton’s eventual reveal. Since the weapon’s blueprints were destroyed, it had essentially gone unmentioned until this reveal late in the Wano arc. As a result, this is arguably one of the biggest and most impactful lies Oda has told readers in the series.
5) Luffy’s Devil Fruit
The final, and arguably most impactful, time Oda lied to One Piece readers was about protagonist Monkey D. Luffy’s Devil Fruit powers. However, this is somewhat of an interesting one, as there certainly was a subtle setup by Oda throughout the series leading into this eventual reveal, but most of it didn’t become clear until after the fact.
Likewise, the introduction of Sun God Nika, whom Luffy’s true Devil Fruit is based on, was somewhat rushed in the issues directly leading up to this major reveal. With this in mind, it’s certainly arguable that Oda lied to readers by not giving them enough setup leading into the reveal (prior to the relatively final moments) to deduce this themselves.
Be sure to keep up with all One Piece anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.
